Someone asked me a question outside and I kind of want to repeat the conversation a little bit. May I? The person said that last week I said something like when practicing giving it's good to be upright when you practice it. Or when receiving, when you're giving a gift or receiving a gift, it's good to be upright, or appropriate to be upright. And then the person said, well, what about when someone gives you criticism? And I said, well, if you're upright, you will see that the criticism is a gift. And I think maybe the person also said, what about if I give criticism?

[01:04]

I said, if you're upright, you will see that it's a gift. If we're not upright, we think only certain things are gifts. This is a gift. This is a gift. But that's not. When you're upright, you see that everything's a gift and you see that you realize you perform your action as giving. And then the person says, so when you're giving, you're giving from an authentic place or from your authentic self. And I said, yes. When you're being authentic, you become a gift. And when you're authentic, being authentic is kind of a good deal. Because when you're authentic, everything you do is a gift. And also when you're authentic, everything that comes to you is a gift. Insults, our gift to an authentic person. And actually a story about, or stories about people who were given insults and attacks and who received them in an upright way was what attracted me to Zen practice.

[02:24]

I thought, that's wonderful that this person can be so authentic that even when they're attacked they're just basically present and open, and, you know, you feel like they don't prefer praise over blame. And then some of the stories were followed by when the person was praised, they've responded the same way they did when they were blamed, namely just upright and present. But it's hard to be upright moment after [...] moment. But if you can do it for one moment, you have just had a successful life. If you live one moment like that in this life, you have one moment of Buddha. And that's worth a lifetime. And that plants the seeds for complete enlightenment.

[03:26]

So thank you for that question. Any other offerings you any other gifts you care to offer? I invite you to come. I have a new brand new microphone for you. The other microphone we had stopped functioning well and we could get a free one that it doesn't have a cord and then that costs $450 or how much? and this one cost $100 but I asked how long does the one that cost $100 last he said forever so please use the endless use the endless cord okay It lasts, it doesn't work forever.

[04:37]

Now it's working. I had a question about the personal individual enlightenment. Yes. When a person like Bahia was fully enlightened? He wasn't fully enlightened. He was enlightened to the point of personal liberation. Yeah. So I was wondering, would that include that he can see others as himself? I think probably so. That's what I was wondering. Because then, isn't it inevitable for him to feel compassion? Well, I'm not saying he didn't feel compassion. He probably did. He must have felt compassion even before that. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to be so present. You can't be that present unless you're pretty compassionate. But anyway, I think he was compassionate. And if he'd lived longer, I think he would have been a compassionate presence. Yeah.

[05:38]

But in order to do the bodhisattva practice, you have to take on a lot more practices too. And there's one thing you're not supposed to do on the bodhisattva path, and that is like, you know, abide in that peaceful personal liberation. You're supposed to keep giving it away. And when you give it away, you open yourself to the suffering of the world. You can feel compassion, but not totally open yourself. Like you can see someone suffering, you know, and you're open enough to see it and you try to help them. But the bodhisattva wishes to open completely. They're heading, they're aspiring to completely open. And so they develop these practices so they can completely open. And he might have, he might have, if he had lived longer, he might have then, you know, taken on the bodhisattva vows. It's possible. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any other?

[06:44]

Yes. Please come. Yes, please. Thank you. You're welcome. Here's a brand new microphone for you. That's great. Thank you. So my question was, and pardon my ignorance, but if we always stay in the present... You're pardoned. Thank you. Thank you. If we always stay in the present, then where does new growth come from and where does new... It comes from, for example, practicing giving. So you're present and you come up here to give me a gift. And then you live in the world with me, for example, and I ask you to do stuff and you say, yes, you know, I want to help you. So you do a lot of work of giving and then you continue the work of this presence practice and then you practice patience with, like people come up, you know, somebody comes up to you and say, you obnoxious Buddhist.

[07:46]

And you say, thank you very much. And that develops patience. And then also you practice developing concentration. And also you study the Buddhist teachings. And you work with your co-practitioners and your teachers to really study and work hard to understand them. That's a lot of work, in addition to being present. But you do all that work, hopefully, from presence. Like, are you in school now? Yes. Yeah, so you go to school and you do your best in school. You help your teachers. You serve your teachers. You serve your fellow students. You're there to help. in any way you can, from presence. And then you develop all these other positive qualities that come from actually putting the presence to work in the world of living beings. So, what I was wondering is, how does that work if I was going to plan for the future, plan to build something, to innovate, to create something, would I do that from presence?

