May I say a little bit more about Buddha, Fields of Blessing? So I would like to point out that we can say Buddha's, Buddha, apostrophe S, Buddha's Field of Blessing. I'll say, Buddha feels a blessing. And this translation says, Buddha as feels a blessing. I'll check the Chinese when I get home, but I think it might say it has a character for Buddha, the character for blessing, and the character for field. That's probably what it is.

[01:01]

Buddha, blessing, field. So one could understand that as Buddha, blessing, field. or Buddha's fields of blessing, or Buddha's as fields of blessing. So one can think of that the Buddha's are fields of blessing. One could also think that eyes of compassion are fields of blessing. So eyes of compassion observing sentient beings, they actually, you could say, gather an ocean of blessing. But they also, these eyes are the gathering of an ocean of blessing. Ocean of blessing is, you could say, is eyes of compassion, but also eyes of compassion

[02:11]

are part of creating fields. The same with Buddhas. Buddhas are fields of blessing, but also Buddhas, you know, in conjunction with Buddhas, fields of blessings arise. So it's hard in language to embrace fully the relationship between awakening and great compassion and fields of blessings. they're kind of not really two different things. So we could say again, Buddha's fields of blessing, Buddha fields of blessing, or Buddha's as fields of blessing. Great Awakening is a field of blessing. And And this field of blessing, which is the Buddha's, are one and the same to all.

[03:19]

So the Buddha's, as fields of blessing, are one and the same to all. They're the same with everybody. They treat everybody the same. That's what the beginning of this question is. Manjushri says, Buddha feels a blessing is one and the same to all living beings. And then it says, how is it then, how is it that, when living beings make offerings to the field of blessing, or when they make offerings to the Buddhas. So we can make offerings to fields of blessing, and we can also make offerings to Buddhas. But as we make offerings to the field of blessing or to the Buddhas, what follows or the response to this offering varies.

[04:29]

So how is it that when we make offerings to the Buddhas or when we make offerings to the field of blessing, to the ocean of blessing, how is it that there are these various responses? Yeah. And then at the end it says again, after mentioning all these different possible responses to the offerings to the Buddhas, to the offerings to the field of blessing, or the field of merit, and yet the Buddhas are impartial toward all the offerings. and also impartial towards all the beings who are making the offerings. They're not thinking of them as different. The Buddhists are receiving the offerings but not thinking, oh, this offering is different from that offering.

[05:38]

The people who are making the offerings, like you make an offering, you know, and then somebody else comes and makes an offering, you might say, wow, their offering was better than mine, or my offering was better than theirs. So the people who are making the offerings might think that the offerings are different, and they might think that the field of merit also thinks that these offerings are different. But the field of merit does not think that they're different and responds to them impartially. However, this impartial response has infinite variety. That's part of what's going on here. And I read the one verse. I'll read one more verse, shall I? So another verse is, like a clear mirror reflecting images according to the forms. So, from the Buddha's field of blessing, rewards are obtained according to one's heart.

[06:43]

So you got a big heart, you make a blessing, you make an offering to the field of merit. And then the reward is in relationship to your big heart. Got a little heart, it's in relationship to a little offering. I mean, a little heart. But the Buddha doesn't think that the offering from the little heart is better or worse than the offering from the big heart or the medium-sized heart. The field does not... is impartial towards these different offerings, but the different offerings do have different consequence. But not because the field of blessing is discriminating, but because some little hearts do not want the kind of response that a big heart would get. a little heart might be overwhelmed by receiving what a big heart receives, or vice versa. A big heart might be overwhelmed by the response that a little heart would get.

[07:48]

Like, how come it's so little? I don't know. Who knows what? Hearts of sentient beings are not necessarily impartial. And they're not necessarily the same. But the field of blessing regards them impartially. And the response varies not because the field of blessing is partial, but because the different hearts are giving different things. It just reflects them just as they are, but then depending on their heart, it's different. When I was a kid, I remember this. I think it's like a children's book. I think it's called The Littlest Angel. It's about the angels making offerings to the God, the big God. And they have big, you know, really big, huge angels, fully grown, really looking tall.

[08:55]

And then there was a little angel, just a little tiny one, And the big angels made these big offerings. This is a Western children's book. How many of you remember that book? Yeah. So it's a children's story, children's book. And they have pictures showing the big angels and the little angels. So they make these great offerings. And the little angel, does anybody remember what the little angel gave? Anyway, some little thing that the little angel found. The little angel made a little offering, like maybe a stick or a stone that the little angel found. And the little angel could see, the little angel could see that their little offering was kind of little compared to what those fully grown angels gave. Oh, this is so little. But of course... Buddhism has come to the West, and God appreciates the little angel's offering as much as the huge angel's offering.

