And the text starts off something like, now all Buddhas and all ancestors who uphold the inconceivable true Dharma have made it the true practice to sit upright in the midst of self-fulfilling awareness. And this self-fulfilling awareness one way to say it is, it's the awareness of living at the center of all beings.

[01:29]

Awareness of, yeah, awareness, the awareness of living at the center of all beings, or the the living at the center of all beings awareness. So, again, to sit upright till I be still right here, right now, not even now or here, but just to be still in our actual position with the awareness of being the center of all beings.

[02:41]

That's the path, the true path of enlightenment is to sit upright in that way So I have the thought that when Buddhas are sitting there or here, Buddhas are sitting here, not there, in the center of all beings, that this is Buddhas and Buddhas are taking care of, are looking after the welfare of all beings. Looking after the welfare of all beings, Buddhas sit at the center of all beings with this kind of awareness. We can translate, we can speak of this awareness as self-fulfilling awareness or self-fulfillment awareness.

[03:46]

or self-enjoyment awareness. It's referring, in a sense, it's referring to the Buddha's awareness sitting under the Bodhi tree in India, enjoying being in that position that has been discovered at the center of the universe, personally enjoying this reality. And there's another expression which is other fulfillment awareness. Did I say samadhi already? Self-fulfillment samadhi, self-fulfilling samadhi. So samadhi is a word, could be translated as awareness, self-fulfilling awareness. but it means an awareness that's settled, a collected awareness, a calm, open awareness, undistracted awareness.

[05:02]

And in samadhi the things that are known in the samadhi are not seen as separate from the knowing. So in samadhi there's knowing, in the awareness called samadhi there's knowing, and there's what is known. And in that awareness, it's a type of awareness where the knowing and the known are not separate. They are, the definition of samadhi is one-pointedness of mind. Chitta eka gata. The mind is one-pointed. So again, I said the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree is enjoying an awareness, an undistracted awareness, where the knowing of all things and all things that are known are one point.

[06:18]

And then there's this other term called self-fulfillment samadhi. Or, excuse me, other fulfillment samadhi. Or other enjoyment samadhi. In Japanese, one is ji-ju-yu-za-ma-ri, or there's ta-ju-yu, And then sometimes people think that the other enjoyment or the other fulfillment is the way that the Buddhas and great bodhisattvas help others, fulfill others. But the understanding which I would offer to you is that this actual awareness of the Buddhas sitting in the middle of all beings is also the fulfillment of others.

[07:33]

That this self-fulfilling awareness, this self-enjoyment awareness is the fulfillment and enjoyment of others. It's simultaneous. Now many people think first the Buddha attained this awareness, this enlightenment, this path of enlightenment, and then helped others. which is true, but also Buddha attains this, is, attains, touches this awareness and this awareness is the fulfillment of others simultaneously. So at Tosara this fall, I started out the practice period by mentioning the story of the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree and waking up and saying, now I together with all beings and the great earth attain or become the way.

[08:52]

There's an expression called, again in Japanese pronounced, Jobutsu. which sometimes is translated as attaining the way, but could also be translated as becoming the way. In the Bodhisattva vows that we chant, the last line is something like, the Buddha way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. It's that Joe. Butsu do ojo, butsu do mujo, se ganjo. I vow to become it, become the Buddha way. The Buddha became the Buddha way under the Bodhi tree. And the Buddha becoming the Buddha way proclaimed that everybody, all beings in the great earth became the way together with the Buddha. So that's the proclamation about the practice, is that the Buddhas attain the way together with all beings, sitting upright in the middle of all beings.

[10:11]

And that them attaining the way of true enlightenment in this way includes all the beings that they're sitting in the middle of. And then many of these beings, quite a few of these beings, are called human beings. There's also ants. Ants. There's about a million times more ants in this world than there are human beings. Not exactly one million times more. approximately about a million times more. And a human being weighs about a million times as much as an ant. So the biomass of ants and humans is comparable because there's many more of them and we weigh much more than they do.

[11:15]

And I do not know so much about ant consciousness, ant minds. One of the great scientists studying ants said that he really feels ants do not play. They work, but they don't play, according to this one scientist. So anyway, I think as far as I know, in my small study of ants, they're quite different from humans. But they have minds, I believe. And I believe that humans have minds too. I seem to have one. But I don't think that the mind I think I have that appears to me is all of my mind. So I think that I'm a human being and I think that I have a consciousness and I think that I have a body

[12:23]

And I think that I have an unconscious cognitive process which I am not conscious of but is definitely awareness. I see, in my consciousness, I see things all day long and I hear things all day long that surprise me. and are the activities of my voice and my body. But I'm surprised by them because I didn't consciously instruct for these things to happen. Like if I watched the way my hand moves particularly, it always surprises me. I just got surprised again. My baby finger moved and I did not intend to move it. I consciously did not intend to move it, but it moved.

[13:26]

And now it went down. I didn't intend to put it down, but it went down. I guess somebody got tired. And now the cup's coming up. I'm not... I did not consciously intend to lift the cup up, even though when it started coming, I thought, I would like some tea. I also did not consciously intend for the left hand to come and assist the right hand in holding the cup. It did, though, and it landed in a very surprising way, which is also quite a nice way. It didn't spill. And now I'm moved again, sort of in response to the warmth of the cup. A lot's going on over here. And it's not just my body doing these things. I feel that my body's in relationship to a mind that's operating much faster and much more complexly than my conscious mind.

[14:31]

or then the conscious mind, in which I seem to be, and which I actually can call my mind. But I can also call this body my body. However, the body that I actually have is more than my body or the body appears to me and appears in consciousness. It's much more. and my cognitive process is much more than appears in consciousness. If we would, and we can sometimes, have a conscious opening to more of our unconscious process than we're normally open to, and when we do open to it, we will and can very nicely pass out, go unconscious, because the consciousness cannot cope with much information about what's going on unconsciously.

[15:37]

Also, if we're too closed to what's going on unconsciously, we also will pass out. And sometimes that passing out is called going to sleep at night. but also can be going to sleep during the day in a zendo. So this is just a warm-up to mention that there's these little enclosures that I have experienced And in those closures there is the history of the world is in those enclosures. A history of the world is in those enclosures where I am appearing and disappearing. And also in those enclosures I do not always witness the appearing of the I and the disappearing of the I. About a year ago today I had a

[16:55]

of surgery and they gave me general anesthetic and they told me beforehand they were going to do it. And I was not able to watch when my eye disappeared. It was there and then it wasn't. I couldn't see it disappear. I couldn't see it disappear. But I could tell later that it had disappeared when it appeared again several hours later. It appeared and with it appeared a world. So there was a consciousness in the operating room and I was there and I was saying, okay, Mr. anesthesiologist, you can do this. And then I in the world disappeared, but I was not there to witness it.

