Today about 19 of our group will be leaving, I think. And so this is the, in a sense, the farewell discussion for you folks. It's a time to let go. Those of us staying, to let go of you who are leaving. And those of you who are leaving, I guess, to let go of the retreat. And if there's a little bit of clinging in any direction, then maybe there's some sadness. And if we feel that sadness, that will help us let go. and move forward on the path.

[01:04]

Someone said to me recently, My life is so good. I have a wonderful, loving husband. I have a nice house that's not leaking and tumbling down. I have good work. I'm in good health. I'm pretty happy. And yet, I feel like there's something more. Something's . And I said,

[02:26]

Well, first of all, I thought, oh, what he was describing or what she was describing sounded to me like a road covering the world. A road in good condition. Nice spouse, loving spouse, good health, nice house, good But because that road, that nice road, was originally a river, we're still hungry. Back to the river. We like our road, nice road, but we also want to feel the river again.

[03:30]

And you know where the dragon lives in the river, frolicking in the wind and the stream and the currents, sometimes smashing through the surface of the road and saying, Hi! Silly people. Holding on to this asphalt. And then it disappears completely. perhaps not to be seen for eons." Someone also said, this teaching, you know, which is to loosen up the road, to make us realize that although the road is nice, it has cracks in it, and through those cracks you can see the river sometimes. we're actually trying to keep the cracks from forming.

[04:35]

We're trying to keep the cracks closed. But keeping the cracks closed, we forget that the road came from the river. But sometimes anyway, if we meditate on the road, we come to realize, hey, this road is not actually so solid as I thought. This house, this job, this spouse, these children. Actually, they're all kind of impermanent and cracking all the time. This is no insult to them. It's just the way they are. But if you can see them, that vision of things, while you're looking at them but seeing through the nice, polished, seeing beyond that, that opens you to the re-emergence, re-entry, re-immersion into the waters of the river where we come from.

[05:38]

So we kind of want to go back, but we also don't like to go back to the cracks in our world. We don't want to go back to the cracks in our cars, our brand new cars. But when our brand new car gets smashed to smithereens, if you look at it carefully, there's a moonshine. But couldn't I see it some other way? It's like some people, right after their house burned down, they look at it and they're just ecstatic because they can see the truth in the cinders. But then a couple of days later, they say, okay, I want my house back. Somebody also said, this teaching about dependent co-arising, which opens us to be able to see the impermanence of things, meditation on dependent co-arising, this meditation on the other dependent character of things, which starts to open our wisdom eye

[06:50]

Not our fleshly eye. Our fleshly eye can't really see impermanence. We can see a person die. We can see a person be smashed. But our fleshly eye can't see things changing as fast as they're actually changing. But our wisdom eye can see that. As our wisdom eye starts to see that, our wisdom eye is functioning. The teaching to help our wisdom eye open and function, someone said, Good for people who basically don't have a nice road. And in a sense, that's true. Unless the person is already into the meditation, if their road's all cracked, they're spending their time trying to get it smoothed out again. So they aren't ready. They think the reason why they're unhappy is because their road is cracked. they think if their road got smoothed out that they'd feel fine. So in some sense, it's hard to start practicing Zen until your road's pretty smooth.

[07:58]

Because when your road... Hey, my road is smooth and solid, well-maintained, you know, funded by lots of taxes on gas. There's nothing wrong with my road. but I'm still hungry. Then when you see that you have a nice road and yet there's still something more you're searching for, then this teaching maybe is good for you. So this teaching in some ways isn't good for people who are still trying to get their road established, which is if you're hungry for food, you may be hard to remember. If you were fed, you'd still be hungry. Because whenever you're fed, you're always basically fed usually you're fed the road of the feeding. So you eat this nice surface of the food, but unless you feel the river of the food, you're not really satisfied.

[08:59]

And that's part of what the genius of a great cook is, is they somehow, the way they give you the food, they somehow dislodge your idea of what food is. You know, they crack open your mind. by putting this special food in you and you start to and the flowing underneath the surface of the food and then you feel satisfied not by the food not by the surface of the food but by the flowing interdependence of the food fluid This is not, again, to be disrespectful of the road. Also, some people, of course, have a pretty nice road, and they're hungry, and they think if they would just build a better road, that then they would be, you know, like, I've got a nice spouse, but maybe if I had two spouses or three, maybe then I wouldn't be hungry anymore.

[10:14]

Or if I built, you know, a patio behind my house, Golf coursing in my backyard. Or a goldfish pond. Or expand the goldfish pond and get a boat and put that in there. Or get more horsepower in my boat. Or get one of those Hummers. Then maybe I wouldn't feel hungry anymore. Like my car can eat anything. So people try these various means and, of course, this makes the economy hum. Because if you just get this, the road won't be hungry anymore. This vehicle will finish it off. You'll finally feel complete. It comes with a whole bunch of beautiful people inside, too, who will love you.

[11:16]

It costs extra, that's what he called it. What do you call that? An option, yeah. It's called loaded. Loaded means you're really going to be satisfied, right? But then some people actually buy that car loaded and they get inside, wow, this is just great. And then they drive for about 10 minutes and they say, well, now what? I'm hungry again. Maybe half an hour. And not only that, but then they get scared that somebody's going to take some of their options, break in. Some people look inside and look at all those options. Then you have anti-theft things for all those options. So that the police can tell that your loaded vehicle is now in Guatemala. So we're in kind of a hard spot here because we kind of want to make the road more and more solid, more and more satisfying, and yet this meditation on the road, on the surface phenomena, which takes us underneath them or behind them or beyond them, it also reflects back on the road and shows us the road is really not permanent, not reliable.

[12:54]

not secure. So we have to think about whether we're ready to do such a meditation. I proposed to you that if we meditate on the other dependent character of our car, in our spouse, in our house, in our children, in our parents, in ourself, in our enemies, in our government. We meditate on that, we come to open up to impermanence, see impermanence, and also our egoistic mind does not arise as you're actually meditating on impermanence. The egoistic mind goes with permanence, seeing permanence. When you start seeing impermanence, the egoistic mind, the ego doesn't disappear necessarily, but the egoistic concerns weaken and not arise.

[14:04]

Also, the desire for fame and profit does not arise when this meditation really kicks in. Most of you are not concerned about your practice, but most of you are still somewhat concerned off and on with profit or gain in your practice. The people who are rather advanced in the practice, they get concerned about being someone who's really good at the practice. like Buddhist teachers or spiritual teachers, they're very susceptible to becoming interested to practice really, really well so that people will think they're really, really great and tell other people how great they are. Sometimes, you know, I hear people talking about how bad I am and I think, oh God, it's protecting me from fame.

