A number of people have come to see me and told me that their practice was Shikantaza. And I wonder if that's a term that's unfamiliar to some of you, is it? So Shikantaza is a Japanese word which means, which is translated sometimes as, just sit, or wholeheartedly sit. So it's a kind of, actually it's a term that appears in the writings of the ancestor Dogen, And in the last few hundred years the kind of the official party line of the school of Soto Zen is that this just sitting is sort of the main practice of the school.

[01:09]

So some of the people in this room, that's their practice. I'd like to relate this just sitting to some other things. And I'd like to again bring up this quote that somebody told me is in one of my books, which I do like, which is that, Zazen survives any reduction. So When I heard that, I thought, oh, probably what's referred to here is a very big zazen that can be reduced. It can't be reduced, but we can create reductions of it. But no matter what we reduce it to, still it's there.

[02:18]

And Zazen is a term that's used in the school of Zen transmitted by Dogen. It's used in that school, but it's also used in other schools of Zen, but it's also used in non-Zen schools. Like in China, many other schools of Buddhism call their practice Zazen. So zazen just means sitting meditation. So in different schools, zazen means different things. And in some schools of Buddha Dharma, they know the word zazen, and maybe they even practice zazen, but their main practice might have a different name. But what in this school we mean by zazen, in other schools they mean basically the Buddhadharma, or the practice of the Buddhas.

[03:23]

So in this school when we say zazen, we mean a practice which is the practice of Buddhas, and the practice of Buddhas is a very big practice. Does that make sense, that the practice of Buddha would be kind of big? Does it make sense that the practice of Buddha would be kind of unlimited? that no one would be excluded, no being would be excluded from it. So that practice of the Buddhas is what we mean by Buddha, is what we mean by Zazen. It's unlimited practice, unlimited activity, all beings working together in peace and harmony. That's Buddha's practice. Does that make sense, that that would be Buddha's practice? We would feel funny if Buddha didn't practice with somebody, right? We'd feel funny if Buddha didn't respect somebody, wouldn't we? The Buddha that most of us want to be devoted to is a Buddha that includes everybody, enlightened people and unenlightened people.

[04:29]

And Buddha is not just a person or a thing, Buddha is a practice. The practice of Buddha is what Buddha is. Buddha is not somebody who has a practice. Buddha is this great practice of peace and harmony in the world. And in Soto Zen, as transmitted through Dogen, sometimes we call that practice Zazen. And then you could say, but what we mean by Zazen is not somebody sitting in meditation just to get concentrated by themselves. Although some people might do that, that's not what we mean by zazen. So one of the definitions of, one of the criteria or definitions for what makes sitting meditation into the zazen of the Buddhas, or what makes the sitting meditation the practice of the Buddhas,

[05:33]

the criterion is body and mind dropping away. So in the Buddha's practice, in the practice of the Buddha, in that context, body and mind are dropping away. In reality, body and mind are dropping away. In the truth, body and mind are dropping away. So if I'm sitting in meditation, holding on to body and mind for dear life, so to speak, in truth body and mind is dropping away. My mind and my body are constantly changing and dropping away. And a new life is constantly coming and dropping away. That's reality. And if I'm sitting holding on to my body and mind, holding on to my ideas, holding on to my life, if I'm holding on, that holding on resists the truth.

[06:41]

The truth that my body and mind is dropping away. That holding on resists the truth. of the Buddha's practice, which is the Buddha's practice is not Buddha holding onto something. It's Buddha giving everything and receiving everything. It's each of us giving ourselves entirely and everyone else giving themselves to us entirely. And by their gift to us, we exist. And by our gift to them, they exist. Like it says at the end of the chant this morning, may we be nourished so we can nourish. Actually, that's the reality. Reality is we are nourished. We are nourished. All of us are nourished right now. And we nourish. So may we enter the truth of being nourished so that we can nourish. So that we can be nourished. So that we can nourish. Enter that. That's the Buddhist practice.

[07:46]

That's dropping off body and mind. So when we sit... being nourished and nourishing, then that's the sitting practice of the Buddhas. When we're sitting, trying to nourish but not be nourished, we're holding on, we're resisting, body and mind dropping away. If we're trying to be nourished but not nourish, that's holding on, that's resisting, dropping away body and mind. And dropping away body and mind, nourishing and being nourished, and dropping body and mind, there's no way to get a hold of dropping body and mind. You can't do it. You can't not do it. You can only resist it. You can only be distracted from it. You can only tense up and try to shrink back from it. But that still doesn't work.

[08:47]

You're still participating in this wonderful process. It's just that you're ignoring it. You're involved in distracting yourself from it. You can be distracted, but even though you're distracted, you're still nourishing everybody while you're distracted. And you're still being nourished and supported even while you're distracted. But anyway, this undistracted, unstoppable, unthinkable, splendid, dropping off body and mind. This is the truth. This is where we live. But it's very, very big. So you have the word dropping off body and mind. So some people are meditating, sitting in meditation. Many Zen students are sitting in meditation thinking of the word dropping off body and mind. In Japan, they're sitting thinking shin-jin-datsu-raku.

[09:50]

which means dropping off body and mind in Japanese. And in China, when Dogen was in China, he was sitting and his teacher yelled at the monks, you people should not just be sleeping here, you should be dropping off body and mind. And when he heard dropping off body and mind, he entered dropping off body and mind. The words, the little tiny words, drop-out body and mind, if you give yourself to it and receive it, those words, which are just words, open you to the expansive, wondrous truth of dropping-out body and mind. So Dogen brought that phrase back from China and taught it to his students. And then for 800 years, descendants of his lineage have been thinking of that word, thinking of those words, thinking of those words as a door to the reality of those words the reality of letting go of your body and mind or as I've been saying making your body and mind a gift every moment making your actions that you're involved in making the body and mind that you're involved with a gift to what?

