February 16th, 2008, Serial No. 03539

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RA-03539
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The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You have to say what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are walking back and forth at the threshold where the two worlds meet. The door is round and open.

[01:04]

Don't go back to sleep. Right now, you and I are sitting at the threshold where the two worlds meet. Let's enjoy both worlds simultaneously. The world of truth in the world of false appearances.

[02:10]

They meet right here. Honored Zen comrades, if there's anything you'd like to bring forth, you are welcome. It's not exactly a bowing clock.

[03:42]

Maybe it is. Uh, yeah. Something very special has happened this morning. In my humble opinion. this meeting of the truth and illusion, for lack of a better word, seems to be a real tricky one for

[04:47]

us to put our finger on, a tricky place to dwell, that meeting point. So a couple of... So that's why we use our butt instead. Yeah, sit on it. It's easier to touch it with your butt than your finger. A couple of one-finger guys who got it. What happened to their finger? This one? For the sake of the recording equipment, this person just held up a partially amputated finger. Looks like he wants further amputations. That's why I'm here. Chop my head off, please. I can't wait. Okay, so let's talk about practice a little bit.

[05:54]

Just as a way to verify what I'm understanding here and applying it. In Zazen, a thought arises and we acknowledge it. and then let it go. We are given the gift of receiving that thought by acknowledging it, and we are given the gift of giving that thought by letting it go. Seems pretty straightforward. But there's something in between those two points that happens that seems to be kind of critical. And it was described to me by a student of Rinpoche. He's a drunken old bastard, but is highly revered as a teacher.

[06:57]

And I forget his name. It'll come to me. That point between It's like a little leap. It requires some kind of a leap or a twist and that we can really trust that. Yeah. You can say it requires a leap or you can say it is leaping. It is leaping. Yeah. I mean, there's so many cons about that, jumping off 100-foot poles or, you know, being stuck on 100-foot poles and stuff like that. That, you know, that point, I mean, I guess everybody has their own experience of it.

[08:07]

Something disappears, it seems to me. Do you know what that is? Am I touching on something? It sounds like you're losing touch with the leaping. Okay. Closing my eyes, I'm going, ah! And then opening them again. Maybe. Okay, before I get in any more trouble, thank you for your teaching. I'd like to start out by asking you, he referred to the head being chopped off just now?

[09:32]

He referred to the head being chopped off? Is that a story that the master does to a student, or am I? Or the master cuts his own head off and offers it to the student. That's what I was going to say. It seems like maybe we'd have to cut our own heads off. Yeah. Please take my head. So it occurred to me on the walkout side that conflict isn't the problem for me. Having conflict with the problem, I may be slow in getting this, but conflict as a problem is the problem. Or not seeing the problem as a gift is the problem. Or even needing to see it as a gift. Or needing to see it as a gift.

[10:34]

But anyway, we do have that gift of needing to see it as a gift. That's there. Yeah. And so let's be gracious about it. I've seen myself struggle with I've used my practice to sort of keep the world at odds. I've used it to address suffering and keep it out here. Got that down? No. Well, I think I do, actually. I think I do have that. I think I've made the enlightenment practice a very unenlightened thing. I'm a master at that, I think. Great. And what I'm taking home here today, which is great, is the invitation to actually bring the war right here.

[11:41]

And I think what I mean by that is to be willing to be conflicted, be willing to suffer without telling myself why I should or why I shouldn't or it needs to be a gift or not a gift or discharged or taken as tongue-lit or whatever. But all the stories of the giving and the getting and the, kind of fall flat when they're seen as stories and I've used that to sort of barricade myself against the actual experience of just the suffering that seems like a gift I can give myself and maybe by virtue of that something great will happen that already is great already so thank you for reminding me my pleasure

[13:07]

So Roshi, we were talking yesterday about glimpses and becoming it. So when it becomes you, what is it? Thanks for sharing it with me. You're welcome. I know from the couple times we've been together, you probably have noticed it's been unusually quiet, this retreat.

[15:48]

You usually have a lot more to say, but we've been really processing three times we've seen each other. Round number three, Al. Round three. I feel a TKO coming. Only technical. Ben, it's interesting because this is the first time I've come to, I have a hard time getting to Zen retreats and getting to Zen Center, but I'm very glad to be there and always feel like I'm at home on the cushion and home with the forms. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I found myself resisting all of it. And it's been kind of a whirlwind since the announcement of I'm going to become a father, which has brought up all sorts of issues around my adoption, being given up for adoption, and things that I, quite frankly, hadn't even thought about, let alone dealt with in my life. But when you said we talked about glimpses, since it was sort of a quiet moment, I thought maybe I'd share the glimpse I had, which led me to Zen and kind of how I relate it back to