[18:13]

And then I in the world reappeared, but when it reappeared, I did sort of witness it. I did go like, wow, a world. And I am here. When I went into that no-I space, I did not witness. But I knew I was going to go. And I didn't know if I'd ever come back. And then there was I again. And in this, I would make this enclosure, there was a world also. And it was, it had quite a few calm, careful,

[19:21]

kind human beings in it. It looked like a room. It looked like a room. It was a room with not a very high ceiling and lots of medical professionals moving around in it taking care of me. And then over and over for the last year I've been having this experience of this enclosure where I am. And then at night when I go to sleep, this enclosure kind of goes away for a little while. And it sometimes comes back when I'm dreaming. And then it goes away and comes back when I wake up.

[20:24]

But when I'm dreaming and when I wake up, it's I am here. And this is what I would call consciousness. And when that enclosed space, when that enclosed world where I seem to be there goes away and went away, I didn't die. My body kept living and all kinds of cognitive activities were going on while I was under sedation and all kinds of, you know, almost inconceivably multifarious activities are going on when you're asleep at night and you're not dreaming. And like if you're in a meditation hall, or if I'm in a meditation hall, I am there in the hall and I am sitting someplace or standing someplace in the hall.

[21:32]

In other words, there's a consciousness like that. There's a mental construction of me being in a hall, oftentimes with other people, sitting at a seat. And then there can also be thoughts in this space like, I'm here, I'm sitting, I'm sitting Zen, I'm practicing Zen, I'm practicing the Buddha way. There can be those thoughts too. I'm sitting here looking after everybody in this room. I'm sitting here noticing that some people are not here. I guess people are getting sick. I'm sitting here looking after people and in that way I feel like the way I think about what I'm doing is the way I think about what the Buddha is doing.

[22:39]

Because the Buddha is sitting here also. looking after all beings. And Samoth, I think, I think in this little world, I think that there's other little worlds like that. And they all have an eye inside. You get the picture? This is the picture that I have. This is the picture I have in my little world, that there's other little worlds.

[23:41]

Are they all smaller? No. They're not all smaller. Is the Buddha sitting looking after all beings, something in addition to all beings? No. Buddha is nothing in addition to all beings. Buddha looking after the welfare of all beings is nothing in addition to all beings and of course it's nothing in addition to the welfare of all beings. Some of the other... Just to make Simon feel better.

[24:44]

This is like my granddaughter. Some of the other living beings also think that they're sitting there looking after the welfare of all beings. Some of them think, I'm not sitting here looking after the welfare of all beings. I'm only looking after the welfare of Americans who vote for me. So in these little circles there's various ways that people are thinking. But each one of these circles is at the center of all the other circles. Even though in many of those consciousnesses the person thinks

[25:56]

I am not the center of those people. I'm the center of some people, maybe my family, my friends. I'm not even the center of my friends. I'm just sort of in association with my friends. I'm not the center of my friends. But the Buddha awareness is at the center of all beings, and everybody's there, and nobody's in addition to that being at the center of all things. It's not like being at the center and then some other place, because every place is at the center of all places. Just like in cosmology, people say all the different places in the universe used to be one place. Well, this teaching is kind of like saying it's still that way.

[27:03]

But in consciousness, many people do not feel that they're the center of all things and that they're included in all things which are also centers. And the pivotal activity of all Buddhas is this awareness. And in this awareness, there's a pivot between Buddhas including all beings and being included in all beings. Pivoting between being pervaded and pervading. Buddhas, as Krishna said, are Buddhas anything other than all beings? What did I say? No. So Buddhas are pivoting between Buddha and all beings. And, once again, coming back to this problem of consciousness, is in consciousness I'm there and I have sometimes some

[28:24]

resistance to including everybody and being included in everybody. And resistance to this way the Buddhas are somehow seems to like, it almost, it seems like it makes the pivotal activity stick. The being able to switch from being me to being you catches a little bit because I'm not completely open to switching between me and you. Or between including you and being included in you. There's a little bit of not allowing that Buddha mind And so it's almost like it's what's not working actually. I'm not actually pivoting with this person. I'm not going to let it happen.

[29:28]

So all these different individual consciousnesses are at the center of all these different individual consciousnesses. They include each other. They're included in each other. And that's the Buddha mind. It's also called the Buddha mind seal. It's the expression that Bodhidharma came from the West, India. One of the traditional names for India is Western Sky. Bodhidharma came from the western sky and transmitted the Buddha seal or the Buddha mind seal. And the Chinese character for this is something like this.

[30:48]

This character is translated in English as seal. A ring. but also mudra. It's the character used to translate the Sanskrit word mudra. And mudra means also a circle, a seal, but also a shape. Like this is a mudra. This joint in the palms is a mudra. These are mudras, hand mudras. This is a mudra. Your posture when you're sitting is a mudra. So Bodhidharma transmitted the Buddha mind seal or mudra.

[32:03]

And seal also means like a mark or an insignia. Like a seal of approval. So the seal of the Buddha mind is, in a sense, is the seal between all minds. It's the way all minds are sealed to each other. It's the way all minds include each other and are occluded in each other. That's like the Buddha mind seal. The way the whole universe is coming together to create, for example, a consciousness by meeting itself and giving rise to itself in the form of a consciousness where there's a world. And also in the consciousness, everything that appears in the consciousness also are how the universe is coming together and meeting itself and giving rise to, for example, a feeling or an idea.

[33:14]

This is the Buddha mind seal. that the Buddhas are transmitting. So they're sitting in the Buddha mind seal, they're sitting in the Buddha mind, which is sealing all beings to each other and which is liberating all beings with each other, not from each other, with each other. The Buddha mind seal is attaining the Buddha way together with all beings. That's the Buddha mind seal. This is what the Buddhas are transmitting. They're transmitting the mind which they're realizing, which they're becoming. And if I think, oh, I want to also transmit this Buddha mind seal, I want to sit upright,

[34:18]

and practice in the middle of this Buddha mind seal and transmit this Buddha mind seal, then in that consciousness there's a thinking like that. And in fact that thinking is none other than all things appearing as that thinking and that thinking is included in all things. However, that thought I wish to look after the welfare of all beings doesn't have the Buddha Mind Seal any more than the thought, I don't want to help anybody with anything. That thought also includes all things and is included in all things. And the way it's included in all things and includes all things is the Buddha Mind Seal. And all along, moment by moment, we might be thinking, I'm practicing the Buddha Mind Seal.