[11:10]

When you can say Buddha, you can say Buddhist practice, you can say make your life a gift to dropping off body and mind. But another thing I mentioned to you, I'll say again now, is that we have to reduce this expansive great truth to something little that we can be devoted to. So we're devoted to sitting, for example, and we're devoted to sit in such a way that we're sitting like a Buddha. That we're sitting, not just sitting, but we're sitting in the midst of body and mind that is dropping away. So we use that form, which we call just sitting, shikantaza, we use that form which does not reach the heart, does not reach the heart of dropping our body and mind.

[12:17]

So we use something that doesn't reach where we want to reach. And what we use doesn't reach it, but using it, knowing that it doesn't reach, and giving ourselves completely to what doesn't reach, we reach it, or we let it reach us. both. So we must use a form. In this school we use sitting as a central form, but we can use any form that we use as an opportunity, some small thing we used as an opportunity to be devoted to, but also knowing that this doesn't reach what we really are trying to realize, namely the Buddha activity. It doesn't reach it, We know it, therefore we reach it. Otherwise we think that what we're being devoted to is it. But we go through that for a long time.

[13:23]

Young Zen students think that the form they're doing is it. for a long time. And the reward is if they're really wholeheartedly devoted to the form, which doesn't reach the heart of what we're trying to do, they get the reward of realizing that the form is empty, that our idea of practice is not the practice. And then if we have that realization and then we think we don't have to be devoted anymore, that's not correct understanding. So after we realize that what we've been doing is empty, and now even more than before we want to practice it, then that's the correct understanding of the emptiness of our practice. Everything is empty, all dharmas are empty, including our wonderful practice. And when we see that, we see that our idea of practice is not in the practice.

[14:27]

The practice is empty of our idea of the practice. Whatever you think the practice is, whatever you think the Dharma is, is just what you think it is. And we do think the Dharma is something. We do think the practice is something. When you realize that the practice is empty of your idea of practice, and that the truth is empty of your idea of the truth, That's usually good. But only if you feel equally or more committed to the practice after you realize it's emptiness. Now, a crucial thing that was brought up yesterday is that some people have insight into the emptiness of the practice. For example, they realize the emptiness of the practice of the precepts, the emptiness of the practice of ethical discipline. They're devoted to ethical discipline and they're rewarded to their devoted to ethical discipline by realizing that the ethical precepts are empty of our idea that we were devoted to before.

[15:34]

your idea of not killing is not actually in the reality of not killing. And when you realize that, that's good as long as you're even more devoted to the precept of not killing after you realize that that precept is empty of your ideas. If not, then your teacher should tell you, forget about emptiness and go back to the precepts. Be equally or more devoted than you were before to what you have realized is empty. Bodhisattvas are devoted to all beings, all and each. If you're devoted to all beings, you'll realize that beings are empty of your ideas of them. So I'm devoted to you, but I have to have some idea of you to be devoted to you. I can't be devoted to you. It's hard to be devoted to you as empty space.

[16:40]

So I have a story about you. You know? So I have a story, for example, your name's Georgina, and your name's Deborah. I have that story about you. I have a story that you're a woman or something. So I'm devoted to you, And my reward from my devotion to you is to realize that I can't find you anymore. That there's really, you know, the way I found you through my name and picture of you is not in you. Nothing about what I see is actually in you. And I realize that if I have a correct realization, then I'm more devoted to you than before. So bodhisattvas are more devoted to beings than ordinary people because they realize there's no people to be devoted to. There's only the reality of the beings, not their ideas. So again, we have this practice which a number of you are doing called Shikantaza, and Shikantaza is

[17:46]

a wonderful thing, but there's other practices too, like other schools practice, for example, the Nichiren school practices namu-myoho-renge-kyo, which means homage to the lotus of the wondrous Dharma. That's how they reduce zazen, and that's how they reduce Buddha's practice, to that one simple practice of paying homage to the Lotus Sutra, which is, for them, the Lotus Sutra is a Buddha. And in Soto Zen, too, if you look at the list on the meal chant, you'll see there's names of the Buddhas, the Dharmakaya Buddha, the true body of Buddha, and so on. Maitreya Buddha, but then comes the Lotus Sutra, which is listed with the Buddhas. For in Soto Zen, the Lotus Sutra is a Buddha. And in Nichiren practice, the Lotus Sutra is a Buddha. They're paying homage to the Buddha, but they choose the Lotus Sutra to symbolize the Dharmakaya Buddha.

[18:51]

The Dharmakaya Buddha, which is the cosmos. But they don't just pay homage to the cosmos, they pay homage to the notice of the wonderful law scripture. They reduce it and devote themselves to that. And that little phrase doesn't reach the cosmic Buddha. But by devoting themselves to this little phrase which doesn't reach the cosmic Buddha, they realize the emptiness of the Lotus Sutra and they open to the Buddha that they've been trying to meet. And then the Buddha is here. But not a reduced version, the actual full-sized version, which we can't grasp. But, you know, it can totally enter us. Like we say, you know, like the moon and the water The moon reflected in the water, the moon doesn't break the water, and the water doesn't squash the moon.

[20:01]

By being devoted to these forms wholeheartedly, we realize their emptiness, and all along we have the teaching that these forms do not reach the heart of what we're talking about. And that gets us... If you can be devoted to something, some reduction of the Buddha, if you can be devoted to a reduction of the Buddha, a form of the Buddha, just a form of the Buddha, like the form of a Buddha sitting, if you can be devoted to that, you can enter into dropping off body and mind, which doesn't have a form. If you can be devoted to the form called the words, dropping off body and mind, if you can give yourself to that form, you'll enter the reality of dropping off body and mind.

