Thank you very much for your great compassion. I hope it's a joy to you. Alma, could you move over there? Next to Eileen. So much carefulness. Tender carefulness has been practiced recently. So this has been a month of a month of physical fragility. Lots of yeah, lots of kind of like fractures have occurred and At one point in the process, when I sensed that I had received a very fragile new body, I was kind of feeling like I was having trouble being ready to accept it and take care of it.

[01:21]

Another word for it is, it was a mess. the doctor said, it's a mess. It's a fragile, but it's not a stable mess. It's an unstable, fragile mess. And I was kind of like, I don't know if I want to take care of this fragile mess. But then I thought, oh, but this physical situation is like our whole country. So, yeah. So if I... My job is to be careful of this like we're all being careful of this. So then I felt uplifted that I wasn't just taking care of this. I was taking care of this for the sake of a much bigger reality that we're all taken care of. So I'm feeling uplifted by understanding that.

[02:27]

Taking care of this is taking care of the whole world. Working on the healing and transforming of this is working on the healing and transforming of the world. And that's, by coincidence, sort of, is part of the topic of the teaching I was planning on offering this first half of the year. Things often work out like that. that you're thinking of studying something or teaching something and your life becomes what you're planning on. One of the people, have you been here before, Marga? Yeah? Is your name spelled M-A-R-G-E? Yeah. So, do you understand it to mean like the path? There's a Sanskrit word, marga, right?

[03:34]

And that's her name. And I'd like to talk about the word marga at some point today. So I'm proposing... that Buddha's enlightenment is world transformation. It's not just about a person being really enlightened and at peace and liberated, although it is that. The Buddha is at peace. The Buddha is... wise and emanating great compassion and full of joy in emanating this compassion.

[04:42]

But the Buddha's joy and the Buddha's wisdom is actually the transformation of the world. The transformation of the world and Buddha's awakening is the same thing. And this is hard to understand, but... This is a starting point for discussion, for conversation. In the so-called Zen school, we use the word Zen, or I use the word Zen as a synonym for Buddha's complete, perfect enlightenment. It's shorter. You know, Anyuttara Samyaksambodhi is shortened to Zen. So Zen meditation is unsurpassed, complete, perfect meditation. Zen practice is unsurpassed, complete, perfect practice.

[05:46]

But Zen practice is easier to say. But that's what I'm understanding of our practice here in this Zen temple, this Zen school. And this Zen practice, this enlightenment practice, this practice of unsurpassed complete perfect enlightenment is world transformation. It is an intimate transmission. It's a transformation which is a transmission. It's an intimate meeting face-to-face. Zen, enlightenment is a face-to-face meeting.

[06:48]

In that sense, enlightenment is a social phenomenon. It's an intimate conversation between enlightened beings and unenlightened beings. Everybody's in this conversation. So, supposedly, one of the famous definitions given for this transmission by the founder in China is that this is a special transmission outside the scriptures. and directly pointing to the human mind, realizing its nature and becoming Buddha. But this pointing and seeing nature and becoming Buddha is not just pointing to my nature, it's pointing to my nature...

[08:06]

in a meeting with other people pointing to their nature and them pointing to my nature and me pointing to their nature. It's a transmission, it's a conversation in which there is becoming Buddha through various kinds of understandings. But the understandings are occurring in a face-to-face encounter. It may be the case, I'll say it that way, it may be the case that right now what's going on in this room, in this temple, is a face-to-face meeting. That an intimate conversation could potentially be functioning here and now. I want that. I could also say that this intimate conversation is in fact what's going on and yet we may need to train each person may need to train quite a bit in order to realize the intimate conversation which is enlightenment that's going on all the time.

[09:35]

If we don't do our part, then we may miss the encounter. If we don't fully exert our own face, we may not be able to meet the other fully exerted face. So part of the practice is me working on my face, like me taking care of my fragile body and my fragile mind. Me being me. Me face being me face. Until I have a face, it's hard for me to meet the other face. I shouldn't say hard. It's hard to realize the meeting with the other face. that's fully being her face or his face.