[35:39]

I'm doing Zazen. I'm sitting upright. I want to do this or I want to do that. That's going on all along. We don't have to get rid of that. But we can understand that that is simultaneous with all things are coming together and meeting each other in the form of me thinking that I'm practicing Zen. So I don't have to stop thinking the way I think. I have to actually avail myself of the opportunity of the thinking that's going on and enter the stillness of it, which is already there, in order to appreciate that this thinking includes the whole universe and is included in the whole universe.

[36:46]

It's already the case, but I need to be here in order to... What's the word? make real this seal. So again, I just want to say we can continue to go to the Zendo and think, oh, I'm going to the Zendo and I'm sitting here and I am taking care of this person's practice here and I'm actually trying to accept being here the way it is here And I'm accepting even that I'm a little bit wishing for some progress or some gain. I actually wish there was some progress here. I wish there was more calm and more relaxation and more compassion. And, yeah. You don't have to get rid of that.

[37:52]

The Buddha Mind Seal is that if you're thinking about And if you're wishing for some improvement, the Buddha Mind Seal is that that thinking about improvement, that wishing for improvement, includes the whole universe and is included in the whole universe. And that inclusion and being included is not going to improve or, you know, it's not going to regress. It's always the case. It's a question of mindfulness of it. Without mindfulness of it, it would be logical and reasonable, if you're mindful of this, to not try to get rid of all the small little projects that are going on, like trying to improve the Buddha Mind Seal. Yes?

[39:01]

So we're talking about consciousness, conscious experience, and you mentioned at the beginning that the Buddha under the Bodhi tree attained or became the Buddha way, gained accord with what is all-pervading. And I'm wondering, Was there a difference in the Buddha's conscious experience before versus after attaining the Buddha way? Apparently, in the world I'm living in, there's a story that after Buddha became the Buddha way, the Buddha could say that I discovered the Buddha way in the past. You know, like yesterday or two weeks ago, I was sitting under the tree and there was realization of the Buddha way together with all beings.

[40:15]

There was that realization. And before that, I couldn't consciously say what I just said. And now, and for several weeks now or years, I've been able to say that in the past I attained and all beings attained the Buddha way together with me under that Bodhi tree at that time. However, I can also say today, which I couldn't say before that day under the Bodhi tree, I can say today, guess what I can say today? Yes, but I can also say today under this roof of the Wheelwright Center, I attained the Buddha Way together with all beings. And before that time under the Bodhi tree, I hadn't even heard about this possibility of attaining the Buddha Way together with all beings. Actually, I thought that I was going to attain the Buddha Way and then help other people attain the Buddha Way.

[41:17]

That's one story. The Buddha was vowing to attain the Buddha way in order to benefit all beings, and the Buddha thought that after attaining it, the Buddha would be able to benefit all beings, but the Buddha thought it was going to be later rather than simultaneous. Part of the surprise was, it's not later, it's the same time. And it's still that way, and it always will be that way. And Buddhas are going to keep waking up to that, are still becoming that. So the Buddhas, historically, his story is that he was telling different stories before that time than he did after. He actually discovered this Buddha way. He had not discovered it before that. He discovered a lot, but not that. If you were to draw the Buddha's circle, would you write the letter I inside of it?

[42:25]

No, I wouldn't draw that. That wouldn't be the Buddha's circle. The Buddha's circle is all of these things. Now, can Buddha pervade one of these consciousnesses? And the answer is yes. Can these consciousnesses pervade Buddha? Well, not exactly, because Buddha is the way these consciousnesses are pervading each other. So the consciousnesses don't really reach, in a sense, they don't really reach how the consciousnesses are including each other. But the consciousnesses can have the idea in consciousness of this teaching. So this teaching can enter into these limited cognitive realms where there is a self. It can illuminate them.

[43:25]

But these limited selves cannot illuminate the unlimited interdependence of all things. They don't reach it. There's So, even though they're included in it, so in that chant we did at noon service, after describing the wonders of this Buddha mind seal, how everything's doing Buddha's activity, everything's doing Buddha's work, everything's renewing the magnificence of awakening to the way, we're all working to promote this. Then it says, all this, however, does not appear within perception. It doesn't appear. And if when you read this text, that text is appearing in your consciousness and that text is talking about all these things, but these things are not what you're consciously experiencing. Like you hear about the

[44:28]

the enlightenment of the walls and the tiles and the pebbles and the grasses and the fences illuminating all the beings and the beings illuminating the grasses and the mountains, all this resonance between all things. You hear about it, but that's just thinking about it, which is, in a sense, it's accurate, except that this thought about it doesn't reach it. But we do have perceptions of it, and the perceptions do sound kind of surprising. So one of the things I wanted to say today was again this, which I've already said, but say it again from the text, which is that when you express this Buddha mind seal in your activities, and your activities means the things that you're thinking you are doing in your I consciousness.

[45:33]

So in your I consciousness, like, you might be thinking that you coughed or you didn't cough, that that was somebody else's cough. Thinking that that's your cough or somebody else's cough is an activity that occurs in the I consciousness. It's a mental activity. That's me, that's not me. This is my robe, this is your robe. These thoughts are activities in self-consciousness or karmic consciousness. And then there's also like speaking. I'm speaking. I'm quiet, you're speaking, these activities, and also I'm— there's gestures going on, these are my gestures, these are my actions. So the text says, when you express the Buddha Mind Seal in all your actions, in consciousness,

[46:44]

Well, how can you express that? Well, you express it by raising your hand. Do you want to express the Buddha mind seal? Yes. Is your raising your hand an expression of it? Yes. I also said yes. Is your saying yes an expression of the Buddha mind seal? Yes. No, I don't want to. Is your saying, no, you don't want to, an expression of it? Well, actually, I didn't want to, but now I see it. Actually, no is also expressed in the Buddha Mind Seal. If I say yes, that can be an expression of the Buddha Mind Seal. If I say no, that can be an expression of the Buddha Mind Seal. When you make your verbal expression the expression of the Buddha Mind Seal, then the entire phenomenal world becomes the Buddha Mind Seal and the whole sky turns into enlightenment.

[48:00]

And that logically follows because my speech includes the whole phenomenal world. Meeting the whole phenomenal world, giving rise to my speech and my Strange mudra. This is a mudra. Unexpected mudra came up out of the universe. Do I really want this mudra to go away or not? Who's in charge here? I don't know. So that's a statement which I've said a number of times. And I'll just put it out there and say, does anybody here besides me believe that? Yes? I think this is cool. Is cool the same as believe? Totally done. But one thing I noticed is I think

[49:08]

In my experience of sort of a transmission, kind of energetic, of the turning of that wheel, which is your wheel, is that there's an annihilation that can happen. Oh, yeah. Well, thank you so much for mentioning that point. But it's not really annihilation. It's more like what we call, it might seem like annihilation, but usually we would use the term, it's an emptying. Emptying. that in this transmission you're talking about, there is an emptying. An example would be touching somebody who's in significant pain and being flooded with it. So you're touching someone and someone's in pain? And it's flooding into my system. Say again, more slowly. So it's flooding into the sensation. Their pain is sensation? It's flooding into my system. Yes, uh-huh.

