in the lineage coming through the founder, Eihei Dogen, Zenji, and then going from him down through Konjo Daisho and Tetsugikai Daisho, there is a person there called Tetsugikai Daisho, and he's the teacher of Keizan Jokin Daisho, and so he's a an important person in the lineage. After Keizan we have many many lineages coming down to the present in Japan and now throughout the world. And at some point I heard stories about Tetsugikai

[01:08]

And in particular, I heard something that he wrote himself. And he was a close student of Dogen's. And he was a tenzo at Aheiji Monastery. Very enthusiastic and wholehearted Tenzo. I heard that when he was Tenzo, the kitchen was at some distance from the monk's hall and that he joyfully carried the food through the deep snow to bring it to the monks. I think he also grew up in the area near Eheiji, a part of Japan which is called Snow Country, on the eastern side of the main island.

[02:22]

So I just got the general impression from various stories about him that he was very enthusiastic, very wholehearted. servant of the community and very wholehearted student of Dogen. And after Dogen died, Koen Eijo became the abbot of Eheiji and then after Koen Eijo, Tetsugikai became the abbot and he had some problems during his abbacy and had to step down and then he was reinstalled and had to step down again. There was some controversy about the way he was abbot but anyway he had after he left Eheiji he had this disciple named Keizan who had his own monastery on the east side of Japan on the Pacific side and then the tradition

[03:28]

thrived more through his side than through the people who stayed at Adheji. And towards the end of Dogen's life, Dogen died, we say, you know, in 1253, 1253. So on the eighth day of the seventh month, of the fifth year of the Kensho era, which is 1953, Master Dogen's disease recurred. He probably had tuberculosis or cancer or both. And so Tetsugika is writing this and says, I was very alarmed to see him. He said, come close to me. I approached his right side and he said, I believe that my current life is coming to an end with this sickness.

[04:37]

In spite of everyone's I am not recovering. Don't be alarmed by this. Human life is limited. And we should not be overwhelmed by illness. Even though there are a million things that I have not yet clarified concerning the Buddha Dharma, I still have the joy of not having formed mistaken views and the joy of having genuinely maintained the correct faith in the true Dharma. The essentials of all this are not any different from what I have spoken of every day. This monastery is an excellent place. We may be attached to it, but we should live in accord with the conditions.

[05:41]

In the Buddha Dharma, any place is an excellent place for practice. When the nation is peaceful, the monastery supporters live in peace. When the supporters are peaceful, the monastery will certainly be at ease. You have lived here many years and you have become a monastery leader. After I die, please stay in the monastery, cooperate with the monks and the laity, and protect the Buddha Dharma I have taught. If you go traveling, always return to this monastery if you wish you can stay in the hermitage. Shedding tears, I wept and said in gratitude, I will not neglect your instructions for both the monastery and myself.

[06:44]

I will never disobey your wishes. Then Dogen, shedding tears and holding his palms together, said, I am deeply satisfied. For many years I have noticed that you are familiar with worldly matters and that within the Buddha Dharma you have a strong way-seeking mind. Everyone knows your deep intention, but you have not yet cultivated grandmotherly heart. As you grow older, I am sure you will develop it. You will develop the grandmotherly heart or grandmotherly mind. Restraining my tears, I thanked him. At that time, the head monk, Ejo, was also present and heard this conversation.

[07:54]

He's calling Eijo as a witness, if this actually happened. I have not forgotten the admonition that I did not have a grandmotherly heart yet. However, I don't know why Dogen said this. And I didn't know why either. I didn't understand why he said this to this great student. Some years earlier, when I returned to Eheji and had gone to see my master Dogen, he had given me the same admonition during a private discussion. So this was the second time I was told this. On the day of the seventh month,

[09:02]

of that year, I went to visit my hometown. Dogen told me, you should return quickly from this trip. There are many things I have to tell you. On the 28th day of the same month, I returned to the monastery and paid my respects to my teacher. he said, while you were gone, I thought I was going to die, but I am still alive. I have requests from the Lord Yoshishige Hatano at the governor's office in Rokuhara, which is in Kyoto, to come to the capital for medical treatment. At this point, many last instructions, but I am planning to leave for Kyoto on the fifth day of the eighth month.

[10:12]

Although you would be very well suited to accompany me on the trip, there is no one else who can attend to all the affairs of the monastery. So I want you to stay and take care of the administration. Sincerely, take care of the affairs. This time I am certain my life will be over. Even if my death is slow in coming, I will stay in Kyoto this year. Do not think the monastery belongs to others. Consider it as your own. Presently you have no position, but you have served repeatedly on the senior staff. You should consult with others on all matters and not make decisions on your own. Now I cannot tell you the details.

[11:23]

Perhaps There are many things that I will have to tell you later from Kyoto. If I return from Kyoto, then the next time I will certainly teach you the secret procedures of Dharma transmission. However, when someone starts these procedures, small-minded people may become jealous. so you should not tell other people of this. I know you have an outstanding spirit for both mundane and super mundane worlds. However, you still lack a grandmotherly heart. Dogen wanted me to return quickly from my trip so that he could tell me these things. I'm not recording further details here. Separated by a sliding door, the senior nun, Egi, heard this conversation.

[12:33]

On the third day of the month, Dogen gave me a woodblock for printing the eight prohibitory precepts. On the sixth day of the month, bidding farewell to Dogen at the inn at Wakimoto, I deeply wish I could accompany you on this trip, but I will return to the monastery according to your instructions. If your return is delayed, I would like to to see you. Do I have your permission?" Dogen said, of course you do. So you don't need to ask any further about it. I'm having you stay behind only in consideration of the monastery.

[13:41]

I want you to attentively manage the affairs of the monastery. Because you are a native of this area and because you are a disciple of the late Master Akon, many people in this province know your trustworthiness. I am asking you are familiar with matters both inside and outside the monastery. I accepted this respectfully. It was the last time I saw Dogen, and it was his final instruction to me. I have never forgotten it. So I didn't understand what he was lacking. And then Dogen died.

[14:45]

And then he studied with his elder brother, Dogen's successor, Koen Eijo. And about a year and a half after this, during the year and a half after this, his mind changed. And basically what he said was that Although our former teacher taught us that the ceremonies of our school, the ceremonies for enacting the Buddha Way are the Buddha Way, and that there is no Buddha Way in addition to the enactment of it in our mind, I had doubts about this. I thought there was something beyond putting our actions forth as offerings to the Buddha way.

[15:59]

But now I see and have no doubt. So the grandmotherly mind that he didn't have was that although he was wholehearted He actually didn't believe Dogi's teaching. Every action forward, every action of body, speech and mind forward as the enactment of the Buddha way was the Buddha way. To make every action, as I've been saying, of body, speech, and mind, an offering to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. That's the Buddha way. So, towards the end of the last class, I think Brandon asked, what about this instruction like, just do it?

[17:05]

How about just do it, rather than just do it and make it an offering? So those aren't in contradiction. You just... Yes. Just cook lunch. Just cook lunch. Just sit. Just sit. Just walk. Yes. And make that just sitting and that just cooking, make that an offering to the triple treasure. If you're cooking lunch for your children, concentrate on the cooking. Yes. Forget what you're doing, that you're cooking lunch for your children. You're not just cooking lunch to be concentrated, to be a concentrated monk. Me, concentrated monk, cooking breakfast.

[18:13]

Yeah. Yeah. Right, but you're cooking breakfast for what reason? Yes. Yes, that's right. But in fact, you might also be cooking the breakfast because you wish to give it to somebody. And it's good to be concentrated and not at least a bit distracted while you make the breakfast. And don't be distracted by the wish that you're going to give this food to your loved ones, to all the Buddhas, to all the bodhisattvas. I'm just cooking as an enactment of the bodhisattva path.