[21:04]

Now if you devote yourself to the form and you think that the form is the thing, it will take you longer to realize the emptiness of the form. But we give you the additional little hint The forms that you're using do not reach the principle of the form. And if you're willing to continue to be devoted to something knowing that, you're a little bit more ready to open up to the Dharma. And again, you know, one of the people at Zen Center, when he had arrived at Zen Center, someone asked him what his practice was, and he said, my practice is worshiping deities.

[22:14]

And the person said, you're in the wrong school. And then he told me that, and I said, you know, I don't think you're in the wrong school. I think Zen Center is a school where we worship deities. We worship a Buddha. We worship Zazen. We worship Shikantaza. We worship just sitting. We worship dropping off body and mind. We worship great bodhisattvas. We worship the truth. We don't just think the truth is a good idea, although thinking that the truth is a good idea is a kind of worship. But we do think, I think truth is a kind of good idea. Seems somehow I feel kind of attracted to the truth. We don't just, we worship reality. We don't just think it's a good idea, although we do think it's a good idea.

[23:17]

We also have the opportunity to, you know, praise it. Praise reality. Yay, reality. I love it. What can I do for you today? I give my life to the truth. I want to be on the side of the law. This is worship. This is like donating my life to truth, justice, and freedom. Justice is also divine. Practicing justice Practicing precepts. Precepts are justice. Justice is precepts. Not killing is justice. Not stealing is justice. Not lying is just. Not degrading people is justice. Justice is not degrading people. And so on.

[24:20]

in the Buddha Dharma, practicing justice, practicing Bodhisattva precepts, is divine. It's divine. And we honor these practices. We praise them. We adore them. We worship them. And we realize also, although we worship things, we also sometimes realize they're just little things, because we have a little version of them. So people often ask, you know, do we pray in Zen? Do we worship in Zen? I say, yes, yes, we do pray. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free. That's a prayer. May everyone enter into dropping off body and mind. May everyone realize the Buddha Way. That's a prayer. And simultaneously, it's worshipping the Buddha way. Without prayer, without worship, without giving, without praise of this, we're not really wholehearted.

[25:36]

When you practice just sitting, just sitting means wholehearted sitting. And I myself cannot practice wholehearted sitting by myself. So I worship wholehearted sitting, which is the sitting which all of you support me to practice. I must ask you and all the Buddhas to be compassionate to me and free me from karmic effects karmic effects, the effects of my past thinking, which make me think, perhaps, that I could practice sitting by myself. So maybe the Buddhas free me from thinking about me practicing sitting by myself, and let me open to the sitting which all of you are helping me do, which is the same as body and mind dropping away.

[26:43]

Then I'm wholehearted when I let you help me in my practice. But if I am practicing all by myself, let me do it by myself. I'll practice Zazen by myself. That's sweet. Like my darling grandson probably practices Zazen that way. I'll do it myself, Granddaddy. You don't have to help me. Don't help me. I still love him, but he's not practicing wholeheartedly until he says, let's practice zazen together, granddaddy. So when I really feel like I want all of you to practice zazen with me, I'm starting to open to the real zazen, the big one, that I can't do by myself. But I can ask you to help me. And when I really let you help me, in other words, no matter what you give me I consider it assistance.

[27:51]

This would be assistance, but that's not assistance. You're not helping me now. Then my zazen starts to contract. Everything anybody does is helping you practice your zazen. Everybody's not necessarily helping you get rich. Everybody's not necessarily helping you win a tennis game. Unless you win. If you win, everybody helps you win. But sometimes everybody helps you lose. When you lose, everybody helps you lose. Everybody's giving you the gift of a loss. But The practice of the Buddha, everybody's always helping you do the practice of Buddha. Everybody's always helping you practice the Buddha way. Because the Buddha way is what everybody's helping you do, and what everybody's helping you do is what you're doing.

[29:02]

And the way they're helping you is the way they are, not the slightest bit different. So this is rather challenging, right? The way this person is, is helping me practice the Buddha way. This is the way they're helping me. It doesn't mean it's pleasant. They may be telling you that they really have a problem with you, that you're really off base, that you really have a lot of problems, and they would like to tell you. They may not be able to, but they'd like to. At that moment they are helping you practice the Buddha way. That's the way they're helping you. Incidentally, living with people who are helping you practice the Buddha way, incidentally, your character will get developed.

[30:06]

You know, they'll push your character towards development by helping you in their various ways. The thing I was looking for here is this statement here, which is, by revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice, and I don't know which is the best way to translate that, faith and practice, but actually what I'd like to emphasize here is that it's translated as faith in practice. Faith in practice. In other words, faith That practice is the fruit. A lot of people think you practice and you get the fruit, which is realization, understanding, enlightenment. the practice and the fruit.

[31:13]

And I'm trying to emphasize that the practice is the fruit. The fruit of practice is more practice. He could say, the fruit of practice is to be able to practice knowing that it's the fruit and being happy that you get to practice. And it's not that you're not concerned about realization. You are, and the way you show it is by practice. So sometimes we have a lack of faith in practice. Some people's faith is, I have faith that if I practice I will get a very good fruit. It's true, you will. You will. But the fruit you'll get is practice. You get the fruit at the very moment you practice. But again, if you practice half-heartedly, you get the fruit of being half-hearted, which is, you'll feel, it won't feel like a fruit.

[32:22]

It'll feel, you know, more or less painful. Because you're holding back from all this help that you're giving and receiving. So I don't know, maybe I was just trying to say that. And also I would emphasize that there is cause and effect, but in the realm of practice cause and effect are one. So practice is the cause of realization, and they're one. Because without the practice you don't have the realization. Practice is a condition for realization, But when you're practicing, that's the realization. In other words, they're not dual. Well, maybe that's enough for starters.

[33:29]

You want to do some finishers? Please. Thank you, Chris, for making a nice place for this man to sit. I was here last year and had the uniquely extraordinary experience of watching my mother be put into the ground and then two hours later came here.