[10:37]

And again, we can have conversations about how to have conversations. We can have conversations about how to be our face. Somebody was talking to me about how it's a struggle to be, to be herself. It often is a struggle to be ourself. And I just got the image of threading a needle. You have a thread in it and a needle with a hole in it. Sometimes it's difficult to get the thread in through the hole. Even though it's kind of a simple thing in a way. You know, it's not like horrible needle hole and monstrous thread. It's just kind of hard somehow under certain circumstances to eat. The hole can be small. The thread can be big. The thread can be... frayed it's difficult to like really get everything lined up on itself so there is kind of a struggle in being for example yeah you know being your body and being your mind it can be kind of a struggle so and in order to actually do that we can't do it all by ourselves we have to actually be in conversation

[12:06]

in order to be ourself. And again, another theme for this year, which I mentioned this morning already, is that this is a good place to build a sanctuary. A sanctuary is a place of refuge, a place to return to, for example, the practice of the face-to-face meeting wherein we become Buddha. And this means wherever we are is a good place to return to the practice. think maybe I have said enough to perhaps practice conversation with you, practice face-to-face transmission with you.

[13:43]

Maybe. I mean, maybe. Although I know, by the way, that even though I might think I've said enough, you might not be ready. Like someone told me, you know, She wants to have a face-to-face meeting with me, but she also wants to avoid it. Somehow, yeah, somehow the person you want to have this meeting with, because you have a sense that meeting face-to-face is really kind of where it's at in life. In fact, you want to avoid meeting the person that you want to do it with. That's part of the... Which, again, if you look at the history of Zen, so many, you know, thousands and thousands, maybe millions of stories of people having face-to-face meetings and the difficulties that they're having.

[14:53]

And one story just popped up just now, which I wasn't expecting to pop up, but it's the perfect story. It's called Lu Pu About to Die. So there was a very wise and compassionate teacher in China, and his name was Lu Pu. And when he was about to die, he had a conversation with his people, with his group. And I'll tell you the whole story later, but I just want to tell you the end of the story, which is when the teacher said, it's tough. It's really tough. What is tough? This face-to-face meeting. And then he died. It's a story about a conversation with his students, and we can go over that story. Maybe this afternoon we'll go over it.

[15:57]

But it's, yeah, it's a conversation. And there's so many things to talk about. And everything is an opportunity to have this intimate communion wherein this special transmission, this becoming Buddha is realized. Yes. Yes, interlocutor. Everybody know what interlocutor means? It means interspeaker. The person who you're talking with. So here's an interlocutor. We talk about confession and repentance. Yes. To me, there's a space before that which is embarrassment. Yeah. So... I'm often embarrassed about what I want to confess.

[16:58]

Yeah? Yeah. She said in the practice of confession and repentance, there's often embarrassment. You know, embarrassment is almost a synonym for repentance. Like, you know, like you're trying to thread a needle, you know? And you're like, and you think that wasn't very skillful the way I did that. That was a kind of unskillful move there. And you're kind of embarrassed because you're like supposed to be a needle threading teacher or something. Or you're like, you weren't very skillful, like being true to yourself. And you're kind of embarrassed because, you know, like you're teaching a tech class on being yourself and you notice you're not being yourself very well. Kind of embarrassing. Here I am up in front of a lot of people talking about being myself and I'm really not doing a very good job.

[18:00]

It's kind of embarrassing. And then you might want to get out of that conversation. And the slight difference between repentance and embarrassment is that repentance is talking about the type of embarrassment which reforms you. So, yeah. In the full spectrum of regret or remorse or sorrow about your own actions or embarrassment, there's a type of embarrassment that makes you feel like, yeah, that wasn't too good, but I really do want to be truly myself and be honest with people. And I'm embarrassed that I wasn't. I'm embarrassed that I missed the opportunity to help that person. that I got distracted, I'm embarrassed, but that makes me more confident that I do want to be true in the future.

