Earlier this week, I talked about how to join some simple practice with the performance of the Buddha way. How to make a simple practice part of the performance of the Buddha way. An example I used was For example, some people in Zen centers around the country, when they come to the Zen center, they sit upright and they work on their posture, or they don't, and they follow their breathing, or they follow their breathing and count their breathing. That's a practice that quite a few people practice in Zen centers. And if you're If you're following your breathing and in the process of following your breathing, if you give up discursive thought, wandering thoughts, and just sort of become intimate with your breath, that often will come to fruit as tranquility, as a relaxed, alert state of concentration.

[01:20]

However, practicing like that, in some sense, is not performing the Buddha way. If you think that you're sitting there practicing concentration, basically sitting or standing, thinking that you're doing something by yourself, is not performing the Buddha way, it's performing, you know, your own way. In this case, a rather wholesome way. But if you combine, for example, that activity of concentrating on your breathing and posture, concentrating on your posture and breathing. If you combine it with the vow to practice together with all the Buddhas and to practice together with all beings, and you give your concentration practice as a gift to the great way of all beings, if you make your concentration practice, for example,

[02:27]

a gift to the buddhas which they would appreciate an offering to the buddhas then the then the practice of then the way you're thinking about your practice is you don't anymore think you're doing it by yourself you're actually thinking that you're doing this practice and you're thinking that you're doing it for the buddhas with the buddhas by the Buddhas. And you also feel like you're doing it, perhaps, for all living beings, with support of all living beings. And you maybe even also have a vow to make all your actions of body, speech, and mind offerings to the Buddhas, worship of the Buddhas, and so on. Then that practice of concentration is a practice which is celebrating and performing the Buddha way.

[03:30]

So that's the example we used earlier in the retreat. Another example I give today is a story I've heard and I've read. It's a story about a monk and his name was Bahiya. And Bahiya is one of these people who lived in India at the same time as Buddha, who was also kind of a gifted spiritual teacher. Yeah, he was a gifted spiritual adept. And being actually quite adept, he was somewhat aware that he had more to learn. Some spiritual adepts say, as you may have heard about, don't think they have any more to learn. This is very sad.

[04:33]

It's called arrogance, striking at the heart of a spiritual adept. But this man was quite developed, and even developed enough to realize he could learn more. And so he heard about the Buddha. So he thought, well, maybe it would be good for me to go meet him and learn his teaching. So he traveled some distance to meet Shakyamuni Buddha. And he went to the area where he heard the Buddha was and got instructions to where the Buddha was. He went out to the Buddha's campsite and said, well, where is Gautama the Buddha? And they said, well, he went begging. So then he went back to the town and he saw the Buddha begging for lunch with his some of his students and he went up to him and he said Excuse me Your Reverend Venerable Lord Buddha Would you please teach me the Dharma teach me your give me your teaching give me some of your teaching and the Buddha said I

[05:53]

This is not a good time, monk. I'm begging. It's another time. And Bhai said, Excuse me, but I know I'm not supposed to talk about this, but I may die this afternoon. So, you know, I might not be around later for you to give me a teaching, so please give me the teaching now. And the Buddha said, It's not a good time, monk. Later. I'm begging. And he said, excuse me, sir. We don't know what's going to happen. One of us might die this afternoon. Please give me the teaching. And the Buddha said, it's not a good time. So he asked a third time. And the Buddha said, okay. Okay, okay, okay. He didn't say okay, okay. I forgot what he said.

[07:01]

It was in another language. But anyway, in English he said, Bahia, train yourself thus. Here's the simple instruction. In the scene, there will be just the scene. Train yourself thus. In the herd, there will be just the herd. In the touched, there will be just the touched. In the smelled, there will be just the smelled. And in the tasted, there will be just the tasted. And in the mentally cognized, there will just be the mentally cognized. Train yourself like that. And when, through that training, for you, the way it is for you, is that in the theme, there's just the scene. In the herd, there's just the herd.

[08:04]

In the smell, there's just the smell. In the taste, there's just the taste. And in the touch, there's just the touch. And in the mentally cognized, there's just the mentally cognized one. It's like that for you. Then, you will not locate yourself in those things you and I identify with those things and then there will be no here or there or in between and that will mean the end of suffering And Bahiya put the teaching into practice and immediately understood. Immediately for him.

[09:08]

In the scene, it was just a scene. And then there was no here or there or in between. And that was the end of suffering for Bahiya. And I forgot if he said, thank you, the suffering has ended. Our great teacher, thank you. Or if Buddha could just see that he immediately put it into effect and realized the practice. And realized, in a sense, enlightenment. Because he realized there was no here or there in between. In other words, he also realized his intimacy with his teacher. The Buddha. The Buddha wasn't over there. The Buddha wasn't over here. And the Buddha wasn't in between. Realizing... He realizes intimacy with Buddha, but he also realizes intimacy with sounds, smells, tastes, and mental objects.