[34:47]

Could you hear him? He said last year he came here and he had the experience of his mother going into the ground, and two hours later he came to this retreat. So that wasn't loud enough, no? Well, it was loud enough, but they couldn't hear you, so maybe we can talk louder. They received the gift of not being able to hear you. But can you hear me? I have a microphone. Yeah, that's true. It's not fair. You got it in there. Sing it out. Okay. And what the gift really was, having had now a year to digest it... Is that okay? Okay. Was that... being quite raw, being quite vulnerable, and...

[35:48]

in the atmosphere of spaciousness, I discovered that there's real richness in being vulnerable in spaciousness. What you say, what you just said... And you also said raw. Raw. Vulnerable and raw in spaciousness. Yeah. I've been doing this most of my adult life in different forms, and yet I'm very much guilty of doing it for myself, by myself, a great deal of the time. And after that experience, one cannot depend on one's mother dying every day, I discovered that practice creates a kind of stability that

[37:15]

allows me to be willing and even more interested to open to these places that I usually try to distance myself from. Did you hear that? Yeah, so practice... part of our practice is to develop stability so that we can be open to this rawness and vulnerability. One of the things about concentration is that we dare to be open when we're more tranquil. We don't have to make ourselves vulnerable and raw. We really are vulnerable and raw every moment. But when we're not calm enough, we close to that vulnerability and rawness. It's there. Yes. But as we become more concentrated and relaxed, we open to it, which is part of opening to the truth.

[38:25]

And I've discovered there's so many opportunities, more than I suspected, For example, One of the forms that I reduce it to that I find helpful is something I received from a Tibetan man named Toka Thundup. He encouraged, he shared a practice where I sort of invite the impressions in the room I'm in to fill my torso, to fill my arms, to fill my legs, to fill my head. And so often I'll be standing in a supermarket and instead of just being bored or impatient and, you know, sort of cursing the checkout person for being so slow, it much more interesting to ask myself to have a, let the impression of the people around me to come in. And I discovered that I can't look at the face of another human being without being somewhat touched by it.

[39:33]

It's not possible. That's right. And most of my life, I'm surrounded by people who aren't part of my life. Who you think aren't. And they're just cardboard cutouts, the way I sort of take them in or don't take them in, actually. But they're a food. They nourish me. And one thing I remember from last year... And that means you don't realize they're food. That's correct. They really are, but because you see them that way, you don't realize how they're nourished. That's correct. Pema Chodron, the Tibetan teacher, she has a wonderful... Most of my life are the neutrals, the people in traffic with me. They're the neutrals. And if while I'm sitting there I can wish to... let my torso be filled by the impression of the people around me, it evokes a response.

[40:35]

If I do it again, it continues to evoke a response. At some point, I don't need to ask myself to do it because I appreciate the action it has. And so I've tried since I've been here. to rediscover a stability and then try to include the people around me. Try to open to them. Exactly, exactly. Or allow opening to them. Exactly. Very good. That's it. That's great. How's it going? Eh? How's it going? I forget and I try again. He's coming.

[41:38]

He's coming. He's here. This has been a really intense weekend for me. I didn't expect it to be, but... Would you please speak up? They're raising their hands. This is a very intense weekend for me. That's better. I didn't expect it to be. I didn't know what to expect. But it sort of started almost like last night when we were doing the dedicatory services. We were dedicating this to the various Buddhas, and then we called names. And just to my mouth, the name of my father came. And he's been dead for 25 years.

[42:41]

I never really thought of him. I mean, he was a suicide. He lived a very troubled, suffering life. And part of that suffering was he felt that he failed his family. And I went to therapy after the suicide and basically dealt with all the issues. And I've been in therapy at various points and always talked about that and sort of dealing with that I think what I've learned or taken away from this weekend is how to put that set of experiences, see that through the act of giving. Wonderful. And so I dedicated this. Wonderful. And also when you were talking about grandmothers and giving and practice and so on, an image came to my mind.

[43:44]

I don't know where this image come out of, if it's from my own life or what, but it's of a young child giving up, going, giving a piano recital and spending hours practicing some piece to get it perfect and getting up there and playing it and missing notes, flubbing pieces, stopping and finally struggling to the end and then coming down and then At the end of the recital, his grandmother comes. And she, of course, is incredibly happy, joyous, full of gratitude. And the child can sit there and sort of let themselves be enveloped by all of this and rejoice with the grandmother about this. Or they can stand back and say, well, she's doing this because she's my grandmother. And she doesn't know the notes I missed, you know, the wrong notes I hit and so on.

[44:46]

I think that in some ways is about the way we practice sometimes. Is that rather than allowing ourselves to be, you know, wrong notes and all, to allow ourselves to be enveloped in the joy of it. You know, we stand back and critique it. And I think in terms of my practice, your idea of thinking or conceptualizing or whatever, practicing with the heart of giving as opposed to following precepts. trying to understand what correct practice is and trying to follow that, following the rules. I think giving up with the heart of giving is a far more dynamic, alive kind of way of doing it. And I really, you know, it's funny that you talked about us as the givers, but we are very much the receivers as well. And that there's no difference between giving and receiving.

[45:50]

It's the gift. It's the gift. That's the important thing. Right. And may I say something? I just want to clarify that for bodhisattvas, giving is first. Mm-hmm. and then precepts, so that when you move into precept practice, the precept practice is actually a continuation of your giving. But if you start with precept practice without realizing that you're giving, you may not understand the precepts correctly. However, we do need the precepts to clarify whether our giving is true and pure. Let's start with giving and then move into the precepts. Start with giving and then look at these teachings about conduct. And keep checking to see if you keep the spirit of graciousness as you observe your conduct. Thank you.

