And I brought the jumbo chalk. We have no blackboard. But, yeah, but the blackboard's been switched, so... I've got the jumbo chalk, though. Just in case. And... Got the fan here. Well, you might say that the fan, the chalk can perform certain functions that the fan can't. But they both can be used ceremonially to realize the Buddha way. So, you know, once there was a person, I don't remember her name, but she was writing on the blackboard and a monk came up and said, the Buddha Dharma is eternal and there's no place it does not reach.

[01:29]

Why do you use chalk on the blackboard? And the teacher says, although you understand that the nature of the Dharma is that it's permanent and reaches everywhere, you do not yet, you understand that it's permanent, you do not yet understand it reaches everywhere. And what is, the monk said, what is the meaning of reaching everywhere? And the teacher continued to write on the board with chalk. And I made some efforts to find out what these characters meant. But even with my Chinese PhD wife assistants, we have not yet been able to find the first two characters. But I'll continue.

[02:31]

There might be a mistake, of course. People make mistakes when they do calligraphy. But the last two characters means blockhead. Blockhead. Blockhead or stupid. And this character here is a character which is used in the names of a number of rivers in China, and it means mud or dirt or smudge. Together with this character, it means blockhead or stupid. The calligrapher's comments on the first two letters? The calligrapher's comments on his first two letters? Pardon? The calligrapher is writing about himself, writing the first two characters, and he screwed up the first two characters, so he goes... So he wrote the first two characters and said, there's no characters like that.

[03:45]

Hang on. Oh, I don't know. I didn't figure that out yet, although those characters look quite a bit simpler. The first two, anyway. First character is Mountain, which is an unusual first character for somebody's name. But it's, you know, usually it's Blah Blah Zahn, rather than, this is Zahn something. So... Yesterday I gave a little talk and there wasn't much, you didn't bring up much in the question and answer, but I wondered if you had anything you'd like to bring up in relationship to this practice of fanning.

[04:46]

a wind that reaches everywhere. Any questions about this practice? Any comments? Yeah, go ahead. Do you want red? I want to put equations on it, but I'm not going to do that. So I'm going to switch from fanning to painting. Do you agree with this part?

[07:01]

Here we go. Finish your last one. Can you tell us who it says? I can't. We'll read it. Are you done? Yeah. Is it appropriately responsive? No. Applies? No, it goes there. That's why I question it. Okay. All right. I... Okay, so Neil wrote here on the first column, the top of the first column is mapping. Underneath, painted love, I mean, yeah, painted love, colon love. And then painted hatred, colon hatred. Painted hatred, colon love. And then the next column is... what it is, and then reality in both cases, and then how it functions.

[08:11]

And for painted love, it functions as appropriate response. And then he has a blank for how painted hatred, which is love, functions. And then he asked me, do I agree, first of all, with painted hatred as love and painted love as love? What is painted love? What is painted love? Whatever you think love is. That's what he means. Pardon? Yeah, I would say a performance of love, but what you think you're doing. What I think I'm doing when I say... Love? Not when I say love, but when I... Ceremony of love? Well, basically, the idea is that ceremonial love is the only love there is. So that's it. That's the idea is all there is is ceremonial love. But he also wrote ceremonial hate is love.

[09:19]

And I think what he means is that when you realize the emptiness of hatred and perform it, it's love. Is that what you mean? So I was wondering if I agree with that. Since I understood it, maybe I do. So is love as a ceremony, love? I would say that's the only kind that we have, is love that we paint or love that we perform or love that we, yeah, there's not another kind. So Neil says, if I agree with that, I do. And then the more difficult thing, which I actually raised yesterday in question and answer, well, what about hate? And so the question is, if you perform hate as a ceremony, is it love? Which would, you could say, you could up the ante and say, does that include that you understand that the pain in love is empty?

[10:24]

The pain in hate is empty. So I think that's what painted hate would be. It would be painted hate as love. No, but painted hate as love. But what if it's the kind of activity where you think it's hate and you think it's really hate? And you think it's not painted. You think it's not a ceremony or a painting. Yeah. So then what is it? Then it's delusion. And the delusion... Well, the next question is, how is delusion reality, I guess? What does hatred look like? Can you give an example? Being disrespectful. Warm? Being disrespectful, well, being disrespectful, but as a painting, that you would feel, well, like Zen stories, like Wang Bo slapping Linji.

[11:32]

It looked like Linji thought that was painted disrespect or painted hatred. No, he thought it was hatred, and in the end he realized it was painted hatred, that this kind person slapped him. He thought it was hatred. For him, it was something like hatred. For Wang Bo, it was painted hatred for this person he loved. He was his gift. So that's part of what's being asked here. Do I agree with that? And I do. And now the question is, what about painted war? Is there such a thing? Hmm? Yeah, I think there is such a thing as painted war. Guernica. Hmm? Guernica. What? That's not the kind of painting. What does painted war look like? Iraq.

[12:35]

I would say any way you paint it, that you think this is a painting of war. That would be painted war. So maybe it does mean what Lenore said. What did Lenore say? That painting, Guernica, by Picasso, that was like a protest and cry after the bombing and destruction of Guernica. No, but I guess... Yeah, but I wondered, when Picasso painted that, did he really feel he was painting war the same way he would feel if he looked out in the street and saw the war and painted war with his mind? Would he think that his painting was the same as what he saw in the street? If he did, then both would be, according to this, love. Just a quick question for clarification. What you mean by painting, is that representing something? Or is it what we conventionally take to be reality?

[13:41]

When your mind creates a picture of war, Like what our minds are doing now, where our minds are creating a picture of this war in the Gaza. Right? That's a representation that we have in our mind here in this valley of what's going on over there. And so, according to this thing, when we understand the emptiness of the picture we have of that situation, that's love. According to, that's what I would do, and Neil Matt when he wrote this. Is that right? Don't you know? I wasn't thinking of that case. No, but, well, that could be worse. If people want to... Okay, you said painted war, colon love. People's minds, human beings' minds do create these pictures. So, like, right now we have some people, the Israelis, painting a certain picture, and we have Palestinians painting a certain picture, and various Israelis are painting various pictures, and various Palestinians...