[19:02]

So embarrassment... Well, lack of understanding means being not very skillful in understanding. Your understanding is actually an action. the way I understand is the activity of my mind. And like, nothing just popped in my head. When I was a kid, you know, I lived in the Midwest where there weren't very many Italians. And I had this very narrow view of what Italians were. I thought Italians were like, you know, gangsters in the movies, right? And people who had pizza parlors and Italian restaurants. And, you know... kind of like olive skin and dark hair. And then later I was quite embarrassed that that's what I thought Italians were. Even though I knew about the Renaissance and the Roman Empire, somehow I wasn't very skillful.

[20:06]

My mind wasn't working skillfully vis-a-vis Italians. So I was embarrassed that looking back on my mind, I thought I had such a narrow view. And now, this is a big thing now in the United States, right? A lot of people have views of other people that I think later they might be quite embarrassed about. In other words, their understanding of other people might be, this person is not my friend. Or this person is not worthy of my respect. This would be an example of a type of understanding that you might be embarrassed about later. So understanding is kind of like... a function of your mind, and if you under... Yeah. I can give you a math problem now, like, I don't know what. 25 times 25 is what? Do you know? It's 625.

[21:06]

Anyway, you might be embarrassed about not being able to do a math problem. Yeah, but if you've been studying math... teacher for a long time and you still don't know the answer, 625,000, that's embarrassing. Yeah, it might even be more embarrassing if you've been studying for a long time. And again, that's also quite common in enlightenment practice, is that the people who've been practicing a long time, either themselves, either they say to themselves, or their friends say to them, it's quite a common expression in our tradition, that a friend says to another friend, such a venerable old chap, and you still talk like this? You know, very respectfully, you still, you understand like this after all these years of practice? And this happens in the conversation, right? And then the one who is being, I don't know what to say, the one who's being called into question says, well, what do you say?

[22:14]

And then the other guy says, comes back with the next step of the conversation. So even if I feel embarrassed, again, that's a hallmark of an ethical relationship. And this wholehearted communion is ethical. Zen is a special ethical transmission. It's an ethical conversation. And in ethical conversations, I have questions about myself. I tell you stuff and then I go, Was that true? Was that kind? That's good. But also in ethical relationships, in face-to-face transmission, other people call me into question. It's mostly other that calls me into question. I mean, I can do a little, but the big other can do a lot more. And so, if you feel embarrassed, this is a hallmark

[23:16]

of ethical relations, and it'd be good. So you're embarrassed inwardly sometimes, and then maybe sometimes others help you be embarrassed. And that's also confession and repentance. You say something, you do something, you become aware of it, and then you or others call it into question. And sometimes after it's called into question, you feel just how wonderful... that it was called in a question, so other times you feel a little embarrassed or regret or shame or sorrow. This process, this conversation is the pure and simple color of true practice. Can I put my embarrassment confession on the table? Yeah, you want to give us an example? Okay. Earlier today you said something about Zen being outside the sutras. Yeah.

[24:18]

And, yes, go ahead. And it reminded me of a constant source of shame, embarrassment, something, with the fourth Bodhisattva vow, the way it's said, Buddha's way is unsuccessful. I vow to hate it for becoming. Every time I come to that, it always sounds to me like, aha, we got the right answer and everybody else has the wrong one. And this is my confession. So, and it feels so un-Zen to be lording it over all of the religious practices in the world that we've got the right one. So I just get popped in that loop every single time, booting waves, unsurpassable. Can't just be... What is going on? Are we saying... we have loved one to wait. We are. We just... Welcome to my mind.

[25:24]

This is a conversation, right? Here we're having a conversation. This conversation is Zen. If this conversation is one where we're being ethical and generous and patient and diligent and calm, where we're or were open to being called into question, then this is the Buddha way. So the Buddha way would include the Buddha way being called into question. The Buddha way, some people have said about Buddhism, that is the first world, is the first example in a, either in a philosophical system and or a religious system that was self-critical. You're supposed to examine it, you know, and not to speak it. Right. But even when you say that Buddhism was the first to criticize itself, then some say, well, some think you're saying Buddhism is better.