[46:53]

You're welcome. Thank you. I'm happy to hear the news. Maybe we should pass that. Yes, please come. I would very much like if together we could help the people who received the gift of being dominated and being manipulated in some way, help these people to find the way they can themselves help

[48:01]

the group of the people who are manipulating them or dominating them. Like for instance, if I can take an example, Africa would say, you know, we would like to act to do something to change the fact some countries in Africa, for example, how can we change this situation? It can be for a person, it can be for a group of person. Part of this kind of surprising thought arose in my mind in response to that was that some of the people, the story I had is that some of the people in the United States of America government who seem to think that it's good for the United States to dominate and control the rest of the world, some of the same people seem to be supporting programs of supporting the oppressed people in Africa.

[49:09]

So to encourage our government, I would like to encourage our government, I would like us together to develop in ways that we can to help our government and also outside of our government to form other groups that aren't governmental to help the people in Africa that are oppressed and abused, but also encourage our government to do so too, so that it isn't just private Americans who are helping people in other parts of the world, which people appreciate. People know that not all Americans agree with the government, but to get our government also to start helping other countries, We have this great power. It can be used to help other countries rather than control them. And help them means give them gifts. To learn to give them gifts with no strings attached. To ask our government to give gifts without that implying that they get to control the country after they give the gift.

[50:19]

Because that's one of our tricks, is to give gifts and then later the people find out that they're indebted to us We'll give you a loan, and then they can't pay the loan, so then we take over their business. That's one of our techniques. But to learn, to encourage our government to learn to give gifts that imply no obligation from... that imply no... that aren't trying to get anything back from them. People will be obligated when we give them gifts, but for us to give the gift without trying to get them to be obligated... to try to get our government people to adopt a giving approach rather than a controlling approach, and also to join non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, to help these people. And these groups to figure out how our groups, our practice groups, can, whether they want to, as a group, support something or not.

[51:25]

That's one response. What do you say? Do you want to go further on this? Yeah, I want to go on the individual level. Now you have one person who is dominated by another one. The person who is dominated, how can he or she react and help to have a relationship which is harmonious? If I see a person who seems to be dominated by another person, I could help both of the people, potentially. But if you want to talk with the person who seems to be experiencing being dominated, then I would try to help that person realize that the person who's dominating them is giving them a gift. Not that the domination is a good thing or a pleasant thing, but actually this person who's trying to dominate them, who's trying to dominate them, who's trying to control them.

[52:30]

The person is not controlling them, actually. They're trying to, but they're giving this person a gift. So I would try to help the person who is experiencing the gift of someone trying to control them. People try to control me. They do. And I try to remember that it's a gift that they're giving me. And when I remember that, then I have a gift for them. So then the person who's experienced, who's dealing with someone who would agree, this person says, yes, I agree, I'm trying to control them. I'm trying to dominate them. And this person may feel like the person who... If this person feels like they're being controlled... then that's a gift that they're giving themselves. If I feel controlled by you, you're not controlling me. I'm thinking I'm controlled. Nobody controls me. I mean, everybody in the universe controls me, but no one person controls me. If I think so, that's my own delusion, which is a gift to me from my own mind, my own background.

[53:37]

If I can see that, then I have a chance to see I'm not being controlled by this person. whether this person's trying to or not, they're not controlling me. No one person controls me. And all people influence me, but nobody controls me. And when I see someone actually trying to control me and they would sign a confession to that effect, I want to see that as a gift to me. Then I can realize that I have a gift for them too. Like, could I ask you, I could say, my gift could be, could I ask you a question? And they might say yes, they might say no, but whatever they say is another gift. And then I can give them a gift. Because they're giving to me, I can give to them. Once the person who is meeting someone else who's trying very hard to control them enters into the gift-giving process, they become alive and become free. And fearless.

[54:39]

And they become fearless. So they can interact with this person who's trying to control them in more and more fearless and creative and generous ways. So that's what I try to teach myself when I feel someone's trying to control me. And I tell you again, a lot of people do try to control me. I would say, yeah. At the beginning when I was at Zen Center, people didn't try to control me so much. But as I became more and more a salient figure at Zen Center, people tried more and more to control me. And they're still trying to control me. They're still trying to control me. We're in the same situation. And I sometimes feel like, you know, I sometimes slip into... Give me a break." Which is okay. But then I had to remember, oh, it's a gift to them.

[55:41]

I'm not trying to get them to give me a break. I just temporarily don't see what they're doing as a gift. That's my problem. Particularly, people want me to go to a lot of meetings at Cincinnati. They want me to attend many, many events. That's one of the main things they try to control me into, is meetings. But, you know, I can see that as a gift, that they love me so much they want me to be at everything. They want me to be at simultaneous meetings all over the world. Or I can feel, you know, I can feel annoyed, like, you know, get away from me. But then I miss the gift that they're giving me. They're trying to control me into going where they would like me to be. They love me, but they're trying to control me. And they will admit that.

[56:42]

And when they admit it, then we can dance. Thank you. Thank you. I feel in this retreat you have not been trying to control me. But if it's a retreat, when I'm long enough, you start to try to control me. We'll think of ways. Yeah. And all have a chance to say, yes, this is a gift. Anything else at this time anyone wishes to offer? Yes, Tom? As you know, I have the privilege to speak to the dental students at NOVA and the graduate students and undergraduates.

[57:57]

So I'm speaking to the undergraduates, as you know, on how to have a great practice and a great income and, most importantly, a great life. But the question that I struggle with Well, lots of them, but particularly is many of them are nearing graduation in just a month or so after I practice, and they have debts that are huge. I mean, $100,000 up to $250,000. Money tends to be in front of their face a lot, because they have lots of bills, and their bills will even get bigger, as they said, into practice. So I noticed one of the things where we renounce worldly affairs and things, and I don't think that's going to play too well in my lecture.