[10:04]

Maybe more, but that wouldn't be Buddhist. The Buddha does not appreciate the little offering more than the big offering, or vice versa. All are dealt with the same, but the offerers feel like, I didn't give much or I did give a lot or, you know, why didn't, why doesn't the Buddha like me better? I gave more. Like a clear mirror reflecting images according to their form. So from the Buddha's field of blessing, rewards or reflections are obtained according to one's heart. So the reflections of us in the Buddhas is our reward. We get to be reflected by Buddha. That's our reward for relating to Buddha.

[11:08]

So that's one more verse talking about how it is that this impartial wondrous thing called Buddha, which is an impartial field of blessing, how it is that it responds differently, and that's because of different minds and different hearts of beings that make the offerings. Yes, Barry? In the prayer that we're meeting about, it says, those who were in past lives not enlightened will now be enlightened. I'd like some clarification. It sounds very temporal, sort of linear. Yeah, doesn't it? I'd like some clarification on that. Well, from a certain point of view, people think that somebody's awakened. or has been awakened.

[12:11]

We tell that story, so-and-so like Shakyamuni was awakened in the past. And other disciples of Buddha were awakened in the past. But some of us may feel like, I have not been awakened in the past. You know, up until now I haven't been awakened. I've heard about people who are, but this is saying, that those of us who have not been awakened will be awakened now, like right now. And then we have, our job is to understand what it means that we will be awakened. You say now we'll be awakened? Those who in past life were not awakened will now be awakened. Yeah. So anybody here who was not awakened will now be awakened. Does that mean not awakened in a past life? Yeah, not awakened in a past life or when you were a kid. When you weren't enlightened when you were a kid or when you were a young adult.

[13:16]

If you weren't, if that's the case, now you're going to be. Or now there's going to be awakening at the place where Barry is. Barry is going to be like the place where awakening happens, even though it doesn't seem like that the awakening happened at Barry before. That's what it's saying. And that may seem linear, like past, present. And it says now, but it says will be. So now... It's got nothing to do with reincarnation, which would be a tobacco. You can bring in reincarnation if you want to. You can talk about those who in past lives, does it say past lives? Yes. Yeah. So you can understand past lives as when there was life, but it wasn't called Barry.

[14:17]

Or anyway, it wasn't called Barry Stone. But maybe there were some Barry Stones in the past who were awakened. We don't know. So it seems to me that it's being proposed that everybody either has already been awakened or is going to be now. And that's kind of challenging, right? Everybody's going to be awakened now. yes and yes. So I see Homa. Everybody know Homa? And I see Arye. Any other questions? Hands raised. Okay, Homa. Is there anything that you can help us in the book? I'm wondering if there is anything in the offering.

[15:20]

I don't want to see You don't want to? With the purity of the heart, when the offering is finished, when there's no condition of the offering, maybe our offering is conditional, but we offer to the Buddha because we want something, or we want to get blessing, or we want this, we want that, and maybe that's what it depends. So the reflection, when it comes back, it becomes dented versus direct. I wouldn't say that is dented. I would say that's a denture. That's a denting force. That's a force of denting. With the condition, when we ask conditional, what is the force of denting? Conditional activity dents the great happiness of Buddha, but Buddha's very joyful for all these conditional offerings to dent Buddha.

[16:28]

The field of blessing is not saying, I don't want any conditional offerings. Nobody offer any offerings on conditions. I want only unconditional offerings, which won't dent Buddha. Conditional, unconditional offerings are okay, but they're basically the same as the field of blessing. The field of blessing is an unconditional offering. However, it welcomes all conditional offerings. However, depending on the conditions of the offering will be the response of the unconditional offering. Say again louder. So the conditional is even, but then the reflection of the conditional would be unconditional? No, the reflection, you could say, is unconditional.

[17:29]

However, it will look different depending on the conditional offering. So the Buddha response, or the field of blessing response, it doesn't have any characteristics. it responds unconditionally. However, the form it takes will depend on how it's offered. So if you slap it, did you hear that? If you slap it, that's the response. Did you hear it? If you stroke it, that's the response. But it isn't that it's like being real quiet for this kind of offering and being a spanking sound for the other one. It's just that because of this, because of the force of this, you get this. So this is unconditioned. It receives everything. However, if you slap it, you get one kind of response.