[15:10]

Thank you. So thank you for what you're thinking of me this weekend. That will protect me from fame. So this meditation on dependent core rising will protect you from seeking fame and profit in life in general, but also practice itself. And again, you may think, me, famous in practice? So at the beginning of your practice, the first 10, 15, 20 years, you may not think that you're practicing for fame. But as you practice longer, like 20, 30 years, you might start thinking, well, I've gotten beyond practice, but it's still nice to have a big, famous name. And everybody thinks I'm really a great bodhisattva. So when you start to notice that you're interested in the practice for fame and profit, and notice in the practice to try to get something, as you do this meditation you become more and more embarrassed about it, and more and more see how silly it is, and more and more just practice for the practice, not for fame, not for profit.

[16:34]

And also realize that the practice is impermanent and unreliable. The practice itself is fine. But your practice and my practice, these practices that are appearing to our eyes, the practices of individual people, that practice is impermanent. The huge practice of the way we're all working together, in a sense, that's not impermanent. That's always so. The way we're all working and helping each other, that practice is not impermanent. That's always true. But the little practice that I do and you do, that's impermanent. But you're also involved in a practice that's not the practice you do. You're involved in a great, great practice. And that practice is not the road. That's the river practice.

[17:36]

That's the practice you want to get with. That's the practice... of your intimacy with all beings. And that practice, when you start to open to that practice, or rather put it this way, when you meditate on the other dependent character, you start to open to this huge river practice. You feel yourself opening to it. And when you feel yourself opening to it, you want to open more. You want to open more to that. And wanting to open to that more means you want to open to enlightenment. It means you actually want to realize and manifest this huge practice, this huge river under this little surface versions of the practice that we see. And I'm saying this partly to lead up to showing you a picture. This is a picture of two Chinese

[18:39]

One character means the way or the path, and the other character means mind or heart. So this character means path or way, but it also means enlightenment. So this character together means the spirit of enlightenment or the mind or heart of enlightenment, or the mind or heart of the path, of the Buddhist path. but also sometimes called the mind that seeks the way, the mind that wants to practice the Buddha way. And it is not what looks like my practice. That's not the Buddha way. And the Buddha way is not what looks like your practice. The Buddha way is the way we're all practicing together. The Buddha way isn't even the way that it looks like Buddha's practicing. If you saw a Buddha practicing, The Buddha way is how that Buddha is practicing with us and how we're practicing with that Buddha.

[19:46]

The Buddha way is the way of our actual intimacy with all the great Buddhas and all the great Bodhisattvas and all the great people. That's the way. That's enlightenment. It's the mind or the spirit or the heart of that way. Okay? And so I want to say that because I made these for you. And so the people who are leaving today, if you'd like one of these, you can come up and get one. I'll leave them on the altar. You're welcome. And over in the corner here, it's signed Zenki. That's part of my Buddhist name. And this is the Zenki, the seal. You've heard of the Buddha mudra? This is the Zenki mudra. So again, you can remember this, that this is the path, and this is the mind.

[20:55]

This is the mind or the heart that remembers the path. The path is on the surface. but the path of the great river of practice. The heart that's remembering and relating to the huge river of all the beings practicing together in harmony. The type of mind that is. How would you say that in Chinese? In Chinese it would be Daoxian. Dao, you've heard of the Dao? This is the character for Dao. This is Daoshin in Japanese, Doshin. Another thing I wanted to say, someone said to me that they didn't know if they really wanted to do a meditation that would

[22:00]

the band of their emotional life. And I said, well, okay, but I'm not exactly saying that the meditation on dependent core arising, which opens you to the understanding of impermanence and the ability of all compounded things, I'm not saying exactly that that just generally narrows the band of your emotional life. it narrows the band of your emotional life in a certain way, but not generally. So the place it narrows the band of your emotional life is it narrows it in the area of gain and loss. That's where it gets narrow. More narrow. Actually, pretty narrow. You get emotionally less concerned about gain and loss. When you do this, gain and loss no longer becomes a big deal.

[23:03]

Birth and death starts to be not such a big deal. So in that way, that part of the emotional life of getting happy when you win something and lose something, those kinds of emotions get damped down. So that, you know, we'd have to see, you know, but if somebody came up to me and told me that I won the, do you have a lottery in Texas? If somebody came up and told me you won $128 million in the Texas lottery, I would say, that's really impressive. Not only did I win, but I hadn't even bought a ticket. This is like, this is quite a bit of news. I think I'll tell some people about that. But maybe I won't. Anyway, I might react like that, you know. I might react like this, is that so? What attracted me to Zen was basically that kind of reaction to winning the lottery.

[24:06]

You know, there was a Zen story, I'm going to retell it now. It was about this guy who, he had a lot of money, and people came and said, this isn't your money, and they took it all away. He said he was a bum. And he said, is that so? Then a little while later they came and they brought him a huge pile of cash and gave it to him and said, not only can you have all this cash, but you're a wonderful person. And he said, is that so? I want to be like that. So it would be interesting if they came with the TV cameras when they give me the winning ticket and they give it to me and they say, hmm. I won the lottery, huh? Very interesting. And usually people feel like they should go, well, I guess I should look excited because I won the lottery, huh?

[25:10]

Come on. Come on. Look a little excited, would you? Okay. Okay. Ha, ha, ha. But actually, if the person, I don't know, it would be more interesting if one of the people who won the lottery just sort of sat there and said, hmm, hi Buddha, hi Buddha, hi mom. So that would get narrowed down to pretty much not much, not much. But other kinds of — so there's a withdrawal from the hysteria and depression around gain and loss when you do this practice. Sorry. Sorry. But there's an expansion of other emotions. Emotions that aren't about gain and loss but emotions that are about interdependence.

[26:16]

rather than when you win and somebody else loses and you feel happy, when you see how you're related to people, you just feel moved to tears when you start to see how you're related. You feel tremendous emotion when you see how you're connected to people. It's not a gain. It's not a loss. It's like you feel great happiness because you're starting to get a peek at reality. You feel emotions about you have more emotion about feeling unity. You have more emotion about feeling freedom. Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco one day, it was around the time of the Iran hostages, you know, all those Americans being held in captivity. And I just looked to the left, and I saw this newspaper stand, and big letters across the top of the newspaper, it said, Freedom.

[27:30]

And I just burst into tears of happiness. I didn't even know what the freedom was about, actually. I didn't know it was about Iran captives being released. That's what it was about. But all I just saw the word freedom, and I saw the word freedom, and I just felt great joy. the feeling of freedom and the thought of freedom and the thought of freedom and the feeling of freedom, that's the kind of feelings, that's the kind of emotions that start to expand. You feel more joy about freedom, about the possibility of freedom. You feel joy at the thought of other people being free. You feel much more joy, much more emotion around that and less joy about winning. if you attach to it, is not freedom. You feel more emotion about peace. You feel more emotion about harmony.