[08:49]

Exactly! Next. Yes, please come. See, the young people, their memories, they can remember what happened this morning. The problem with them is they remember the teachings, so I can't give it over and over. Thanks for the older people who say that. I never heard that before. Please say that again. Yes. I'm trying to understand... Is that on? Hello? Yes. I'm trying to understand an aspect of the practice of presence that you're speaking about. Yes. Specifically, you were talking about being present when we see something like a flower or a person and we think, that's beautiful. Yes. And that's a slip from being present. And so I'm trying to understand the practice of restraint from doing that.

[09:53]

Let's say you looked at a flower, you know, and you just stood there quietly, you know, and tears ran down your cheeks, and your knees got weak, you know. And that's it. And you're right there from your weak knees and the joy you felt at this great meeting. That's kind of like what presence is like. You're actually tolerating the intensity of the beauty of the meeting. rather than, well, what should we do now, flower? Right. A lot of people, you know, human beings, when human beings get together, they meet and they see the beauty of each other and they say, well, do you want to go to my place? Right. They don't just stand there and, you know, and be present with the awesomeness of the meeting. They feel like they have to do something with it. That's our habit. And they get distracted from being present. Okay. So then we would just practice being present with the experience of the... The flower.

[10:55]

Okay. Now, if you do say beautiful, then you say, oops, slipped. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, flower, that I couldn't be with you. I had to comment on you. You know, you're looking at somebody. You can't just look at them. You've got to say, oh, you have nice skin. And then you say, sorry. Sorry. But you might say, you might say, would not be a good time to ask a question. The person might say, yes, and say, would it be all right if I told you how I feel right now? The person might say, yes, and say, I just really, really, I feel great being here with you. And the person might say, I do too. Thanks for meeting me. And you never see each other again. And that's a wonderful moment.

[11:58]

That's it. And there's no... One expression I didn't use today is there's no outflows. There's no gain or loss. It's just a wonderful experience. You don't try to say, well, let's have another one of these. Give me another one. You just say, thank you for this and give it away. And if you try to make something out of it or get a hold of it, then you say, if you understand this precept, you say, that was a mistake. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I tried to get something out of this meeting. I'm sorry. Now that would be something you could say to somebody who's also trying to practice presence. If they weren't, you might not say it to them. Like to a child, you might not say, sorry I tried to get something out of being with you. They might not know what you, they might be scared. Right. But a lot of people come to me and they think I can handle them telling me, their digression or their transgressions from presence.

[13:00]

And they say to me, I confess that I'm coming here to try to get something from you. And I'm sorry about that. I know I shouldn't be coming to meet you to get something, but I... I am, I'm sorry. And I say, I hear you and I accept your confession. And there's many cases in the history of students going to teachers to try to get something and noticing that and confessing to the teacher and the teacher says, yeah, that is a slip. But you're aware of it and you're confessing it and the more you're aware of trying to get something and you notice it and confess it and feel regret that you're trying to get something, the more you melt away the root of the impulse to get something out of your meetings with people. Until finally you can actually meet somebody and enjoy it and be grateful and come away with nothing. Except by that kind of meeting you set the conditions for another meeting like that. And you get more and more able to be present over the years.

[14:03]

So sometimes people say, you came to Zen Center to be like those Zen monks. How's it going? And I say, I feel a little closer to them now after 40 years. And I'm happy about a little bit. He's really happy. So we train and we train and we train. And we gradually realize what we've been aspiring to. To be whatever that is. For me it's to be an upright, compassionate, wise Zen priest. That's what attracted me, that's what I'm trying to become. And I'm happy that I've been able to try. And I wish to continue to try. I feel blessed that I can hopefully continue to try. You can try too. Not to belabor the point, but... Not to belabor, okay. At least in my receiving of the concept of restraint, it seems something almost proactive, like I'm trying to stop myself from doing something, like I'm trying to stop myself from not being present or from falling out of presence.

[15:17]

And I'm curious if that's a correct interpretation and how does one actually practice that? To some extent it's like stop. Like if you feel yourself about to... say something which will distract yourself from being with the person, just don't say it. Like you're talking to somebody, right? And they're talking, and you get the feeling like they actually want to finish their sentence. They're part of the way through the sentence, and suddenly you think of this brilliant thing. You know? And it's like, it's really a nice thing that you thought of. And you think it's nice. And you think it would really be a boon to the world if you would say it. However, they haven't finished their sentence yet. So if you're really present with that impulse, you probably would say, okay, I'll just be present with the impulse. I don't have to actually express it.