[19:17]

That's all. Cooking. I'm not distracted. I'm not trying to get anything. And I'm doing that as the enactment of the bodhisattva way. I'm doing that as the adornment of the bodhisattvas and nourishment of the joy of the Buddhas. I understand that when we practice wholeheartedly and concentratedly on what we're doing, that this brings great joy to the Buddhas. And I pray joyfully to bring them joy. This is not an addition at all to just doing it. ...Buddhism than this.

[20:21]

And so, again, I wrote here, this is the character for... I'm having trouble with this character here. I think I can get it this time. There we go. This character, while we do this character over here, is a character which is pronounced in Japanese, gi, gi, and it means justice. It means justice. It means righteousness, morality, humanity, integrity, honor, loyalty, devotion, meaning, right conduct. There's a proposal here, there's a word referring to right conduct, to justice, that something is being conducted righteously, righteousness.

[21:34]

And over here is a character for ceremony, which has the same character for righteousness or justice, and then next to it is a character for person. So the word for ceremony is person together with righteousness, together with justice, person together with right conduct. So I propose to you that there is a world A world of right conduct. There's a right conduct world. It's also called the world of truth or the Dharma world. It's a world where things are being conducted righteously, where things are being... where justice... It's the world of justice. It's the world of the Bodhisattva. It's the world of the Bodhisattva precepts.

[22:42]

It's the world of no killing, of no stealing, of no lying, of no misuse of sexual energy, of no intoxication, of no slander, of praising self at the expense of others. It's the world of not being possessive. It's the world of not being angry inappropriately. It's the world of not degrading the world of righteousness. It's that world. There is a world like that. There's a proposal that there is justice and there's a world of justice. And then there's ceremonies that human beings can do where they enact, where they offer their action to enact justice.

[23:44]

That's their intention. Their intention is to embody and to make, it is to make their intention and make their actions in accord with what is offered to embodying justice. And the great monk, Tathagikai, had a hard time understanding that that connection to always to make everything the enactment of this justice, he had trouble understanding that practice. He was trying to do good and yet he didn't understand making everything he did the enactment of good. He thought maybe, I don't know what he thought, but he didn't believe this teaching that the ceremonial enactment of justice was the... The ceremonial action can be recognized.

[25:07]

But the ceremonial action is not the ceremonial... recognizable in action is not justice itself. Justice cannot be met with recognition. But justice can be realized. Justice cannot be grasped. But it can be realized. Home cannot be grasped, but we are living in it. And we do ceremonies. We do ceremonies. We can do ceremonies, which we can recognize as happening or not happening. And these ceremonies help us become more and more ready to realize the realm of truth.

[26:12]

And there's a struggle which we have, which is when we try to bring the person together with the right conduct. So we have the first bodhisattva precept, the first bodhisattva pure precept is to embrace and sustain, we sometimes say to embrace and sustain right conduct. But in another way, he says embrace and sustain ritsugi. In other words, embrace and sustain forms and ceremonies. The first pure bodhisattva precept is to embrace and sustain these ceremonies. In these ceremonies, we get more and more ready to actually enter and realize the realm of righteousness. But as the person is brought into relationship with the ceremony, as the ceremony brings the person into relationship with the form in the ceremony, the person is a problem.

[27:30]

Because the person is sometimes seen as somewhat separate from the ceremony. And so the struggle is this person, understanding this person in relationship to conduct, in relationship to the form, in relationship to the ceremony. And we struggle with this day by day, day by day, day by day, year by year, day by day, year by year, until finally there's just a ceremony. And there's a person, but there's no person different from the ceremony. So there's just a person or there's just a ceremony. But suffering is a painful struggle. And we're doing that right now in this intensive. We're struggling with this. in various, in our own, each person in their own personal way to resolve this, any sense that we are something separate from the ceremony, from the schedule, whatever.

[28:55]

just to wipe my hands, just for chalk. So to me, I would propose that righteousness is a certain reality, and justice is a certain reality, and injustice is another reality. And I think a lot of people know about injustice, but part of what I'm proposing to you is that justice cannot be met with recognition. However, injustice can be met with recognition.

[30:09]

And practicing forms can be met with recognition. And recognizing forms can be met with recognition. And then the time comes when, through this training, We open to the unrecognizable. We open to that which cannot be met with recognition, which has always been surrounding our little world which we recognize. Our life is flooded with the radiance of all things, working in peace and harmony and complete justice. We resist things, which means we resist giving up being separate from them. And we resist the pain of feeling separate from them.

[31:17]

And we resist the pain of resisting giving up the separateness. But by practicing with the difficulties of being separate from the forms and ceremonies brings out something to practice generally. And then as we learn to not resist the pain of resistance, we start to learn to give up resistance. And then we open completely to the recognizable. So completely that there's no person in addition to the recognizable. And then we receive confirmation or verification.

[32:19]

And then we continue the practice from there. Someone just recently said to me, I want to make wise decisions, and so we're struggling to make wise decisions, which is fine. But I propose to you that once there is no resistance to the ceremonies, and resistance to the ceremonies can be feeling separate from them, but another way to resist them would be to identify with them or hold on to them. But again, holding on to them is another manifestation of feeling separation. So being clinging to the ceremonies, holding on to them, being rigid, being tight with the ceremonies is a kind of resistance. Rejecting them or wanting not to practice them or want to do them later or want them to do not so long or want them to do longer, these are all forms of resistance to all manifestations of feeling some independent existence from Zen ceremonies or

[33:27]

or Vipassana ceremonies, or Jewish ceremonies, or legal ceremonies, or governmental ceremonies, or any sentient being. When there's just a ceremony, wise decisions blossom forth. And these wise decisions can often be recognized. But the place they come from It cannot be recognized. And realizing it, we live at the source, the ungraspable source of wise decisions, of wise action, of compassionate action. I heard another story one time. about this young man who was going to go to Eheiji.

[34:29]

And his teacher said, when you go to Eheiji, they have a big bell there, Bonsho, like we have here, bigger than ours. He said, when you're there, you may get a chance to ring this bell. And before you ring the bell, when you ring the Bonsho at Eheiji, Do you bow before you ring the bell or do you ring the bell? Bow, bow, after, hit, after. So you hit the bell, boom, and then bow. Full press to the ground. To the ground. Yeah. So you ring the bell, boom, and then bow to the ground. Ring the bell, boom, and bow to the ground, right?

[35:31]

So he says, when you go to Eheji, you will get a chance to ring the bell and bow. So he went, and he got the chance to ring the big bell, boom, and then bow. And he just says, when you ring the bell and bow, at that time, think. With each bow, the Dharma wheel turns one notch. Boom. Boom. Boom. Of course, you're in a monastery, right? Ringing a bell. Some people ring the bell. I rang the bell. Yes, that's right. And I rang it wholeheartedly. Yes, that's right. The Dharma wheel also turns with your effort. So when that boy was ringing the bell, the old man sitting in his quarters heard

[36:49]

Boom. And he said to his assistant, who's ringing that bell? He could feel, the abbot could feel that this monk wasn't just ringing the bell, which is good, he was ringing the bell for all of Buddhism. He wasn't ringing the bell just for himself or his daddy or his teacher or for the monks. He was ringing that bell for the whole world. And when he rang the bell for the whole world, the whole world responds. And he was with that. And he was thinking that. That's reality. And when he joins it, it makes a door for realization. And the abbot can hear it. I was listening.

