Welcome to the people who have joined us tonight for the remainder of this session. So we have one more full day to practice and then a short morning of practice on Sunday. Oh, and then I guess there's practice after lunch cleaning up the place. I'm aware that we have been having quite a bit of discussion here in the first three days. And it might, maybe almost, unless I start something completely new, it might be helpful and necessary to tell the newcomers a little bit about what we've been talking about.

[01:09]

So the theme, can you hear me, Debra? Okay. the theme for this session was, has been Buddha activity. So that there's a, and Buddha activity is, you know, whatever I say about it doesn't reach it. But still, I could say something, which is Buddha activity is the ongoing process and also the work It's the activity, the work to free all beings so they may live in peace and harmony. That could be described as Buddha activity. expand it a little bit and say Buddha activity is to awaken all beings and thereby liberate them so they may live in peace and harmony.

[02:34]

And during this first three days and tomorrow, you and your friends here will be maintaining that Buddha work. You will be supported by it and supporting it. You will be supported by the Buddha work of awakening all beings and you will be supporting the Buddha work of awakening all beings and liberating all beings. This is what we will be involved in for the rest of the session. Nobody's forcing you to be involved in this Buddha activity, but there's also no way to avoid it. That's really what we're doing, whether we think so or not.

[03:47]

That's what I'm saying. And I also mentioned at the beginning of this retreat that in the, you know, Zen school, or in some Zen temples, we have some in-house terms for Buddha activity. Instead of saying Buddha activity, instead of saying awakening all beings and liberating them so that they can live in peace, we shorten it to Zazen. Zazen is the word that I use for Buddha activity. And the schedule says, you know, if you look at the schedule, it says Zazen at various points of the day. And so I would like to suggest that those are opportunities for Buddha activity. And also where it says walking meditation, that's also an opportunity. The whole day is an opportunity for this great work of awakening and benefiting the world.

[04:49]

When I was younger and practiced sitting, I guess I mostly thought that sitting meditation was concentration practice, practice of calming down and relaxing and opening up and being undistracted, at least to develop that way, that kind of mind and body. undistracted, calm body and mind, to work at training that. It's concentration practice, and that's what I thought Zazen was when I was young. Now I think Zazen is that. It is that practice. It is concentration. But it's also generosity. and it's also ethical discipline, and it's also patience, and it's also enthusiastic effort, and it's also concentration, and it's also wisdom.

[06:07]

It's all the bodhisattva practices, because the Buddha activity is all bodhisattva practices. Danielle, you're making a face like, do you have some problem with what I'm saying? Okay. Are you trying to understand me or something? Okay, good. It's okay to frown, but that makes me wonder if everything's okay. Your deep thought, okay. All right. Thank you. Some other words about Buddha activity which we've been using is that in each moment of Buddha activity, in each moment of Buddha zazen, Buddha's concentration, in each moment

[07:17]

there is an imperceptible according with all beings, an imperceptible harmony with all beings in each moment of this Buddha activity. So, you know, in a way there seems to be sentient beings, those who are not fully Buddhas, but are heading in that direction, and the Buddhas, And these Buddhas have a relationship with the living beings who are not yet fully realized Buddhas. And it's an intimate relationship. And that intimate relationship is, of all things, Buddha activity. The way Buddhas work together with living beings That's Buddha activity.

[08:21]

And they imperceptibly harmonize with beings. Even if the beings feel really distressed, the Buddhas are right there working with them, being generous with them, and so on. Another thing which we talked about at the earlier part of this retreat is kind of definitions of awakening or enlightenment, awakening or enlightenment, and delusion. And we talked about delusion as I live my life. That's delusion, that I live my life. you know, like I rather than everybody, I live my life. I practice Zen.

[09:25]

That's an example, that sentence, I practice Zen, is an example of delusion. Life lives me. Zen practices me. When it's like that, that's called enlightenment. Okay? I practice Zen, delusion. Zen practices me, enlightenment. But Buddha activity isn't over on the enlightened side. Right? I made that point earlier, didn't I? Buddha's not over on the, enlightenment's great, but Buddha's not over on that side. And delusion's kind of a problem. And Buddha's not over on that side either. Buddha is the harmony of enlightenment and delusion. It's the way enlightenment works with delusion, and delusion works with enlightenment. That's Buddha activity. And then when enlightenment works with delusion, delusion is liberated.