[16:20]

I'm present with it. So you're present with the person as their sentence is heading towards its conclusion, and you're present with your impulse to say this brilliant thing, and you're present with both, and you don't say anything probably. The sentence goes to its conclusion. And then you look at this brilliant thing and you say, you know, you may say, do you want to hear something brilliant? And the person may be saying, no thanks. And you say, okay. The person says, what I said was brilliant enough for now. And you listen to that and you think, right. Thank you. Or you could think of something that you think would make an improvement in the situation, that would be a gain. Rather than something that's just good, you think it would be a gain.

[17:22]

So whenever you see something that's going to be a gain, or whenever you see something that you think is going to be a loss, don't be mean to the thought, this is a loss. Don't be mean to the thought, this is a gain. Just restrain yourself, leaning into them. So it's not so much that when you see a thought of gain that you suppress it. It's more like you're present with it. So you don't, like, get into the gaining arena, because that's going to cause more suffering. You just say, oh, here's an impulse to gain. Or here's an impulse to do something where I think there's going to be a loss. I don't have to lean away from the loss. I don't have to lean towards the gain. Try to be present with both of them. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. It's very simple, very difficult, because you have to really be present. And these powerful impulses are arising. And the more we do this, it doesn't mean the powerful impulses won't continue to arise.

[18:28]

You just get more skillful at not getting knocked off balance. And that's just for the moment, and then hold, and again, and again. So there's not restraining those thoughts from arising. Well, once they arise, you don't restrain them being present. But if you're present, a lot of these thoughts won't arise. If you're actually present, the thought of improving the situation doesn't arise. Like when you're with a flower and you're present, you don't think. The thought, you know, this flower could be a little bit more beautiful. If you're really present, the thought, this flower would be more beautiful if we changed the lighting a little bit. Or like, you know, one Zen master said, When you look at the autumn colors, you don't think, you know, let's have a little bit more red, a little bit less brown. No, you don't do that. So these thoughts of improving the situation don't even arise when you're really present. But when they do arise and you're present with them, then they won't cause trouble because you won't lean into them.

[19:35]

Understand? So those distracting thoughts which have not yet arisen will not arise when you're present. And if there's a pause in your presence, distracting thoughts will arise. But if you're present with them, then they will just kind of like flutter to the ground. or go up into the sky. They won't be harmful. But it's not that they're harmful. It's the leaning into them that's harmful. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. What's your name? Tyler. Tyler? Yeah. What's your name? Dominic. Dominic. I know Reverend's name. Yes. Here comes Charlie.

[20:37]

So, if we have a lovely experience with a flower or a person, and we're present with it. Yes. And we say, that was great. And it may not happen again. You may never see that person again. It seems kind of tragic if you don't. It seems like, you know, like I understand not wanting to grasp at that and try to hold on to it and make it last. Yeah, this practice, in one sense, you could say it seems kind of tragic. And I would say this practice is totally open to tragedy. I think that the normal human behavior that I observe is to try to repeat wonderful experiences. I agree. Is that not allowed? Do I just have to like... Gee, I hope it would be nice if another flower walked by, but I'm not going to the garden.

[21:49]

That would be trying to get something. You said quite a bit there. Did you want me to respond to your question? Did you hear? Do you remember your question, by the way? Yeah. You remember what it was? Wouldn't it be tragic? No, no. I think your question that I'm speaking of was, is that allowed? Okay, yeah. Or is that not allowed? Yeah. Well, what am I going to say? You might say it's allowed if you're present with it? I would say when you're present, it's allowed. When the impulse to go to the garden to see some more flowers arises, if you're present, you allow that impulse.

[22:53]

And if you allow that impulse and you're present with it, that impulse is not distracting you from being present. If you don't allow it, you've just got distracted from being present. Being present allows what's happening, and it doesn't want anything else. But if you are not present, then you might want more or less of something. That means you weren't so present, because now you want more or less. Now that's allowed. When it arises, it's allowed. When you're present, it won't arise in the first place. Then if it doesn't arise, then you don't have to stay away from the garden. If the people in the garden want you to come down there and look at flowers, you can go and practice generosity and presence and patience and concentration and wisdom. You can go there and do good, assemble wholesome dharmas.