[50:10]

So when I say annihilation, I mean a willingness, a seal, as I think I understand it, is that that's okay. I'm not going to defend from the fact that your energy is now my energy. There's going to be, it's going to be okay. There's going to be a turnaround. Yeah, well, there's going to be a turnaround. As a matter of fact, the turning around is already happening. You can say okay. It's okay to say okay, but it's a little bit beyond okay. Okay is kind of like small potatoes. It's more than okay. It's the Buddha way. It's going to be the Buddha way. But you're not going to be annihilated because the Buddha way does not annihilate you. However, it does empty you. It realizes you as insubstantial. it realizes you as whatever you seem to be, that's a fragile situation.

[51:10]

But you're not going to get annihilated. However, when you're not used to being empty, when you come to the door of emptiness, it seems kind of like annihilation. But it's not annihilation. That's just what you think before you open it completely to the emptiness, to the insubstantiality, to the ungraspability, to the innocence of your life. But when you're in this pivotal activity, you don't know who's who. But that doesn't annihilate you. That just... liberates you from holding on to who you are, who you think you are, or holding on to who you think other people are. And that's part of the reason why we don't allow it, because we think we're going to get annihilated. And in a way, it's good not to want to be annihilated, because you're actually not wanting to be untrue, because you're not annihilated.

[52:12]

And you're also not eternal or permanent. And so when you open to this interaction with beings, there can be a flooding, a potential flooding, but also the flooding is going in both directions, and you'll be fine. Okay, you can say okay, fine, but anyway, this is what booners are doing. They're being flooded by everything, and they're flooding everything. not annihilated. And they do mention every now and then, by the way, this is not annihilation. Don't worry. And I'd like to help you not worry about this Buddha way process so you can open to it and enjoy it. It's like being real. Yes and yes.

[53:17]

Yes, first. The popular understanding, it seems to me, is that it functions like the anesthetic to erase the eye. But I hear that that's not what you're saying. But still there's some truth to it. So the truth to it is that the eye sees itself as empty. So you're saying there's a popular view that Zen is like taking away the I consciousness? Yeah, the I, like you started talking about, where I disappeared. Yeah, I would say popular like, anyway, a lot of people think that Zen would be like going under general anesthetic. Now, a lot of other people, another popular view, we don't know who, we don't know how many people sign up for this, is that you can be conscious and that the I, the sense of somebody being there, is gone.

[54:32]

That the sense of somebody being there has been annihilated, perhaps. So there's consciousness, but there's no sense of I'm here. And I think people sometimes consciously feel like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait just a minute, I'm not sure. Oops, there it is again. I was going to say, I'm not sure if there's anybody here anymore. But that concern, like, I don't know if I can find me. Oh, there I found my That sense of there's a memory that I used to be here, but I don't seem to be here anymore. Oh, I'm over there. You're actually in consciousness. If the sense of self goes away, it's not consciousness. It's not self-consciousness. It's not karmic consciousness. And again, it does sometimes go away, like general anesthetic, deep sleep with no dreams,

[55:44]

brain, certain kinds of brain damage, and also special yogic trances, there's actually turning off that consciousness. But there's still conscious, there's still mind, it's just not I'm here mind. And so many people do think that, oops, that Buddhism's about annihilating or taking a break from I'm here consciousness. And those yogic states are about that, of taking a break from it. When you go into those yogic states, it's like going into general anesthetic. And when you come out, it's like coming out of general anesthetic. However, you don't have all that toxic chemicals in you, so it's actually better, it's a nicer vacation than the general aesthetic. How about realizing that the eye is just one of the things in the field?

[56:54]

How about that? That would be a realization, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, it is just one of the things in the field. Really. And also, you could also realize that the I doesn't necessarily own all the stuff in the field. That thought could arise. I actually don't own those feelings that are arising. But then another thought might arise, but that's not my usual self. My usual self owns this stuff. But then another thought might arise, but we don't usually, we don't usually think, or one does not usually think, that those feelings own the self. That I'm those feelings. That I'm those self's feeling. I mean, I'm those feelings' self. We don't usually switch it. I'm those emotions' self.

[58:00]

It's usually those emotions are myself's emotions. So there is merit, a lot of merit in Buddhism, in Buddha's teaching, to look in this I consciousness and notice to see if there can be some pivoting there too. And if you can open to the possibility that although there is a general sense that I'm here and that I own this consciousness and I own everything in it, that actually it could be looked at the other way. And actually that might be a sedative. That might be quite relaxing to not be originally holding to that you own all this stuff that's going on in here. But part of what this self often is, is I own all this stuff that's in this mind. So the self comes with four afflictions.

[59:05]

One affliction is that once the self arises it's like you're looking at what's going on in the world from the self. It's really just a point of view but somehow when it arises it seems to be the point of view which is an affliction because it's not the point of view. It just thinks it's the point of view and it has trouble opening up to other points of view. Another thing is confusion. When self arises in a mind, it's basically a lot of confusion around it, like, do I own this or do I own that? Is this the only view? And so on. And it also has self-love and self-esteem. These These are names of types of affliction that come up in our world of self-consciousness.

[60:11]

However, there's teachings to help us look in there and be compassionate to the situation and wake up to infinite possibilities of other ways that things could actually be going on. Because every one of these things includes the whole universe and so on. that everything here is pivoting with not itself. You are in this consciousness, the eye is pivoting with... And the size of this eye doesn't mean that much. This eye being smaller than the other eye is actually just trying to say that the not-I is absolutely and completely beyond the I. It's not just the opposite.

[61:16]

It's everything in the universe that isn't it. And you can discover that in consciousness. by practicing compassion with consciousness, in consciousness, for the welfare of all consciousnesses. Yes? Is your name Eric? In Buddhism we talk about suffering and a path out of suffering. I'm just wondering, since suffering would also be part of the Buddha Mind Seal, why don't we talk about trying to move past it? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So I'll just say this, that in a way the most valuable, you know, not in the most valuable, Buddhism, the end of suffering or freedom from suffering is a big value in Buddhism.