[28:33]

You feel more emotion about gratitude. You feel more emotion about appreciation and love. and sympathy. Your sympathy expands, your fearlessness expands, and it's an emotion. It's an emotion of fearlessness. It's like, wow, I can actually look at that person. I can actually dare to go over near that person. I can accept that person's love. It's not that, wow, this is great. These kinds of emotions get bigger when you practice. But the ones about gain and loss, they kind of dwindle. Sorry. I mean, I'm not really sorry. It's silly. It's silly to be into those kinds of things. They're silly. They're like childish emotions. What did you bring me? I brought you some candy. Children are not that able to be even aware of the joy they feel of being with their parents. They don't even notice it.

[29:38]

If they're separated from their parents and get back together, then sometimes they feel it. But then often they're full of hatred for the separation. They're too immature to realize that what really is important is the love and the lack of separation from their mommy and daddy. That's really what counts. But they're children, so they seem to get really excited about it. getting presents and somebody taking their toys. They think that, they act like that's really what's important. And they take for granted what's really important because they're children. Whereas more mature people do not get so excited about getting presents or losing presents. What they get excited about is interdependence, is about harmony and peace and freedom. So those emotions will expand. You'll become more emotional in the areas of appreciation. You'll feel more of the emotion of appreciation and respect and fearlessness and sympathy.

[30:45]

These emotions of compassion and love will get stronger. So in the wash, some emotions are lost or calmed down. Egoistic gets kind of flaccid. gain and loss gets kind of weak, fame and profit get kind of weak, permanence get kind of weak, and these other ones get stronger. So you actually grow overall very greatly, but you do lose a few child habits. So I hope you can accept that and not be afraid to mature. But it's still a little scary even to grow up, right? to grow up and be responsible for everybody. When you actually grow up and are responsible for everybody you feel great because you're fearless.

[31:45]

When you're fearless you're not afraid to be responsible for all beings. You're not afraid to be intimate with all beings. And that fearlessness is wonderful. And you're not even afraid to be, you know, kind of a dud you know, when somebody gives you a present. Yeah, I gave him this really nice present and he just said, is that so? It was kind of like really disappointing. He didn't jump up and down and wet his pants. I'm not going to give him any more presents. When I was a kid one time, I was invited to a birthday party. It wasn't the first birthday party I was invited to, by the way. I was about 11. I got invited to a birthday party. I like this kid that invited me. I liked him. I still do, probably. I haven't seen him for a long time.

[32:51]

I still remember his name, John Teal. I just decided to spend my own money, which I earned on my What kind of work was I doing? I was a caddy or something, and shoveled walks and things like that. I took my own money and bought him a really nice birthday present, like a big, you know, a big kit that you could make like a battleship with, like the U.S. And I gave it to him, and then he opened it. The other kids saw it, and he liked it, and the other kids thought it was nice, too. So then after that, I got invited to a lot of birthday parties. I mean, you know, you don't even have to be 11 to figure out, number one, that this guy gave him a present, so maybe if I invited him to my party, he would give me a present, and

[33:52]

But then I didn't feel like buying such big presents for the other people, so gradually I stopped being invited to parties. See, I don't think I've been invited to almost any birthday parties since then. This isn't I'm not fishing for invitations. But, you know, I'm just not very popular unless I give a lot of presents, I notice. So that's the way it goes. But, you know, it's not that bad. This is kind of childish stuff, doing the stuff to get invited to parties. But the original gift was not to get invited to parties. It was just I wanted to give that guy a nice present. I just had that idea. And I just want to say also again, the emotion in some sense, or the spirit, or the heart, the heart that dares, or the mind that dares to wish to become enlightened in order to benefit the world.

[35:16]

The wondrous way-seeking mind, that wondrous Daoshin, arises not because you make it happen, not because I make it happen, and not even because Buddha makes it happen. It arises when we are opening up a communion with Buddha. And the way we open up communion with Buddha is by practicing the Dharma. When we start meditating on the dependent co-arising of things, when we start meditating on how things ... that meditation, we start to open ... open up a direct, intimate communion with Buddha. And in that communion, this feeling arises that we would actually like to achieve supreme enlightenment so that we could help people really, really well.

[36:18]

If you do not yet feel that heart, which wishes to achieve, which wishes not only to help people, but wishes to help people in the most complete and effective way, which wishes to help people become enlightened. If you don't yet feel that, if you don't yet become enlightened so that you can be supremely of service to all beings, if you meditate on this teaching, your heart will open that way. It will open. And you will start communicating with Buddha. And out of that communication, this heart will arise, this great heart. And then you will really be on the path. Still lots of work to do, but you'll really be on the path. And you just take care of that heart by continuing the meditation. And the heart keeps growing and keeps arising. This heart, it's a wonderful heart, but it's impermanent too.

[37:23]

It dependently co-arises too. How does it dependently co-arise? It dependently co-arises out of this communion between you and Buddha, between you and great enlightenment. So this is my, you know, I'm not suggesting you do anything, I'm just telling you that if you do this meditation, your heart will open in this magnificent way to aspire to Buddhahood for the welfare of this world, including everybody, even including George Bush, not to mention Saddam Hussein. Now I just wanted to say some difficult, have a difficult little test here now at the end of the class.

[38:34]

This morning we chanted the Heart Sutra of perfect wisdom, the great heart of perfect wisdom, or the heart of great perfect wisdom. We chanted that. And so my question to you is, and that perfection of wisdom is also called Prajnaparamita. prajnaparamita, translated as perfect wisdom, or wisdom gone beyond wisdom. What is the object? What is perfect wisdom looking at? That's the question. What's the answer? Huh? That's right. It's looking at emptiness. And emptiness is What is emptiness? Emptiness is what? In emptiness, in the context, there's no form, no feelings and so on.

[39:42]

But what would you say emptiness was? What is the context? Going beyond what? What? Going beyond dualistic perception? Yeah. Yeah, empty of our ideas, yeah. That phenomena are empty of our ideas. That our ideas, that the imputations we put on the river, that the imputations on the river are actually, the river is empty of our ideas of the river. When we put our ideas on the river, the river turns into a road. The river becomes a road. But actually the road never is actually in the river. The river of each person, that river is empty road. That's a thoroughly established character of phenomena, is that the interdependent flowing nature of the phenomena

[40:54]

does not have any of our ideas in it. None of our ideas reach it. All of our ideas of phenomena, in the phenomena, in their wondrous, beautiful, dependently co-arisen side, that absence of that, that's emptiness. And that's what perfect wisdom looks at. And when perfect wisdom sees that, then it understands the river. So it not only can see the river, but you see the river can never be found. We live in it, but we can't find it. And no one else can find it either. It's ungraspable. However, although it's ungraspable, it is ungraspable. But we still have to like project onto our life so that we can grasp it, so we can talk. Without putting the imputational on the other dependent, we have no way to make conventional designations and be human.