[37:51]

When are they going to start? When's the grandmother mind going to manifest in this monastery? So Tetsugikai was very wholehearted, but he didn't understand that that's it. That the things he was doing, the wonderful work he was doing, that was Buddhism. That was the way. He didn't believe that. And his wonderful teacher, who loved him very much, said, you don't get this. You know, you're the leader of this monastery. You're my main guy here. But you don't get this. That's why I haven't been able to... You still don't get this point, this main point. So in one sense, we understand that we... making every action... turning the Dharma wheel, we have, before Tatsugikai was awakened, before he understood, he was just like us. So it's normal that we have trouble understanding this.

[38:58]

It's a very unusual way of thinking. But I think, oh, and I also want to mention, by the way, that this word for ceremony, this word means, it also means deportment. Deportment. Everybody has deportment, right? One way or another, you're deporting yourself. If you're lying on a couch watching TV, that's your deportment. But we usually don't call that a ceremony. But if a person is lying on a couch watching TV and their thinking is, this is the enactment of Buddhadharma, then it is a ceremony.

[40:06]

It's the ceremonial enactment of Buddhadharma. And then someone might say, what show are you watching? And when you chose that show, was that it? Did you choose that show as an enactment of the Buddha way? And the person might say, actually, at that moment, no, I missed that point. So probably I should turn that show off and start over. Matter of fact, I think they'll sit up right now. So it's grandmotherly in the sense of, like Dogen says, it's grandmotherly in the sense of the grandmother or the parent never forgets their children and the grandmother doesn't have to work hard to remember their grandchildren.

[41:13]

It's easy to remember them. There's a heart that doesn't have a hard time remembering to make every step a gift to Buddha, to make every step a gift to Buddha. There's a heart like that someplace, and it's called grandmother heart. And there's a grandmother heart in lots of grandmothers, lots of female humans and, I guess, female bears and stuff. But anyway, there's a grandmother heart in beings. But there's also a grandmother heart in Zen, which lives, you know, in all of us. And we need to find it in order to take care of the Buddha Dharma fully.

[42:19]

And this word ceremony also means a gift or a present. A ceremony means a gift. And that's, again, that's one of the main aspects of these ceremonies is that you understand that whenever you're doing these These forms, they're gifts. They're gifts to Buddhas, to all Buddhas. They're gifts to that which you're trying to enact by the ceremony. They're gifts to that which you're trying to manifest through the ceremony. And another meaning of them is instrument or apparatus. And I have one more thing which I think, you know, I hope you can be open to this.

[43:29]

It's kind of a harsh teaching, but I think maybe now that we're in the middle of the I hope that you're softened up enough to receive kind of a harsh teaching, kind of a fire and brimstone teaching. Are you ready for it? No? Okay, so those who are not ready, please cover your ears. This is called the cookie sutra. In the great blue sky before me appears the great Buddha and protectoress known as the compassionate grandmother who dwells in the heaven of immeasurable cozy kitchen. Here, in an oven as big as Mount Sumeru, she bakes cookies of enlightenment for all sentient beings.

[44:35]

She has thousands of hands, each kind of cookie for each being, one which contains whatever is most needed, their favorite kind of cookie. And she has a thousand laps to cuddle every tired and cranky Zen student. while she sings their favorite lullabies as they rest cozily with half a cookie in their sleepy hands. That last part sounds familiar. I'll take on. From her heavenly kitchen, enticing aromas stream out filling the holes of space so that beings everywhere lift up their faces, hold out their mouths and hands for cookies.

[45:43]

The compassionate grandmother will never sleep nor cease baking cookies and rocking sentient beings until everyone is happy and content. her fresh baked cookies. She completely merges with me and together we recite her mantra. May all beings have cookies and the causes of cookies. Be free of lack of cookies. And the causes of lack of cookies. May they never be separate from the great cookie devoid of suffering. And may they dwell in the cozy kitchen of the compassionate grandmother forever. Now when you said that... It wasn't an accident.

[46:53]

So the precepts, the bodhisattva precepts are the bodhisattva, they're the precepts of justice, or they're justice, they're the bodhisattva's justice. So in acting them, we open to what they're referring to. We're not trying to stop ourselves from being some way. We're trying to enact the way we really are. We're trying to open to the enactment which we live in. But if we don't line up our thinking with it, which is our basic form of action, we're going to think of something else. We're going to think of something. And if it doesn't say justice on something else, and then we're going to think, oh, this is injustice.

[48:09]

But when I see injustice, that's okay, but I wish to respond in a way that enacts, that ceremonially celebrates justice in the face of injustice. And then I open to the realization of justice. And then wise emerge in response to the appearance of injustice. and we show in realms where everyone can see that there seems to be injustice, we have the enactment of justice. There's a light in this darkness. Right in the darkness there is light. But we don't go looking for the light. We respond to the darkness. with actions that are given to realization of justice which act as offerings to the path of the Buddha, the path of justice.

[49:27]

So we live in the world of delusion and injustice wholeheartedly giving every action to the realization of justice. but it's hard, right? It's hard to stay on the ball. And one more thing I wanted to say was that someone came to see me a while ago and said something like, in the introduction to Case 18 of the Book of Serenity, Jojo and the Dog, the introduction says something like, even an immensely cultivated being is still turned about in the stream of words. even an immensely realized and cultivated person is in the stream of words, pushed and shoved and flipped around by words. And one way of hearing that is, I think I did hear it this way for a long time, and then the next line says, can anyone escape?

[50:43]

So if even a greatly cultivated person is thrown around in the stream of words, then can anybody escape? If a greatly cultivated person can't escape, then can we? But the point is to escape, and if a greatly cultivated person can't, well, it would be hard for us to too. So we're talking about a real hard thing to do is to escape from being tossed about. But then recently, when someone asked me about this, I thought, this is not about escape. It's about being tossed about in the stream of words is where greatly cultivated people live. That they're still, even greatly cultivated people are still in the If you're getting tossed about, you're in the same place, you're in the same evolutionary environment that the greatly cultivated are.

[51:49]

But they've been being tossed around in there a long time, so they're now greatly cultivated. But they're still in there being tossed and turned about. But they no longer resist. They are totally giving themselves to being tossed and turned. One more thing I wanted to say too was that somebody said, well, how can you practice giving when you're trying to get something? Or if you want to get something, how can you practice? Somebody says to me, if I want to ask you a question, how can I make that a gift or how can that be giving? And I said, well, can you understand that when you ask me a question, you're giving me a gift? If you're playing the role of teacher and people come and ask you a question, they're giving you gifts.

[52:59]

So you see, oh, here, they're bringing me gifts. They're bringing me questions. They're giving me requests. They're giving me gifts. So, anyway, if you have some questions that you'd like to give, or other things, you can give them. You don't have to raise your hand. You can just come up. So what if there's more than one cookie? What if there's two cookies? And they both look equally good and equally tasty, and some of them have nuts in them, but the rest of it looks good, and the other one maybe has some dry fruit in it, and you're not keen about that either, but you know it's going to taste good. Yes. But you can only choose one cookie. Which one do you choose? How do you know which one to choose? Choose both. But you can't choose both. You can only have one. You said you can only have one. Okay, so if you can choose both, but you can only have one, how do you decide which one to have?

[54:05]

You don't decide which one to have. Does it decide you? Yes, it does. But I skipped over the thing I've been saying over and over again, is when you practice giving, on that occasion of the arrival of the cookies, you practice giving. You practice giving means you practice realizing gifts are coming, two cookies are coming, gifts are both coming. Or even the idea of two cookies are coming, those are two gifts coming. Gifts are coming is part of practicing giving. And also when the gifts arrive, then you practice giving towards the gifts. And you practice giving towards the gifts of letting this cookie be this way, and you're being generous with this cookie, and practice being gracious with the other cookie of letting it be itself. So you're practicing giving. That's the main practice. And from that practice, you will have an appropriate relationship with these cookies.