[62:26]

Buddhism values freedom from suffering or even the end of suffering. It's a value. And here's a statement which I was going to mention last Sunday, but I just couldn't quite bring myself to say it, but now I'm going to say it. That the Buddha way is not about liberation from suffering. It's about great compassion. And great compassion is to help people be free of suffering. So it's like the difference between this very valuable thing called freedom from suffering, something we really think is, like we have life is precious, life is precious. In Buddhism, life is, we value life. And we also value life free of suffering. But Buddhism's not really about life.

[63:28]

or about freedom from suffering. It's about helping life be free of suffering. It's the activity of helping people be free. And that's not exactly more wonderful, but it's not more wonderful. That's what really wonderful is. It's not to be hung up on life or freedom from suffering. It's to help people, living beings, be free of suffering. So it's not like that's, the point is not the freedom from suffering, and the point is not the living beings. The point is Buddha activity. The point is help beings become free. It's not the freedom that's the point, it's the helping them that's the point. It's not the freedom that's wonderful. Although freedom is great, freedom from suffering is awfully good, but the helping them is Buddha's fun. That's the Buddha way.

[64:30]

Now some people who Buddha loves are into becoming free of suffering. That's what they're into. And Buddha loves these people and Buddha will help these people become free of suffering. But then when they become free of suffering, That's not what the Buddha's been doing with them all the while. The Buddha's been helping them become free. They have not been trying to help the Buddha become free. They have not even been trying to help the Buddha help them. They didn't even notice. Gee, you're helping them become free. Can I help you with that? Can I help you with that job that you're doing of helping me be free? They don't even think of that. And the Buddha just goes right along helping them become free. Now, part of maybe not such a popular view of Zen is that it's not such a popular view. And I wouldn't say it's unpopular, but if I start saying it, it might become unpopular.

[65:34]

My view of Zen is that Zen is about Buddha way. Zen is about Buddha's practice. Zen is about helping other people become free of suffering in all your activities. And it doesn't preclude people becoming free of suffering, but that's, even though it is a great value, it's not the main point, it's not the name of the game. The name of the game is great compassion, not freedom from suffering. But great compassion is about working with freedom, working on that issue with people. Now, what if somebody is not free of suffering? By chance. Well, is that any problem at all for Zen?

[66:41]

No. Because we're helping that person who actually is even defiantly saying, I am not free of suffering. Don't tell me I am. Get away from me. Get far away from me. I hate you. Anyway. This is not a problem. This is what Buddha is working on, this person. Not trying to get this person, not annihilating this person, not improving this person, enjoying helping this person. What? Do the Buddha way, which looks maybe a little bit like them becoming free of suffering for a while. Like, well, maybe actually I don't own these thoughts. Hmm, that's interesting. Buddhas might say, do you actually own those thoughts you're concerned about? I never thought of that. I'll check it out. So part of the way Buddhas help beings be free of suffering, part of what they're doing there is they're kind of like secretly teaching them the Buddha way.

[67:43]

So the person suffering in the Buddha is like helping them look at the situation. And the Buddha isn't saying, look at what I'm doing. this is what I'm doing, but it looks like he's getting the person to look at themselves and become free of themselves. But they will finally realize that they were part of the deal all along. The Buddha was looking at them, seeing how they could look at things differently, and they were looking at the Buddha. They were seeing the Buddha do this all the while, but they didn't think, oh, I'm doing the same thing for the Buddha. That will come later. In fact, we are all on this Buddha way, even though it seems like for the time being we seem to be concerned with trying to cope with and work things out with this suffering and get free of it and get some improvement on this suffering thing.

[68:49]

rather than working on this for the welfare of others and helping other people see that, that is really where it's at. That's compassion. And if between now and the end of our life, the world quota or whatever the world, the measure of suffering in the world does not decrease at all, the measure of compassion could increase. tremendously during the remaining time of our life, even though we cannot ascertain that the level of suffering has decreased. And many people these days think we have more suffering than we used to have. I don't know how they figure that out, but anyway, we certainly have a lot. We certainly have like an almost overwhelming amount of suffering. Yeah? Right along with the suffering mojo is this compassion mojo.

[69:53]

And we can grow the compassion for the rest of our life. And when it gets to be great, that's the Buddha way. The Buddha's compassion is really great. There's no limits on it. And it embraces all limits. That's why it's great. There's no limits. In other words, there's no beings it doesn't embrace. And beings are limited. They're limits. It embraces them. And that embrace is the Buddha Mind Seal, which you can express every moment of your life. You can say, okay, this thought that I'm having right now is to express this embrace of all beings, this helping all beings understand what life is, this thought, these words, this gesture is for that purpose.

[71:01]

I donate my consciousness to this Buddha mind seal. I donate my consciousness to how my consciousness is pervaded by all consciousnesses. And after I donate, then I may notice, oh, now I have a big responsibility. Like, you know, oh, now it doesn't really make sense to close my heart to anybody. But my heart is closing. I can't stand that person. They're just too much. Well, it's part of the deal is to now embrace that. Can I open the window, please? Oh, I thought you said, can I go to Zendo? And the answer is yes.

[72:04]

You can go to the Zendo and open the windows. Is your name John? Yes, I am. Thank you. Yes, John. I can't help but thinking. No, you can. Which illustrates my point, you'll take me on a different trajectory. But the basic, given that we share in this matrix of minds and in fact all matter and energy are in constant flux and in a relationship. But we're these social beings, and we can't help but to talk for ourselves and each other, which is so insufficient to... What's insufficient? Our language, with the basic subject-object dualism built in. Our language goes with this... Yeah, it's a total fiction. The I in our language is an unnecessary part of it. Well, you said it's unnecessary, but you prefaced your statement by saying, I can't help think that.

[73:09]

It's a convention, a linguistic convention. My question is, is there any consideration that you had, or I'm surprised it's not been an ambitious project for some Buddhists throughout the ages to try and invent a way of speaking that's more true to process reality. as opposed to... I don't know what it would even sound like. The one thing I can think of is in the noting practice of it, for example, saying, instead of I am thinking, I am breathing, saying there is thinking. Like, in other words, trying to get rid of that personal pronoun. Yeah. There is the attempt to speak in a way of not using that. It sounds weird. And that way has been going on here quite a bit. I don't know any other languages, so I don't know other languages. This type of effort which is being spoken of right now, okay, this type of effort actually helps

[74:16]

to reveal how the self is lurking there, waiting to co-opt the conversation, which is fine. That's part of self-study, is to stop using the word self to discover that it's part of the linguistic setup, that the language is built around it. And the more you realize that, the more the realization is ready to dawn. taking a break from using I and my, that taking a break is a way to, can be very helpful with certain people to actually study more deeply the entrenchment of that point of view in linguistic convention. Linguistic convention is similar to basically, it's our imprisonment. But playing with it, being playful with language and trying new things like that is part of becoming liberated from the language.