[26:29]

But if saying is Buddhism, that you seem to be saying Buddhism is better, it's a little bit critical, self-critical of Buddhism. And Buddhism would say, yeah, please, call Buddhism into question. So you did. Okay, now is Buddhism saying it's better than other religions? Is it saying that? I would say that's not the Buddha Dharma to call it into question. But when I say that, you can call me into question. And then Buddha way is unsurpassable. And it's unsurpassable because Buddha way is nothing but surpassing itself. That's what the Buddha way is. You can't surpass surpassing. So, as Suzuki Roshi said, Buddhism is not one of those religions like Judaism, Mohammedism, back in that day he used to say Mohammedism, Confucianism, Catholicism.

[27:30]

It's not one of those. And Buddhism. Buddhism is not one of those religions like Buddhism. Okay? The Buddha way is not one of those ways like the Buddha way. The Buddha way is going beyond the Buddha way, which means the Buddha way is to go beyond Christianity. But not for Buddhism to go beyond Christianity, for Christianity to leap beyond itself, for Islam to leap beyond itself. And if you look at all these traditions, there are examples. I think Jesus gave a few nice examples of leaping beyond Jesus. In the Jewish tradition, lots of nice examples of leaping beyond a self. All these traditions, I think, are really, what they really are, is leaping beyond themselves. And Buddhism says, and that's what Buddhism's up to, but really, that's what they're all up to.

[28:35]

They're all up to, what do you call it, getting over themselves. Human beings, what we're really about is becoming free from our egoistic consciousness. so we can open to reality. All the religions are about getting over themselves. All the religions are about not taking themselves seriously. And you can, in a way, you might be able to see that because obviously a lot of them do take themselves seriously, so clearly the job they've got ahead of them is to give that up. So if Buddhism looks like it's taking itself seriously, then if Buddhism is face-to-face transmission... then it should be called into question. And if you also don't, if you don't take yourself seriously, that should be called into question too. Like we've got a bunch of Buddhists and they, we don't take ourselves seriously. Well, what are you trying to avoid getting called on being self-righteous? I love all of this.

[29:38]

The only word that I love is the word unsurpassable in these four things that I like to share. Well, unsurpassable is really not unsurpassable. You're afraid of that. Yeah, so that's your thing. Yeah, so let's help. And so now I'm trying to help you. Now we're getting down to another issue. I'm in conversation with you to try to help you deal with your fear. If you can deal with your fear, if you can wholeheartedly be afraid and offer that person to a meeting, then we can have a conversation.

[30:41]

And you can become free of your fear and not try to change the wording so you're not afraid anymore. But, you know, when you're not trying to change the word because you're afraid, you might change it for some other reason, which might be justified, might be helpful. We'll see. By the way, it does say unsurpassable, but it doesn't say it's better than anything. It's just you can't go beyond Buddhism because Buddhism is going beyond. Buddhism is willing to be the lowest religion. And they say you can't surpass that. So anyways, it's just one of those little, what do you call it, one of those little opportunities for us is that line.

[31:47]

And if you ever get over your problem with that one, when you go back and maybe have problems with the previous three, I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say that a problem with, in a sense you have a problem with the third one, which is Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. It's like you're having troubles with the third one, which says you're going to enter everything as Dharmagate, because you can't enter the Dharmagate of the fourth one. To you, it looks like an ugly wall. It looks like a wall. Separating the Buddhists from the other people. It looks like there's this big wall. Buddhism's like where it's at. You can apply for entry. And this is the best place here. Okay? But you're having trouble seeing. That's a door. That wall is a door. It's hard to see. Right?

[32:50]

And again, Zen practices often in these conversations we often talk about that the teacher often puts up walls for the student to walk through. Puts up walls which aren't really walls. So one of our famous collection of Zen conversations is called a gateless barrier. It's about how barriers are gates that aren't gates, that are barriers. It's about the actual pivotal activity of the conversation where you can't abide anywhere. So if you get a sticking point, we have a conversation there. And sometimes... Even with a great teacher, it's tough to find somebody who can really be themselves with whatever the problem is. So you can keep working on this for a while. Matter of fact, some Zen teacher might say, I assign you that line, that vow as a koan for you to meditate on and bring me your understanding.