[14:46]

And we have various Americans painting various pictures. And these pictures could be called they call in these pictures war, and we are too. So to understand that what we're looking at is a painting of a war, and that's the only kind of war we have, too, in other words, to understand the emptiness of our representation of the war, that is love. When it's understood, you could say, properly, because it is potentially possible to have a In some ways, an incomplete understanding of this would not be synonymous with or coexistent with compassion. But the Buddha's love has this quality that when the Buddha sees a war, the Buddha sees a painting of the war and emptiness of the painting of the war. But there's no other war to see than a painting of the war.

[15:48]

So am I representing what you meant to write up there so far? Do you like to make any changes in what you understand? You said you wanted to up the ante, and I think that war might be too big an ante in this case. But it's a pretty... Can somebody else bring it up? Yeah. Yeah. So that does up the ante, and then just sort of say all... Everything is like this. It requires this quality of understanding to make the thing love. And the next part is that the idea, the column of what it is, and in both cases, it's reality. That love is reality. And that the paintings are reality. Yes? I think what I would put here now is ceremonial performance of hatred. Yes. And when someone hates me, like they really hate me, it's actually, they're pretty sincere about it.

[16:55]

So it's really easy for me to get into what it is. That's very clear. When you have a painting of someone hating you? Right. Okay. I think, yeah. But when I hate somebody else, I almost always... lie about it. And so my performance is not such a good performance. And so I miss the reality and I become frightened of the hatred and I kind of don't know what to do. And you lose the sense of the painting. I lose the sense of the painting. Yeah. So you lose the sense of the painting. So you hold back while you're telling the story. Right. I'm telling me the story. I'm telling me the story, but I'm not wholehearted about it. I hold back, and it's a horrible story. It makes sense that I would hold back. I'm holding back because I don't understand its emptiness. I don't understand its emptiness, so I hold back. And then it's not love. And then it's not a painted hatred. It's hatred. Maybe not 100% believing it, but enough to not be wholehearted in the performance of it.

[18:04]

Because I'm afraid or whatever of what will happen if I perform what I, if I wholeheartedly think what I think and say what I think and so on. So it's this thing of wholeheartedly performing it and seeing that it's painted. That's the only way to really be wholehearted. Yeah. Seeing that it's empty is the only way to be wholehearted, and being wholehearted is the only way to see it's empty. And people who understand emptiness who aren't wholehearted yet, that's not a mature understanding of emptiness. And so I would say appropriate response goes for both cases. So the third column of how it functions, namely how love functions, is in both cases as appropriate response. And we hardly have any examples of the historical Shakyamuni being disrespectful.

[19:08]

But, you know, we have some stories of him being kind of a little abrupt with some people, you know, not glowingly, warmly sweet. There's some examples of that where he's pretty tough. But anyway, we have stories of other disciples of Buddha being apparently, and especially in the eyes of a of an especially close disciple, they appear to be disrespectful or harsh, cruel, or something like that. And most of the stories turn out that the disciple understands it after a while. And sometimes the bystanders don't understand, but the disciple happily did, understand that this was painted disrespect for the sake of helping the disciple enter into understanding that all there is is painted love and painted Buddhas and painted bodhisattvas, and Buddhas and bodhisattvas understand that that's the case.

[20:23]

Any more you want to say about this, Anil? I don't think so. Thank you very much. Can I follow up on Rasmus' question? Yes. And Linda Ruth and Maheen. If you want to come up, you don't have to raise your hand. You can just come. Yes, but do you want to do it before Linda Ruth comes? That's fine if she comes. It's just mine was connected to his. Okay, go ahead. She said you can go. She did? She's passing. She's passing. I was just in the... It seemed like there was a little movement from Rasmus' question, and maybe I just didn't understand his question completely, but it seemed like he was asking about, is there a ceremonial performance of hatred, of war, that is love? Not this painted war in the sense of our cognitive representations, but in the sense of a ceremonial performance that's comparable, analogous to Wang Bo and Lin Xi's.

[21:29]

And I could think of ancient things, perhaps like where a group of people sends the king, and the other group sends the king, and the two kings fight, something like that, like these ways of having war that actually limit the damage. But I don't know. I thought that was more the nature of your question. So I just wanted to bring that part out a little bit. Well, those are called, to hear the example, two groups of people send a champion out, maybe a king's, to fight, but those are peace ceremonies. They understand those are peace ceremonies in the form of war enactment. So the people understand that. And as I mentioned before to you, sometimes in those peace ceremonies, one of the participants cites that this is a peace ceremony and then start to actually believe it's a battle to the death, you know, substantially.

[22:37]

And then sometimes the peace ceremony breaks down and armies come out and fight too. There are occasions like that. This thing is very precarious. You can lose it easily. because it has this playful spirit to it and it can be lost. The spirit can be lost and you switch back in the middle and then people can see it sometimes that the person switched from actually performing this wholeheartedly to performing it not wholeheartedly. In other words, well, maybe I'll just actually kill him in the process. And then, of course, my mind is now, has Hamlet popping into it. Or they're playing to kill each other. And it turns out that there was a lack of wholeheartedness somewhere in the neighborhood.

[23:40]

Smell the rat. Yeah, but not it performed the rat. It should perform the rat. And so the precariousness of this is there. You can lose it, dash, and you can slip into... Well, maybe I'll just grasp this. And the other is you can slip into nihilism. That can happen. So I think we're... What would be nihilism? Well, that we don't care about... all these suffering beings in the world who are harming each other. We would say, well, it's empty, you know. This picture we have of this war is empty, so we don't feel compassion for it. That would be a nihilistic understanding of... In the story of Hamlet, what would be a nihilistic view? Well, I don't know.

[24:46]

I guess not to be is the nihilistic mood. That would be the nihilistic thing. Not to be. Just, you know, forget it. It's all empty. But this wouldn't just forget it. Not just forget it because it's so outrageous, this misfortune, but because it's all empty. So forget it. Who cares? And then, because I've forgotten it, I'll do a bunch of stuff. And you could look at the story as Hamlet sometimes being nihilistic and then acting out the nihilism in the middle part of the play. And then acting that out even after he seems to have some understanding at the end that consequences of his nihilism and his realism come crashing down on him. But they come, and part of the tragedy is they come crashing down on somebody who maybe has awoken up, who has maybe understood finally the nature of the play at the end.