[42:03]

So we have to do this, but we also have to take the medicine of emptiness so that we can take a break from that. And then next, this is kind of from a sutra, I think Subuddhi says to the Buddha, Teacher, from where does the Bodhisattva set forth into the practice of the perfection of wisdom? And what's the answer? From where does the Bodhisattva set forth into the practice of the transcendent, holy perfection of wisdom? Present moment, yes, but say more. Yeah, ordinary life. In other words, you set forth from... Well, from here, but also from dependent co-arising.

[43:09]

You set forth from the dependently co-arisen world. You set forth from the conventional world into the ultimate world, the ultimate truth. So that's why in meditation on dependent co-arising, so always continue meditation on conventional truth, dependent co-arising. which is not ultimately true because ultimately you can't find dependent core rising even. But we must meditate on dependent core rising in order to step off into the realm of perfect wisdom to realize emptiness. Without being grounded in the conventional truth of dependent core arising, we shouldn't teach the ultimate truth of emptiness.

[44:12]

So I'm talking to you about emptiness and you're chanting the Heart Sutra, but I'm also keep… Ground your life in meditation on dependent core arising. So without that grounding we shouldn't practice meditation on emptiness. But also, we can't actually become free just by meditating on dependent core rising. That's not enough. Strongly praising the practice of meditation on dependent core rising. And I'm suggesting to you that if you do this practice, in the midst of this practice, your selfish desires and your seeking for gain and profit will drop away, but you still won't be grounded until you see the thoroughly established character of emptiness. So we must be grounded, but we also have to understand that that's not sufficient for liberation. Any questions about this?

[45:19]

Yes? How does emptiness relate to oneness? How does emptiness relate to oneness? Well, one way it relates to it is that if you mean by oneness, if what you mean by oneness is the oneness of self and other. Of everything. Everything, everyone. Well, when you say... Not in this. You say, yeah, well, you're saying not, you're saying oneness of everything, okay? But if you're saying everything, like, could you give me an example of the everything? No, give me an example of a thing. You said everything, give me an example of a thing, or two things. Because you said not two, so give me two things. The table and the stool?

[46:35]

Well, the table and the stool are not really one. But your awareness of the table and the table are one. and your awareness of the stool and the stool are one. So non-duality is not so much saying that everybody is one, it's more saying that subject and object are not two. So this is a — emptiness is not emptiness is not the emptiness of difference between a man and a woman. That's not what emptiness is. Emptiness is about the absence or the non-existence of a separation between your awareness and what you're aware of.

[47:48]

That's duality. And emptiness being felt? Empty of being self-produced? Yeah, empty of being self-produced, yeah. Empty of... So, also, if you mean by oneness what we call monism, okay? So, if you mean by oneness monism, which is that there's only one thing, then emptiness, in a sense, is the one thing. because everything is basically of the same type, namely everything of independent existence. But another kind of emptiness is the emptiness of a substantial separation between you and what you're looking at.

[48:52]

The sense of people being separate, that sense of separation is a mind-created illusion. Separate. We're not separate at all. That is a mind-created thing. Which, again, the fact that that's somewhat difficult to understand or even imagine how that's just mind-created and isn't real shows how substantial we think it really is. it seems really substantially true that we're separate, and like the space between us is actually a separation, rather than the space between created. I kind of would like to open the door and see who's there. Yeah, somebody wants to come in here.

[49:57]

Huh? I'd like to meet myself. See who I am. This would be interesting. Yes? Subjectively, within Zazen. Say it again? Well, subjectively, within Zazen, within the experience of what it is, what it is, what it is doing. Did you say, what is the experience of emptiness during zazen? You mean like when you're sitting cross-layered in emptiness? What is the experience of emptiness when you're sitting in an easy chair watching TV? No? Why not? Experience of emptiness when you're sitting, period.

[51:04]

That's your question? Well, one experience of emptiness when you're sitting would be to experience that your ideas of sitting are absent in the sitting. One idea, one way to express the experience of emptiness is that you would not be able to find the sitting. You would not be able to find a thing called sitting. And you would have an idea what it is, and you would see that you could not find anything corresponding to that idea in the sitting. You could see the idea, but you could see that it was nowhere to be found in the actual sitting.

[52:06]

That would be one kind of emptiness of your sitting. That would be emptiness of your sitting. So your sitting would, and this is what we say in Soto Zen, in that realization your sitting would become your sitting would be just sitting. In other words, your sitting would be just sitting. It wouldn't be reached by your ideas of sitting. That's one way to talk about and begin to meditate on the emptiness of sitting. And if you're walking, the same would apply to realizing emptiness while walking of walking. And we could call the practice of walking in the realization of emptiness as just walking. And in the context Emptiness, there is no walking. And then there's just walking.

[53:08]

It's not so much that the idea of self isn't present, it's just that you never can find anything that the that corresponds to the idea of self. You can't find the self. There's no self to be found. It's not that the idea of self isn't present because we said that all phenomena have three characteristics. One of the characteristics that phenomena have is an idea of self. Phenomena are available to have a false thing called self superimposed upon them. So the idea You have it available. It's not gone. It's just that you don't have to believe that it actually applies to phenomena. That you stop actually agreeing that the self corresponds to you as a person, or the self of to the sitting, or the self of anything. But the idea of self can still be there, it's just that you look for anything corresponding to it and you don't find anything.

[54:30]

So you find out that what's being imagined doesn't exist. Because the idea of self is an imagination of something that doesn't dependently co-arise. Something that dependently co-arises is not a self. It's an other dependent phenomenon. It's a phenomenon that doesn't have a self. That's the way things are. But we have an idea that things are not that way. We have an idea that things exist independently of conditions. That's a self of something. And that doesn't exist. And when you have that idea, look around for it. And when I say look around for it, I mean you have to be quite well developed in meditation to look around and actually be sure that it is then you realize the emptiness of whatever the thing you're looking at. Namely, the absence of any idea of self.

[55:30]

But the idea of self is still available. Okay? And the imputation can still be put back on the thing. You can say, I realize the selflessness of myself, or I realize the selflessness of the rock, but you put the self back on it to talk about it. So the imputational character is there, available for making conventional designations, but you'll never find what is taught. You'll never find the self in the thing. Yes? Could you sneak outside and see if you can see what kind of animal that is? Yes?