[23:55]

And if you're present, you won't have to stop yourself from going to the garden because you think you're just going to cause trouble trying to get a lot of flowers. But if you do want to get a lot of flowers, you are totally welcome by the Buddhas. They completely love you, and they completely welcome you, and if you ever want to know how to practice, they'll tell you. What they'll tell you is, be present. And you say, oh, thank you. And then you try it. And then when you're distracted, if you ask them, they'll say, be present. They'll allow you to be distracted, in other words, from presence. They allow ordinary human beings to be ordinary human beings. But some ordinary human beings would like to be helpful to other ordinary human beings. They would like to be really helpful to them because ordinary human beings have a wide range of misery because they're trying to get something from life.

[25:02]

It's ordinary. It's normal to try to get something from life. And such beings are loved by all Buddhas. There's no Buddhas without living beings who are trying to get something. But Buddhas are not trying to get anything. They're just loving in the wisest possible way they can come up with. But even though they're loving, if people aren't present, they don't even notice the Buddhas. They've got other things that are interesting. They're going to the garden. Buddha's just sitting there watching and then if they go to the garden and wind up with their head in the compost pile and call out to Buddha, Buddha say, can I help you? Yeah, help. Say, well, be present. Should I take my head out of the compost pile first? No, be present there first. And then you'll see what the next appropriate step is. So ordinary beings can still wish to help other ordinary beings. Not all ordinary beings want to help other ordinary beings.

[26:06]

And those who wish to want to help all ordinary beings, and who wish to be most effective in that, who wish that, these are the potential bodhisattvas. They're still ordinary beings, but they would like to be helpful. And then they say, well, you want to be helpful, then practice presence. And if I don't, am I still welcome to aspire to be a bodhisattva? Yes. Yes. And if you wish to practice presence and you slip up, then you're going to probably, if you look at it, you're going to feel regret because you want to train yourself to realize this helpfulness. Along the way, when you're clear about what presence is, you'll notice a lot of times you're not. So then you practice acknowledging that, seeing how that feels with the Buddhas, and eventually Even though you're open to tragedy, eventually there won't be any more tragedies, which makes things kind of boring.

[27:08]

No tragedies for you, because you're helping all the people who are in tragic situations. You're very happy to assist all the tragedies. And the tragedies are still abounding for people who are trying to get something. Wonderful people who tragically try to get something out of being wonderful. Everybody's wonderful. People try to get something. That's a tragedy for a wonderful person. Which is very exciting. People enjoy it. Except it hurts. And sometimes they feel terrible about it. So you don't have to not be an ordinary person. It's just a question of what's your aspiration. And then when you get your aspiration clear, if it happens to be like a Bodhisattva aspiration, I'm just telling you what the training program is. And the training program allows everything to be the way it is. Thanks. You're welcome. Any other gifts to be offered today?

[28:16]

Yes, please come. What is your name? Carla. Carla? Yes. Carla? Hello. I have a question. How do you... Raise that a little higher, please. How do you be present with fear without letting it stop you? When you're present with it, it won't stop you. If you're not present with it, it probably will stop you. Either it'll stop you or you'll run away from it, which is kind of stopping you. So being present with fear is how we become, we say fearless, but it's really more like the fear is there and you're completely there and it doesn't really interfere anymore. And it can be in yourself or in others. So there's three types of gifts that bodhisattvas give.

[29:34]

One is material things, like a lunch or something, or medicine, or physical assistance. Another one is the teaching, and the other one is fearlessness. So they give that by demonstrating how to deal with fear. Dealing with other people's fear is very similar to dealing with your own. If you have a child and they're afraid, can you be there with them without telling them, don't be afraid. A lot of people say, don't be afraid. Or you're not afraid. Or there's nothing to be afraid of. But if the child has not been crushed yet, they say, don't tell me not to be afraid. I don't need you to tell me not to be afraid. But most kids, because they're afraid, they're afraid to tell people who are telling them not to be afraid to shut up. And let them be afraid. So you go there and you say, they say, I'm afraid. And you say, you're afraid. And then maybe you say, no, I'm not. And then you say, no, you're not. And they say, yes, I am. And you say, yes, you are.