[10:20]

That they're not here, or they're in between. And his suffering ended. And Buddha called him, I don't know if he didn't at that moment say it, but he later called him the foremost among my students at learning rapidly. I guess, I never heard of a story, any other story where the Buddha said so, you know, just said like one minute of instruction and the student woke up. Usually it took a little longer, sometimes weeks of personal tutorship from the Buddha for somebody to get it. But anyway, with this person, very fast, he was quite an advanced practitioner. So he could really listen and let the teaching in and immediately practice it. So there he was, a newly enlightened person. And then he said...

[11:23]

I want to go for refuge in you. I want to be your disciple. And the Buddha said, do you have the requisites for ordination? Which means, do you have one of these robes? And do you have a bowl, a begging bowl? And he said, no, I don't. He said, go get the requisites. Come back. And I will ordain you. I will welcome you into my heart as my student. And then we can practice together. And Bai said, yes, sir. And he went off to try to get somebody to give him a robe and a bowl. But he didn't have those things. And then that afternoon, he got between a female water buffalo and her calf.

[12:30]

And the water buffalo interacted with him in such a way that he died. And the monks were very upset because they saw this wonderful student come. have this enlightenment with the Buddha, and now he's dead. And the Buddha said, don't worry. And he tells him how nicely things were working out for him after his death. In other words, that he would be able to continue to practice with the Buddha very nicely. Don't worry about it. And the monks trusted the Buddha, so they felt good that this person had become enlightened and now would continue his practice with the Buddha in some other way. Buddha had some students, really good students like this, who died during his lifetime and continued to study with him after their death. They came back and studied with him at night time when the other monks were sleeping.

[13:37]

And some of those former students who were coming to study with Buddha also were going around India telling other people who were practicing that they probably should go study with Buddha. They were giving referrals to adepts who were meditating and wondering, you know, how am I doing? And then they would come and visit and say, you're fine, but you should go see Buddha. So this is a story about Bahiya. And I would like to point out that in some ways he wasn't really, you know, strictly speaking, he wasn't really practicing the Buddha way before he met the Buddha. He was a very developed person, far more developed than me, probably. But he hadn't even heard of the Buddha. And then he heard of the Buddha. But when he heard of the Buddha, he didn't realize that he was intimate with Buddha. But he wanted to be intimate with Buddha.

[14:39]

He wanted to be intimate with Buddha, but he felt not intimate with Buddha. He felt estranged from Buddha, some distance. he felt the Buddha was strange. But he wanted to meet the Buddha and receive the Buddha's teaching. And then, if it all worked out, which it did, then he wanted to work with the Buddha from then on. He wanted to practice with the Buddha. He wanted to be on the Buddha's team. He wanted to give his life to practice with the Buddha. After his enlightenment, He wanted to practice with the Buddha. Not practice with the Buddha, get enlightened, and thanks, see you later. No. It's practice with the Buddha with some sense of separation for a while. Realize that he wasn't separate, that Buddha's not here or there. Buddha's not the same as me. Buddha's not between me and someplace else, and Buddha's not over there. I'm intimate with Buddha.

[15:42]

We're intimate with Buddha. He realized that, which is great. And then he wanted to practice. Then he could practice the Buddha way. Then, after enlightenment, he would continue to worship his teacher. After enlightenment, he would continue to venerate his teacher. He would continue to serve his teacher. He would continue to praise his teacher by practicing with his teacher. That's pretty high praise is to practice with somebody. I want to practice... I want to practice what you practice. I love you. I want to do what you do. One of our old-time members of Zen Center just died, actually, while I've been here, right? Didn't I get word here? Yeah. On Tuesday, I got word that one of the people that I practiced with for a long time and who became a successor to me, who's much older than me, he's 80,

[16:46]

And he went to Zen Center before me, close friend of Suzuki Roshi. He died. And why did I bring him up? Oh, he said, he said, yeah, he said, well, we went to Zen Center to study with the Zen, you know, this... Ananda Dahlenberg is his name and he used to study in Chicago with Alan Watts when Alan Watts was teaching in Chicago he was studying with him there and then Alan Watts moved to California so he moved to California too and he was one of the he's one of the people in Jack Kerouac's book The Dharma Bonds you ever read The Dharma Bonds? he's Bud Biefendorf in The Dharma Bonds and you know Gary Schneider's Jaffe what's Jaffe's name? huh? No, Kerouac wrote it, but Gary Snyder's in there.