[18:30]

If you just gently touch it, you get another response. So the offerings of sentient beings are usually conditioned. If it's an unconditioned offering, then it's Buddha together with Buddha and there's no denting, which is fine. That's fine. But compassion is when this offering is unconditionally offered and then people relate it to it according to conditions and that makes a little dent And the unconditioned field of blessing is impartial towards all different types of gents. That's what it saves. And that liberates beings. Like that story of Jean Valjean, no matter what he did with that priest,

[19:33]

no matter what condition offering he made, he got back the same impartial response. And then he woke up. Like the priest let him in to the church. He wanted to get in. The priest let him in. That was the response. He wanted food. The priest gave him food. That was his response. He made an offering of his hunger and his needs, and the priest responded according to that. But if he had offered something else, the priest would have offered something else. So then he offered the priest the theft of the altar equipment. That's what he offered. And the priest responded by saying, you didn't take, you didn't steal it. And when he saw that response, which was basically the same no matter what he did, however, the responses are different, like, you didn't steal it, here's some bread, you can live here. Those are different responses, but they're because he said different things. And when he finally, like, stole, the response was different, but basically he saw, oh, no matter what I do,

[20:39]

No matter what I do, he's going to come back with compassion. It'll look differently if I steal these things. It'll be different from when I ask to stay here. My grandson said, I can do no wrong with granddaddy. But I don't respond all the time the same way. It depends on what he says to me. If he doesn't talk to me, if he tries to avoid me, I respond one way. If he said, granddaddy, can I ask a question? I respond in another way. But he knows that no matter what he offers, he can do no wrong. Because it's an impartial situation called being a grandfather or grandmother. That's the great thing. You can be almost like a Buddha when you're a grandparent. And then the more, if you're a great-grandparent, even better. So I think Arye and then Charlie. I have two questions. Just do one.

[21:44]

Pick one. And if you can't, you're having trouble, I'll come back to you. This is pretty tricky for me. Pretty tricky. First of all, what I thought I was hearing was if you give an offering that's... Just now, you said, I have two things. That's what you offered. And when you offered that... I was fine with that, and I'm not going to treat you better because you brought up two things than if you brought up one, but I did respond by saying, let's do one. So there it was. I feel fine about you saying I want to bring up two, and I respond to that. Because you said you wanted two, I say, how about one? So that... Yeah. And you can go with the Buddha being impartial towards you asking for two or you asking for one. So that's an example of it right there.

[22:46]

Fortunately, you trust the situation that you can see that you can offer two and the Buddha doesn't. You're not doing wrong by asking two. You can switch to one and it's not like you're doing right by asking for one. your offerings are always welcome, but there's a response. If you say two, you get a different response than one. If you say ten, you get a different response from two. There's a different response depending on your heart. Sometimes your part has two, sometimes it has ten, and you'll get a different response, but not because you're loved more for having ten or one. Charlie? He? I think it's He got it. Sort of three in a way. Yeah. Yeah. You have four. So that was one.

[23:56]

He offered one, which was one joke. The priest says, you know, oh no, you can have this, you can have that. I mean, what if, you know, at least there were two candlesticks in his hand. He says, well, hang on, you can have one of those. He could do that. That's possible. It depends on the guy's heart. So the example we're talking about here with this story seems different from what we're doing right here in this conversation. It looks different to you. However, even if it is different, the field of blessing is impartial towards it. It's the same thing. So, I mean, I don't know. The example of the story is a little outrageous. Like, oh no, I gave him the silk. It's a little outrageous, yeah.

[24:57]

Buddha is a little outrageous. But then we have a conversation and we're like, hey, I've got four things to say. Can you keep it to two, you know, one? And that's a little more normal. I'm a little more comfortable with that. Yeah, except I don't mean that. John Valjean's situation, in my experience in this one, I felt that it's perfectly generous for that to be saying, only one. And so the priest could have said, well, I'd like to generously offer you some time in jail. He could have, yeah. He definitely could have. And if that had awakened him, But he... The priest doesn't know. He just responds in terms of what the person's offering. The Buddha doesn't know. The Buddha just responds in terms of what they offer.

[25:59]

But the response in terms of what they offer could have been different. It could have been different. But the thing is that the point of the response is in terms of the conditions of the person for their awakening. So you give this person this for their awakening. Give this other person something different for their awakening. That's the point. And in this case, in this story, what the priest gave awakened him. But it could have been different. But the difference wouldn't be that the priest was smarter in the second case or the first case. It would be that the priest was reflecting his needs, what he needed to see. Over and over in the sutra it says, they turn the wheel of Dharma in according to what people need to see. Not according to what they think people need to see. It's a light that turns the Dharma according to what people need to see, not according to what the light thinks they need to see.