[25:48]

Then it's so sad. If he died earlier, to me it's so sad that he dies when he dies. If he died earlier, it wouldn't have been such a tragedy. He was a great guy in the early part, but at the end he was awake, I think. Almost awake. but he couldn't quite pull it off because of past karma. And it wasn't just that he died, but that he couldn't actually fulfill his awakening because of his past karma. That would be one way to see the story. There's a lot of dead bodies at the end. Yeah, there is. But we don't know, somehow I don't know of the other people's maturity the way I know about his. Maybe they matured too during the play. So... Anyway, it's scary to approach wholeheartedness. People are afraid to be wholehearted because they partly know if you're wholehearted you start to open to emptiness.

[26:49]

People are afraid to open to emptiness because they feel like they'll lose control of holding back. So both emptiness, the specter of emptiness and the specter of wholeheartedness are both frightening. And then if you think about, well, the war is empty, then that's frightening, too, that you would be heartless. But that's a very... current example that we can look at and watch to see if we get an appropriate response coming from ourselves and others. So let's see, who else was next to come up? Yes, come up please. So in the discussion for me there came out a bit of confusion between the words

[27:50]

I first thought I felt good about the word painted, and then how it was described, I realized I have some sort of block between the word painted, the word performance and ceremony, which I felt the same first, and then later now acting on it. And the painting I heard which brought into my confusion is that looking at a war when you said that, you see its emptiness and that is the painting. And there felt for me a difference like performing the war or being the war. Do you hear that, the difference? And I just wonder if you feel or see a difference there between seeing a painting of a war and realizing its emptiness or performing the war, making the war a ceremony.

[29:06]

So the question is, do I see a difference between painting the war and performing the painted war? Performing the war? Well, I would say that if you perform the war wholeheartedly, you realize you're performing your painting of the war. the painting so the painting of the war feels is something different than the performance because you say performing painting of the painting is is is the performance of the painting that's the kind of performance in your mind or you can also have a vision you can have visions of war and you can have visions of You can have visions of pure land. You can have visions of harmonious sanghas. You can have visions of Buddhas teaching in certain ways in order to help beings. Like the Lotus Sutra gives various visions, various stories, which you can look at those stories. So those are paintings in your mind.

[30:09]

So there's a kind of performance there. So if you hear the Lotus Sutra and each of your minds represents what you hear in response to your hearing, your mind makes a painting of what you heard. So that's a kind of performance. Then you can actually perform with your body and your voice. Or you can think of it again on purpose to reenact the vision. And it can be a vision of whatever. And there is a difference between then performing it or not. As I said yesterday, Michelangelo had a vision of David, a vision of a picture on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He had that vision and then he performed it. And the difference between the performance and the vision is David. And is the ceiling painting?

[31:12]

That's the difference. Because we all have visions of beautiful things, things we find beautiful, but do we perform it? And if we do, then what comes from that is the difference. between just the vision and the vision performed? So, I mean, when I go into feelings like painted hatred, or I would say performed hatred for me, or performed anger, does not need that I enact it. I can do the performance by wholeheartedly having an anger on somebody without, what's the question, without acting on it. Acting on it? Yeah, I think maybe you're saying acting on it. You're approaching the situation in a similar way that in the idiom of modern English we say acting it out.

[32:15]

Oh, acting it out. The way people use acting out anger or whatever means that they're not wholeheartedly performing it. you're an instrument of an incomplete understanding of the anger and that's what we call acting it out so I think that's what you're referring to the performance the wholehearted performance is not acting out acting the anger is not acting it out acting the anger it seems to facilitate harm and wholeheartedly performing it disarms it That's the proposal here. The painted anger is the basis for somebody then to perform it, to be wholehearted about it. Is it to be fully aware of it? It would include full awareness, yeah.

[33:17]

It would include mindfulness. It would include fearlessness. It would include clearing away obstructions in what you're doing. It would include not holding back. It would include giving yourself completely. So like now I'm not feeling very angry, but I can still be wholehearted about this kind of like not very angry way I am. But if I was angry and I really was wholehearted about it, I don't think it would hurt any of you. You would feel, you know, somehow you're all part of it. It wouldn't be mine. That's another quality of wholeheartedness. It's just not yours anymore. If it's still a little bit, you're angry, you're holding back a little bit. Does that make some sense? No? Did you say no? No. Did you say no? I said no. Yeah, did you say it wholeheartedly? I did. Then you're free of your no. Come up, come up.

[34:22]

Anyway, did you? Do you have more, maybe? I would like to go back to the painted. Yeah, okay. Because I still... You say painted is a vision, but also I heard painted is seeing the emptiness of it. But these are, again, for me, feel like two different... We always have visions about whatever we do. No, it's... We always have painted whatever, painted love and painted hate. That's all we have. That's all we have as sentient beings is painted love, painted hate, painted good, painted bad. Can you just substitute the word constructed for painted? You want to substitute the word constructed for a while? Okay. All we have is constructed hate and constructed love. That's all we have. The other kind of... Story. Story of love, story of hate. In other words, as Yangshan said to Guishan, all sentient beings... I don't know, as Guishan said to Yangshan, all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to lie in.

[35:38]

That's all sentient beings have. If you have chosen to be a sentient being, then all you've got to work with is karmic consciousness, painting consciousness, constructing consciousness. That's what we've got to work with. And it's boundless and it's unclear and there's no fundamental there. That's what we have to work with. And we have constructed love, constructed hate. That's which we work with. Constructed wars, constructed peace. We work with that. So if you... Excuse me. So let's clarify this one more time with this now. What's your question still? If you make painted equal to story of or concept of... And then... And so you all know... that there's this teaching now that all we've got is painted consciousness or constructed, constructing consciousness, painting consciousness and painted consciousness too.

[36:44]

So we have painted or constructed love Now that itself is not enough. You have to then actually understand that and demonstrate that you understand it by performance. So you may say, oh, I got it. And then you perform it, but in the middle of the performance, again, you lose your balance and you actually start to think it's real. So then you didn't really understand it so well. You heard the teaching and you actually tried to apply it, but then in the process of doing the teaching, performing it, you lost it. So then you lost the fact that this is a constructed performance, or it's a performance of a construction. And you started to be concerned about what people thought about your construction, your performance and stuff like that. So then at that point, At that point, the performance is not the appropriate response. Because you lost... You heard the teaching that what you're doing is constructed love or constructed whatever, and you tried to perform it, but you lost it.