[17:52]

His name's Jaffe, something Jaffe. Anyway, Alan Watts is in there. Alan Ginsberg's in there. Peter Corso's in there. Philip Leland's in there. All those guys are in there under pseudonyms. So he's one of these dhamma monks. And then after being a dhamma bum, a beatnik, he went to Zen Center and met Suzuki Roshi. And he said, if Suzuki Roshi's practice was standing on his head, we would have been practicing standing on our head. Whatever he would do, we would want to do what he did. Well, it turns out he practiced sitting, so he practiced sitting, which was unfortunate for some people. They would have preferred if he practiced golf or what do you call it, the elliptical thing. But anyway, it was sitting, so we loved him, so we did sitting. Bahiya loved the Buddha and realized intimacy with the Buddha, so he wanted to do the Buddha's practice. That's called veneration of your teachers, to do your teacher's practice.

[18:55]

He wanted to serve the Buddha, but he didn't get a chance in that life. He died. I want to point out here that if you have an enlightenment experience like this, we call it an enlightenment experience, or an awakening experience, where you wake up from your dream, you wake up and realize your intimacy with beings, then the practice starts for you to perform the intimacy which you understand. Because it's a nice thing when you wake up to your relationship with people. It's a nice thing when you wake up, oh, everybody's Michael Phil's friend. That's great. And that changes the world a little bit. you're actually in a different world. However, unless you put your action, unless you put that into action, I won't say unless you put it, let's say, when you do put it into action, then you don't just have an awakening, you start changing the world.

[19:58]

Because action makes the world. So after having this awakening, he wanted to join the Buddha in transforming the world by making his action based on the intimacy. So to perform the Buddha way is not just that you're enlightened, but even if you're not enlightened or awakened, it's still when you perform it, you're creating a new world. And if you don't perform it, you're creating pretty much an old world. If we don't perform the Buddha way, we're reinforcing the world of getting stuff. If you do devote your action to the Buddha way, you're transforming the world into a place where people are taught and encouraged to give and receive. So I just wanted to say that in this story I see Bahiya, a wonderful person, highly skilled meditator, meeting the great teacher, receiving the teachings, putting them into effect, waking up to the truth of intimacy,

[21:03]

and then wanting now to exercise it with his action. So once again you see the difference between waking up and seeing the truth and then giving your actions to performing that truth. And even if you haven't awakened to give your actions to performing that truth, you still are starting to transform the world even before You're trying to transform the world towards a place of enlightenment even before you awaken fully to the world you're creating. And it's also possible that some people wake up, but then they just enjoy their awakening, but they don't then turn the awakening into action. They know what to do, but they don't somehow have the instruction, well, now practice what you see. turn your action, line your action up with what you see.

[22:08]

And when you see intimacy, the first way you line your action up with intimacy is to practice giving. Giving is the world-transforming enactment of realizing intimacy. And before you realize intimacy, before you understand it, action is the first way to, I mean, giving is the first way to start understanding intimacy. So that's a very simple practice, which is wonderful to practice. And you don't have to wait to perfectly realize that practice before you do that practice not just as a practice, as a wonderful practice, not just... But remember, I'm doing this practice, but I'm putting into practice something the Buddha taught, and I'm putting this... I'm receiving the gift of the Buddha's teaching, and I'm using that gift to put it into practice, and now the gift is my gift.

[23:11]

My practice is a gift. It was given to me by the Buddhas, and now I give it back by practicing it. Then the simple practice is again... performing the Buddha way. And as I said, as soon as you start practicing it, before you realize it as thoroughly as Bahiya did, you're immediately transforming the world into the Buddha land. And then you might get better at this practice and wake up to actually understand you're intimate with everybody, and then you continue the same giving of your practice to the Buddha's as an offering and giving the merit of your practice to living beings as an offering. So the Buddha is to teach and then active people teach to encourage them to join making a new world. So that's one offering I present to you, and I welcome your feedback on that.

[24:42]

And I thought I might give you one more big, fat gift. I know it's a lot to get anything more than what I just gave you, but I'm taking a risk of overdoing it here. Some of you have heard recently the story from the Lotus Sutra. The chapter is called the Chapter of Faith and Understanding of the Lotus Sutra. In the early part of that chapter, Buddha says, for example, imagine that there was a very wealthy, wonderful family. And they have a child, a son or a daughter. And this child one day goes out away from the house, the great, great, great house, and gets lost.

[25:50]

The child, of course, is intimate with her parents. Did you know that children are intimate with their parents? Mothers often know about this. They experience what's called postpartum depression sometimes. In other words, at a certain point, they're part, they're parted from their baby. And before that, they got a taste of enlightenment, of feeling so close to somebody. And then the somebody starts to get pulled And they start to believe a little bit in the separation. But still, they feel pretty intimate. The babies also feel intimate. But they're not very highly developed. They're not very conscious of this. And as you know, they grow up. And after a while, they actually think they're not intimate with their mother. It's ridiculous. But it's part of the human, I would not say tragedy.