[33:56]

Okay? Somebody might say that to you. Not me. I'm not qualified to make such assignments. Yes. Reflecting on that, as I was listening to Tracy, I think the phrasing might have a little bit of a challenge in there for saying that Buddha's way is better, because it's saying Buddha's way, and it's a little bit of... It actually doesn't say Buddha's way, it says Buddha way. That's what I was going to suggest. If it's Buddha's way, there's a possessive there, and there's a... There's a divide between Buddha and the way. Yeah, it's not really possessive. It just says Buddha way. Is that what we chant? Maybe I've been saying it wrong. Maybe don't say it, Buddha's way. But I'm saying it's Buddha way. You could probably mumble Buddha way, even if we're all using Buddha's way.

[34:58]

Then you might feel better. And by the way, the word way, in that case, is this Chinese character, which is a translation of Marga, which I'll talk about more later. Tish? This morning I was just reading an article about Bocistella art piece in Bachelet. See, he's so on this, doesn't he? This art piece is... basically about, it's where the wall is between, I don't know, but wherever the wall is between Palestine and Israel. It's an article about a wall in. It's an article about an art piece. It's an art piece related. It's about this wall and this problem of how all the art there is about trying to not put one side above another. And it's all like the whole, it's, it, It's like a hotel or a museum.

[36:02]

It's not clear which it is, hotel. And there's no windows in it. It's all walls. And thanks. He is an artist of walls before they got cool, as he said. But it was just so honest, wasn't it? Yeah. That sounds like an art piece. devoted to the possibility of face-to-face transmission. Yes, it is. And how difficult it is to... How difficult it is, very difficult. Because the piece, the article is about how this art, that's the challenge of this art, is to not have one side surpass the other, but this wall that's dividing them. But I'd like to go there. And it's so on this. And really, everything is about this. Everything's about... trying to meet trying to live in this intimate transmission everything's about enlightenment in a sense from this school's point of view what we're really doing is make is is struggling to realize this transmission we're struggling to realize this intimate communion which is its reality we're struggling to realize reality in reality

[37:19]

The Buddha wakes up and says, oh, everybody's doing this intimate transmission. How beautiful. How wonderful. Now I see it. They're all doing it together with me. And many of them do not understand. But that's what they're really doing. And then sometimes we think, oh, I'm going to do an art piece to express this. And then you work on the art piece. You walk out of your studio and you forget. that what you're working on is reality, and in the street, somehow you can't remember that this is also the same as my artwork. Or I'm doing this artwork because those people don't understand this yet. It's tough. Karen? Well, I feel a little handicapped when we talk about being ourselves, because, and I don't know if this is true. Did you say you feel handicapped? Yes. So if you feel handicapped, what's your job?

[38:25]

Yeah, to be handicapped. And sometimes if we don't feel handicapped and suddenly we feel, oops, I'm being told I'm handicapped. Okay. My non-handicappedness has been called into question. Am I ready to be a handicapped person? By the way, can I say something? I'll be right back. I get to apply to a handicapped parking plaque now. It's one of the great benefits of being handicapped. You can see that great park. Of course I can't drive, but anyway. Back to handicapped Yuki. Okay, so... Who's having trouble accepting being handicapped. And she says she's even... handicapped and accepting being handicapped. So, the handicap, I think, but I don't even know if this is true, but I think that I'm an introvert and it's easier for me to be myself when I'm by myself.

[39:32]

It's easier to recharge my batteries when I'm by myself. Yeah, so you're handicapped at the, what you might call, extroverted side, but you're not handicapped, you have an advantage in the introverted side. So this process of intimate transmission has an extroverted part and an introverted part. You working on being you is introverted. You checking on, okay, am I willing to accept my thought that I'm handicapped? Am I willing to accept my thoughts? Jeez, I'm really fragile. Am I willing to intimately commune? with my feeling that I'd really rather not be the way I am. I wish I was less fragile. I wish I was, like, a little bit less fragile. I mean, I know we're all impermanent, but I would like to be on the less than... I'd like to be in the not extremely impermanent people.