[27:03]

Well, yeah, it's just... It's just... It's like some combination of skill and luck. Skill and luck? You know, that that's what you needed. But, I mean, the temptation to respond with no boundaries is... It's not responding with no boundaries. It's responding impartially, and impartially includes with boundaries. It can be like, how about one instead of two? But it also can be like, you only want to ask two? How about infinite questions? That's not enough. It could have been that. The thing is, it's not on the side of the Buddha figuring out what to do. It's the Buddha responding to where we're at. And the Buddha didn't figure out. It just naturally, the mirror reflects the way this guy looks. Not like the mirror thinks, well, he should look like that or he should cut his hair shorter.

[28:07]

It reflects as it is without partiality. And that reflection is what illuminates this person to show this person, this person. We don't show this person, this person. And it's not that it's better to show this person, this person, this person. It's that that's what wakes this person is to reflect him. And it looks different than him. I thought I got the story. I thought it was like, oh, the priest is so generous because he has no boundaries. But that's not it. It's not that he has no boundaries. It's that his love is boundless, but he has boundaries. And one of the things he can give is boundaries. Like he disagreed with him. That's the boundary. You think this happened? No, it didn't. Here's what happened. And then also he went further and said, and by the way now, I just bought your soul, by the way. And I gave your soul to God. You belong to God now.

[29:11]

So that's another kind of boundary. So we can use boundaries, but we don't do it in terms of thinking, well, this person's going to get that boundary. It's like they show us the boundary that they're going to get. Thank you for your question. Your question with its boundaries. And I responded with some boundaries, but hopefully impartially on behalf of the field of blessing. And now it is just about time to start and there's a whole bunch of questions. Huh? You want? Okay, green. Thank you. Yeah, I guess I just wanted to say I really appreciated this image that you brought this morning from the sutra, which was pouring the water into the shape of the mind or something like that. And it was kind of reminiscent of, I think, the way I've heard you describe like the shape of the mind being the karma of the moment.

[30:15]

Yeah. And That's all I just, that was really helpful. I think the heart thing is harder because my mind is quick to attach to like big and small and associations of big and small, but the shape seems more impartial. Okay, easier to eat that. Yeah. Yeah. And Kim. How would you describe empathy? Louder, please. Well, the way the mirror reflecting, just as it is, is skillful. The skillful means is is impartial, but it adapts to the circumstances. That's what's skillful. It wouldn't be skillful if the mirror had some idea that you should look like Charlie.

[31:20]

That wouldn't be skillful. The mirror does not have that. It has no predisposition or preconception of how you should appear. It just shows you like you are and that's very skillful because that's exactly what you need to see. That's what the mirror is doing for you. It's showing you who you are so you can be blessed. You have to be you to get blessed. If the blessing comes flying and you're not there, it doesn't count. So the mirror shows you right where you are and that's the blessing. That's where you're going to wake up. Well, the mind's like a mirror, but also some minds, they're kind of like minds in the circus. They distort. They exaggerate. They underestimate.

[32:22]

This mind is a clear mirror. It shows things just as they are so that things can be what they are. And that's the great blessing for you to be who you are completely. And then you're free. So in the story of the priest, he helped Jean Valjean be who he was. The priest said, you can be like this. You can be this total creep of a thief. Yeah. And now that you're that, I got you. It's getting kind of late. Yes? It sounds like in this story of Les Misérables that the thief saw through his own suffering, observed sort of his own suffering, and realized that what he thought he lacked, he didn't lack. It was already all given. He already possessed it.

[33:23]

Yeah. And in his suffering, thieving, he already was completely accepted as such. It also sounds like the Buddhas in this field of blessings are just accepting the activity of the offering. It's the activity that doesn't matter whether it's big or small. They're accepting the activity and the form. Yeah, they're accepting it. It doesn't matter whether it's big or small. What they want is for the offering to completely be the offering. The field of merit doesn't want us to offer anything the slightest bit different from what we're offering. If Buddha was us, Buddha would make the same offering, but more so. We make the offering, we kind of hedge, thinking, well, maybe I should give something a little different. Maybe I should be a little different. Buddha's not asking us to be different.

[34:25]

Buddha is blessing us in being what we are. It's getting kind of late for various reasons. I don't know why it got to be so late, but it looks like it got late. See, that's one theory.

[34:45]

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