[59:00]

So I'm wondering, in terms of money... Is it that it won't play well or is it that it's a difficult shot? It's a difficult shot. It's being in the rough. It's a gigantic leap. So what I mean by worldly affairs, or what I think is meant by worldly affairs, is a certain way of looking at money. It's not money itself. So one thing that occurred to me about the situation is to bring out in the open that they have consciously or unconsciously entered a system where in order to go through it they will be indebted. And they did actually sign up for the situation, this strange American dental education system that requires the dentist to go into debt in order to become a dentist.

[60:11]

It's part of the deal. And then of course, and for doctors too, so then of course there's problems like since I'm in debt I probably should, you know, work as long hours and have as many patients as possible as quickly as possible. So that's one response to the situation of this debt. So let's talk about how another way to deal with the debt. Now the way I just talked about it, I thought that was a worldly affair kind of way of dealing with the money. It wasn't the debt that's a worldly affair. There's a kind of worldly way of dealing with the debt. So what's a non-worldly affair way of dealing with the debt? I don't know. The thing that comes up for me that I talk about is that be sure you haven't lost the things that along the way that money can't buy, like your health, relationships, your happiness, and that be sure you keep the focus on

[61:34]

the big picture as you're managing your financial health. Yes. So for example, as you deal with this debt, don't lose track of giving. Don't see yourself as a situation where you have a debt and all you're doing is paying off the debt. Don't lose track with the fact that the debt is a gift to you. and you are not going to be giving to the debt. Don't miss out that paying this debt off is an act of generosity. Now, you could see it as, you know, you could see, well, my dental practice is an act of generosity. I'm wishing to help people with their health. That's why I'm a dentist. I want to serve people's dental health and their whole health. That's my job as a doctor. But when it comes time to pay off the debts, don't miss the opportunity to make that also a gift, a service.

[62:49]

We say debt service, but we usually don't think of it as giving. And I think if you can somehow imagine in your own mind how you could be paying a debt as an act of generosity, if they could pay off their debt as an act of generosity, they would not be stressed. When you pay the money to pay off the debt, you lose track of the fact that you're giving It's not something you're doing to get something. You're actually giving the money away, giving it away. If you could teach them to pay this debt as an act of generosity, that would help. The other things you're trying to help them do, which is keep up their health and be happy while they're paying off the debt.

[63:50]

I think I see, you know, we focus on their mission, which is to make a contribution to their clients through the oral and overall health and be grateful for the people that loaned you the money and give them back the money as an act of gratitude. Yeah. as an act of gratitude. If you don't give it back as an act of gratitude and generosity, then you feel like you're getting gouged. Gouged. Gouged, gouged, gouged. But they gave you the gift so that you have this gift. They gave you a gift so that you have a gift. Right. So if you can help them see it that way, then they will pay off their debts, but paying off the debt won't be a burden. A burden and an illness. That's what we need. Yes. Perfect. Yeah. And you need to keep thinking of it that way to try and submit that.

[64:55]

I do. I have to get back and go write it down right now. Or I'll lose it. That's very important. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Concurrently with the last gentleman's topic, you mentioned, I don't know what word you used, but maybe crazy system in which we put students in debt for knowledge. I don't know if I said crazy, but Even if I say crazy, I still say it's a gift. True. This system, it is kind of strange. It seems funny to go to school and then come out in debt. Right. But that's, you know, it seems strange or crazy or whatever, but it's still, it's a gift. In the realm of Dharma, if you enter into the school, you get gifts.

[65:58]

You get education, you get debts. True. Is there a way we can work at the system itself? Because sometimes lawyers, doctors, they want to help in a charitable way. But they find themselves under a weight of debt. And even if they look at it as a gift that they need to repay, they have to remove themselves from the charitable realm, if not temporarily, sometimes permanently because they forget. No, I thought that would help them enter the charitable realm before they have any excess funds. And then when they finish paying off their debts, then they'll already be in the swing of it and seeing the joy of giving. And then they will continue after they pay off their debts to continue to give gifts because they'll realize how nourishing it is to them. So they remember. So they remember.

[66:58]

And if they spend several years paying off the debt as a forced obligation and don't have any joy in paying off the debt, then when they finish, they may be bitter and angry and feel like, I'm not going to give to anybody. The system's been stealing from me all this time. I'm just going to keep everything for myself. So Tom and other people can help dentists and doctors start giving. If they haven't already been educated to practice giving through their undergraduate and training, now it's not too late for them to learn. Of course, some of them do learn it anyway. Some of them do understand it that way. But it's a very challenging situation to remember that the giving is going on all the way through our childhood, all the way through our schooling, and all the way through our debt period. The giving is still going on.

[68:00]

We have to wake this up in ourselves so we really feel, you know, so we feel happy and fearless. And when we're happy and fearless, we want to practice more giving, because we know that's where our happiness and fearlessness comes from. Last night, during the last zazen that we were having, the sitting meditation, I was having a great deal of pain in my back and my neck and my leg. And I was thinking the whole time about what you were talking about as far as giving and that we're giving, whether we know we're giving or not.

[69:08]

And I'm stuck and need more assistance with how do you deal with gifts that you're giving that you don't want to give? Because I didn't want to be giving all that pain to the people around me. And I was stuck between that and that space. That's a nice question. I think that it's kind of an uncommon thought for a Zen student who's sitting long hours. It's kind of uncommon for them to think, oh, I'm in pain. I would like to give my pain to everybody. It's kind of uncommon. As a kind of novelist, you even thought of that possibility. Well, you were saying we were giving whether we don't want to give. I think that's wonderful. I'm grateful for that gift. I never thought of, I'm in pain, you know, I'm in pain anyway.