[40:36]

Okay, that's your introverted work, and introverts can, like, really enjoy that. They can sit and, like, really enjoy... being kind to their thoughts about themselves and thoughts about other people, and not talking to anybody. You have an advantage there. And then when talking, some people have a really hard time. Some people have an easy time with one. But we need both. That's why we have quiet sitting, where you settle with being yourself, and then you have a conversation where your settledness can be called into account. You might think you're quite settled, and then you meet with perhaps a teacher, and the teacher says, geez, you're really settled. And you say, well, thank you. I say, did you believe that? You're totally hysterical. And then you get to see, can you be with that? Or vice versa. Some people are really good in conversation, but they go sit by themselves, and they just can't be there.

[41:38]

So part of the practice is Part of the meeting is solitary. But that's part of the meeting. Solitary is how you understand the meeting, and meeting is how you understand the solitary. And again, if you think about Zen, there's a lot of pictures of Zen people sitting. A lot of pictures of a one person sitting. There's a picture in the community room where you change. There's a picture of somebody sitting. on the floor right now because the nail that was holding it up is inaccessible. So would somebody please hang that picture? Oscar or Elenia? Where's Elenia? Would one of you guys hang that up? It's a picture of somebody sitting. How beautiful it is to just sit yourself by yourself in a tatami room looking at a beautiful garden. That's part of our practice.

[42:39]

But also Zen stories are about people intensely interacting. But the thing is, these people who are intensely interacting, each one is like sitting by himself, totally there, sitting in that conversation, looking at a beautiful garden, while they're like, this is really tough. So it's part of the deal. And so, and some days you feel like, well, I'm handicapped at this side or that side. But it's like threading a needle. And as you practice more and more, you don't necessarily get bigger and bigger threads and smaller and smaller holes. But, you know, sometimes it seems like that. The advanced practitioners, in a way, are just working with smaller and smaller needle holes. And again, developing more and more patience because it's really hard. And it can be introverted or extroverted.

[43:42]

the bodhisattva is going to open it to all the difficulties eventually. If you want to adjust the dial, that's a perfectly good thing to have a conversation with. And also, if you want to do it fully, you need to be in conversation while you're adjusting the dial, which you're doing right now. So I think many of you are doing a good job of sharing your inner dial turning with somebody else. See, Pam and Jackie? So I wanted to talk to you about Batho and Nengaku and the title about being yourself. So just to recap the story a little bit. So Batho is sitting, Zazen, and his teacher Nengaku comes up and says, what are you doing? And Basso says, I'm sitting south then to become a Buddha.

[44:49]

I'm like, right? And then Gaku picks up a tile and starts polishing his teacher. And Basso says, what are you doing? He says, I'm polishing this tile to make it into a jewel. And the student says, how can you- Mirror. What? Mirror. Yeah. So people say jewel. Jewel. And Basso says, how can you call Shikharo to make the physical mirror? And his teacher says, how can you use Zazen to become Buddha? So the idea is that, and in the commentary it says, when the horse master becomes the horse master, that's Basso. When he becomes fully himself, Zen becomes Zen. So the idea is that My idea is Basso sees himself in point A, as unenlightened. And he's trying to do Zazen to get to point B, which is enlightened. And his teacher is saying that doing that is like trying to make a tile into a mirror by polishing it.

[45:57]

In other words, it doesn't work that way. And so one idea is that Basso, so he has to be When he's fooling himself, Zen is Zen. So at first I was thinking that being fooling yourself just means not pretending that you're somebody else. Like if you, you know, like not putting on errors or pretending to be something that you're not. But that wasn't what Basso was actually doing. He was just thinking that he wasn't, he just didn't know he wasn't already in light. And so... The idea of becoming fully yourself, I think maybe it's not so much about not pretending that you're something else, but just about being fully present. And that is being fully yourself. When you're fully willing to be whatever your arising of yourself is in this moment, that's you being fully yourself.