[75:22]

And so the thing you're saying would be a perfectly reasonable thought experiment to try with what you call consenting adults. If you do it with children, maybe they get really scared and confused. Like I tell this story about somebody's grandson Anyway, a grandson got a new bike, and it was arranged for his grandfather to bring him the bike from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, and the bike was given to him by this person he calls Granddaddy, and it was a beautiful bike, and he said, his mother was pregnant at the time, And he said that when this little girl is born, she cannot ride the bike. And I said, it was said to him, that by the time she's old enough to ride the bike, he would already be in college and the bike would not even be used by him anymore.

[76:40]

And then he said, I still don't want her to use it. And I said, but the person you'll be at that time, you don't know how he'll feel. And he said, that's totally incomprehensible. But he did let me say that to him. I got to have that conversation which comes to the conclusion totally incomprehensible. But that's part of studying language in consciousness is to come to the, open the doors to incomprehensibility. Because it, how we're actually giving each other life and receiving each other's life, how we're giving our face to the universe and receiving the face of the universe, how that's actually going on, is inconceivable, incomprehensible, incoherent. And the interaction between our coherent mind and our incoherent

[77:50]

background of our mind, that relationship is the Buddha mind seal. So we study the coherent cognitive linguistic field and playing games with it will be part of how we become free of it. This last thing that you said, this relationship between our conscious mind and the unconscious mind, that is... I don't think I said unconscious. I said it's background. Well, I'll ask the question anyway. I wonder if there's, does our unconscious mind, is that merged with or not different from, is it a conduit to what is all pervading? Yes. But so is your conscious mind. All phenomena are, you could say, conduits to the whole field of all phenomena.

[78:58]

So all conscious are and all unconscious are. Both. There's no limit on what can be doors to reality. Yes, my question, I... It's just that in the unconscious you don't get to be there at the door. Sorry. But it's still a door. You can walk through, you're not there. Whereas in consciousness, when you walk through the door, you get to be there and realize, oh my gosh, after I went through the door, I wasn't there anymore. Interesting. You don't get to have those kinds of discoveries in the unconscious, but still you can have awakening can occur in unconscious, and also awakening can occur in your body. I think the heart of my question is, does delusion, it seems like when the eye flips up and there's consciousness and the world, there's also this delusion that begins suffering, whereas when this consciousness dips below that threshold into the unconscious realm, suffering also disappears?

[80:06]

No. No. Well, the one story is that the conscious mind arises, you know, evolutionarily speaking, it arises from the unconscious cognitive process. So like I said, I don't know about ants. I don't know if they have consciousness. But I think dogs do. It seems like they dream at night and they're playful. It seems like many primates definitely have consciousness, they have nightmares. Anyway, but all these beings have unconscious cognitive process. And that's sort of the basis for evolution, for this arising of this type of mind where there's a sense of an individual self. So now I've got that. Now part of the additional teaching of the tradition is, which the Buddha said but didn't go into much detail on, the Shakyamuni Buddha did, I think, bring this out but he didn't open it up as much as later generations did, that the conscious activity transforms the unconscious process.

[81:23]

The unconscious process is to a great extent the results of conscious activity. But there was a time when there was unconscious cognitive process and there was no conscious activity. But now that there's conscious activity, conscious activity is the results of it are to a great extent stored as unconscious cognitive process. Another way that they're stored is in terms of buildings, you know, and roads and things like that. People make things like that. But there's a mental result of our karmic activity that's the unconscious. And so our conscious activity is constantly muting or transforming our unconscious cognitive life. One way or the other.

[82:28]

And there's certain practices you do which transform your unconscious processes in a way that promotes those practices being done more. And there's other practices which transform your unconscious process into those being done more. So there was a time when we didn't have to talk so much because we had not done the conscious work of transforming our unconscious into something that makes it very difficult for us not to talk. So now, because of trying to talk, we have an unconscious that is constantly telling stories about what's going on. But little children do not have those stories yet. They don't have the language to make those stories about what's going on. They had the equipment to learn how to influence the process. But our unconscious is feeding our conscious stories all the time about what's going on.

[83:33]

So our unconscious gives us the stories of, like this room. For example, the unconscious gives us a story of three-dimensional space. To close your eyes, three-dimensional space goes away. Open them, it comes back. Your unconscious creates that sense of three-dimensional space. Just like that. Every moment. Effortless. And it creates a lot of other stories, too. And consciousness can say okay to the stories, or consciousness can say, well, there's a story, but what evidence is there that this is reliable? But it doesn't always do that. it sometimes just says, okay, fine. It proves the story that the unconscious just popped up there. And the unconscious is like just popping up every moment, just popping stories. Three-dimensional space, Wheelwright Center, Green Gulch Farm, nice people, some of them are not nice, blah, blah, blah.

[84:38]

These stories are coming up. With non-stop. Unless you're not conscious. But the consciousness has the ability to study this stuff. It has the ability to receive encouragement to study the stories that are being given to it. The consciousness does not make up the stories. We can't help but have the stories. They're given to us without us asking for them. And it's a lot of work to be somewhat, if you use the expression, questioning of them. And we don't necessarily want to make the effort. However, I would say that not just Buddha ancestors would really encourage us to look at these stories and see if there's evidence for them. a lot of times there is not.

[85:44]

If you can present a human being with a random process, a random event, they'll make up a story which says it's not random, that it actually has its causes. Now not all things are random, but a lot of things are. But our unconscious is not interested in randomness. It's interested in coping with randomness. And the way it copes is making a story that's not random, even though there's no evidence for it not being random. And even after you show it, it still makes up a story from how you shouldn't really pay attention to it. However, you can consciously catch that and say, wait a minute. What's going on here? I seem to be fighting this information. And these people are looking at me and asking me to please listen before I tell the next story. How are you doing? So the unconscious, there's not somebody there, but it's a delusion factory.

[86:56]

It's making up highly reduced versions of reality to feed consciousness. Consciousness isn't the factory, it's more like, excuse the expression, it's the control center. It's the place where there is a delusion that you can control life given these stories. It's the headquarters. But it's also the discovery center. And it's the analysis center. It can do analysis. It can receive teachings about mind. The unconscious can too, but it's not so interested because it doesn't have the ability to really listen to and think through in detail these various teachings. It can see them, it can hear about them, but it's not well suited. It's extremely skillful at certain things and it's not good at certain things that the conscious mind can get good at, but the conscious mind needs to train And the training of the conscious mind transforms the unconscious.