[55:09]

So is it about intention? In trying to decide which of the two cookies you have, as a gift, what's the intention there? What would be the intention? There could be an intention to practice giving in every moment. So when I see you, if I'm already like queued up and warmed up when you arrive, then I immediately practice giving towards you. which means I see you as a gift, and also I give, I'm generous towards you, I see you as a gift to me, I see you being a gift, and also I see you being generous towards me, that's practicing giving. Thinking that way about your rival is giving. I should say, it's the intention or the thinking of giving, it's lining up my thinking with the activity of giving. In fact, I'm saying to you, in fact, the righteousness of the situation is you're always a gift to me.

[56:16]

That's the justice of my life, is that you're a gift to me. To make my intention and my thinking line up with that, otherwise I might miss it. So I actually think that you're a gift. And I think that you're generous with me. And I actually think that you can be you. And I actually think that I'm being generous towards you by letting you being the person you are. So I also think of myself as being generous to you by letting you be who you are. And who you are I also see as a gift to me. So now my thinking and my intention is now lined up with the reality of our generous relationship. And from that, we can, you know, our bodies may then now... ...cookies. Like, we may put our hand over there. Oh, no, no, let's move over here. Let's put our... And I'm, you know, yeah, right. And I really like seeing that your wish, this energy going towards this cookie is a gift to both of us and to the cookies.

[57:19]

Feel that and you can and you can feel and I can feel that we're joining that understanding of this relationship with the cookies and I don't know what's going to happen with the cookies or which one you're going to get but we're going to be happy. Whichever one I get. Whichever one you get. Including neither. Including neither. Oh, that would be a problem. That wouldn't be. Unless I decided not to eat sugar in which case I'd probably be relieved. I wonder why she was talking about cookies. Where did that come from? Grandmother? I have two little questions. Could you come closer? Because if you come closer, the mic will pick up your words for the recording. Did you check to see if it's working?

[58:23]

Could you come over here? Sure. And give your back to those people. Is it working? Yes. If justice is key... One of the translations of gi is justice. What's the word for ceremony? It's also pronounced gi. The word for ceremony is pronounced gi. Because this radical, this gi radical, the character gi is a radical in the... character for ceremony, so the character of ceremony cares over the sound from the previous one. That's a common thing in Chinese, is that if a radical has a sound, then you make the character more complicated. Sometimes the sound of the character is the original, is one of the components. The word for righteousness and ceremony is gi. and then put the person together with it, and you have the ceremony character, and that's also pronounced in Japanese.

[59:30]

In Chinese, it's . Both are . Does Tatsugikai have justice in his name? Yep. As a matter of... No, not ceremony. It's justice, I think. Why do you say a Japanese guy's name? Senya-san? Is this character in Gikai? Tetsu Gikai? Is this the Gi of Gikai? Yeah. So Tetsu Gikai has this character in his name, and he had trouble with this character. And actually, he has many Dharma brothers, like Gi-un... and so on, a lot of his, he studied with a teacher named Akon, and Akon named a lot of his students Gi something or other, Gi-un, Gi-kai, so on.

[60:36]

So all, he and his Dharma brothers had Gi in their name. And so Dogen had a lot of students with Gi in their name who were students from this previous teacher, Akon. And Akon was a disciple, I think, of Dainichi Nonin, maybe. And Dainichi Nonin was a Zen teacher, so-called Zen teacher, who had a slightly twisted understanding of the relationship between action and righteousness. And so that was one of the main things Dogen was struggling with, was people who came from another Zen teacher who had a different understanding of how our action relates to realization. And so that's why he had a hard time even teaching such a wonderful student as Gikai. Do you know what's a different understanding?

[61:43]

Yeah, I do. When you enter the grandmotherly realm... Godmother is okay, too. Is it once and for all, or can you go in and out of it? Once and for all? No, it's just a momentary fleeting... It's a momentary feeling of... Wishing that this momentary action, that this thought, this body, these words, would be now the enactment of the Buddha Dharma, just this moment. And then here's another one. And then here's another one. It's just this step, this word. So can you lose it for a while and then come back? When you come back, one of the main ways to come back is by somebody showing it to you again and reminding you.

[62:59]

In other words, confess and repent it. Hi. So, if I'm walking... Take a step, I'm walking in the zendo or in the gulch. In the gulch, walking in the gulch. Or in the forest or in the city. And I'm thinking that this step I'm giving as a gift to Buddha. It sounds similar to a step to itself. Yeah. And to unconstructedness and stillness. Yeah. To all beings. Yeah. That's what Buddha is. Buddha is not just all beings, but is also the bond among all beings.

[64:02]

So giving yourself to the bond among all beings, giving yourself to unconstructedness and stillness, giving yourself to receiving and employing the self, giving yourself to Buddha. These are different words for giving yourself to reality, giving your action of stepping to reality. And making your step giving is also making your step reality, because your step is giving. You are actually giving your step and you're also receiving your step. This step is being given to you as a gift which is being given to you. You're receiving this gift from the universe of being able to walk. It's a wonderful gift, isn't it? You know, to be able to walk. It's a gift that we can do this. And it's a gift. So it is an opportunity to realize giving, receiver, and gift are interdependent.

[65:07]

Every step to realize reality of giver, receiver, and gift are empty of separation. And then again, that's giving it to Buddha, giving it to Dharma, giving it to Sangha. Have you tried that when you're walking in the gulch? How's it going? The Buddha appreciates it. Yeah. Actually, I got a letter from Buddha recently. Thank you. He was really appreciating your efforts. It seems like if I take a step and think about giving it to Buddha, then it's similar to, or it's like a precursor to realizing that it's not actually this thing I call I, it's actually that the Buddha is taking this step. And that's the ceremony is converting my notions about who's taking this step.

[66:11]

The ceremony sets up the conversion. So the same would hold truth for a thought, a distracted thought while taking that step. Or say I had even a hateful thought toward a fellow being. I don't have a... Okay, so a hateful thought arises. A hateful thought arises, and it seems like the practice that you're proposing is to generously and graciously give that hateful thought to the Buddha. You can do that. You could say, take this thought and just put it on the altar to Buddha. It won't hurt Buddha. Just say... Just put an altar to Buddha so it'll be safe, won't hurt anybody up there. But also, when you reach over to embrace the thought, to make it into an offering, embrace it warmly and graciously, and tenderly and intimately. And then, actually, it's already on the altar then.

[67:16]

So you really offer. the practice of how you relate to this being called a hateful thought. You give that practice to the Buddha. That's the main thing the Buddha likes is to receive Dharma gifts, Dharma practice gifts. But when I think about the thought, and I kind of go back to the logic of giving this step, which is not an apparently hateful thing, I see that it's actually the Buddha's step, but this hateful thought, I thought, No, no. The step isn't really, it's not separate from it, but the step is something recognizable. And the hateful thought is something recognizable. It's not the actual justice. It's just a little, it's just a mental activity creating a little story of stepping.

[68:19]

Your actual stepping isn't what you're dealing with in that case. You're just dealing with your story of stepping and your story of a hateful thought. So now you take these little carved dragons, which you can recognize, and then you offer them up to that. The Buddha wouldn't have a hateful thought to another being. No? Well, Buddha doesn't really have thoughts. But if people want Buddha to have thoughts, Buddha will transform into a thinking thing. But Buddha is not some thought by itself, but we mean how all thoughts in the universe are supporting each other in a just and peaceful way. That's Buddha. It's not one of those thoughts. You have a field with gazillions of wholesome thoughts and unwholesome thoughts.

[69:25]

It's not that one of those thoughts is the Buddha. The Buddha is how they're all working together. And that's all Buddhas are participating in this infinite, harmonious, just, and righteous field. And that cannot be, and that's unconstructed business stillness. So when we put that... See, we live there. But we also are, we are allowed to be beings that have constant activity, stories of our life in this world, and those stories are not the actual situation. But by working with this enclosure, this cognitive, karmic enclosure in a gracious way, we allow reality in and out, in and out.