[10:37]

And also, when delusion works with enlightenment, enlightenment is liberated. Because it's not good to get stuck in enlightenment. The Buddha way, the Buddha work is to leap beyond enlightenment and to leap beyond delusion. That's kind of a review which some people remember I talked about and some may not. I remember I did, but I'm going to be wrong. Maybe I didn't. Probably I did. Maybe not during this retreat, but some other one. A part of Buddha activity, part of Buddha practice is mindfulness. And also I told a story towards earlier in this retreat.

[11:46]

I told a story about a person who came to see me at a session like this in another state. And he told me that he had been practicing what we call just sitting for a long time, ten years or so, and that recently he was practicing mindfulness. And he said, what's the difference? And I said, I don't know what the difference is, but I do know how they're the same. When you practice mindfulness without trying to get anything from the practice, it's just sitting. If you're mindful of your posture, like Probably many of you, when you're sitting, you're probably somewhat aware of your posture or very aware of your posture, very mindful of your posture.

[12:48]

Like to make this mudra, this cosmic meditation mudra, it requires, you have to be mindful for it to happen, for most people anyway, and to sit up straight and have your eyes open. And, you know, it sort of goes with being mindful of your posture. And being mindful of your posture can be applied to your posture to make it a certain way. And when you're walking, the same. And then we also have a formal way of eating, so you can be mindful of where you put utensils and bowls, and be mindful of how you're holding a bowl to receive food. So we have lots of opportunities for practicing mindfulness during this retreat. And Buddha practices mindfulness, and we can practice mindfulness. But, if you excuse me for saying so, of course, when Buddha practices mindfulness, Buddha just practices mindfulness.

[13:50]

Buddha doesn't practice mindfulness to get something. Buddha practices mindfulness to give something. Buddha gives mindfulness to the world. Here's mindfulness. And Buddha's always giving mindfulness. But Buddha's never trying to get anything because there's nothing to get. Buddha knows. Sentient beings sometimes think there's something to get. Have you ever met one of those that think there's something to get? You know, we're inclined to think that way. It's not true, but We already have the whole universe. We can't get any more. We are the whole universe like this. We can't get any more. But still we think we can. Buddha activity is to do things as a gift rather than to get.

[14:53]

It's to do things without trying to get anything. Of course, gifts are coming all the time to Buddha, but Buddha doesn't think he's gaining anything. It's just like, thanks, thanks, thanks. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Here, here, here. Thank you, here. Thank you, here. Thank you, here. That's Buddha life all day long. Giving gifts, receiving gifts. Not taking gifts or getting gifts or trying to get gifts. It's receiving them. They're coming. Here they come. Here they come again. Gifts. And I've now given them. That's Buddha activity. That's Sazen. Right? Must be so. That must be reality. But we have to practice it, otherwise we don't believe it. In the Heart Sutra, it says at a certain place in the Heart Sutra, which is it going to be in English tomorrow or Japanese? Japanese, sorry.

[15:55]

But in English, at a certain point in the Heart Sutra, it says, with nothing to attain a bodhisattva. It goes on, but it says, with nothing to attain, you got a bodhisattva. With nothing to attain, a buddha. Then it goes on to say, with nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita. But when you've got nothing to attain, you already are prajnaparamita. All right, so here we go. We go for the rest of the retreat practicing generosity, ethical discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom every moment. Okay?

[17:00]

Is your name pronounced Nomi? Nomi? It said on the list of participants, Amy. So a lot of people thought your name was Amy. We're looking for Nomi. And finally we found you. So, Naomi said something about compassion. Did you? You feel like it helped you hear the word compassion? Oh, great. Compassion. Compassion. Oh, compassion. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, yeah. It's kind of an answer for everything, you know. So. Pardon? I think she was saying that you left it out of the recap.

[18:31]

Well, I don't know if she's saying it, but you say it. So thanks for helping me recap. Wanting to help people is kind of like compassion. But it's more like, it's also just kind of like a wish. I want to help people. And then committing to it is like a vow of compassion. The actual practice of compassion is like generosity, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiastic effort, and really kind of like being calm and relaxed with the situation. Wisdom is after that, and it's not that it's not compassion, it's just that if we're going to have any difference between wisdom and compassion, maybe we should just leave them next to each other.

[19:41]

But those practices that I just mentioned, they're compassion practices. And everybody, another part of the recap could be, everybody is calling to us all day long for compassion. Everybody wants us to be generous with them. Everybody wants just to be ethical, in other words, not to kill them, not to steal from them, not to lie to them, not to misuse sexuality in relationship to them, not to look down on them, not to say bad things about them, not to hate them. not to be possessive of them or other things. Everybody is calling for us to practice that way. Everybody wants us to have enthusiasm to practice that way. Everybody wants us to be present and open and flexible with them. Everybody's calling for compassion. That could be added to the recap.