[88:02]

But the unconscious can't train. It just keeps putting up stories every moment. However, if you train the conscious, the stories that it puts up will be different, but not by directly training the unconscious. This class is a training of the unconscious. Was there anything else this morning? Yes. Travis? Yes. So we're talking about this process of making stories. And sort of the description of that, how that story came to the current. is also the story we could tell about that. Yeah, that's another story. And that story, you could analyze it and see if there's any evidence for that story.

[89:10]

And there is. Yes, go ahead. OK. analyze the perception that it's a story. Again, being able to see that it was a story, that you said that that was a story. So there's a... I don't know if you have to do that. There can be a perception that's a story, and it's true that is a story. But that story, I think, will hold up. It isn't that the unconscious is not sending you moment after moment, this is a story, this is a story, this is a story. It's not doing that. It's not doing that. That's something you'd have to train the consciousness. So, for instance, you saying that it's not doing that isn't a story. You saying that it's not doing that. Well, that was a story. That was a story. Yeah. And the story I told, which you can check out, you can check out this.

[90:11]

Do you have it occurring every moment? This sentence, this is a story. Does that happen to you every moment? I don't think so. Well, if I were to say, as I ask myself that question, then I might say, I don't know. But then I might reflect on the story of I don't know. It was also a story that I don't know. Right, but I'm saying that story is not being fed to you moment after moment. Like, for example, this room has been, for most people, the whole time they've been here, this room has been intermittently transmitted to the people. You didn't ask for the room to be transmitted to you. The unconscious said, here it is. Please accept, this is a room. And I'll make it, you know. I'm trying to make this an acceptable story. How about a room? And sometimes the unconscious varies the situation a little bit and the consciousness says, no way.

[91:13]

You don't make rooms like that anymore. And the unconscious goes, okay, here's another one. So, go ahead. There seems sometimes to be a feeling in my stomach when I want to call something a story or I don't know. If I were to look back upon that and see its own story-ness or its own I don't know-ness, there could be a loop. But that seems to end when I see the loop. Still, that might be the end of looping and bringing you back more to just look at what's happening. So a lot, again, I'll just say the general thing first. People are being, our consciousness is being fed stories pretty much non-stop throughout the day. It is not that common that people are also hearing the story, this is a story.

[92:17]

So there's 80 million stories occur each day. How many times... do you know if that was a story? Six? One? Some people all day long, not one. They just, 80 million stories, and not once do they stop and say, well, that was a story. What I just thought of him was a story. And then you could also say, that was one, you got one now. One noticing, one story about storytelling. The other ones were like, The other ones were not stories about storytelling. They were stories about reality. They're saying this really is a room. This is Green Gulch. Now you have one story which you can repeat. This one can basically be repeated. That was a story. [...] But how many times in a day do you say that was a story? That was six, one, zero? Not 80 million. 80 million would be good, actually. That would be, you would really be attentive, like you would be catching them every time.

[93:19]

Story, story, [...] delusion, illusion, illusion, phantom, trick, [...] deception, deception. But at a certain point, when you have the 80 million, there's maybe a compassion that brings you to, oh, I'll just take faith or... Yeah, I think long before you were able to get to 80 million, you're practicing a lot of compassion to the stories. This thing, it's a story, it's not a mean thing. You can't do this repeatedly without being kind to the stories. So like, one quick story, not so quick, about my daughter. She had a friend over. for a sleepover when they're like seven, eight years old maybe.

[94:19]

And these girls got along very well. It was a very harmonious sleepover. And then in the afternoon of the next day, the mother of the girl came to pick the girl up and the girl ran to her mother and sat on her mother's lap, you know, and embraced her mom. And then they left. And after they left, my daughter said, she did that just to hurt my feelings. Do you understand, Travis? She thought the girl went away from her to her mother to hurt my daughter's feelings because they had been so close. They were like bonded. So her friend left her and went to her mother. She broke the bond. And my daughter said, a story came up, she did that just to hurt my feelings. That story just came up there into my daughter's consciousness.

[95:25]

And my daughter did not say that was a story. However, her mother observing her, thought, oh, my daughter has a story. And then later my daughter was sitting on her father's lap, me. And my wife said to my daughter, she said, did you do that just to hurt my feelings? So this is like what comes to you when you're aware that children have stories. and we have stories, and let's look at them." So my wife said to the daughter, okay, do you have the story that you did that to hurt my feelings? And my wife did not say that she thought that. She just said, well, you could apply that here too, right? And my daughter went, okay, I'll give her another chance. This looking at the story, you know, and seeing different ways of looking at it. This is Buddha's work.

[96:26]

got the story, she did this just to hurt me. Now let's look at it now. Did you do that just to hurt me? Oh, oh yeah. That's Buddha's work. So she says, okay, now I'll give her another chance. I'll watch her at school tomorrow. You know, to check out this story, right? So she comes home and we say, well, how did it go at school today? And I think, and then she said, I noticed that that I was getting angry at her for what I was thinking about her. In other words, I noticed that the stories I was telling about her, I got angry at her for that. In other words, I see now that it was actually, it's a story. And if I believe certain stories about people, I'm going to get angry. And if other stories, I'm going to try to control them and so on. So the remembering the story is something that, it is another story, but it's a story which liberates.

[97:31]

It liberates us from believing our stories as something more than stories. And that's what the Buddhas are trying to help us do, is not get rid of our stories, but look at them from other angles and become free of them. Yeah. The Buddha accepts our stories and goes with us on our stories. You know? We're going to go off on this adventure. The Buddha doesn't say, that's just a story. The Buddha goes with us Right along with us. And then the Buddha watches us tell other stories as we're going.

[98:35]

But the Buddha also helps us look at our stories while we're being generated. And we wake up walking with the Buddha who's not trying to stop us from these stories or go with them. Buddha goes right along with us and keeps us studying the stories as they constantly are evolving. And we become more and more realizing the Buddha mind seal. Yes? This might have been a good talk, but I was here for almost a minute because I spent most of the time in that chair. And, you know, on my seat, I think... Well, I think that's a wonderful story. But really, this... Pardon? No, I mean, I'm not questioning that you were in that story of worrying about my chair. I'm not questioning that you weren't. I just think it's so wonderful that you were watching out for me.

[99:40]

And I want to tell you another story. May I? Are you ready? I'm not going to tell her. Okay. Good girl. Okay, so you want to talk about this story some more? Okay, go ahead. Because I was afraid that the back leg, which I had a good view of, could fall off. And then I thought, well, but I can already warn you, and you're a grown-up, and you've said, and instead of thinking about... I'm definitely a grown-up. take care of myself for you, and I feel like the teaching is leave, you know, you sat there for... Wait a second now. Wait a second. She's talking about what the teaching is. Let's listen carefully. And the first thing she said was, the teaching is that I've sat there before.