[37:51]

You lost the reality of it, which is that it's empty. And then it slipped away from the appropriate response. And, well... you lost a love or you lost a love, which is sad, and you crushed it in your lack of confidence that what you were working with was a constructed version of the love. You lost contact with the real love. And you also lost track of the love when you're performing the hate because you lost track of its emptiness. Is that making sense now? Yeah, may I say one more thing? Yeah. I'd just like to finish you off once and for all right now. Yeah. No more trouble from you. No more fighting. I'll be sure about that. I'm just kidding. We're going to be performing trouble here. Okay, yeah. But it's going to be performance from now on. From now on?

[38:54]

After you finish this. Yeah, that's it then. Thank you very much. You read this nice poem of painting of the cage with the bird. However, in this respect, I felt like the painting was a realized act. It included the awareness of the emptiness and was a performance. So that's why I think, and in some other cases I felt that too, the painting itself is the performance and therefore realizes the emptiness. And that is different from just having this story of which you... I'm sorry, I couldn't follow what you said because my mind went someplace which I thought was really interesting. about this poem. But now I'll try to come back and listen to what you said. So not all of you know this poem, right?

[39:56]

But anyway, we can go over this. I'll put the poem up for you to see. But to make the poem shorter, it's a poem about how to paint the portrait of a bird, and you start by painting a cage. Right? That's the beginning. So now let's talk about the cage. You were talking about painting the cage, right? Right. And I felt like the painting of a cage was a performance with realizing the emptiness of the act. And so I felt the painting is no different. Just stop there for a second, okay? I think that for a child like us, The painting of the cage, at the point of painting the cage, in this poem, painting the cage, you do not yet understand the emptiness of the cage. You do not understand the emptiness of the space inside the cage. You do not yet understand that the bars of the cage are empty. At the beginning, you do not understand that. I think that's what the poem is saying.

[40:57]

That when you first start performing the cage, or whatever, when you first start performing the love, you do not understand. You may understand you have a vision of what a cage looks like. Like one painting of this cage is shaped like this, sort of a dome shape. But some people draw rectangular shaped cages. So you have a vision of a cage, you start painting it. But the poem is saying that after you paint the cage, you still have to sit there with your cage for a while until the bird comes. That's another key factor here, is that the performance is not done by yourself. And when the bird comes and enters the cage, then you realize the emptiness of the bars by painting them away. So this poem is really good in that way because it's saying even when you first start painting the thing, the constructing, you have to put more of yourself into it than just constructing.

[42:05]

You have to let something enter it and be alive in there and be completely committed, and then you can realize the emptiness of the cage. That's what I think the poem's saying. Is that okay? Okay. Yeah, yeah, I can hear that story. I didn't see it like that, but I can fully understand. He just makes a concept or a story of a cage and realizes later, I didn't see it like that. Yeah, so when we first had... So this kind of point, that story of the cage, points to that our mind does very quickly construct a cage. So this is saying, become conscious of the construction. But then even after you become conscious of the construction, like have a schedule like we have, consciously construct a cage for us to enter together, then go in there and see if you can be wholehearted. And when the wholeheartedness arrives, the bird, then close the door on the wholeheartedness, and then the cage can be painted away.

[43:06]

And then when the cage is painted away, then you can perform things besides painting cages away. And that's the part that we want to paint now in relationship to this war, of what we can do after we realize the emptiness of the war. It isn't just paint the cage away, it's then paint a whole new world in there. Which you could have painted that whole new world before, But you haven't learned how to deal with cages yet. But this is a little hard for those of you who haven't read the poem, sorry. We'll post it. But I think that I just... I think that relates to what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And then Rasmus... This was a part of the discussion here.

[44:10]

I was thinking if it's the other way around, if we say I see a painting of the war in Gaza, am I a part of the performance of that war when I see the emptiness of this war? Well, right now, according to some teachings, we are all contributing. The war depends on all of us. So in that sense, we are dependently co-arising with the war and the war is dependently co-arising with us. Therefore, we are responsible as contributors to the war and recipients of the war. And we are also responsible in the sense that we are responding We're here in this retreat responding to the war. This is the way we're responding. Every moment, the way we're practicing here is the way we're responding to that.

[45:15]

So, in that sense, we're performing it, but I'm using also the word performing that we would realize that, but we don't really feel like we're actually performing a war here at Green Gulch right now, I don't think. But even though we may not feel like we're performing a war here, we are co-responsible for the war and for our individual and group pictures of the war. I don't know if I have that related to your question. Yeah, I'm thinking it's clearly seen, if you clearly see the emptiness of something, does that mean that you are also that? You are also the fundamental part. In the sense that there is no difference between me and there's no fundamental difference between this person and an Israeli soldier.

[46:19]

you do understand that more deeply than you ever did before when you understand that, yes. You no longer believe in the separation between yourself and other beings when you understand that. And the point of that then is that then we are better able to meet beings wholeheartedly. and to respond to situations wholeheartedly, which is the appropriate response, is what the Buddhas are doing. This is to enable us as bodhisattvas. So if I see with the eyes of a Buddha, I'm no longer afraid of partaking in a bloody war. you're no longer afraid of it, right? And because you're not afraid of it, you will not. Right. And you won't be afraid of getting killed because you know you will not kill.

[47:27]

You understand. You have an understanding which is the power to not kill. You now are able to not kill no matter what. Buddhists can practice not killing because they're not afraid of war and they're not afraid of people getting hurt. They're not afraid. And therefore they have the confidence and the ability to not hurt, which is what they would like to teach other people how to learn how to do. Who was never hurt? Hmm? I have a very personal situation right now, and I've been thinking of that also in light of your talk yesterday with a dispassion. And my sister called me, and she's in a deep hell realm and says that she hates me.

[48:36]

and she also hates herself, and I don't know how to respond. I think I see the emptiness, but what do I do as a response? What's your wholehearted response? Crying. Are you crying wholeheartedly? It sounds fine to me. This is a good time, a good opportunity. There's no guest students. So you can cry wholeheartedly now, if that's what's being offered to you. If you have this painted crying coming, do that crying wholeheartedly, and you realize the emptiness of the crying and the emptiness of your sister's hatred, and then you will be able to respond to her appropriately.