[30:36]

You're not trying to, you're allowing them to be the way they are. And you're teaching, you're not afraid of people being afraid. If you're present with their fear. And you're not afraid of yourself being afraid if you're present with your fear. When I'm afraid, I'm afraid. Totally afraid. You're welcome. And then it doesn't stop you. Matter of fact, it starts you. Fear comes, turns on your compassion. Please come. The direct approach. He just turned it off. Oh, okay. Can I sit down too? You may. That's for you. One of the things that Buddha recommends is when somebody comes to see you, give them a seat. Welcome them, give them a seat, and also give them some water, but I don't have any water.

[31:39]

You want some tea? No, what kind is that? I think it's ginger. Okay. Want some? Maybe next week. Okay. Let's not dwell on the future. I wanted to talk a little bit about the Mahea. Is that the name of the fellow that got gored today? Bahia. [...] And his story around wanting to attain a teaching, although his teacher told him this isn't the right time, he persisted. Yeah. So I don't feel like he was being very present for the situation. He wasn't listening to the fellow, other fellow. I welcome your interpretation. welcome it. Okay. But I can imagine you come also he could have come and said excuse me sir may I may I address you and actually he probably did but they didn't say that because there was there was formal ways to come up to a teacher so he probably did exchange the usual procedure from approaching the teacher and then once approaching

[33:03]

the teacher basically, and then asking him, saying what he had to say, the teacher said, this is not a good time. And he could have received that and been upright and said, that's a gift to me. The teacher said, that's a gift. He could have felt that way and felt like, the way he said, this is not a good time. This is my man. I really like the way he said, this is not a good time. This makes me, again, renews my sense that I would like to receive teaching from him, even though he told me it's not a good time. I feel that, given the situation, maybe he kind of intuited that he was going to die in the afternoon. Who knows? He might have respectfully asked again. Because the Buddha there's a policy of asking three times. Usually when people ask once, the Buddha would sort of pass on it. You know, you don't need this. In other words, he wanted people to really want the response so they'd be ready for it.

[34:11]

Because sometimes it was really strong. So asking three times in that cultural context may be more an expression of intense sincerity than disrespect. And the Buddha never complained about this guy. As a matter of fact, he said, this is a person of wisdom. But still, they went through that process, and also still, the Buddha, in some sense, meant it. I'm begging now, this is not a good time. He also meant it. But on another level, he didn't mean it. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other offerings today? Excuse me.

[35:23]

Would you tell me your name again? Diane. And your name? Evelyn. Evelyn. Evelyn. Hello. I just have a question regarding the presence, the teaching of the presence. Yes. I... I find myself very hard to focus in a way. My mind, you know, Forbannous Minds, go from yesterday, the past, into the future, maybe more so into the future goals, so why not? And I'm trying to really figure a way to think of the present, the moment, that is, and not have my mind wander. And it's very hard to do, very hard to do. So can you give me some idea? I think it is hard. Being present is quite challenging a lot of the time and sometimes it's even more challenging than others.

[36:25]

So we have this room here which is dedicated to practicing presence. So you're welcome to come here and sit. or at home, you know find some room where there's not so lots of kids crawling all over you or dogs barking at you if you can find a place like that where you can go and just sit quietly for a little while and then with the understanding that you're sitting there to offer yourself a chance to be aware of when your mind goes away that your main job now is to train yourself at being present so you sit down and you notice that your mind's going away. And then be kind to that distraction. Say, oh, here I go again, here I go again. But you're aware of it. If you're aware of it and you're kind to it, the root of that distraction will start to wear away. Also, if you have trouble being in, if you can tell when you're distracted, you actually already understand something.

[37:31]

If you can't tell what being distracted is, then you could try to get somebody to help you. Because again, these precepts often are given to you from somebody else. So today I have given you this precept, and you're coming here to clarify what it is, and if you're clear about it and how to deal with it, then you can practice it. Then you can notice, oh, I want to practice it, I want to develop this precept, this ethical practice of presence, so I can be helpful. And I think this person is offering it to me, and I think I'm clear about it now, so now I can try it. And when you are clear about what you're... when you're training yourself at something, and you're clear about what the training is, usually you spend a lot of time noticing you're not doing it. Like if you're learning Spanish, When you first start learning Spanish, if you don't know anything about Spanish, you can't tell that you're speaking Spanish incorrectly.