[26:58]

I would say human challenge, the challenge of humanity is that we feel separate from people that we're close to. The wonderful thing about human life is that we're not separate from anybody. But we were built to think we are. We're also built to wake up from that delusion. So anyway, this child, in a big time way, starts to feel out of touch with intimacy with his parents. And he really wanders far away and gets in big, big trouble. feeling completely forgetting even about his parents, not even knowing that he has wonderful parents who love him totally. And then he wanders back by chance to his hometown and wanders right by his parents' house and sees his parents and they see him and they're so happy to see him and they send their servants down to bring him into the house. But he's become so out of touch with intimacy with them

[28:02]

that he thinks that these servants are coming to kill him as a kind of obnoxious thing that's appearing in the rich people's lawn. He really doesn't feel that those people are intimate with him, and he doesn't think they care for him at all. He knows they're rich and clean and smell nice, and he's dirty and stinky. so he faints in fear and through a long process of training that they give him the father and mother give him a nice long training course which takes many years but finally they tell him it's like you're our son matter of fact you are our son and he kind of like can believe it that he's intimate with these great beings but all the while He was intimate with them.

[29:04]

He just got out of touch with them. He couldn't not be intimate with them. And they couldn't not be intimate with him. But he lost touch. He wandered away from that truth. That's the truth. They are his parents. But he couldn't stand it for years. He didn't know about it. And then even when he had a chance to return home to his loving parents, he couldn't stand it. He just couldn't believe that he could be with such people intimately. But after long years of training, in the scene, there's just the scene. In the herd, there's just the scene. After long years of doing his job, he felt confidence that he could open to this intimacy. And he did accept very happily that he was home with his parents and that everybody lived happily ever after. to an age of 199. So that's the story of the son that gets lost, the son of noble family who gets lost and falls into big-time destitution.

[30:21]

Big, big, bad poverty. Even though he's a totally rich kid, he's out of touch with it. So you might want to read that story. It's one of the nicest stories in the world. So then one day, years and years and years after the Lotus Sutra was written, we're in China now. And the great ancestor of our lineage named Dongshan is walking around with what we call his spiritual uncle, which means his elder Dharma brother. And because his elder diamond brother's name is Sung Mi, but because he's elder, he calls him Uncle Mi. So Deng Shan's walking along the road with Uncle Mi, and a white rabbit runs across the road. And Uncle Mi says, Swift!

[31:28]

And Deng Shan says, How so? And Uncle Mi says, It's like a commoner being made into a high minister. So if you know about the Chinese aristocracy, it is possible for a commoner, if she or he is very, very diligent and studies really, really hard, they can take a test. If they pass the test, they can study some more and take another test. And by going through a series of tests, if they score high enough, they can become a minister, an official in the government. It's called promotion by merit. And then if you keep studying and keep learning, you can go in the ranks up to being a high minister.

[32:34]

that he's talking about, just go right from a commoner to a high minister. Very fast. That possibility. Now, these two guys are walking along the road, but what are they doing when they're walking along the road? What's this road that they're walking on? It's the Buddha way. So what are they doing when they're walking on the road? What are they doing when they're walking on the road? The Buddha way? What are they doing? Huh? They're practicing. What are they practicing? Yeah, how are they doing? Huh? Huh? Yeah, they're practicing intimacy. They're thinking about the Buddha. And their thinking about the Buddha is their veneration of Buddha. They venerate Buddha. How do they venerate Buddha? How do you venerate your children? You think about them all the time. How do you venerate your parents? You think about them. How do you venerate your spouse? You think about her. You think about them. And if you think about them happily, it's like, oh, God, I think of my spouse again.

[33:39]

Oh, my spouse. My spouse. Oh, my kids. Oh, the surges of love, right? My friends. My teacher. Oh, I love to think about my teacher. So they're walking along the road thinking about Buddha. They're thinking about the Buddha's teaching. So there are a number of stories of these guys walking around And they're walking around thinking about Buddha. And then whatever they see, it's kind of like, how does this apply? So they're walking along. And a rabbit runs down the street. So they say, swift. In other words, you can swiftly attain a great leap from commoner to great being. That's what Uncle Me said, anyway. You don't have to do a long training course to go from commoner to high official. You can do it like that. That's what Uncle Mi said. And Dongshan said, Oh, elder brother, such a venerable person as you and you still talk like this?

[34:46]

He would often say that to Uncle Mi. There's several stories like this. Oh, such a venerable person and you still say that? So then Uncle Mi says, Well, what about you? And he said, after generations of nobility temporarily fallen into poverty. He's referring to that story from the Lotus Sutra. So he's emphasizing this condition we're in right now you know, you could think, well, if you practice a long time, you might become great, or you might think, maybe there's a way to practice a little while and become great. But he's emphasizing, you're already intimate with Buddha. You don't believe it, so maybe you have to practice a long time, but really, you're already intimate with Buddha.