[56:36]

When you're living on the road, did you say? Living on the road. Your actions tend to be based on Yeah, often. Not all of them, but... Yeah, like trying to build a better road, thinking that that will take away the hunger. Yes. into that awareness that other people are supporting you or other, you know, life is supporting you.

[57:39]

I'm trying to understand do you just trust that skillful action will arise? In other words, you know, a lot of fearlessness it seems to me is I don't know if I would say trust... I don't know if I would go so far as trust that right action will arise. I would more say that I'm telling you that it will, if you do the meditation properly, it will. But don't trust that it will. Just look and see if it does. You're Yeah, so again, part of the meditation is to hear the teaching that you are being supported, that your moment-by-moment existence is not due to your own creating yourself, but due to many conditions. You don't have to worry about creating yourself.

[58:42]

Your history will recreate you. Your human body and mind will recreate you. All beings will support you to be recreated. That's part of the meditation. Another part of the meditation is also to apply that to everything else. The road, which is usually considered to be rather solid, you'll start to see the road's kind of impermanent and changeable. So on one side you feel more comfortable to open to changeability. You feel more secure about how unstable things are because it makes more and more sense to you that your safety does not depend on you being permanent because you're not. It's not by you being permanent and keeping yourself going that you're safety. to start opening to see that other things are impermanent.

[59:43]

It won't be so dangerous. So both in terms of your own security and the opportunity to start seeing reality, you start to open up to impermanence and you start to see the river. Did you see what it was? It's inside the building, trapped. It's underneath the building, you know. So, as you open to this interdependence of things, for example, to your own possessions or things you're taking care of, as you open to that, the way you feel is less concerned with gain and loss. The way you feel is less concerned with fame and profit. You start to feel more open to the to the realm of inner peace. In that state of openness, in that state of awareness, the kinds of things you want to do are virtuous.

[60:49]

And unskillful actions you just don't want to do anymore. Like you don't want to like steal when you're not so much into game. And also you don't want to attack or take revenge on people if they take things from you, because you're not so much afraid of loss. Because you actually see that gain is kind of like ephemeral, short-lived, unsatisfying. And you see that loss also is just natural. So because of that, the kinds of feelings that you have are ones that support virtuous action. So you don't exactly have to think, oh, I should do virtue. It's just that when you meet at a moment, the kinds of things you want to do go with your new heart, your new mind. And they are that you want to be kind and not selfish.

[61:52]

And you want to, like, relate to the interdependence that's dawning on you. rather than celebrate your independence and your own acquisitions and your own protection. So from that state of mind, virtue naturally arises, and the wrong action just drops away. But you can also just check occasionally and see if you think you're in that state. Do you notice virtue coming? I myself, when I watch people who are meditating in that way and are seeing things that way, they're naturally more virtuous. And when they don't see things that way, when they see themselves as independent, permanent, they're frightened, and they want to get more power to kind of reinforce this false sense of themselves. And they don't care much about other people because they're independent of them. They think.

[62:56]

And actually they're afraid of them again, use their power, their self-power to get people to be, you know, more on their side and against anybody that's against them and neutralize all. This is the, you know, this is what it can get to be like. But even if it's not like a terrible situation like that, even if it's relatively mild, when you don't have a lot of enemies and you're not really afraid of people, even in those situations up in the road, you still feel hungry. So either you're tormented or you're hungry or both. But when you start opening up to impermanence, you're not so afraid anymore. You're facing the thing that most people are afraid of, impermanence. And by facing it and opening to it, you're also opening to something very wonderful. So as you open to impermanence, and as you open to fragility, and as you acknowledge your vulnerability,

[64:00]

to change and to all beings, as you open to that. And if you open also to your anxiety about those things, anxiety about impermanence, as you open to all those difficult things that are initially difficult, you also open to beauty and interdependence and mutual assistance. And in that realm then the virtue starts flowing. just natural without you thinking of doing virtue. But you just kind of want to. You don't think, I want to do virtue. You just think, I would like to do it this way. And the way you'd like to do it sometimes is I would like to do it in a way that you would like. So you start asking people what they would like you to do rather than you deciding what's going to be helpful. And you don't necessarily think, I want to do something helpful. You might think that. something helpful, but I don't know what's helpful.

[65:02]

What would you think would be helpful? How could I be helpful to you? Is there anything you'd like me to do? And then they tell you and you say, well, what does that mean? You know, what do you, I think it means this. Is that what you mean? And you say, no, that's not what I mean. And I say, oh, what, you know, determine myself what is good. I want to do what's good, but I don't know what it is. And that seems to go with doing good. Rather than, I do want to, I know what is, I want to do good, I want to know what it is, and I don't have to talk to you about it. Just be quiet about what you think is good. I'm going to decide, I want to do good, and this is what's good, and you just shut up. Please. I'm polite. Please. Does that make some sense?

[66:03]

Yes and yes. Ladies first. To stay with the metaphor of the ringer and vow, to know that the vow is impromptu is easy. We see that every day. She said, to know that the road is impermanent is easy. We see that every day. But I want to point out to you that the road doesn't appear nearly as impermanent as the river. The road is impermanent, but not nearly as impermanent as things actually are. Things are actually much more impermanent than the road looks. The road looks much more solid than things actually are. So the river is like tremendously impermanent. It's changing completely every second, every millisecond. I just want to say, the road is impermanent, it's true, and we see that, but it's a very gross impermanence compared to the subtle impermanence of the river.

[67:10]

It's the subtle impermanence that we yearn for. That's the real juicy impermanence. That's the one that's going... pulsing, breathing, alive impermanence that we come from. And then we have the superficial impermanence, which is like scratched cars and cracked pavement. That stuff's much slower and much less alive. However, we like it. So I kind of disagree. The impermanence of the road is not the real impermanence. You meditate on the road, and as you meditate on the road, the cracks in the road you see through to the real impermanence, which is much more intense and alive. You don't have to worry about whether you swim or not. No, you don't have to worry. But you don't, I mean, you stop worrying about that when you realize beyond an intellectual level that what's sitting here, this solid thing, this solid seeming thing, a codependently arisen collection of things, when you realize that at a level beyond an intellectual understanding, at that point you stop worrying about being able to swim.

[68:38]

Right? That's why it's good to actually go swimming in actual water. That's why it's good to dance with actual people. To test, you know, the teachings of dependent core rising. That's why it's actually good to come to a retreat and sit together to test to see if you're afraid of the person sitting next to you. Afraid of their pain. Well, seems like things have quieted down here. Oh no, Andrew. to this state where you can see colorizing and stuff like that.