[49:44]

Yeah, that's the question. How can I help her? When you are wholehearted in response to her, she has a chance to see. She won't necessarily see right away, but you're basically teaching her wholeheartedness. You're demonstrating it. When you get to the place of wholeheartedness, when you get to that place, that's you doing your job, that is helping your sister, and she will eventually get it. If you cry wholeheartedly for her, she will get it. She will learn how to join that wholeheartedness. And then she will realize the emptiness of her hatred. And this is literally a good time to really you know nobody's nobody's we can handle you crying it's really not a problem for us laughing might be more of a problem but you know we truly we'll just kick you out of the zendo if you're laughing too much my question is not personal it's more terminological okay it's about performing make it personal

[51:05]

I tried. It is personal. Okay. It's not personal in the sense that... Now, it's about the words performance, wholehearted performance, and ceremonial performance. So if I understand correctly, everything we do, think and feel are performances, right? Or is it just things we do? That's the first question that I have. I'm proposing to you that when you understand the emptiness of everything you do, all the things we do are empty, because all phenomena are empty. When you understand that, then your actions, you understand our actions are ceremonial performance of your understanding. Now, other people who do not understand emptiness, they are performing their lack of understanding of emptiness, but they don't see it as a performance. They think they're just doing what they're doing. They don't think it's a performance of reality. They do think it's a performance of their reality, and their reality is things are non-empty, relatively non-empty or totally non-empty.

[52:16]

So they're performing their understanding too, but they don't see it as a performance. They see it as real action. But they might understand, okay, I think things are non-empty, and I'm just performing that. I'm acting from that basis. They might get that. So that was really my next question. So ceremonial performance, by definition, is based on insight into the emptiness. I would say the ceremonies of the Buddha Dharma are based on the Dharma. They're based on the emptiness of action. Some people who do not understand emptiness think that they perform ceremonies that are substantially existent to give substantially existent results. They're trying to get something. Whereas, when you understand the emptiness of action, then all your actions become gifts. Dash, performance of the truth of emptiness, performance of the truth that because things are empty, everything's a gift. And everything's both a gift to and a gift from.

[53:21]

So the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift, comes along with understanding the emptiness of action. So there can be no wholehearted performance based on delusion or based on the lack of insight? If you're deluded and you're performing something and you get more and more wholehearted but you're still holding back a little bit, you're still kind of deluded, but sometimes the first thing that happens maybe is you reach wholeheartedness it seems to me you reach wholeheartedness before you're aware of understanding emptiness. But really they're simultaneous, I think. When you're no longer afraid of emptiness, you're no longer holding back. So as you more and more give yourself, more and more full giving, at the fullness of the giving, no resistance, no holding back, completely generous, not trying to get anything,

[54:24]

At that moment, emptiness is not hindered. You realize it. You become, when you're acting that way, your action realizes emptiness. You're acting out, you're performing the ultimate truth at that point. Because I was thinking... But you can be a little bit, you can be deluded as you approach that. Yeah, I was thinking, except like... Being fully with an emotional response, it seems to me that most emotions posit the world as consisting of objects. In certain emotional states, we don't realize that things are empty. So to be fully... I was just saying that Because my understanding is certain emotional states, we almost, by definition, perceive the world as very solid. Otherwise, we won't have those reactions. So to be wholeheartedly with an emotional reaction, does that mean that we can first realize that the emotion is empty and then realize that the object... Well, practically speaking, living here, you've heard about the emotion being empty before.

[55:43]

you've probably been able to wholeheartedly perform the emotion. But even if you hadn't heard about the emptiness, whether you've heard about it or not, when you wholeheartedly perform the emotion, at that wholeheartedness you realize it's empty. And then based on that, then the emotions you perform from that understanding will be love, will be appropriate responses. Even if they look like kind of the same they looked like they did before. But some people might be able to see that there's a big change in the way you're angry now. For example, they may notice that you're smiling all the time when you're angry and relaxed. You know, and that you can drop it instantly. as soon as he's done his job. And that you don't think you're right anymore. And stuff like that. And you're not afraid to give up your anger halfway through the performance. And things like that.

[56:44]

You have flexibility and playfulness. And if someone asks you, you can say, yes, this is empty. I'm just a blockhead. But I don't know what the first two characters mean. I have a question related to Rasmus' question, and perhaps it's the same, and I would just like to... Could you speak up? Yeah. Kyunghee? So I have a question related to Rasmus' question, and perhaps it's the same, and I just need the words to be rephrased something. So to not take war as an example, but torture, because that is something that a single person can do, and you can see it very clearly. So if I hear about torture or I see a picture of someone being tortured,

[57:49]

perhaps I can see it's empty, but if somebody tells me to torture somebody, how can I actually do it and still realize it's empty? So because when I realize it's empty, I will not do it, or I will not do it no matter if I see it as empty or not. So if I ask you to torture somebody, to make a simple example, if I ask you to torture somebody and you respond wholeheartedly to me in response to my asking you to do it, I would say, that's what we're talking about. And I don't know what that would be. But I am asking you to torture somebody. That's what I'm saying. Please torture. Well, for example, to make the example a little easier, please torture me. And then you get a wholehearted response to that. That's what we're talking about. Okay, but... imagining I am a torturer, and I do it all the time.

[58:54]

That's how people do it in wartime. Okay, now you're talking about nobody's asking you to be a torturer. You just happen to think you're a torturer. Yeah, and how can, while I'm doing it, that be wholehearted and I can understand it? Well, like just right now, if you want to imagine, paint, or construct that you're a torturer, go ahead and do it. Do it right now. construct that and then see if you can do it wholeheartedly and then watch to see if when you do it wholeheartedly, if it causes any damage to anybody. And I'm suggesting it will not. But again, I think the first example is easier because if I tell you to torture me, I think it's a little safer than if I tell you to construct that you're a torturer. So I think you should do it in the presence of the same person who invited you to torture him. So I can watch to see to make sure that you're being wholehearted about it. But if you do it wholeheartedly, you will not be caught by it. But we have the potential of imagining ourselves as cruel.