[35:48]

And so there's a possibility you can just start enjoying that right now. and act like you'd act if you were intimate with somebody. In other words, of course, you'd be very devoted to them and you'd be very generous with them and you'd be very grateful to them. So start right now, if you wish, being very generous and grateful to Buddha right now because you're Buddha's kid. I'm Buddha's kid and it's wonderful to be Buddha's kid and to be able to live in Buddha's house and take care of Buddha's house. What a wonderful job. And then also, even if I didn't think it was a wonderful job, I still might do it because I love my parents so much. But I'll carry on this kind of challenging work. So wasn't that a big, fat gift? Isn't that a great story? Aren't those two great stories? Don't forget where you heard them. So chapter...

[36:54]

in Lotus Sutra and the other story you can find in the Book of Serenity case number 56 so those are the three stories that I give you this afternoon and now if anyone else would like to give some gifts some stories ah yes I set this up for you Jill You're welcome. Reb loaned me, he asked me if I wanted to borrow the Lotus Sutra book to read this parable. And so how could I say no? I enjoyed it very much. But there were several things about that story that I thought that helped me think about my own practice. Great. I wanted to talk about that.

[37:56]

Yeah, let's talk about it. Is it okay with you guys if she kind of like comes up here and talks about her practice? Well, there were several really weird things about that story. I have a suggestion. Please. Why don't you talk about our practice? Oh, okay. Okay. The young man left his parents, and then when he met up with them again, the father recognized him, but he didn't recognize the father. And so I thought that was sort of interesting. Just like we don't know what we're doing. And then he sent the service to get the son, and the son was terrified and ran away, but he said, the father said... Let him go. Let him go free. And then in that story it says that this was something, an experience that the son had never had before.

[38:59]

As if he had seen, he had gotten a taste of freedom, I thought, from what had happened because they let him go. Good point. And then, so then, but Dad didn't want to let him really disappear. He didn't want to lose track of him. So he had some other people who worked for him dress up really raggedly and go find him and give him a job, show him dung, and with some better money than he was making before, I guess. Anyway, but I thought there was a little fun there. She was a little dumb-shoveling. So that was the practice, and they practiced that for a long, long time. 10 or 20 years, I think. And then the father came and visited, I think, disguised, or he was dressed down.

[40:06]

Yeah, dressed way down. Way down. And he didn't stand out. Yeah, that's right. And he scared the guy. Yeah, scared the guy. And he complimented him, and he said he gave him a promotion. And so he asked him to come and take care of all the riches of the household. And after the son had done it for a long time, then he said, you've learned very well how to take care of these treasures. And you're like my son. And then they said, you are my son. You are indeed my son. Because they were getting ready to die. There's really a long time period covered by that story. So anyway, I guess that's mainly what I got out of it. I thought there was a point in either the prose or the poetry version that implied that the son had gained confidence. And that was after 20 years of shoveling dung. And that made me think, oh my, well, But then you get a promotion.

[41:09]

Oh, my, you know, I've got ten more years. But I did think, you know, okay, you practice. And there was never a word about teaching him anything. It was just practice. I thought that was in God. There's really nothing to teach. He's in the family. That's right. He just has to have confidence and open to it. But sometimes you have to teach the people to practice. And then when they learn to practice, they can realize that that's the same as reality. You're shoveling dung in the stables, but actually you're in fact the child, all of the people who hired you. It's very nice to realize that if we just keep shoveling the you-know-what, we will become confident and we'll be able to help other people shovel stuff.

[42:25]

And they and us together will realize that we're actually intimate with, and we're Buddha's offspring. We're the new life of the Buddha-way. Thank you. We may be, what do you call it, rag and funny, don't have a lot of money, but We'll travel along side by side through all kinds of weather, whatever may fall. But the thing is with practicing. You know, one more thing about that story.

[43:25]

It talked about the young man not having, that his ambitions were mean and low. Maybe that simply implied that he just was unaware of... Well, he got to a position where, you know, he was like on the verge of death. Yeah. You know, so he just wanted to get some food and some clothing and some shelter. He had become so destitute, so far away from his normal life, that all he wanted to do was just survive. That was his ambition. That was his ambition. And then as he became more confident, he dared to consider that he could do something, you know, more interesting, more challenging. He could lead people instead of being concerned about his own survival. He could help other people, and so on. He could help many people. Oh, I have to say one more thing.

[44:30]

This is a little story. This guy has, I don't know if he has much to do with that story, but I just thought there's such a lovely phrase I heard. I was in the apartment, washed upstairs, washing some towels in the sink. And Galen came up, and then two men came up carrying a big pot of soup. And Galen said, thank you very much. And one of the men said... Now, this is a French line. I forgot. I thought that was wonderful. Which one of you said that? I didn't know. I thought of mine first. Thank you very much. And I said, Augusta is neo-precious. Isn't that neat? I think it's a wonderful response to an expression of gratitude.