[69:52]

I guess the reason I don't want to pay taxes or want to do schoolwork is because I'm clinging to time and money. I don't see that. I'll just do it. I have to, but it's not natural. I have a snake. That would make it. government or the authorities or obligations you have to other people. How do you feel about that when you see the impermanence of it? I wouldn't say you take care of it. And he's wondering how that works. So, if you realize that you're, that you're, you know, you're, what do you call it, your scholastic standing is an impermanent phenomena, a changeable situation, you know, something that you're not going to be able to make permanent and solid, you know, you've got your scholastic standing and we want to make it permanent and solid except maybe that

[71:09]

it can change, but it has to change in a positive direction, right? So if I have this kind of status, I'm going to keep it like this. That's our usual approach. And that approach undermines our virtuous response to our scholastic life. Exactly. And we might lie to get the A. We might steal to get the A. Like, I think it's in California that in some prep school or something, some kids were like cheating on these aptitude tests and actually making threats to the principal, you know, death threats to the principal if they, you know, don't. It's like, yeah. Like this standing, you know, this is like a real permanent thing. And if you could get a certain scholastic standing, then you would be happy. and safe in this world of change.

[72:11]

Okay? And if you think that about scholastic standing, then you will do wrong things. You will do evil things. But if you see that scholastic standing is impermanent and unreliable, okay, well then you might say, you might say, well then why would I even care? And the answer might be, yeah, why would you care? And you might say, I don't know. Well, actually, I like to study. I think science is interesting. I'm not doing that to get a good grade and then be safe in the world. I'm doing it because I actually would like to do this science experiment this way. And this is a beautiful way to do it. And I'm doing it for the practice of science rather than to get something for myself. I'm not doing it to be famous at the school. I'm doing it because I like to actually do this well. And the more that you're into like the impermanence of the science experiment and the changeability of it, which it is, you know, these things can fall apart and all.

[73:19]

The more you're into it, the more you see the beauty of doing it just for itself. And the less you're concerned about gain and profit and fame. And so your behavior becomes more and more virtuous. And when it comes time to do anything like that, and including if you're doing something you don't like like Meditate on paying taxes. Enter into this meditation on the process of paying taxes. And as you start to realize the impermanence of the whole, of your money situation, of the government, of the way the government uses it, all this stuff, as you meditate on this, you start to become disenchanted about the whole process and you start to be appropriately involved, you're not excessively anti-government, you're not excessively pro-government, you're not excessively anti-Republican, pro-Democrat, you start to balance because everything starts to actually be an equal opportunity for seeing reality.

[74:30]

And when you tune into that dimension, you start responding skillfully to the dilemmas of life, like the dilemmas of paying taxes. Use the tax money for things that you think are harmful. So you may see that. It looks like they're taking this money and they're using it inappropriately. I think they should be using it in a different way. And you have that view. And I might agree with your view. But even though I agree with your view, I'm saying that if you and I hold to our shared views and shared values, if we hold to them as being substantial, we will be unskillful in implementing our values. Our activity will backfire on us and everyone. It'll be a problem for everyone if we become self-righteous about our values. So when we're not self-righteous, when we're not self-righteous, comes forth.

[75:41]

And different people have different values, but two people who have different values, if they both, and this person might have values which mean that they think this other person's values are harmful potentially, This person might have exactly the same view, that this is helpful and that's harmful. If these two people will do this meditation, they both will do something skillful within their view system. Both of their view systems are not really what's happening. None of their views actually reach what's actually the way things are happening. And that's, you know, like... That means what you think is helpful, what you envision as helpful, does not actually reach helpfulness. Helpfulness is empty. Your idea of helpfulness is. So if you're a liberal and you think this way is what's helpful,

[76:52]

your ideas of what's helpful do not reach the actual process of helpfulness. And if you other people, conservatives, and you think what they're doing is not helpful, your idea of them does not reach them. And their idea does not reach it either. And you may say, well, but if I With my ideas and they don't do it with theirs, then how am I going to relate to them? Because they're still thinking that their ideas do reach reality and I'm starting to think my ideas don't reach reality. So how am I going to compete with them? They're going to be able to be self-righteous and I'm not even going to be able to do anything about it because I won't be able to be self-righteous about their self-righteousness. So that's a kind of scary thing for people.

[77:56]

So then to say, forget that, I'm just going to hold on to my view and fight them. But somebody's got to, like, start waking up. You know? Maybe it's better to switch over to the other side and wake up on that side. You know? Take the other side's views and then let go of those. You know? of whatever and then like be really into that and then start letting go of that belief as actually reaching reality. And then among those people you'll be one of them and then they can join you in that letting go. And that way you can undermine the opposition. It's really undermining not the views of the opposition, but the harmfulness of the opposition holding to their views. If they don't hold to their views, you can dance with them. The person you're dancing with has a different view from you, particularly in the tango, you know.

[78:57]

The two parties have different stuff, they have different views, they have different jobs. And if either one of them is holding to their position, the dance is not facilitated. It's not that this side's right and that side's wrong. Could that be the case, that it's not that the Republicans are wrong and the Democrats are right? Democrats are wrong and the Republicans, could it be that way? No, of course it's not. One side's wrong and the other side's right, right? But, you know, neither side is really right. It's just that people have a role to play, and the role you have to play is who you are. And if you think things are important, and you have certain values, and you think that certain things are harmful, that's who you are made to be, and you should honor that. But not honor it by, like, thinking that it's reality. Honor it by saying, okay, this is my road. Like a dependent core rising, and it's impermanent, and it's not worthy of confidence, but I love it.

[80:07]

So this child or this person I am, they're not stable, they're not reality, they're just impermanent, fleeting appearances. But you can love them and take care of them, and you can take care of them better if you don't confuse them with reality. And reality that these appearances are based on is ungraspable. And when you start to open to that, great resources come to you to be devoted and loving to superficial appearances. But the way you're devoted to superficial appearances is not to try to make them permanent, but to try to love them while they're changing. And sometimes they change in the form of getting bigger and stronger, like children grow up and get to be big and strong. That's sometimes the way they change and you love them through that.

[81:10]

Sometimes they start to shrink and shrivel and twist and turn and degenerate and rot. And you love them through that. So your loving is enhanced for all things. for academic study, for paying taxes, for participation in the government, for relating to every person you meet, for relating to your own. You should become more and more skillful by doing this meditation. Pardon? You don't have to draw, you don't have to transcend what? working with it, you just do it in a more mindful, peaceful way. You don't, like, stick out of the worldliness of the world, right?