[70:12]

Well, I just make my pain a gift to people. So I'm not just sitting here in pain, I'm also being generous to all the other people. It's not like I'm giving my pain to get rid of my pain. It's not a trick to get rid of my pain. I'm just saying, hey, I don't have to just sit here and suffer. I can also be practicing generosity, and I've got a lot of pain to give. And then, although I'm still in pain maybe, this great joy that I'm being so generous with it is arising at me. There is no joy. That's because you weren't giving. You said you couldn't give it, right? You thought you were resisting. You were actually, I wasn't even in the room and you were giving me the pain down the hall. Think how what made you feel. that knowledge, that I might be giving you pain. You weren't giving me pain, you were giving me your pain. And I want, actually, I do want you to give me your pain so that I can show you my compassion.

[71:14]

I don't want you to hide your pain from me. I want you to give it to me. Now, giving it to me doesn't mean that it's lost. It has just become a gift. So when you give me your pain, it's a joy for me to receive your pain as a gift. Now, if you give me your pain and I don't see it as a gift, that's my problem. If I'm in the swing of practicing giving, when you give me your pain, I consider it a gift. It hurts still. But when you give me pain and I'm practicing giving, I experience joy that I see that your pain is not just pain, it's a gift to me. And my pain is not just pain, it's a gift to you. In other words, I'm not resisting the reality of giving. And if I don't resist the reality of giving, I will be joyful while I'm in pain. When the pain goes away and I'm feeling neutral sensation or pleasure,

[72:22]

If I don't continue to practice giving, I will be unhappy. Even though I'm not in pain, if I don't make my painless condition, if I don't make that a gift, I will experience a pain called unhappiness. So if I'm in pain, I think you actually have made a great gift just to tell us the idea of making your pain a gift. or making, you know, the fact that you're in pain. This person who's in pain, I make this person a gift. You're not trying to transfer your pain to somebody else. You're giving me your generosity. You're sharing your graciousness with me. And that reminds me to do the same with what I'm experiencing. If I have something pleasant, I'm lovely and delightful, give it away. If I have something disgusting, distasteful, give it away.

[73:26]

But not to get rid of it, but to get in the swing of what I've got is what I give. And I'm ready to give the next thing. and that joy arises in the midst of whatever it is. Including if you feel stingy. Make your stinginess a gift. It's still stingy. It doesn't necessarily go away, except by its own constant changing. Stinginess might be followed by more stinginess and more stinginess and more stinginess. But it can be accompanied by graciousness. So the stinginess goes on and the graciousness grows up. The stinginess will pass, but the graciousness still grows up. So that's a very nice... And also as part of being gracious and making your pain a gift, you can also give yourself a gift of perhaps adjusting your posture.

[74:37]

It's okay. Give yourself that gift. And some other pain will come someday. But make all your pains gifts, because all your pains are gifts. They're gifts to you, and they're gifts to others. All of them. In the Dharma realm. In the realm of peace. All pains that come are gifts to you, and all pains that come to you are gifts that you give to others. You support and nourish others when you're in pain, and you support and nourish others when you're in pleasure. It's just amazing, you know. I must admit, you know, when I hear of the suffering of some mothers, I'm just amazed that through all that suffering, they nourish their children that you can be suffering and still nourish others. It's a very surprising idea to me.

[75:42]

But it's a fact that people who are suffering nourish each other. When I was in Houston in 2001, I was riding around in Houston on a bicycle. I fell off my bicycle and broke my femur. So I was in the hospital with a broken femur. And some people came to visit me in the hospital, and actually at one point I actually had a morphine drip line, and I couldn't get, you know, indefinite amount of morphine. There's some limit on it, but anyway, it wasn't working. And a person was visiting me, and they said, are you in pain? And I said, yeah, actually I am in pain. But not really. The person who's in pain is down the hall. There was a woman down the hall who was in pain. She was in pain.

[76:43]

That lady was in pain. She was like... She was a gift to me. She made me feel fine. I could hear her screaming all night long, practically. And she didn't just scream one way. She had like five or ten ways of screaming. Not just screaming, screaming, moaning, crying, wailing. She was suffering, and her suffering nourished me. I could feel it. It made me cheerful. I was cheerful with my pain. Now, when they got the drip line working, it was also nice. But When you're suffering, you are a gift to me. If I don't see it, that's my problem. If you don't see it, that's your problem. Now, I'm supporting you to get over that problem, but you're always a gift, no matter how you feel.

[77:52]

But if you forget that when you're suffering, then you're just suffering. I should say, when you forget that when you're in pain, then you're in pain and you're suffering. But if you remember that, you're in pain, but you're happy. And some people are very happy when they're in pain because they know they're giving. Like a mother having a baby. She's in pain, but she's giving birth. And many women never experience so much pain and so much happiness at that moment when they're in pain and not trying to get away from it, but feeling that they are giving right while they're in pain. They may not think they're giving the pain, but that would be nice to add that to the list. They're giving birth and giving the pain, and they're totally opening to the truth And they can realize the baby's giving to them. They're being given a baby and they're giving birth.

[78:57]

And they're in pain. And in that pain, some women get to a place where there's no resistance to the process of giving and receiving. And that's like, you know, one of the high points of their life. They're actually open to the truth at that moment. The truth of life, which is I'm giving totally, and the world's giving totally to me to make me a woman who is giving totally. And I am in pain. Even if I have an epidural, I'm still in pain. When I saw my daughter giving birth, you know, she wasn't the heroic type. She said, I want the epidural. Still hurt. Still hurt. She hurt so much. And I, you know, it was doubly, it was so wonderful to see this little girl that I saw born, now giving birth.

[80:00]

Little girl who I saw come out of her mother, now a boy's coming out of her. So I got to be the father of a mother. I can't be a mother, but I was the father of this mother. And she was such a good girl. I was so proud of her. To see her do this thing, you know. To give, to give, to give. And to receive, to receive, to receive. So for men, Zen is nice because we can kind of get a little bit of feeling of what it's like to give birth by our sitting practice. to sit and give our body to the sitting through thick and thin, through pain and not pain, and to learn to give through that process, we can get a little bit of a feeling of what it's like for a woman to give birth. So when you're feeling that last night, that was wonderful that you thought about that, and now you have a little bit longer to get into like the reality.