[45:37]

I just want a quick comment about that same story. When I read that story before, it occurred to me that the riches the family have are like, are worth, and that, and maybe this is obvious, but I remember thinking it's because he has no sense of self-worth, and that's why he gets back in touch with us by working, and that's Metaphorically, what the riches of the family have on his actual worth. And that's why... And he has to realize that for himself, right? Working rather than being given it. Just be given it. Nobody else can just give you that. The self-worth comes from self. Now, people can give it to you and people do give it to you. But if you don't give, you miss it. So people do give you your worth. Your worth is not given to yourself. But if you don't give, you'll miss it.

[46:58]

If you don't give to others, if you don't give whatever, if you don't give yourself in whatever condition you are, you'll miss what others are giving you, everything that you are. And because everyone contributes to you, your worth, you're inconveniently worthwhile. But you have to give in order to open up to that. So he did give. Over the years he gave and gave and gave and then he could realize that people were giving to him. And while he was giving, he was starting to realize that people were giving to him. He gave more and he received more and he gave more and he received more and he gave more and he gave more until he realized the fullness of his work. Because he was a gentleman. He learned to be a gentleman. But you need to be around your parents and your teachers in order, otherwise you get out of touch with that and nobody's teaching you that. People don't naturally start practicing giving. That's why somebody needs to teach us to practice giving.

[47:59]

Children are receiving gifts all the time, and children are giving all the time. But they don't know that they're giving. They don't get it. Matter of fact, they think they're not giving. And they even get out of touch with the things that are being given to them. They kind of get it, but they need to be taught to practice giving. And they can be taught to practice giving. So we do teach them to practice giving, and if they learn it, then they start to realize how much, you know, when they grow up, you know, like a lot of people when they grow up and have their own children, they realize how much their parents loved them. Before that, they don't get it. Until they started giving to their baby, they realize, oh my God, my parents did this for me. They were giving to me like I'm giving to this little guy or this little girl.

[49:00]

I wasn't accepting it until now because of what I thought about it. And it was... Can you hear her? It was unexamined thoughts. that stem back from last year when you put the mat out at the retreat. And I thought, oh, I'm not doing that. I can't be told what to do. I'll do my performance from my feet in the back. And so I didn't, you know. Well, so you did do your performance from your feet in the back. Yeah. You did. Yeah. That was your performance. And I guess part of that performance was carrying around what I thought about this scenario. And I looked at it closely, and I saw that, to me, it was a domination setting. It was a scene of domination, where you're up there on this piece of architecture, and I'm down here, and if I bow to you, I'm groveling, and kind of like a predator-prey, nobility, commoner kind of setting, you know?

[50:37]

And in a way, it kind of looked like a trap. But I'm looking at this thinking, You know, I'm being told less of you by my animal nature, anyway, and peeling that off is a situation. Very good. Very good. There is really nothing in it because I don't feel unsafe. I don't feel like I'm unsafe with you or these people or that you're going to dominate me. You haven't humiliated anybody sitting up here. So it's serious. You haven't hurt them. So it's really, you know, I even thought, you know, if he was sitting down here and I was sitting up there, it would make a difference at one point. But I realized it doesn't make a difference. I'd like to underline her comment that that view of what was going on here was kind of the view from our animal nature.

[51:53]

Those animals would see it. And some animals would say, OK, I'll come and be submissive. I'll let you be dominant. So that part of what might be going on here But there's other ways to look at it. And one day someone came up to me in Green Gulch and said, how come you're sitting on the seat? Can't somebody else sit on the seat? And I said, do you want to sit on the seat? And she said yes, and she got up on the seat. And so she took me And she did with it what I do, and it's very funny. And then I kept doing it. And some people got very, very upset and frightened when we did that experiment. So having the old man up in the seat is scary.

[52:56]

And switching it can even be more scary. Anyway, we're talking about get the fear out in the open. Good. Good. This is something that I shared with you during Dokusan, and I think it's probably appropriate to share with the rest of the Sangha, because... If you want to, it's appropriate. I wouldn't share. I don't share what happens in Dokusan with the Sangha. Right. I mean, I sometimes share, but I don't say who it is. But if you want to share what's going on in Dokusan, it's okay. All I can share is my own side. One of the things that has been... giving me difficulty today and last night with the session was the fact that I was grieving the loss of the old Zendo.

[53:59]

And somebody made reference to having another 10 years to shovel, and I say, yippee for that. So thank you all for supporting me in my practice and giving me a large shovel. And may I say, before you go, just refer back to something I said before, and that is, I think it would be good if we didn't lose the old place. I think it would be good if we give it. Give it to some other people, not lose it. Give it to some other people to use in their life. That's the other thing, too. I hope the merit that was accumulated there passes on to the next donors. Me, too. And thank you for your contribution. to the next building, to the next residence, to the next museums of that space. Something you were talking about a little while ago was about you're pausing a person waking up and then that they could not practice and they wouldn't be on the Buddha's land, I guess, if I understood that correctly.