[47:01]

And that's then becoming yourself. Yeah. And also... You cannot do that, you being fully present and being yourself. You can't do that by yourself. So that's why the teacher comes up and talks to him. So is that just... Because when I'm sitting, I feel like I'm actually in a relationship. I'm in a relationship with myself. I'm kind of being with myself. So there's kind of a face-to-face intimacy right there. Yes. But that's just... Yeah. You could have that intimate conversation with yourself. That's fine. And that's part of being solitary. In solitude, you can have intimate conversation with yourself. You could work at being fully present and having fully Pam be Pam. That's part of your job. to be the fragile person you are and say, okay, I accept this fragile body and mind and I'm working on that and sometimes I feel like I'm not working on it very well and so on.

[48:12]

You can do that work. That's part of your responsibility. That's part of you having a face. And as a reward for doing that work, somebody will come and call you into question. and say, what are you doing? So Basso was doing his work. He was trying to practice being present, being Basso. And because he was wholehearted about that, he got visited by a great teacher who said, what are you doing? Who called him into question. And you just told me a story about that, and I could call you into question too, which I do. Your story I call into question. So you're saying that Basso was trying to get something, but you can see it that he wasn't trying to get anything. He was just sitting there. And then because he was such a wonderful, not trying to get anything person, he got visited basically by God in the form of a Zen monk teacher.

[49:22]

And then God calls him into question. And then he gets to say something. So he says, I'm trying to make a Buddha. But, well, how is he trying to make a Buddha? By being himself. But if you're trying to make a Buddha by being yourself, which, by the way, is in accord with this tradition, the way to make Buddhas is to be yourself. Fully. But if you're being yourself fully, a wonderful teacher is going to come and ask you about that and say, how are you doing being yourself? And you go, well, I'm not so sure. And the teacher might say, good. Because you're not doing a very good job. And you say, thank you. And the teacher says, you're doing a good job. And you say, thank you. And so on. So, one way to see it is that Basso didn't understand that to make a Buddha was to be himself.

[50:28]

And being himself was not to make a Buddha that's constantly making Buddha and going beyond Buddha. So my job to make Buddhas and go beyond Buddhas is to be myself, to be this person fully, and then see, does anybody come in to question me? And look, people are coming to question me. Maybe I'm not doing that bad. We'll see. We'll see. Yes. I recently watched the HBO series, it's a 10-part series on the young pope, Jude Law. And... Is it a drama? It's wild. Is it a drama? Is it a drama? Or is it a documentary? It's a drama. Drama, okay. Of a young pope. A young pope. It's wild. It's wild. But one thing, the writing is fabulous, but one thing that he questions is the silence of God.

[51:40]

And his faith is sort of questioned. He is the Pope. And that kind of hit me in my heart that there are times where I'm asking for help and this God is silent you know and and the practice fails me short sometimes because you know the silent and still being silent and still does not bring me the answers that I'm oh waiting for. So, and I question, I question, what is Buddha?

[52:42]

When you question what is Buddha, when you question what is Buddha, the response to that question is simultaneous with the question. It's not later. And in silence, that question arises. The question, what is Buddha? Is living in the middle of Buddha's silence. You know, the word Shakyamuni means that the silent one of the Shakyaklan. So one of the epithets, one of the names for a sage is a silent one. So Buddha is a silent one. And in the silence of Buddha is the question, what is Buddha? But that question, or that calling for help, or you could say, who are you, Buddha? The response to that question is simultaneous with the question.

[53:43]

It's not later. It's not like, who are you, Buddha? And then Buddha says, well, who do you think I am? Or Buddha's saying, I'm you, darling. Or, here, would you like some water? That could happen too, but that's another story. Before anything else happens, at the very moment you question, at the very moment you ask for help, Buddha's response is there. And that question, that conversation is occurring in silence and stillness. So we say, words cannot reach this silence and this stillness of the Buddha mind. No consciousness can reach it. But it is not without words. But its words are your words.