[59:57]

We can imagine ourselves that way. We have that ability. But we have to learn how to do it wholeheartedly. And so, of course, if you're going to be imagining these kinds of things, it's good to have somebody with you who's on board with you trying to do this wholeheartedly so that it won't be harmful. That's why we can say to Reverend, you can cry wholeheartedly in this situation. It's not going to bother us. We can support you. And also, if you do it and not really wholeheartedly and get stuck halfway to the fullness of the crying, we can push you a little. We can say, come on, go a little further. This isn't wholehearted. We can help you. So this is just keeping it simple. Just let's stay right by the bone of wholeheartedness and then there won't be harm. If you veer away from it, then there can be harm. But it's really the harm is like the harm of not being wholehearted.

[61:02]

That's what hurts us in this life. And... I'm not sure if I have to add. Even if you thought you understood, you'd still have to then perform to prove it. Just like in the story I just told, you know, Guishan says to Yangshan, all sentient beings just have storytelling consciousness, just have painting consciousness. How would you test that in experience? To see if the person understood that you... Understanding that we just have karmic consciousness is Buddhahood. Understanding that we just have karmic consciousness is to be able to perform it wholeheartedly. Because you see, we sometimes think, well, we don't just have karmic consciousness, we have a little bit of, like, reality consciousness. Karmic consciousness typically thinks it knows a little bit about what's going on. Really.

[62:03]

I mean, really. And therefore it won't 100% just be karmic consciousness. It won't 100% be unclear. So if you want to test if somebody understands that, you test to see can they be completely unclear. Do they actually understand this teaching? So you can test that. So even if you say you don't understand, so if you don't understand, then you probably, I don't know, I forget about Yangshan for the time being. I should stay here. Can you wholeheartedly perform not understanding? I can. I don't know. Yeah, that wasn't wholehearted. That wasn't wholehearted. It wasn't hard. You actually a little bit thought that you could. I'm trying to, you know, because I think I have a glimpse of something. Yeah, so you don't understand, plus you can't even perform that you don't understand wholeheartedly.

[63:06]

What a bad Zen student. Yeah, you can't even be a bad Zen student wholeheartedly. Come on, let's see it. More wholehearted bad Zen student. That's what we need here. I give up. I give up. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's good. There you go. That's good. Nothing to get. Nothing to get, right. So Yangshan said, how would you test this? How would you test to see if somebody understood that sentient beings just have karmic consciousness? And he says, if somebody comes, I say, hey, you. Now, people with karmic consciousness, you say, hey, you, they often turn their head. And actually, that's like a wholehearted, deluded person. Hey, you. That's good. They passed the first test.

[64:07]

He didn't say, he said, I say, hey, you. And then he says, if they turn their head, he didn't say, they passed the first test. He just says, if they turn their head, Ted had given another test. And he does. But he didn't say, if they don't turn their head, in other words, they say, I'm not going to turn. This is Zen teacher saying, hey, I'm not going to turn. If they turn their head, I say, what is it? If they hesitate, I say, all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear with no fundamental rely on. That's the test he told his teacher. But he also, he didn't say, I add now, he didn't say, I say, all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on, and you do not... Perform that wholeheartedly. You're resisting that. You're resisting being a sentient being. Didn't say that part, but that's what's happening, is that the way you test, what you're testing is, can a sentient being wholeheartedly be a sentient being?

[65:14]

That's what you're testing. Because sentient beings don't like to just have gritty, grimy, old karmic consciousness. They want to have a little bit of bodhisattva consciousness, beyond karmic consciousness, beyond delusion. So you test to see, is the sentient being completely willing to be a sentient being? If they are, they pass both tests. And Guishan thought that was a good test. So we can test each other about basically this. Are you willing to be a sentient being? Oh, can I cold back a little bit? Yes. You jerk. Better have a cough drop on that one.

[66:14]

I'm deeply encouraged by this. I'm deeply encouraged by this. I, um... I was testing to see if I forgot that I was playing when I said that. And I appreciated your laughter as well. And I wonder about the problem that I feel about wholeheartedness, which is Sometimes when I express myself wholeheartedly, I feel like the person that I'm expressing myself to does not see it as play. Maybe the whole room doesn't see it as play. And then I start feeling afraid. And then I start seeing it not as play. So I'm not sure who's... It's precarious, see? Maybe you really reach wholeheartedness and you put it out there and somebody doesn't see it as wholeheartedness.

[67:15]

And at that point, you can lose it and become half-hearted. It can be lost. You can lose it. So I wonder what... And then the person can say, yep, you lost it. Try again. If that's happened, if you find yourself making an insult and you don't laugh and the whole room is silent, what then? What do I recommend? Your own confidence. It's not your own confidence. Wholeheartedness is not your own. Everybody helping us be wholehearted Raven can't cry wholeheartedly by herself. She needs support. She thinks, oh, I can't cry because the guest students will get depressed if I'm crying all the time while I'm just giving them the work assignments, so I'll hold back. And the guest doesn't say, why is this lady so uptight? What's the matter with her?

[68:16]

Is this a Zen center? And if she cries wholeheartedly, they might think, is this a sense in her? But in one case... So one might... Just because you got that response doesn't mean that that was wholehearted. So why don't we turn to love and just realize that what's happening in the room is love happening? Well, you would realize that, yes, but don't tell yourself that. What was your question, your last question? It wasn't a question. I was wondering out loud, I guess, if what I could do when I insult somebody and they have not understood my love for them and I'm quickly feeling my life energy drain as I am doubtful of my own intention to somehow get in touch with the love that is the present circumstance.

[69:28]

Why are you insulting them? Why am I insulting them? Well, me. Take this example, okay? I was testing Rev's understanding of my love for him and my own authenticity. Is that what you're doing when you're insulting other people as well? No. She's been perceived incorrectly as insulting so that the energy of her play is lost. That was the setup. She's using the word that she's insulting. But sometimes, maybe it starts out with a positive intention like that, like I want to express my love, but often it's expressing my love because there's something I feel like a... Depending, I don't want to go that way. Sometimes I do feel that when I lose my confidence, then I do become violent.