[70:26]

By giving the enclosures like steps and wholesome and unwholesome thoughts, giving them giving them and also seeing that we're receiving, that we're giving them, that we don't just have a negative thought or a positive thought. It's a gift coming to me, being given by me, and you start to open it up and then it's not really a negative thought anymore. The conversion is not happening to that thought. It's happening to our story about the thought. Same as thought or story. The thought is a story. You can have a story about thoughts, but thoughts are basically stories, or stories are basically compositions of thoughts, which is happening, which has been given to us. We're being given thoughts and we're giving thoughts.

[71:31]

Our thoughts are creating the world, the world's creating our thoughts. That's how it works. And being kind to it, we start to open to the reality of the process. We open to realizing the ungraspable process. I'd like to confess. Okay. Last night you approached me in the dining hall and asked me a question about dinner. Yes. And my response was, it was me if there was sugar in this. I'm sorry, I don't know. I didn't work. I wasn't working in the afternoon and I wasn't coming from a place giving. Well, you weren't, okay. And you said, well, that's okay, I'll ask Bert. And when you walked away, something didn't feel right.

[72:36]

So I looked at that and I realized I wasn't here. I would have said, I don't know, I'll go ask Bert and find out right away. You might have. But you think you would have felt like saying I don't know was a gift. You would have made I don't know as a gift. Because it was. But I was focused on me. Yeah, I guess you were. But anyway... I wanted to answer your question, but it wasn't. And you did answer my question, and you did give me a gift, but you didn't say, oh, I'm going to give him a gift now, called, I don't know, here. That's true. You missed the gift you gave me. You did give me a gift, and notarized as a gift. It was verified as a gift, but you didn't enjoy it. That's true. And now you're confessing it, so now, because of that, you can now enjoy that you did give me a gift. And you say, if you had noticed that it was a gift, you might have said, I'll go find Bert.

[73:40]

You would have done that. You might have said, I got a gift for you. I don't know. And now go find Bert. Or, I'll go, let's go find Bert. Right? You know, it's a moment of joy to realize that we're... I give you a question, was there sugar in the sugar? You give me an answer, I don't know. We're exchanging gifts, we're enjoying that together. Now we're entering into, we're opening up to reality. We're letting the real dragon in. By making our carved dragon a gift... This side, the ceremony is like the carved dragon, and what the ceremony is celebrating is the real dragon. So we have a carved dragon, which is the Zazen, where we sit in the Zendo or whatever, or where we make our conversation a ceremony of giving and receiving between us.

[74:45]

There's something we can recognize and something we can notice when we don't do it. Say, I didn't do the ceremony. I forgot to do the ceremony. You can recognize that. You can feel and sense the difference between giving an answer to me and noticing that you did give me an answer and noticing that you gave me an answer. And it's just as much a gift. The gift is always there, but if you don't do the ceremony, you might miss it. Matter of fact, you do miss it when you skip the ceremony. If you don't do the ceremony, you miss it because your thinking is not celebrating. Your thinking is doing... Like, I wonder if he's got a problem with the sugar. I'm glad I wasn't working today or whatever. You're separate from the ceremony of giving your thoughts and making your thoughts gifts to me, to you, and to all beings. You can notice that. And then when you join that, you open to the real dragon. The real dragon is attracted and comes to meet when we offer carved dragons.

[75:50]

When we say, this giving between me and Red right now, the giving of this conversation, the conversation is giving, then the real giving comes and says, starts descending into our little world. And then we feel joy and courage and, you know, fearlessness. We dare to let the fullness of life in by doing our little ceremony there where a guy comes up and says, was there sugar in the floss? And you say, I don't know. And we're doing the ceremony together and we're getting ready for the big dragon of giving to take over. And we forget sometimes. So then we try again. Thank you. You're welcome. I still don't know in what sense our actions are gifts.

[77:04]

Like according to you, I'm giving you a gift right now by talking to you. According to me, yeah. And you just gave me a gift by talking to me. That's according to me, yeah. According to what you were just saying. According to what I was saying. And also I feel that way. I feel like this gift came up. So in what sense was that a gift? There was a gift over there before on the chair too. But then the gift that was on the chair stood up and started walking over here, and now here's this standing Rachel. How am I a gift? That's what I'm still not clear on. The way you're a gift can never be met with recognition. The way she's a gift will never be met with recognition. Could you say more? Definitely more. I can. I can say more. ...about this for the rest of my life. Would you say more now?

[78:06]

Is there anything you'd like me to say? You said it cannot be met with recognition, and I just wondered if you would elaborate on that. The way you're a gift... I can't see the fullness of it. You know, how all the forces that bring you to me and bring me to you, that give me the ability to see you, and that give me the ability to appreciate you as a gift, how that is, you know, I can never grasp and never recognize. Is it just because I don't, when I speak to you, I I don't own these words. They're not something that I've created by myself. I just heard you say something like, is it just because of such and such? Gift, that's what I meant. I thought you were going to say, I guess it wasn't, but I thought you were going to say, is it just because of these reasons that I don't see, that I, Rachel, do not see it as a gift?

[79:11]

Of what reasons? I guess I misunderstood you. So, again, what did you say? I said, is it because I don't own these words, because I'm not creating them by myself? Oh, you don't own them like you're not the possessor of them. Right. That is a reason. Because they came to me through causes and conditions that I don't have any control over. Right. your existence is the result of the coming forth of all things. So you are a gift. And also, once being a gift, the gift is then given. And some people can see you as a gift, in a way, partly because they think that you're a gift. So why don't I see that, since you brought it up?

[80:12]

Because of past thinking that something's not a gift. So a lot of us have thought many moments in the past. We've thought, we had thoughts, and the thoughts were that, I should say, the thoughts were not that what is happening now is a gift. That this person's face, that this person's words, this is not a gift, this is an insult. We thought that. Or even when we saw an insult, the person says, I would like to give you an insult, even at that moment we did not think, this is a gift. So because of many moments of not celebrating the practice of giving, it's easy for us now to practice, not celebrate the practice of giving, the life of giving. So regarding receiving gifts then, when it felt like I received you as a gift, in what sense are you a gift?

[81:15]

In the same... What sense am I a gift? I don't seem to be a gift. I think, again, there's no limit to the ways I'm a gift. You cannot put a boundary on the way I'm a gift. I'm an endless, in this moment, I'm an endless, ungraspable gift to all beings, and so are you. That's the real dragon. The real dragon is the endlessness of what you are, the boundlessness of how you're a gift to the world, and the reason why you're a boundless gift to how the world boundlessly gives to you. I guess what I don't see is that I'm not having a thought right now, like, this guy here is not a gift, this audience is not a gift. I don't have that thought, but I still don't see it.

[82:18]

you don't have the thought that we're not gifts, but you're saying... Well, I guess I just did have that thought. I had the thought that I don't see it. You don't see that we're not gifts. That we are gifts. Yeah, but you said, I don't see that we're not gifts. That's what you said, I thought. Right. And then, when you said, I don't see it, I guess you meant, I don't see that you are gifts. Right. Yeah. So for me not to have the thought that you're not a gift is not the same as for me to have the thought that you are a gift. That's another step. Besides not negating people as gifts, to affirm them as gifts is another step. And I suggest that it's necessary to affirm gift-giving in order to open to it. Is somebody always receiving it? Yes.