[55:54]

Yeah. And... And it's in the short term. they could not practice in other words they could they could not know what to do with their awakening they could not be instructed that uh the buddha was there and they could they could now study with the buddha from an awakened position that surprised me in this way just in my way of you know unenlightened way of thinking the um awakening to that intimacy would preclude, would be mutually exclusive with abandoning that relationship with everyone else. And so I can't imagine a person waking up and then sort of sitting in their corner for the rest of their life doing nothing. And so I wondered if there were, if you're kind of speaking about that from some examples in history or literature. Yes. Uh-huh. I am. And... Sometimes people wake up to intimacy without a teacher around.

[57:03]

And they don't realize that they need to find a teacher with whom they can put that awakening into action. A teacher who can help them put their action into that awakening. And in particular, I think I see in the generation of, in the western world, in America particularly, in the generation before people started to start studying Buddhism as teachers, I think there were a number of awakening experiences of some merit among those people called the beef. I think a number of those people had a big kind of opening and awakening. But only a couple of them were able to actually go and find a teacher. And the ones who did find a teacher did pretty well. The ones who didn't generally became alcoholics. Because they had this opening and they didn't know what to do.

[58:05]

You wake up the intimacy, but you don't necessarily have instruction about a path and what to do with it. So I think that was part of the strange thing of transmitting Buddhism to the West They came over and started to work on the culture, and some people woke up, but they didn't see a teacher around, so they didn't know what the path was. But some of them, like Darius Snyder and Alan Ginsberg, did go and find teachers, and they managed to not become alcoholics, and actually did. Another thing that happens when people wake up is they sometimes get arrogant. Because they just learned a lot, a big deal. They actually have awakened a pretty lofty thing to attain. And then they don't necessarily think, oh, now I need a teacher. If they've already got a teacher, the teacher says, hello. What do you think you've got? You know what Spookon does anyway? There's a place where it says, suppose one gains pride of understanding and glimpses the wisdom that runs through all things.

[59:20]

That part there. You actually have a glimpse and you see the wisdom running through things that you have a pride of understanding. You said you're loitering around the entrance and you're in the frontiers of the phenomena, but you're still somewhat lacking in the vital way of total emancipation. So it is possible to wake up and have an authentic awakening, and if you have it in a situation where nobody's around, you may become arrogant and think that this is actually the Buddha way. And it is something really important, but it's somewhat deficient. Somewhat is a polite way of talking. Somewhat deficient in the vital way. And there are many examples of people who, even after people started taking teachers, of some students who had teachers and actually had insight and then became arrogant and broke with their teachers.

[60:22]

There are also stories like that. And there are stories of people who have insight and then they think, Oh, this is cool. I can fly. I mean, it's pretty great to glimpse the wisdom that runs in all things, but it can be inflating. So there's quite a few stories of, again, the transmission of the Dharma to the West of people having inflation when they have insight, and the teachers, either they don't have a teacher or the teacher's unable to ground them. In my case, I'm not saying I had exactly enlightenment, But when I went to Donald Transmission afterwards, I did kind of think I could do anything I wanted. Fortunately, my wife didn't think so. And she could see me getting ready to fly off. But she didn't give me coins. But, you know, you can. Even with a small insight, you can kind of think, compared to how stupid I used to be, I'm super smart now.

[61:28]

And you just feel like, wow, this is hot stuff. Me, this is hot stuff. I'm really enlightened. And so, precepts? Forget it. Ethics? Well, that's for other people. I, myself, don't have to worry about this anymore. I am free. This happened to a number of people. It's called inflation. But all of those stories are describing people with a less than robust awakening, maybe. I'm talking about sort of the initial awakening. I'm not talking about the awakening of Buddhahood. The awakening of Buddhahood is like Ibahiyya, after his awakening, was practiced with the Buddha for innumerable lifetimes. Then you have a Buddha. That's complete perfect enlightenment. We're talking about the waking up. When you wake up, it's a big relief. It's a wonderful encouragement. But if you stop there, we have a number of tragedies about that.

[62:32]

Where people did have awakenings, but they didn't keep practicing afterwards. And I myself also, in my story, I think I tell the story in Being Upright. I was abbot of Zen Center. I was down in Tassajara. I think I thought I was king of the universe, sort of. At least, king of Tassajara universe. You know, I was the big cheese down there. And down in the forest there, hunters come through with guns, you know, and they just walk around. You know, I didn't have a gun, but I thought, well, if you've got a gun, you can go hunting. So I went to the city and I got robbed, and I thought, well, I can... He's a gun. It's my city. But then I found out that actually it's not my city. It's the police. It's born to the police. They're the ones that get the heck of guns, not me. In fact, in case of my inflation, I thought, hey.