[70:32]

So then I do, you know, then I can't tell, you know what I mean? Like I lose track of my play. If I'm received in a way that feels cold or violent, then I might respond in a way that is cold and becomes violent. You might respond half-heartedly. Yes. So if you offer yourself wholeheartedly, you'll often get negative feedback. If you're teaching somebody how to play, they'll often have an unplayful response to your teaching efforts. So that's normal that that would happen a part of the time. And that's part of how they learn to play is by you being playful and them being unplayful to see if you can be playful with them being unplayful. So you can call me a jerk and then if you get a playful response, fine. If you get an unplayful one, then you have to be playful with that. And remember that that unplayful response was, you know, understand that that was love too.

[71:34]

Pushing your skill to a deeper, higher level. So sometimes when you insult somebody, you're trying to help that person with an insult? Sure, yeah. You may insult somebody as we're being honest. Or just insult me as a way for me to show people that I can laugh when you insult me, because you're trying to help me show people that I can be playful. Boy, you've come a long way. I am not clear about my question, so I might stumble around a little bit. Wholeheartedly? Wholeheartedly stumble? I guess so.

[72:37]

You're invited to be a wholehearted stumbler. Okay. Thank you. The prima donna of stumbling. There you go. I actually was really careful right then. Wholeheartedness includes carefulness. She said to be careful because I'm recovering from a broken foot. Stumble. Stumble. Yeah. This morning, Indopa-san, when I started to cry and held back, he said, you know, it looked like you held back. And I think I realized that that crying was actually a response to fear. It's a habitual response that I have to fear. So the wholehearted crying isn't actually being... If I went with the crying, it actually wouldn't be being wholehearted, because what I wholeheartedly need to do is be upright with the fear.

[73:45]

And so I knew that, but I didn't know it was fear. I hadn't identified that yet. Cool. Okay. I see your response to that. And then I have another question. Because as soon as I walked out of the room, I thought, well, what about the ceremony? What about... Was there any of devotion to emptiness in what I did in the room? And I actually hadn't consciously thought about emptiness while I was in the room. So... How could I have, or could I even, could I even have incorporated a celebration of emptiness into what I was doing? Can you say how?

[74:48]

In the wholeheartedness of your performance, you're celebrating emptiness. If you came in with the idea and the intention, the play you are going to perform is the play of celebrating emptiness, then it would be appropriate for you to be wholehearted in that play. But you don't even necessarily have a play in mind. The play you have in mind is called celebration of emptiness. You don't know what form it's going to have yet. Or you come in and just perform the form wholeheartedly, and when you reach the wholeheartedness, in fact, in reality, ultimately you are celebrating emptiness. Of course it's a nice play, whatever it is, maybe, but ultimately the play is empty, and that the fullness of the play is a celebration of emptiness. The fullness of the play is awaiting your performance. I do have a little heart in my scrotum.

[76:03]

I'm not really sure why this came up for me, but I'm glad it did, because it's been bothering me for a long time. So the setup is, I'll come to Green Gulch, and I'll hear a lecture given by you, perhaps in the Zendo, or a Sunday Dharma talk. And then I'll go home, and my wife will say, so what did Reb talk about today? And my instant response will be a combination of frustration and a little anger because I don't know what to tell her. Because I always feel as though your talks and other people's talks are so complex that I can't tell another person what you've said. And then so then I start to take that. I can't give her a wholehearted response. I give her a frustrated and angry response. And then I take that farther and I start feeling like I'm stupid because I can't remember the details of what you said.

[77:13]

And so there's absolutely nothing about my response to her or myself that is wholehearted. It's a big, sad frustration for me. It's almost like not knowing how to live. Yeah. So when you go home next time, the thing to emphasize is being wholehearted in response right away, as soon as you see her. wholeheartedly open the door, run up to her and say, please don't ask me anything. I beg you, my darling. I'll give you anything. Anything but just don't ask that. And then she'd say, I just have one question. Could I ask? And you say, no, don't ask anything.

[78:14]

Don't ask anything because I think you might slip into. Please, John. OK, go ahead. What was it talk about? I cannot tell you. I cannot tell you. I give you that, my whole heart. I cannot tell you. You have to be there. Now you have me. I can't tell you about what was there. But you've got this guy who's your husband. Just watch me and you'll know. Yeah, exactly. See? That's pretty good. Yeah. I feel better, aren't I? About life. You know how to live. Yeah. That's how to do it. Thank you. It's scary, though. Imagine opening the door and giving yourself to the person who's there. You prevent them from doing that.

[79:41]

Thanks, Mayi. I've been suppressing my irritation at texts. We respect too many words. But since I'm here, may I ask a question? Last week, there was a board here. It was green. And we call it a blackboard. And this way, there is a board here with the white. screen on it. They call it black work. I asked about plastic.

[80:50]

How we wipe and erase such an imprint? So we still... How we erase the imprint from the old habits. it there. How do we erase the imprints of old habits? Yes, your question? No, actually I change how I... Okay, different question. You know, what is it, what is the practice, what is the practice to erase the old habits? Erase old habits. is an old habit. Erase old habits is an old habit. That's one of our habits is to erase old habits. Is it holding on to it then?

[82:00]

Yes, erasing them is holding on to them, yes. And so one of the ways we have habits is by erasing habits. One of our habits, and so then the habits survive because they know how to erase each other. So not erasing it is like a practice? No, that's another habit. Not erasing is another practice, another habit. What is the way? What is the way? Yeah. The way is to wholeheartedly perform your habits. Then you don't erase them or keep them. You don't move a particle of dust. And yet you enter realization through wholeheartedly performing the painting of the habit. So now you're just erasing up there.

[83:04]

But the erasing wasn't what counts, it was your wholeheartedness, or lack of it. It was your courage to destroy Neil's empire. It wasn't the destruction of the empire that's important, it's the wholeheartedness. And that helps in Neil, and you, and everyone. That's the practice. Erasing is just an old story. Holding on, of course, is another old story. Fine. Old stories are fine. There are great opportunities for performing the Buddha way. And if there's any new things, they're also good. I'm half-hearted in my nervousness up here.