[82:12]

Well, the worldliness of the world is, hmm? Like, the worldliness of the world is making it into a solid thing. The world is not actually worldly. The world is very dynamic and beautiful, actually. The world is incredibly, wonderfully beautiful. That's the way it actually is. But we project onto it false appearance so that we can grasp it and manipulate it and talk about it. If you say you don't skip out on the world, if you mean you don't skip out on the false appearances, I would say, yes, that's right, you don't skip out on that. Remember that what appears to be solid is not. So you look at people, and you look at governments, and you look at buildings, and you look at streets, and you look at cars, and they look solid. You admit that.

[83:13]

And then you hear a teaching which says these things are actually dependent core risings. And the basis of this solid appearance is something which is very dynamic. And as you meditate with that, then you relate. The appearance is actually right there with the dynamic interdependence, right? So the appearance of the world is right there with the world. The false appearance is based on the actual dependently co-arising world. So when you relate to false appearances and you know they're false, you're still relating to the world, but you're not being fooled. You're not agreeing with the falseness. But if you're still agreeing with it, then you confess that you're still agreeing with it. And you keep listening to the teaching until you start to loosen your beliefs in the reality of this false appearance of permanence and independence. So you keep taking care of the world.

[84:17]

All these people you know, you keep keep loving them even though you're seeing them in a false way. So you don't skip over any opportunity. Every moment of your life is an opportunity to do this practice. You don't skip over anything. You don't skip over anything. Okay? Do not skip over anything. You don't skip over any person or anything that you experience. Each thing deserves I shouldn't say deserves, I should say each thing is an opportunity for the practice of the Buddha way, with no exceptions. Okay? Yes. [...] Right. Well, I don't know, there's various ways to work with it. One way to work with it would be to move to Antarctica. Or actually not even move to Antarctica, just just go swimming in the San Francisco Bay.

[85:33]

But anyway, when you come out of the bay, people are talking about George Bush, you know. So there you are, you're living in a world where people say, George Bush did this, you know. And you turn on the TV and there's George Bush. And you turn on the radio and George Bush. So in fact, it's kind of hard to avoid George Bush. It doesn't mean you have to like sit, it doesn't mean that you have to sit there and look at the TV. for a second there, you did notice he was on there before you turned it off. And when you turn the radio on, turn it off. It's okay to turn it off. You don't have to spend your whole life listening to people you don't like. Okay? It's not necessary to like always listen, 24 hours a day, listen to George Bush and watch George Bush videos and have George Bush dolls on your dashboard. You don't have to do that. But in fact, We do run into pictures of George Bush off and on in America today, unless you, like, during this retreat, except for me bringing it up, you've got to bring George Bush.

[86:41]

So going to retreats helps. Because most retreats, people do not bring pictures of George Bush. Except maybe, I don't know, young conservative camps or something. They have retreats where they go and they worship George Bush. I don't know. you know, in military, industrial training areas. But anyway, when you run into things that you don't like, okay, you don't go looking for things you don't like, but they appear to you. Things that are difficult for you, people that seem to be doing things that you think are harmful, they appear in the world. That's the way it looks to you. To the best of your knowledge, this looks like a harmful enterprise. We see harmful things happening. Right? We don't like this. When we see things that we think are harmful, we feel uncomfortable. And we don't like that. And nobody likes to see towards something that they care about.

[87:43]

And if you care about all beings, you don't like to see harm, period. But you do see these things. So what do you do when you see that? Then you practice meditating on dependent co-arising. You remember that this thing you're looking at just like looking at someone who's being kind, is a dependent core arising. This thing, this harmful situation that's appearing is not creating itself. When you realize that this harmful situation or harmful person, this image of this harmful person is not creating itself, you feel differently about it. You do. Then you start to see it's impermanent. You start to see it's not worthy of confidence. And also, not worthy of confidence means your impression of it is not worthy of confidence. The way you see it is not worthy of confidence. You still see it that way. But it's just an opportunity now for you to listen to the teaching and see it more deeply, open up to a deeper version of it.

[88:48]

And when you see that whatever there is in front of you, you remember, great. great, whatever it is, you remember great, great. Then you can go up to this person who looks like they're being harmful and you can say, excuse me, could I talk to you for a second? rather than, you sleazy, worthless, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know. And then they say, oh, crazy woman, crazy woman. But you approach them with respect, actually. Respect means you saw them as harmful. It means you looked again. First you saw them as harmful, and then you looked again and you saw... Or you remember to say to yourself, great, this person looks harmful, but actually this person is great.

[89:52]

This person looks bad, but they're actually great. This person looks good, but they're actually great. So I think, oh, good. And she likes that, right? But actually she also feels a little bit put down that I put her in the good package. She kind of says, well, I'm not just good. I'm also kind of like some other things too. I'm also cute and witty. But when I look at her and think, great, she really likes that. When she feels I'm looking and seeing, when she sees the look in my eye that I'm looking at her and I'm saying, oh, great, she really feels respect. Like, oh, good little girl, you know, cute little girl, nice little girl. But when I look at you and you see that these eyes are seeing great, then you think, oh, sane person. This person understands something. They see my greatness, not just my cuteness, not just my sweetness, which I am cute and sweet, but that's not important.

[90:59]

Greatness. They see my greatness. And a person who sees your greatness, and that you see sees your greatness, you listen to that person. When that person comes up to you and says, can I talk to you for a second? You feel that and you say, yeah, what do you want to say? You say, well, I have some problems. Could I talk to you about them concerning your behavior? You know? I thought you were being cruel a while ago. They say, oh yeah? But you say it with respect. you don't talk down to them, and they feel your love and respect, and they listen to you. Now, they don't always listen to you, but if you keep doing it, their love and respect will overwhelm their resistance to listening to you and realizing that you are connected to them, and your view of them is something they want to listen to, and they start changing in response to you. I often think of this example of, I saw this movie once starring Woody Allen, and he was in prison, and this guard was indoctrinating the prisoners.

[92:12]

Woody Allen in this movie was a very inept bank robber. You can imagine, right? So he got caught very quickly. in his bank robbing career and was sent to prison. So then this guard was like, you know, haranguing and, you know, very harshly and very cruelly indoctrinating these new prisoners. You know, if you do this and you do that, you're going to... You know, that kind of indoctrination. Any questions? And Woody Allen says... And he said, what? He says, do you think it's okay to pet on a first date? But if you look at this, this guard is this big, horrible, cruel thing, you know, then either you fight back or you shrink away. But when you say, oh, great, then you can say, you can say lots of things are possible then.