[20:45]

And not only is everybody calling us, we're calling everybody. We're asking people to be kind to us. For example, I'm asking you to be kind to me. Please be kind to me. Please be careful of me. Please be respectful of me. I want that. I need that. And all of us do. And we're all asking for it. and listening to that, and accepting that, and responding to that, and accepting the responsibility of giving that what's being asked, that's also part of compassion. And practicing compassion, we will actually be able to realize the Buddha activity. We'll be able to realize what we can't see with our regular eyes.

[21:49]

We'll be able to see how Zazen's coming to practice us. And we already can see how we're going to practice Zazen. Probably, like most of you can see. You traveled to come here to practice Zazen. You can see that, right? You walked in the gate and up the stairs and into the room. You did that. You can see that. That's delusion, but you can see that. But you can't see how Zazen came here to practice you. You can't see how the whole universe has come here to practice you. That's imperceptible. You just see the little part about you doing it, or maybe some people helping you, but you can't see everybody coming to help you. But that's the teaching that I'm offering. The whole universe is practicing you and you are practicing the whole universe. And as I said earlier today, you know, we have these three refuges, refuge in Buddha, refuge in Dharma, refuge in Sangha, right?

[23:04]

And often we do the diluted thing, we say, I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Sangha, I take refuge in Dharma. Or I go for refuge in Buddha, I go for refuge in Dharma, I go for refuge in Sangha. We do the conventional kind of deluded version of that relationship. But here we turn it around. We don't get rid of that one. We have the other side. Buddha goes for refuge in us. Dharma goes for refuge in us. Sangha goes in refuge to us. Both of those things are going on together. But we have to line up our delusion with enlightenment by saying, I go for refuge, to mean I go for refuge in Buddha, and that means Buddha goes for refuge in me. Okay? So, in a few minutes we're going to say that, we're going to say... And I just laughed because I thought of something which I thought was funny.

[24:14]

And I think it's an example of irony. Here's what I thought that I thought was funny. I said, in a few minutes we're going to what? God was going to say, we're going to chant the refuges, and we're going to say, I go for refuge in Buddha. But then I realized, we're not going to do that, because we're going to say it in Pali. We're not going to say, I go for refuge in Buddha. We're going to say, buddham saranam gacchami. And I thought that was kind of like funny to me. Because, you know, I thought I knew what I was talking about. I thought we were going to do it in English, but we're not going to unless we change our mind. Or unless our mind gets chained. So we do that practice and we'll do it tonight in some language.

[25:20]

And that will be Buddha activity. The Three Ravishis will come and practice us and we'll practice them. And won't that be fine? So maybe that's a little bit of a recap, a little bit of a catch-up for the, what we might call newcomers. Welcome to the Buddha Activity train? The Buddha Activity boat? And as I mentioned to some people, One of my most beloved stories is about a Zen master named Luopu. Case 41 of the Book of Serenity called, Luopu is about to die. And he does a wonderful teaching the night before he dies.

[26:26]

And the second to the last sentence he says before he dies is, the boat of compassion is not rowed over pure waters or pure waves. The boat of Buddha activities is rowed over rough, polluted waters. And we got them. We got rough waters these days. We're also very fortunate to have a boat. of compassion that we can row in, a boat of Buddha activity that we can all together row. Got lots of oars. We can all row this great boat of Buddha activity. But we don't row it in a swimming pool. I mean, it's okay to do it in a swimming pool, but it won't fit. It's on the big ocean, and there's lots of suffering all around this boat, but we're rowing with compassion together.

[27:32]

through the rough waters. So rough waters do not mean there's something wrong with your Buddha activity. That's where Buddha activity is operating, in this troubled world, with all, you know, the list could go on about all the troubles we've got, but you know some of them. We can make it longer, but basically there's a lot of them, and we're in the middle of them all, and that's where we're practicing. Right? We all have some sense of the suffering surrounding us. But it's bigger than that. But still we row our boat. And rowing the boat makes the boat a boat of compassion. And the boat makes us bodhisattvas. Is that enough for tonight? Are you ready to practice mindfulness wholeheartedly without trying to get anything?

[28:47]

Great. So I can sign you up with the Buddhas for Buddha activity? Hmm? Let's do it. Okay. Or as some people say, let's do this thing. All right. Here we go.

[29:13]

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