[84:12]

You're not being wholeheartedly nervous? I'm trying not to be, yeah. Oh. But I have. Oh, she's trying not to be nervous. Oh, my God. What a bad Zen student. Yeah, well, that promotes me to encourage you to be nervous. When you're nervous, that is. Yeah, well, anyway. I had a story come up that I don't think I knew I had until John was talking. I went home from my jukai. December 7th. No, we actually drove home only on the 8th because I was ordered by Arlene to not drive home at 12 o'clock that night. And she found a place for us. But anyway... Yes, he asked me frequently what it's about, what's going on. And I can't ever tell him. I feel like he's... Your partner asked you? Yeah, my partner.

[85:15]

My dear beloved. And he... I figured, you know, you have to be there. It's more than words and I can't tell you. Maybe I don't understand, but anyway, I can't tell you. And... I've had the feeling that he would have to see it in me or somebody else the way I saw it in another person who was practicing. That's a nice idea. Well, and what happened was after he cooks, I lost dishes. Frequently I don't watch them until the next day. Sometimes about five minutes before he comes home from work. And sometimes maybe five minutes after he comes home because I'll have a stopping problem. But that night, the 8th of December, I got up at your dinner and I watched the douches. And he, wow, what happened to you? And I said, don't worry, it'll never happen again.

[86:18]

I kept my word there. It doesn't happen very often. But that's because I've practiced my not moving particles of dust in my house much too well. And I would like to be able to practice it more wholeheartedly so that What? Why am I practicing that whole-hearted? Because I want to do something else. I want to... Yeah, right. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid, actually. You're a busy lady. You've got a lot of half-hearted projects. Oh, thank you. I don't know what my question is, but it's being... Wash the dishes. Then he'll understand what you're doing here. Yeah.

[87:19]

Yeah. But if you wholeheartedly perform, you're not moving particles of dust, I think that this amazing thing called dishwashing will happen in unprecedented forms. Dishwashing isn't the problem. Bloom is the problem. Dishwashing isn't a problem. No. It's an opportunity. Okay. With dishwashing, I see that. Dishwashing is something I can be mindful about, and I'm calm, and I actually enjoy dishwashing. I just don't want to get up on a full stomach and do it right now. Yeah. My daughter had that problem for many years. It's very understandable. And so I would encourage you to be wholeheartedly, you know, wholeheartedly not want to wash the dishes on a full stomach.

[88:29]

And then? Well, when you're wholehearted, you're not into and then. Ah. Ah. You're into ah. Ah. Okay. Wholeheartedly, I don't want to wash the dishes. And then you go, ah. And then your boyfriend goes, ah. Can I go to Zen Center too? I doubt that. Well, you can tell. We have dishes here. He doesn't like to wash them. You can wash them. I finished out your dish, and let's go to Jen's here, and I'll wash some more for you. But not right now. Right now, I don't want to wash them. Boy, do I not want to wash these dishes. Yeah, a lot of ahs. That's good. All right. You're welcome. I have some confusion.

[89:33]

Boundless? Probably. No fundamental to rely on? Well, confusing enough that I'm not sure I can express it articulately. Let's see some confusion, Kate. That wasn't very confused there. If I want to express my love for you... Yeah? And I do it by insulting you. Yeah. Am I wholehearted and straightforward and upright? Well, when you're insulting me, we'll check to see if you're being wholehearted at that time. It's possible to be half-heartedly insulting me. Quite a few people do that. Yes, I have a lot of respect for you. It's the whole hard part.

[90:44]

Yeah, that's the hard part. You haven't answered my question. Oh, really? What's your question? That I didn't answer. Am I being upright and wholehearted if I'm confused? Are you confused now? Yes. Do you feel like you're being wholehearted right now? Yes. And you want to know if I feel you are? Yes. Or does that matter? Are you wholehearted about wanting to know if I think you're wholehearted? May check. Yeah, check. Go right ahead and check. And check wholeheartedly while you're at it. Yes, I am. You are wholehearted about wanting to know whether it matters or not, whether I think you're wholehearted or not.

[91:51]

No, I'm wholehearted about wanting to know whether you think I'm wholehearted. Okay. I hear you. And were you trying to get anything when you told me that? A response. Well, then you're not wholehearted. I'm still confused. Yeah, well, come back up and see if you can be wholeheartedly confused again. So maybe you can actually be wholeheartedly confused, but when you ask me for something, maybe you don't know how the confusion might be seeping into that request. But for me it's pretty easy to check, which I did. were you trying to get anything in that request? And when you say yes, I say, well, taking out your word, I say, no, that's not wholehearted.

[92:55]

You can tell the difference. you can actually look and see the difference between asking me for some response and trying to get it, and asking me for a response as a gift to me. You can just look and see that. And I can ask you with my words to find out, and if you tell me that you're, if in fact you were doing that, then that's not wholehearted. And everything you do here at Green Gulch, you're our work leader, all the things you're doing to take care of people, each one of those things you can look at to see if you're trying to get anything. And if you are, then without even asking me, I would say you're missing the wholeheartedness. But you might actually ask somebody to do something around here without trying to get a response. You might say, I would like a response from you, and you could say that to somebody without trying to get anything. You might be able to find that this afternoon. Or you might say, oh, no, I actually was trying to get something, and I really, yeah, I was holding back, just really giving him this wonderful gift of a work assignment.

[94:05]

Okay? Okay. It's okay if confusion goes away sometimes. So earlier in the class, earlier in the morning's discussion, I had just enormous, enormous feelings come up of I think there was shame that we should be talking so calmly about war and emptiness and with the suffering that's going on. And I felt the danger, you know, the horrible danger of emptiness talk, you know, that's actually led to, I think

[95:13]

horrific things and I just, I felt, I wanted you to just stop talking that way with that tone of voice as if it isn't as fun to talk about painted things and I just, I was like beside myself, I was gonna leave the class. You know, to talk to a mother whose child's just been blown apart about painted war, Anyway, so this, even though I understand that we have to understand this in order for war to stop, but I just was so ashamed kind of of us, of me sitting calmly and listening to this. Anyway, so I wanted to express that, and I got to a dispassionate enough place, I think, to Yeah. Try. You got to a place where you could act as you did.

[96:18]

Before that you were thinking of things like leaving the class, maybe. And there was a lot of just the tones of people's voice, I just couldn't stand it. And I thought we should actually all be down on the floor chanting the Enmei Juku if we want to do anything. That's one thing we could do.

[96:43]

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