[81:08]

that you are a gift no matter what you feel, and no matter what you feel is a gift to you and a gift to us. I'm telling you, it's a gift to me, and my pain is a gift to me. I want my pain to be a gift to me. We're living together. This is cooperative power. Thank you. You know, you helped me with this story a lot. Thank you. Roshi, I just remembered one of my Zumi Roshi sayings was, the greatest gift we can give is the gift of no fear. And in relation to what we're talking about, I thought that maybe if we're open to our fear and we're open to giving our fear, that's the gift of no fear. Yeah.

[82:09]

Yeah. It doesn't mean there's no fear. Right. It's just we give no fear. Yeah. And to give no fear right in the middle of fear is even better no fear to give. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What about the gift of receiving the pain of the others? Yeah, that's another gift. That's another dimension. The gift of receiving the pain of others. The gift of receiving their gift of pain. And the joy of feeling their pain because we feel generous towards them. I almost want to disagree. Can I ask... Go right ahead and disagree. Can I disagree? Can I disagree from here or do I have to do it there? I'm being disagreeable, so let me do it this way. I think you should do it here. That's right. Where I can reach you. Get the stick. Where I can reach you.

[83:14]

Take your clipboard. I was just telling this story to Roger last night, and Mitch has heard it, and some people here perhaps. This September 15th is the 30th anniversary of a day I was shot in an attempted robbery. I was the victim. You were the recipient. I was the receiver of the gift. And this is 78. Now, eight years earlier, I had gone to Switzerland and spent five weeks with Krishnamurti in the Swiss Alps. Very nice place to hear him. So you visited Krishnamurti and then you came here and got shot. Got shot. With eight years in between. Did he arrange that? I never made a connection, no. But one thing I was always very... It was new and fresh and it acted on me. He would always say that we suffer in life because we resist what is. Something holds back.

[84:16]

Right. And the reason I'm bringing this up is that in the emergency room, when people were frantically trying to save my life, the bullet went right in here and it punctured my lung and grazed the wall of my heart and blew apart my spleen and missed my spine by less than a half of an inch. And it was every ounce of strength just to take the next breath because my lung had been punctured. And it was unbearable pain because the bullet was still in my back. And I remembered his words. And so my thoughts were, can I be so attentive to this sensation that there wasn't a space between me and the sensation? There was just the sensation. And there'd be moments where suddenly there wasn't pain. There wasn't pain. Nothing was resisting it. And the moment I started talking to myself about it, it was back in all its glory.

[85:18]

And so I don't see what was just spoken about. I thought you just gave a perfect example of it. I gave... No one else was involved at the time. I mean, I wasn't... Everybody was involved at the time. Everybody was supporting Baptist this way, including Prescott Murray's orders. Okay, okay. I mean, the difficulties I've had like that many, many times to this day, you know, maybe in 20 minutes I'll have that experience, the woman who was just here spoke about. But that... That has become a response. Can I move closer towards my own comfort? Now, that has nothing to do, I suppose. I suppose I have a reaction about almost a sentimentality about gift-giving. So, just one point. You said move closer, okay? Yes. You don't have to move closer. Whatever relationship you have with the discomfort, if you just be gracious with it, there'll be no distance.

[86:21]

Yes, that's true. So you were very gracious with this pain, I would say. In your story, it sounds very gracious towards this pain. You were so gracious that there was no you in it. That's correct. When you're really gracious, there's no separation. Okay. So I thought that was a perfect example of you practicing giving. When the pain came, you weren't saying, hey, that's not a gift. You weren't even saying that it was a gift. But you were acting like it was a gift. You just completely received it with no resistance. If there was a least bit resistance, which that's talking about, then it's unbearable. So fortunately or unfortunately, we can sometimes resist the pain and get by with it. So one of the advantages of great pain is that we can see when it comes to great pain, it's just impossible to resist.

[87:23]

You have to accept it. How far do we have to turn it up before you accept it? Is that enough? No? How about now we accept it? Yes, yes, I accept. I accept. Okay, okay, that's enough. I got it. Okay, fine. I'm not complaining. And then we're at peace. Because we're actually saying, okay, it's a gift. Is this a gift? No, it's not a gift. Is this a gift? No, it's not a gift. Is this a gift? Yes, it's a gift. It is a gift, yes. Okay, it's a gift. And then you're at peace. And then you can give a gift. And then you realize that you're giving a gift. So I thought your example didn't disagree at all. I thought you demonstrated and realized that was like your baby that you had. That this great pain came, you were right there. You weren't even thinking you were giving, but you were. And it was giving to you. And you gave to it. And maybe that's part of the reason why you

[88:26]

lived because you became so alive even in you became alive while you were on the edge of death yeah so that's a good thing for you to to tune back into that time as a as a kind of realization point to to keep you get you back on on the mark often often yeah good hard not to yeah so i i i think that I don't think that's a disagreement. But I didn't think about others. There certainly was no thought of others giving to anyone else in the room, doctors, people. Yeah. But there was not a thought of others and there was not even a thought of you being other than the pain. That's correct. At first there was others. There was you and the pain. But you got over that. And then all the others were also not separate from you. So others, It doesn't have to be separate, but usually others is separate, but you showed others was not separate, or you realized that you were not separate from the pain.

[89:29]

So then the doctors are not separate from you, the bullet's not separate from you, and the person who shot you is not separate from you. At that moment, you weren't even thinking of him, but you realized it. So it's wonderful you survived this great experience. I'm so happy to hear that you had it.

[89:54]

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