[83:25]

Even if I'm just in the kitchen alone scrubbing a pan or something? Yes. Who's receiving it? Everybody's receiving it, but you're receiving being you in the kitchen. You're, you know, the whole world in the kitchen scrubbing a pot. And you are supporting the whole universe. The whole universe is based on you in the kitchen scrubbing the pot. you are giving to the whole universe at that moment. You are manifesting at that moment. But again, you're not going to see this.

[84:27]

What you see is not it. It's a carved dragon. So you can see the thought. I can see the thought. Rachel, the manifestation of the whole works. Rachel is the working of the whole universe. I can see that thought. I can say that thought. I can think that thought. And if I look at people with that thought, It's different than looking at people as, you know, this person is not supporting me. They're under me. They're against me. They're not the manifestation of the whole universe. I don't honor them and respect them as an opportunity to realize reality of the practice of giving. I don't do that. That kind of thought is different. Person is a manifestation of the whole works. This person is the basis of the whole universe. And so am I. Those are two different kinds of thought.

[85:31]

One kind is a ceremony. The other kind is a distraction from reality. It still feels dishonest though to say that or to think it when I don't actually Well, he said, I can't see it when I don't actually feel that I'm enacting it. Well, again, if we're talking about something that doesn't meet with recognition, speak of it when I don't recognize it, I feel okay about it because I've been told that the realm where the where the grasses and the trees and the earth are supporting all beings and all beings are resonating with the grass and the trees and the earth and the enlightenment of all things and forth and supporting everything, that radiant relationship we have with each other, we're being told that it is not something that you can recognize. It's not something that appears within perception. We're being told that.

[86:32]

So if you don't have a perception of that, That's normal. So you don't speak about this from a position of perspective. You don't speak about it from this perspective of that you believe it, from faith. It makes sense to you. And you're willing to give your life to it, to realizing a world of peace and harmony, to realize a world where we're saving each other and helping each other. It doesn't say, and it's telling you, by Dogen and other people that you cannot, that you can recognize this, but what you're recognizing is not it. It's just an image of it or a story of it. So it would be dishonest to say that you see it when you don't see it, but it's not dishonest to say, I do not recognize it, but I wish to open to it. And I understand that the way to open to it is to get my thinking, my body, speech, and mind action to line up with it. I hear that that is being recommended because my thinking otherwise will think of other things which are kind of sad to think of.

[87:39]

This person is not a gift and I'm not a gift to them and they're not being generous with me and I'm not generous with them and I'm afraid of them and they're afraid of me and I'm on the verge of being violent with them because I'm so afraid. That's what follows from not thinking about giving. So giving is peace, fearlessness, and non-violence. That's the realm of Buddha. If you don't think of it, what are you going to think about? And if you think about not giving, You're thinking about unreality. You're thinking of false dharmas. And if you spin your thinking around in that realm, you just degenerate. Now, if you watch yourself, you'll start to think, your thinking will start to evolve back upwards towards thinking about giving. Because you'll notice how miserable it is to think about, I'm not generous towards these people, and they're not generous towards me. We can think of that. And we can be honest that we're thinking that way. And it's good. thinking about not being generous with people.

[88:42]

I honestly did not feel generous towards that person. That's good. Now, graciously observe that you're thinking ungenerous thoughts, and if you keep graciously observing that you're thinking ungenerous thoughts, your thoughts, you'll also notice that you're miserable thoughts, and that will lift you up to start occasionally experimenting with opening up to let a generous thought come in. You don't even make it. It will come through observation. Observing generously ungenerous thoughts, your thoughts will become more generous. And you'll start to notice that you're becoming loved and more relaxed. And you'll start to realize the Dharma. You'll start to realize that although you don't love every single person, you do have confidence that being honest about the people you don't love is really good. Kind of patient with yourself until you get the joke that this person is not your best friend.

[89:47]

That's a joke. You haven't got it yet, but you're going to get it someday by just remembering, being gracious towards the story. This person is not my best friend. I shouldn't say, take it back. This person is not my close, good friend. That's a joke, which is in my mind. applied to these people. They're not my close friends. It's a joke. I'm gracious with that. It will change into they are my good friend. They are a nonstop gift to me and I'm giving to them. And they don't get that I'm giving to them. They don't get the joke. They have a joke that I'm not giving to them too, which they don't get. So I hear you saying that you kind of think that sometimes Sometimes you don't really think or understand that you're being generous with me. I hear you say that and I understand you say that and I totally want to learn to be generous with you as long as you're feeling not generous.

[91:02]

What does it mean for you to be generous with me? To really feel great about you being the person you are. To really appreciate you not yet understanding, not yet having your thinking totally lined up with the reality of giving. By definition, I'm saying it's generous to give things to themselves. That's the basic generosity. For me to give Rachel to Rachel is a gift. And another principle of the giving is that whenever you give it to yourself and they become a gift, they turn into a treasure. Even anything. When you give it to yourself, it turns into a treasure. So I want to always give you to you. And when I do that, to tell you the truth, honestly, I usually feel like I'm giving Rachel to Rachel. And I do that practice with you.

[92:03]

I keep giving you to you. And therefore, I really appreciate you. And I appreciate you being honest that you don't always feel that you're giving me to me. That you don't always see that you giving me to me is giving, because you don't see that all the time. You tell me that. I hear you say that. And I'm letting you be that way. I'm allowing you and supporting you and being generous towards you being someone who doesn't always feel being generous towards herself or others. But I'm also rooting with no expectation that you will learn to give yourself to yourself and feel tremendous joy at giving Rachel to Rachel. And that you'll kind of like, oh, I got it. I'm not going to have that realization. Okay, I'm in a hurry. So you could be generous with that.

[93:06]

And I'll be generous with you being in a hurry. And I feel like it's more generous for me not to be in a hurry to give you, to give you, to give you, to give you every bit of moments that you need to realize this. Enjoy this learning process. It's really, you know, it's lovely for me. And I know it has to be a little painful for you in order for you to be transformed. Because if it was really fun to not see how generous everything is, well, why not stay there then? But it's not as much fun to see incomplete generosity as to see complete generosity. Complete generosity is the greatest joy. I say. With your help, I say. I've noticed something strange. When I remember this practice, I find that giving so-called not-so-good thoughts, like ungrateful thoughts to Buddha, to offering those to Buddha, is more than giving something really nice to Buddha.

[94:23]

What's that about? Giving something nice is kind of like... If you keep practicing this way and keep feeling joy at this, you will understand what it's about. Most important thing now is keep putting those low-quality thoughts on the altar. That's really, yeah, that's kind of a new practice for me that I'm really enjoying. But just kind of like making kind of ordinary offerings that I thought of as offerings is kind of a neutral practice, not so much joy. So I think it's fine to do what we were just talking about, but the more traditional way of doing it is that what you're really offering, what you're really giving to the Buddha is the present. Right. That's really what you're giving. And when you give, when you practice giving, even with kind of negative thoughts, then in a sense, that's a kind of a new kind of giving, a new area of giving.

[95:33]

So it maybe feels more joyful that the practice has now spread to a new realm. Yeah, because you hadn't been thinking that that was an opportunity for giving before. So now this is a new dimension of Dharma offerings to the Buddhas. And if you keep practicing it, you will achieve omniscience. I find it actually harder to remember the practice when making like an incense offering or something like that. It's harder than if I'm actually feeling ungrateful to do the practice. I think some people have an easy time being generous when they're climbing a mountain. And when they come down from the mountain, it's hard for them to continue that kind of effort when they're on level ground. It's easy to slip.

[96:39]

That's why we have the practice of confession and repentance in the presence of the Buddhas, because it's easy to slip off because of ancient karmic patterns. Two small technical gifts for you. Each day we read the Ehe Koso Hotsu Ganmon, and there's a line that I don't understand, not having taken the time to clarify it. So I'm doing that now. It might be an easy answer. It says, in this life, save the body, which is the fruit of many lives. I think it's better to say liberate than save. So I've been trying to change that. Save to liberate, but some of these papers are still floating around with save.