[100:42]

That's not the teaching. What's the teaching? I'm just remembering the story. I don't know if it's the teaching about the devil or you take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself. That's a teaching, yeah, right. Okay, so. So, okay. Okay, what? Okay, so that I'm letting you take care of yourself? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, that's not the teaching. The teaching is you take care of yourself. That you're there taking care of Tracy thinking about me. Were you doing that? Was I taking care of that while I was thinking of doing it? Were you being mindful of the storytelling? That's the teaching is to be mindful of the story you're telling. But at some point, what about action? That is an action. What about an action that could have saved you from cracking your head? Yeah, what about that?

[101:42]

We could nail a bumper on the back of that. No, wait a second. We're back here practicing mindfulness. So... Such a nice example because this is the story of the acrobats, right? And the Buddha is saying, if you take good care of Tracy, who's, you know, which means if you're mindful of Tracy sitting there next to Simon, behind Anne, and you're taking care of Tracy, then how can that help you take care of me up here? Right? And I was going to move the chair a little bit more to the back. Just for fun. And then tilt it like this. Now we're getting into the acrobats, right?

[102:45]

Okay? So, now, I'm going to get up on this chair now, okay? And if you want to help me, you need to take care of Tracy. Now, is Tracy, like, taking good care of herself? Because... Yeah. If Tracy's going to help me do this, she's going to have to... I need Tracy to be taking care of herself. Yeah. Of course. But you're also allowed to ask Simon to move over a little bit so you can get up and come over here. I'm not telling you, but you could ask Simon, would you move over a little bit, Simon? And then you could get up and you could come over here But when you come over here, you take care of yourself as you're coming. You know, be mindful of your posture, okay? Because you're going to help me, right?

[103:49]

Yeah. But yet, I don't want you to come over here and help me if you're not taking care of me, if you're not paying attention to your own body. I don't want that kind of helper. I don't want you to be denying that you don't want me to get hurt. I want you to be aware. Then you can come over here and say, And you could have done that. You could have come over and said, can I just stand back here during this time like this? I probably would have said, sure, fine. You could have done that. But the teaching is, if you want to stand back here and take care of this chair, then you have to take care of yourself. Otherwise you're not going to do... I don't want people who don't take care of themselves taking care of this chair. They're not going to be helpful. They need to do their homework first. And that homework can lead you to come over here and help me with the chair. Or be ready to help me. I didn't know if I was not taking care of myself because I was so distracted. But then I thought, well, it's being recorded, so at least I can listen to it later.

[104:52]

Yeah. Being mindful of what you're thinking is equivalent goodness of being mindful of what I'm saying. And what you're thinking is how you're understanding what I'm saying. You're welcome. It's getting late and I want to mention one more huge point. And that is that this is one of the places where what Zen is popular, a popular view of Zen is one of them is one that I agree with.

[105:54]

And that Zen is a is devoted to helping human beings realize spontaneous activity. That's a kind of popular view. Some of you have that view of Zen? Yeah, I agree with that. And spontaneous activity comes from taking your seat and settling where you are. And so I'm not particularly judging or not judging, but to some extent you took your seat and you were mindful that you were concerned, you were worrying. And from that place you raised your hand and told us something. And that led to a conversation. And that could have been a spontaneous event.

[106:58]

Now I, in responding to your gift, was in this position and I'm happy with being where I was and I was happy to respond to you quite spontaneously. I enjoyed a spontaneous interaction with you. It was a joy for me. And it came from me being here with you telling me about what it's like to be here as you with me. and you're trying to be in your seat. And when you're, sometimes if you're really working at being in your seat and I'm talking to you, you might not be able to hear what I'm saying. Because you're so challenged to be in your seat. Because you're feeling a lot of fear, you know. Like if, you know, I don't know what, if we were standing at the edge of a cliff, you know, and I say, could I talk to you about the Lotus Sutra? Yeah. And you might say, well, actually you can, but I don't think I'm going to be able to hear you.

[108:02]

I'm just so concerned, you know, for your welfare that I don't know if I can hear anything. I think I have all my energy just to deal with my anxiety that you might get hurt. And I might say, okay, I really, I support you to be with your anxiety that I'm going to fall off this cliff, but I still want to talk to you about the Lotus Sutra while you're doing that. Is that okay? And you might say, okay, all right. And then, you know, and then you might do something and I might say, that's what I mean, that's the Lotus Sutra. And you go, oh, thank you. So, Stillness, right? Stillness. Stillness in the midst of the storytelling. And it's hard to be still sometimes when the story is somebody I care about is in danger. But that's your seat. And if you can fully be still with your seat of what you're concerned about, you may not be able to hear what I'm saying, but you might raise your hand.

[109:10]

And that might be just the right thing. action does emerge spontaneously from taking, accepting your seat. Like we say again, when you find your place right where you are, practice spontaneously occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. It's hard to trust, moment after moment, finding your place right where you are with this storytelling going on. Okay, where am I? Oh, I'm in story land. I'm in story land. I'm in story land. He's going to get hurt. She's going to get hurt. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. And then when you fully arrive, you can get to witness that the reality is actualized spontaneously. You don't have to do anything else. You don't have to do anything else than just be completely yourself, totally 100%, no place else.

[110:13]

That's all. with all the stories like, I can't stand to be here. It's too hard to be here. We're here with you saying that, yeah. Spontaneous activity. There is action. But spontaneous action isn't something you do you have to think about. It comes out of sitting where you're thinking. It's not something other than what you're thinking. It is the fruit of fully accepting and fully caring for what you are thinking. And that's going on all day long, but if you're not present, you think that stuff comes because you thought rather than The thought was given to you spontaneously, and you're there for it.

[111:21]

That's very hard for us, especially when somebody's about to fall off a cliff or somebody's about to hurt somebody. We think, well, how can being still address that? Well, I'm saying, if you can love your position of worrying about that person from that seat of love, this appropriate response will arise. But it's hard to trust being here when there's danger all around. But that's where Buddha's sitting, in the center of all the danger. And from that place of sitting there completely, the appropriate response is coming up, moment after moment. Coming back, appropriate response. Being here, appropriate response. But we have to train. We have to train. Train, train, train. Stillness. here, worried about this person. Not trying to get him to be somebody who sits at a lower altitude.

[112:26]

And when he's there, but if he is at a lower altitude, same practice. It isn't about this altitude or this altitude. It's about take care of yourself at whatever's going on. Thank you very much.

[112:50]

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