[63:37]

And people could have even more, in a greater awakening, could even be more inflated. But after awakening, you have to take that awakening and put it together with your action for a long time before you really attain complete, perfect enlightenment. And if there's nobody to tell you where to put it, you can think that maybe they don't have to. But it can happen. It's one of the dangers on the paddle, which again, There's quite a few stories in the then world. There's quite a few stories in the Catholic world, in the Jewish world, and the Catholic, also in the Protestant world. You have all these big chief ministers, right? There's congregations of thousands who think, no, I'd just like to do this or that. And I think Christians can have insights, too.

[64:44]

That's because you're degenerate. So if they awaken and they don't have a teacher, they can get off. Anybody who awakens without saying, okay, now how do I serve my teacher? Hey, I woke up and didn't have a teacher. Get off by myself. There's another variety of people. They're awakening here and there. You say, who's your teacher? I don't have a teacher. I figured this out by myself, so that's another dangerous situation. But still they do actually have some kind of awakening. And that's why they have so many students. And these stories I told about Bahia and so on, these are guys in India who had awakenings, and they had lots of students, but they weren't so inflated that they didn't wonder, hmm, is my understanding correct? And they were visited by guiding forces and said, it's not complete, and you happen to live on a subcontinent where there actually is somebody who can teach you.

[65:53]

And they went. They were not so inflated that they couldn't go to study with a teacher. But they were quite developed people and had lots of students. And a number, also if you look at the early tradition, early writings, a number of people who had lots of students came to see the Buddha with their students. These are big time teachers who weren't terribly arrogant. But some people who are pretty enlightened and have students are quite arrogant because they don't go to a teacher. I think he had a real insight, but he couldn't go to another Zen teacher. So he became an alcoholic. But he was not terribly inflated because a lot of people came from all over the country. They read his books and a lot of people thought that he was a Zen teacher and they came to

[66:55]

to learn Zen from him, but he wouldn't go so far as to stay in a Zen teacher. He didn't go that far. He didn't have that. He wasn't. And he was a wonderful guy, great insight, but couldn't, after his insight, he couldn't go to some Zen teacher and said, please help me integrate my awakening. But I think he did have an awakening. I think that's where his book, Way of Time, came from. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. You look worried. Are you? No. It's my concentration. Your concentration. Yes, please come. Can you tell me your name?

[68:00]

John. John. Well, the stuff that you've spoken of is stuff that's familiar to me from my life. And it's like I'm going, wow, I can't believe I'm here in front of this Zen teacher, master. Because back in the time that you were just talking about, I was a lieutenant in the Air Force and I was very unhappy with it. I was just totally miserable with the responsibility I had. I wasn't doing the killing, but I was supporting the guys that were doing the killing. I started reading about Buddhism. In 1971, I read Alan Watt, and I read the Christmas Humphries book on Zen Buddhism, and it was like I was in danger of consuming myself with my own digestive juices.

[69:13]

And I got these healings with these little nuggets of enlightenment or a little nuggets of understanding from from especially the the christmas hunters book and uh it did save my life and i knew then that uh that that was really this is the stuff right here this is what it's all about and um it's taken till now but 37 years or so without a teacher so last night I was dreaming and I dreamed that well I hadn't been much on gurus and stuff like that during my life I had a dream like that And that I have a guru now. Whatever gurus are.

[70:20]

But I think I have a future now. Some work to follow. I'm going to learn from it. The most important thing is that even if you haven't found your teacher, someone that you feel can be your teacher, that you you want to teach you, that your heart is opening to teach you. Like when I just came from Florida, and towards the end of the retreat, I was crossing my legs. And I was crossing my legs like this. I crossed the first one, and I was crossing the second one. I think I finished crossing the second one. And I thought, oh, I missed making that leg crossing a gift to the Buddha. I forgot that my crossing my leg is an offering to the Buddha.

[71:25]

But then at the end, I remembered that this leg crossing is a veneration of Buddha. And then I thought. of his teacher named Yun Men, Chinese Zen master. And he couldn't cross his legs because one of them got broken. And I couldn't cross my legs for a long time because one of them got broken. But now I can cross them again. And I thought about Yun Men, you know, who couldn't cross his legs. And I just have this strong feeling like, I could go back to China, in the Tang Dynasty, and see a young man teach. I would really like to be there, you know. Even if I couldn't understand the Chinese, I would love to see him teach. And I thought, well, I would really like to go back to India 2,500 years ago. And just be there, you know, and see the Buddha teach, even if I didn't know what he was saying.

[72:28]

Just to see him with his students. I just would really love to do that. And maybe he would speak to me in a way that I would understand. And then I thought, I would really like to go back to Japan in the 13th century and see Delvin teach. I would really like that. And then I thought, I would really like to see my teacher again. So in my heart, I really would like to meet some of his teachers. That's important, that you want to. You want to meet the Buddha with your heart open to him. And then you will find your future if you have that kind of heart. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Well, take care now.

[73:32]

OK. Thank you for all your gifts. Thank you for accepting my gift today.

[73:42]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_78.93