[97:44]

It means to liberate the body. Great. Well, that's what's in the computer. Does that make sense? Liberate the body. You've got this body now, this wonderful human body. Now liberate it. Practice. Thank you. Only one? No. Okay. Number two. When we do makahana haramita in Japanese... Yes. In English, we end with gate, gate, paragate, and I don't hear that in the Japanese. Is it in there? Yeah, gate, gate, gate, paragate, bodhisvaha. Gate is a Sino-Japanese way of saying gate. So the Sanskrit is gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhisvaha. The Chinese-Japanese way is gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhisvaha. In Japanese, we don't say either. In Japanese, you do say gyate gyate.

[98:46]

You do. And then it goes hanyashin-gyo. There's a few more. After the gyate gyate, it says hanyashin-gyo in the Japanese. Really? So there's a gyate? It's gyate gyate para gyate parasam gyate bodhisvaha maka hanyashin-gyo. So you say that. You say the name of the sutra at the end. You say the Mahaprajna Parmita at the end in Japanese. But the mantra... That's what I'm looking for. It's in there. It's in there. It's just got one more line in Japanese. It's actually Chinese. The Chinese has one more line after... After the mantra, there's one more line. Okay, I'll look for that. Thank you. And then, what does that mean? Kano doko? Kano... Kan means... You know, you have your life and make your life an offering to Buddha.

[99:47]

You have your life, make your life an invitation to Buddha. So your action, you know, like Fred's walking out, now step by step he's offering his walking to the Buddhas. Your life as a request, as an offering, you know, that's the human practice realm. And then no is the Buddha's response. The Buddhas are with us all the time. The Buddhas are always present with us. And when we make a request, they say... Actually, when we make a request, they go... We say hi and they go... Or we say hi and their skin crinkles a little bit. There's a response in the Buddhas who are with us when we offer ourselves to them. So there's a query and there's a response, and they happen at the same time. We go, and there's a little effect of me touching you.

[100:50]

The inquiry, the offering, and the response between the carved dragon and the real dragon goes beep, and the real dragon goes boop, boop, like that, moment by moment. If you don't make an offering, the Buddhas are still there, but they're not responding to your gift because you didn't make an offering. When you make an offering, there's a response. And in that relationship, you're now enacting the relationship. If you don't offer your action to it, your action is going some other place. So you offer your action, offer your action. As soon as you offer it, you offer your action. Okay? And where they meet, that meeting is a doko, the crossing of the, do is a dao, the crossing of your path and the Buddha. As soon as you offer your path, it crosses the Buddha's. That's where the practice lives, is in giving your life, you've got a life, give it to Buddha.

[101:54]

You're active, give all your actions to the Buddha's, give all your actions Every time you give, there's a response. Never, and it doesn't happen later, it happens at the same moment. Boop, boop, you're always met. Face to face with Buddha. But if you don't offer your face, you don't feel that. So I got a face, keep offering it. Offering, offering. That's the offering and response crossing. I think Glenn was next. Stand over here. It's a follow-up on Rachel.

[102:56]

Yes, yeah. So when she said, for example, she's in a pot. Yes. And you said at that moment, like right there, that's the universe. It's not the universe. The universe is based on you. You're not the universe. I'm not the universe. But the universe is based on me. It's based on you. I'm based on you, we're all based on you, but you're not all of us. But we're based on you, we depend on you. Okay, so you're in there scrubbing the pot, and that's in the room next door. There's some activity, and you're scrubbing the pot, and you're thinking, oh, I'm missing out on what's happening over there. Sam Kirsten, what's the root of the thought that there's something out there that you're missing out on if the universe is happening right here?

[103:58]

I think the root of that thought, for example, you feel somewhat separate from, even though you feel that the universe is based on you, you still feel some separation from the rest of the universe. Even if you hear this teaching. Right, apparently there's this other universe next door happening. Exactly. So I often say, most people think there's a universe plus something. Do you have that feeling? That there's a universe and there's something more than the universe. There's a universe and then there's something more. Do you know what I'm talking about? Well, most people do. Most people think there's a universe plus them. They think that there's the world in me. There's Zen Center in me. There's the community in me. There's the community in me. There's the world in me.

[104:59]

Most people think that way. and they think that there's actually a little bit of separation between them and some, or anyway, between them and the world. And because of that thought, we have a teaching which is the whole universe is based on you, and you are based on the whole universe. It contributes to you, and you contribute to the whole universe. That teaching is to help you open up to the reality that you're not in addition to the universe. that you're not outside the universe, that you're not separate from the universe. So your thought, I think, your example came from the basic human delusion in something. And it does appear in our mind as though we're separate from what we see. That what we see is out there and we don't see how it's dependent on us. Even though what we're looking at is something in our own mind. which looks inside of itself and sees things outside of itself and believes that that's so.

[106:06]

That's part of our inborn ignorance. And so then we feel like we're missing out on something, sometimes. That's the root, I would say. I told you that I didn't feel that I was making any progress in Zen. And part of what I meant by that is that when I behave moment by moment, Most often, if I have a sense of myself, most of the time it's agitated and sloppy.

[107:16]

And I have this ideal that my behavior should be wholehearted at every moment. Should be? Yes. Could be? Would be good if it was? Would be good if it was. Yeah, I agree. It would be good if it was. And I would say to you that your activity is wholehearted every moment. Everybody is wholehearted every moment. That's reality. You are not half-hearted beings. So we're teaching each other and the ancestors are teaching us to be wholehearted, which means they're teaching us to realize the way we actually are. We're not being taught to be some way we're not. We're being taught and encouraged to be the way we are. And feeling half-heartedness, feeling half-hearted is miserable and frightening.

[108:24]

I feel that way. Yes, and we all do. When we feel somewhat half-hearted or somewhat frightened, when we feel very half-hearted or very far from wholeheartedness, we feel more and more frightened and prone to violence. So we're trying to learn not to be wholehearted exactly, but to do ceremonies to help us realize that we and all beings are actually wholehearted. That's the way we really are. And wholehearted is the same. We are immersed in the process of giving. We are immersed in generosity. And the generosity is a very wholehearted thing. And that's the way we are. And we're trying to open to that. And by doing various forms to see, oh, that wasn't very wholehearted. I just did something, but it wasn't really wholehearted. Or I did something and I thought it was wholehearted, but then my teacher saw me and said, you know, you overdid it.

[109:30]

You got the wholeheartedness, but then you added a little bit just to make sure. And then you backed away from it. You're wholehearted, but you're resisting it. Now try it again. Do it again. Do it again. Until, with the help of others, we can actually find the place of wholeheartedness. Like people hitting the mokugyo, you know, boom, boom, boom. They're hitting the mokugyo. The people are chanting kanji, zaibo, and the mokugyo person is going, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, you know. Totally, you know, off on their own trip, not listening to the other people, you know. They're totally wholehearted, but they don't get it, and we don't get it. It's very, it's such an intense dissonance that we don't see the wholeheartedness. So then we struggle with that, like, try to listen. little bit, you know? You know? Come on, give it a try. And so we struggle with each other to find the wholeheartedness. Would I ask a related... This is more like a confession.

[110:39]

Okay. When I came in here, I read this over and over again as the choreography of Zazen. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. The choreography of Zazen. In the Zendo, my heart is not fulfilled by the ceremonies in the Zendo. alien to you. And of course that brings up feelings of all kinds. You feel separate, alien, you feel separate from the ceremonies. And many people feel separate from the ceremonies. Sometimes big separation, sometimes little separation. But that separation many people feel. And some people feel separation in the form of identification that separates yourself.