[54:44]

When you say hello, that's Buddha talking through you. When you say what is Buddha, The Buddha's response is your words. And it's difficult to understand. That's like very subtle. So it's not that Buddha is silence but more like it is stillness. It's more like stillness and silence is where Buddha lives and that stillness and silence which no consciousness can reach It can talk. But the way it talks is through talkers, us. Your questions, your doubts are the life of Buddha. And when you enter silence and stillness, you get to see that your comments and your questions are actually a conversation.

[55:55]

in silence with the whole world. But it's me. It's me. It's this mind chatter. It's this mind that your mind is in conversation with. Your mind isn't all by itself. It's in a conversation. Your chatter is talking to everybody and everybody is included in your chatter. Yeah. Thank you. What time is it, Ted? 12.25. 12.25. Anybody that has not asked a question that wants to ask one? Yes? What you are speaking is a state of

[57:00]

selfless, where there is no self. So, in that state, yes. If you say it's a state where there is no self, if you say that, then I call that into question and I ask you, if there's no self, is there also no not self? You said there's no self. Is there also no self? Yeah, okay. So in that place, self and no-self are pivoting on each other. Yeah, so the question rises and the answer is rising with it. So everything rises simultaneously. Yeah, that's right. I rise simultaneously with all of you. All of you arise simultaneously with me, and then the world starts again, and the next world arises.

[58:08]

This sounds like silence. I wonder if it is. Did you have something, Helen, from before? Yeah, maybe I'll... I have something longer, but the brief thing was just about the Basso story. Yes. I wanted to mention, and maybe it's a good segue, but the response is not... I'm polishing, I'm trying to make this tile into a sandwich, into a mirror, which is not a... That is a kind of... You can kind of do that. You can kind of make a tile into a mirror. No. Just that. You can make it into a sandwich, too. You...

[59:40]

It seems really important that the meaning keeps going on. It's not, it isn't concluded. The discussion of every story is open-ended. And that we feel inspired to carry on this open-ended communication. with others. So again, I'm saying Zen emphasizing this communion, this trusting and being entrusted, this including and being included. That's sort of the very strong, central principle of Zen.

[60:46]

Which I think is in early Buddhism too, but doesn't sound so literally so. Even though if you look at the stories of the Buddha, there are stories of the Buddha meeting students and having conversations. But the conversations are not saying that this conversation is what we're talking about. But sometimes it is. Like I often... A couple years ago, the topic for the year was... friendship. And I was actually stimulated to choose that topic partly by a statement of a new pope. I think his name was Benedict. And one of the first things he said was something like, this friendship opens the doors of freedom or peace or whatever. And I thought, good. and I just take away the this, but this means Catholic friendship.

[61:48]

Buddha is teaching that the whole thing is about friendship, and it's friendship, and it's friendship with the Buddha. It's friendship, it's good friendship, and also friendship with Buddha. That's the whole practice, which has all these different facets, but it's really all about friendship. And friendship is a two-way mutual transmission. It's a mutual entrustment. We are being trusted. We trust. And it's a wholehearted finding my face and offering it and calling other faces into questions so that they can offer their face fully to me. And they also call me into question so I can offer my face fully to them. This is friendship. So the early Buddhist teaching was about friendship.

[62:55]

The Zen teaching is about friendship. Zen more emphasizes face-to-face thing. Of course, people have difficulty with friendship. Particularly people have difficulty really meeting another face. Because our faces are really very intense areas of our body. Where we have eyes that can't defend themselves. What were you going to say? I was going to say I want to give a progress report on my co-op. Yes, please. It's amazing. I carry that. Dad, father, for 20 or 30 years. And out of this conversation with Charlie, my problem wasn't unattainable. My problem was Buddha's way. And so I just put in enlightened. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I can.

[63:59]

And all of a sudden, it's like, wow. And hopefully this is not the end of the story.

[64:09]

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