[16:59]

this experience at the retreat. I was sitting on top of a cigarette machine at Mardi Gras in 1993 in New Orleans, and I was looking around, and I realized that it wasn't individual people. It just was. And the best way I can describe it was I looked at everybody, and I loved them, and they almost glowed. And when I went to the airport and was leaving, I noticed in my connecting flight, every person was just glowing, and I was just in love with them. And I ended up back in Dallas staying with a friend, and I picked up this book called Zen to Go by John Winokur. And I'm reading it, and I'm going, boy, these guys felt what I was feeling. This is neat. And I've spent the last 15 years trying to recapture that feeling without being at a festival, without being in an altered state of mind. And this is my fourth retreat in five months. And the closest that I've come to that is the feeling I had today.

[18:04]

And it amazes me, being a group of people like this, of just how much you can get to know a person without ever speaking a word to them. I feel like I can see kindness and I can see pain. I went to bed last night thinking I was the most confused person and had spent my entire life in the wrong direction. You opened to that last night? I opened to it. I didn't like it. But you opened to that possibility. Yeah. That's great. But I woke up this morning and I really got the feeling of no fixed self because I saw no relation between who I was this morning and how I feel now and who I was when I went to bed last night. No fixed self. Right. No abiding self. Just for a while we got this one. And then when you felt that you started to in that situation you appreciated everybody?

[19:06]

And the stories this morning were incredibly moving. Having lost both of my parents, looking forward to the birth of my child, I received a poem from someone about the birth of the child. And it just was amazing. And it made me feel like if one person felt that way, maybe everybody else felt that way. Now, I know everybody else felt that way. And I felt incredibly supported by everybody in this room and outside of this room, the whole universe, with the amazing tasks that I have, which scares the hell out of me. But I can give my fear away to all of you that are outside of this room and can do something like that. I also wanted to take this opportunity, unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave after the afternoon session today. Okay. And I wanted to just thank everybody in the room for allowing me to practice with you and giving me all the gifts that you have in the short time we spent together. And, of course, thank you for the teaching.

[20:10]

I hope the last session will be on a website at some point in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thanks for letting us know that you were leaving. I don't need the Kleenex. I've been quiet because I've been sitting with a lot of pain. I wasn't even sure what the resistance was. But yesterday was probably my toughest day ever of sitting. My aunt died a week ago and I realized I didn't have a grandmother ever but my aunt was sort of like a grandmother and I was fortunate enough to spend the last one of the last days with her even though we didn't realize she was going so fast and we

[21:45]

She said to me, you know, honey, you always, you've always made hard choices and I want you to make easier choices. And sometimes I feel like, you know, I've, I just work so hard at the choices that I make and I guess why does it have to be so hard? This practice, I love it and it's so hard. Sometimes it's just really hard, you know, I'm always trying to hold up, hold it all And I think yesterday I just hit a wall.

[22:50]

I don't want to have to work so hard. And so I really know that it's around softening, around the practice and really receiving. But sometimes I just don't know how to get there. You don't know how to accept that you're there. I don't know how to accept that I'm there. A lot, you know, a lot of times we think we can do something by ourself. And unless it gets really hard, Most of us will not accept that we can't do anything by ourself. But it sounds like you still think that you're doing this hard practice by yourself.

[24:05]

And so it maybe has to get a little harder before you realize that we're all helping you. And when you accept that we're all helping you, it will be... very hard at all. You'll be working hard, but it won't be hard to work hard because we're going to help you, because you will accept that we're helping you. But most people, when they're not working hard, they think they can do that by themselves. As we work harder and harder, we finally realize that we can't do anything by ourself. we have to work pretty hard to realize that we can't do anything by ourself. And then we realize again that we do everything together with the support of all beings and that we help everybody else with all their hard work, too. And then we're lifted up by the great ocean.

[25:10]

But we have to kind of get pushed away to accept the help of the Buddhas and all our friends. So you're getting closer to accepting the support. Thank you. There's just one more thing that I want to share, if I may. Oh, sure. The image of the circle and sitting on both sides, The image of the circle and... And sitting on the threshold of the circle between two worlds. Sitting in the open door. Sitting in the open door. Simultaneously I have a very close friend who's dying right now. He's in Sloan Kettering. that two of us were sitting on the threshold.

[26:14]

And for me it was the threshold between this and the world that he is going to enter soon. And seeing no beginning, no end. You felt like you were sitting on the threshold between this world and the world he's about to enter. Yes. That's right. That's where you're sitting. Always. and I feel great peace about that. So thank you for that. Thank you for expressing yourself. Thank you for staying with us. Thank you for having me. As our great teacher, Suzuki Roshi, said,

[27:08]

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