[111:41]

So this alienation from the ceremonies is the place to work in Zen. And even on the street, not just... Even on the street that you feel alienated from the forms on the street. And how do you practice with that? Well, you practice graciously with the sense of alienation. And then you realize it's just an illusion. There is no separation. There is no me separate from the ceremonies or me separate from others. There's just other beings. That's all there is. There's no me in addition to other beings. There's no me in addition to the universe. There's just the universe. There's not the universe plus me. There's not the people in the street plus me. There's just the people in the street and the street and the streetlights. That's all there is. There's not me in addition.

[112:43]

I can never find me. There's just the world. And the more you practice generosity towards the world and realize the world is being generous with you, the more you realize the freedom from alien and the freedom from fear and etc. But now, we haven't quite got there yet. But we're getting more and more into the dragon cave. There we are, dragon. Yeah. We're getting into the cave first. Yeah. First get in the dragon cave and then the dragon will come. And then things will get really crowded. Because this is a really big dragon. May I ask one more thing? No room. There's only room for the dragon. Sorry. And one last thing.

[113:54]

One last thing? Yes. Come closer. This is not going away. I fear that I'm not going to be here much longer. Do you have another question? I want to see beauty in this illness. I long for beauty. Be gracious with the illness, and you will see beauty in the illness. Being gracious with the illness is the car of dragon. And that graciousness with the illness will open to the beauty of the illness. Illness is as beautiful as health. But if you're not gracious with health and try to hold on to health, that's not gracious. Try to push away illness, that's not gracious. But be generous with health and illness

[114:56]

and the beauty of health and illness suffuse you or penetrate you. But it's hard to be generous with illness. It's hard to be generous with fear. It's hard to be generous with stinginess. It's hard to be generous with violence. It's hard to be generous with all these very steep phenomena. Isn't it? It's hard to be generous with people who hate you, who find you disgusting, who will sign documents to that effect. It's hard. Not always. Sometimes it's fun. Like if your grandson thinks you're disgusting, sometimes it doesn't really bother you that much sometimes. Because you see the beauty in the person who hates you.

[116:00]

So the fact that they hate you or love you is not the main point. The main point is the beauty. But we have to be gracious when we see a person who seems to hate us or see a person who seems to be cruel to themselves or others. We have to be gracious in order to see the beauty. But it's hard to be gracious with everything. Right? Because we're not really in great condition, so to speak, in the exercise, in the giving exercise program. So we have to work that exercise of giving in both directions, in multi-directions all the time. Then we will see the beauty in the illness. In the what? In the illness. We will see beauty in the pain. We will see the light in the dark. I think so, especially since you haven't come up yet.

[117:12]

So about the unrecognizable, you were talking about all things arising together. You know, I hesitate to call it the unrecognizable. I just say that because recognizable is still too much, slightly enclosing it. There is the recognizable, and then there's that which cannot be met with recognition. Slightly different. Yeah, so that might answer my question. It felt like what I wanted to ask you was, are you saying that you haven't experienced that you're connected, that we're all connected? one and all giving. I wouldn't say that I have any... We can't experience. I would say, and this is maybe something that we need a whole class on or several classes, the experience of interconnectedness, the experience of Buddha is not itself Buddha.

[118:25]

The experience of the world of peace and harmony is not the world of peace and harmony itself. The experience, when you're in an existential realm, you can have an experience of it. But the experience of it is not the existential realm. In other words, because it's coming through this apparatus, or there's still a separation? There's still some separation there, right. Like it says at the beginning, It says, suppose one gains pride of understanding and glimpses truth at a glance. You know? Suppose you're acting, and it talks about this great vision that you're having, you know? You know, actually seeing the truth. And this is like what we call sometimes the saints' grasp of the truth. ...entainment. And it says, one is making the initial partial excursions around the frontier... You're sort of at the door of the vast world of the real dragon.

[119:35]

The real dragon is the immediate realization. It's not a recognition of it. It's before, in a sense, the recognition. Recognition is like afterwards, after tasting it, then you say, ooh. So Buddha's wisdom is not an experience. Like it says, all this, however, does not appear within perception. In other words, this doesn't appear within recognition. All this doesn't appear within the realm of recognition. It is immediate realization. It is unconstructedness and stillness. It's before any way of grasping it. So it's not that there's no experience. People do have experience of it, and when you have experience of it, It's a big encouragement. And people who have these experiences are called saints. But they're actually kind of like around the edge of it. They're not totally plunged into it, which is when you're like in the middle of it, getting tossed around. You might say, I'd rather be out on the edge having some experience of this, rather than be in the middle and kind of like be on the same level as all these turkeys.

[120:44]

I like to be like a saint looking down in this beautiful realm. I can see the beauty of it. But if I was actually in there, I'd just feel like I was a mess. Who knows what I'd feel if I was actually getting tossed around with all these beings in intense love. But I think you know that feeling, right? So when you have that feeling, that's what it's like. With no resistance, of course. That's the real deal. Except you can't grasp it. However, you yourself get to be not afraid. And you're not just not afraid for yourself, you're not afraid for all beings. And you can provide, joyfully give your fearlessness away. You don't hold on to it. And you get to demonstrate for all beings fearlessness and nonviolence in the middle of the mud.

[121:59]

And you can demonstrate wholeheartedness because you understand everybody's wholehearted and so you appreciate everybody. You see the wholeheartedness of all the sick people. You realize that nobody's half-heartedly sick. I think I understand how when you have an experience, let's say open spaciousness or whatever, then that kind of experience is like around the edge where... Well, again, there's spaciousness and then there's an experience of spacing. Spaciousness is not an experience. Emptiness is not an experience. Experience is empty, and it's inseparable from... Experience is... But the lack of inherent existence of the thing is not the thing.

[123:04]

But... They're not separate either. So this is not easy to understand. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, but that's what we're talking about here. So you're not... I don't want to... Experience is... You're not saying... be there. I'm not saying we can't be there. As a matter of fact, I'm saying we are there. But we cannot not be there. That's where we are. But we seem to be pretty successful at not realizing it. Most people do not realize it. But some people do have a glimpse of the truth or an experience of the truth. But experience of the truth is not the same as realizing the truth. Realizing the truth is not an experience, it is the truth. But some people have an experience of the truth, which is fabulous and is correct. Some people also have that, but that's a lesser thing for a Buddha than the actual Buddha's wisdom is not their experience of it.

[124:10]

Buddhists have experience of the truth. our hearts have experience of the truth, bodhisattvas and buddhas realize the truth. It's not an experience. And this is hard for us to understand. And we're struggling to understand this, and that's why I say you probably need several dozen classes to even, what do you call it, make the partial excursions around the frontiers. Well, I just had a comment on the previous discussion that when you said realizing the truth, perhaps the word actualizing the truth makes it clearer because realizing gets confused with having an experience.

[125:17]

Right. Thank you. The word realize means both actualize and understand. And so if we switch over to actualize, that clarifies that it is not an experience. However, it misses the fact that it is an understanding. So realize means understanding and actualize or manifest. make real. But there's two kinds of understanding. One kind of understanding is an experience. Another kind of understanding is not an experience. Buddha's understanding is not an experience. It is an actualization. And an understanding? His understanding is an actualization.

[126:18]

We also have an understanding, which is an experience, not the actuality itself. But there's some duality, there's some duality in an experience of the truth. There's a little bit of duality there. So there's not a person in addition to reality, and there's not a person anyplace in addition to reality. In other words, there's not a person in addition to the universe. But we think there is. And so we're struggling with that. I actually think we should stop. I was just letting the dust settle a little bit before saying, would you please try to get to the zendo someday?

[127:29]

Maybe within the next 15 minutes? May our delusion extend to every being and bliss. Sorry.

[127:51]

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