[93:14]

And, of course, the guard doesn't, you know, they're taken aback. They're disarmed because you're relating not to their harsh thing that, you know. So I think that when these difficult images appear in our life, they're from our own mind that we put on what's happening. We need to remember that the way we're seeing these people is not real. However, there's some connection in the sense that the way they are is the basis for our image of them. There's a connection there. But our version of them doesn't reach them. They're much greater than that. And there's a potential there for Buddha to help these people. And you can help Buddha by not being fooled by the appearance and opening to that there's more going on here, that there's something great going on here. Because they're not out there separate from you. They're included in your greatness too. Your greatness and their greatness are one greatness.

[94:17]

So that's not easy. It's very easy just to go, oh, yuck, yuck, yuck. It's very easy to do that. Okay, so you got that over with. Now, take another look here. Oh yeah, okay, I'm going to meditate now. So then you could even talk to somebody who liked George Bush, you know, without, somebody's, you know, first you go, and this person next to you is kind of looking at the TV and you say, hi, how are you? And they say, are you, do you think the president's doing a good job? And you say, he's doing a good job. I like what he's doing in Iraq. I think it's really good. And you say, how so? So you can respect that person who thinks he's doing well. rather than yuck on them, too. But certainly some people who think that what he's doing is good, that they think he's good, some of those people, maybe you can see that their surface to you is quite nice.

[95:28]

But even their surface is not what they are. So even if their surface isn't nice because they like what he's doing, That might be like saying, well, maybe this person is somebody I can be friends with. Maybe I can be friends with this person who likes this person who I can't quite imagine being friends with. But if you can be friends with all George Bush's friends, then maybe you can help George Bush. But do you want to? And the answer is, well, I really don't want to help him. I really don't want... And I don't think Buddha would want to help George Bush either. I mean, Buddha has limits. And George Bush is it. But no, we know that... I bet if the Dalai Lama had an opportunity to meet George Bush, he would go meet George Bush and would be very respectful. Whether George Bush would notice that he was being respectful or not, I do not know.

[96:33]

He might not even notice that this... Guy was like being respectful. He might think, who's that that wasn't here? Was there a bald guy here? Yeah, there was a bald guy here. I didn't notice him. Sir, he was very respectful of you. Oh, he was? That's good. That may be all there would be to it. But it's possible sometimes that the Buddhist practitioner can meet the warlord and look in the warlord's eyes with such love, the warlord starts to change. It's possible. The Buddha couldn't enlighten all the warlords, but the Buddha enlightened some warlords, and he invited very cruel people. But he couldn't enlighten all the cruel people, but he enlightened some of the cruel people. He went and he snapped them out of it. But that's because he loved them. And he loved them because he realized that their superficial appearance as a crazy person or a murderer was not... So that's how he could love all beings.

[97:43]

He could love the ones who look nice and the ones who look cruel. He could love the ones who look kind and the ones who look confused. Because he could see more deeply than the way our mind projects false opinions. So we have that potential to see more deeply, to not believe what our mind projects on the world, but also not deny it, that it's doing that, but just not believe it. Don't deny it, but don't believe it. But we need to train to neither deny how things appear, nor to believe them. And The proposal is, if we can do that, we will open to a realm of great joy and freedom and fearlessness and beneficence. It's already there. All we've got to do is dive in and partake of the process and then we can share it with people who have not yet dived in and encourage them to also join the realm of beneficence and the realm of mutual assistance of the Buddha.

[98:59]

But it's not that easy. It's easy just to go, yuck, to some people, and to other people go, mmm, yum, yum. It's easy. But for the yum, yum, look again. Look again. This person's not just yum, yum. They're also great. So rather than sink your teeth and fingers into them, join your palms and bow to them. You're luscious looking, but I'm going to start by expressing my respect to you. And you're obnoxious looking, but I'm going to start by expressing my respect to you. And again, and again, and again. So you don't slip into what you do when you feel yuck or what you do when you feel luscious and believe it. So then we start being kind and respectful to people who are very attractive.

[100:10]

It isn't like you kind of trash people who are attractive and run away from them. You meet them and you care for them too, but in a respectful way, not in an average. in a greedy way. And with people who are obnoxious, who appear to be obnoxious, you relate to them in a respectful, devoted way, not in a repulsive, excluding way. There's a story. This is just a story, and I don't know if it's true, but it's a story that Buddhists sometimes tell. It's about this guy who wanted to be a bodhisattva. He wanted to become a Buddha. And he heard that there was a teacher in India. And so he went to see this teacher, and this teacher was a great Buddhist teacher. So he studied with this teacher, and at some point this teacher was...

[101:11]

he and his students, and he also had great students, were going to do a ceremony on the other side of the Ganges River. So they packed up a lot of their ceremonial equipment and started carting them across from one bank of the Ganges to the other. And this guy, because he was a beginner, had a particularly large, he had to carry a lot of stuff. At the edge of the river there was this woman sitting by the river, and she was kind of an elderly woman. But not only that, but she was quite sick, and she had lots of sores, and there was lots of maggots crawling in her sores. She was kind of not a real attractive person. And so she said to the teacher, when the teacher got to the river where she was, she said, could you carry me across the river so I can go to your ceremony?

[102:18]

And the teacher said, you know, I'm too busy, I have to go to the ceremony, but maybe one of my disciples can carry you. And then all the other disciples we're kind of too busy too, but when we got to the end of the row, this guy, this newcomer, said, oh, okay. So in addition to his packs, he also picked her up and put her on his back too. Because, you know, he wanted to be a bodhisattva, right? So even though she's not very repulsive, he took care of her. I mean, even though she appeared to be repulsive, even though she wasn't really repulsive, he still took care of her. She was repulsive enough. Now if she was really beautiful, he shouldn't have picked her up and had somebody else pick her up. But anyway, she was really, appeared to be very repulsive. So he thought, okay, I'll help her across the river. So he picked her up and he started walking towards the river, but then he noticed his feet weren't touching the ground anymore. And he noticed that he was moving up into the sky, high above.

[103:20]

And then he noticed that this old lady that he was holding was actually a divine being, a divine bodhisattva. So when we start taking care of people beyond their appearance, we get cozy with the great enlightened beings. So, fortunately, unfortunately, we don't have a chance to carry George Bush across the river. But if we did, probably that would be a good thing to do. Sitting by the river and saying, would you carry me across the river? Sure, George. Here, just let me get, oh, there we go, oh. But anyway, easy to say, so I said it.

[104:22]

Easy to say, so I said it. And I'll keep saying it because it's so easy to say. But of course, what I hope is that you and me practice this way, that we actually spend our life energy caring for every single person we meet, them or not. That we remember that their attractive appearance or not attractive appearance is just an appearance. It's not really the way they are. It's just a false appearance. The way they really are is great. is a great river. And if we don't get stuck on the appearance, we have a chance to enter the river with them and all the Buddhas.

[105:09]

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