[38:35]

But as you learn Spanish better, you start to notice more and more errors. So learning Spanish is to a great extent learning how you're speaking Spanish in a sort of not-Spanish way. But if you can keep working at it, you get more and more skillful at it. Same with presence. Same with all these practices. When you get clear about them, you notice that you're veering away a little bit a lot of the time. And then you look at the veering away, be present with it again, and move on. You're welcome. And we need to make space for this meditation. This is a meditation on the precept of, the ethical precept, the bodhisattva precept of presence, of restraining distraction. And if you notice the distraction, That's part of the learning to restrain distraction, is to notice it.

[39:40]

And then to regret the distraction and be embarrassed about it in the presence of the Buddhas is also part of... If other people are distracted all around you and you're trying to practice non-distraction, You're not so embarrassed. But if you're in the presence of the presence and you're distracted, you feel kind of embarrassed. But you should be in the presence of... Being in the presence of presence when you're not present is part of learning to be present. You should spend some time with people who are trying to be present to intensify your... to intensify the process. Does that make sense? Intensify the process of the purification of the distraction is intensified by being in the presence of other people who are trying to practice it. If you're trying to practice ethical precepts and you're with people who aren't, you're not so embarrassed that you don't.

[40:46]

But if you're trying to practice ethical precepts and you're in the presence of people who know you're trying... and who see you failing, you're more embarrassed. And not to mention if they're really kind to you. You know, they're not being mean to you so you can actually feel embarrassed because they're kind of like, yeah, I know you don't want to act this way. I know you want to be kind so I can see that when you're not being kind you're uncomfortable. Yeah, I am too. I want to be kind, but when I'm not, I'm uncomfortable. So it intensifies the process of purification to bring your awareness of your shortcomings in doing these practices, bring it to the presence of someone who's practicing these things too. And even if you have some human people to bring this confession to, amplify it by imagining the presence of the supremely enlightened ones with you too.

[41:54]

And if you don't have a human who's committed to the same precepts that you are, just sit down quietly And imagine the presence of great enlightened beings and tell them about your shortcomings. Invoke their presence and make a confession. When we have precept ceremonies here, we do that at the beginning. We've invoked the presence of all the practitioners. We gather all the human practitioners into the room. who are committed to these precepts, to witness this commitment to the precepts. And we also invite all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout the universe to come and witness this commitment to ethics. This intensifies the energy of the purification of our body and mind so that we can be of better service. But again, that's That's pretty intense, but that's just to be known that that's part of the process.

[43:01]

That's traditional to do that. It's not traditional for bodhisattvas to make no mistakes. If bodhisattvas are not making any mistakes, we say, okay, okay, but it's not traditional. Traditional is they make mistakes. that's what usually happens, is they try to be present and then they notice they're not. They try to be compassionate and they notice they're not. They don't so much notice that they are. They just are. And that's good enough. But when they're not, they notice. And that's part of the process. Part of compassion is to notice that you're not. Part of developing presence is to notice you're not. If you notice you're not and you regret it, and you confess it, you will someday be totally present. Non-stop. But it takes a lot of training to get to non-stop.

[44:04]

There was one Zen master who said, when he was 65, he said, finally, I'm present all day long. after I'd been practicing for about 45 years, that finally I got to a place where I'm present all day long. And the stories of that teacher are what attracted me to Zen. But also that teacher confessed that he made mistakes, big ones. On his way to being totally present, he made mistakes. All bodhisattvas have made mistakes. All Buddhas have made mistakes. Shakyamuni Buddha confessed that he made mistakes. Noticing the precept and noticing you're not in accord with it is part of learning it. Noticing that you're trying to learn Spanish and noticing you're not doing it right is part of learning Spanish. Noticing you're playing the piano and not making mistakes is part of learning to play the piano. It's the same thing.

[45:12]

And if you're in a place where there's no piano teachers, it's not as intense as if the teacher's there. You can practice without the teacher, that's fine. You could practice alone without the teacher. But actually, you might try invoking the presence of the teacher when the teacher's not even there. Imagine your teacher there. Imagine Beethoven and so-and-so present with you while you're playing. to stop right now? Yeah. Yeah, like you just go over there and get called to the piano and just go over and touch the key with Beethoven there. It's quite intense. Is that enough for today? Oh, yes. Please, come. Was it Hakuin who said he's present all day long?

[46:21]

Yeah, Hakuin, yeah. Was he present when he said that? I don't know. I wasn't there. Somebody just wrote it down. Because I have this feeling like when I'm thinking, oh, I'm really present right now, I'm not present when I'm thinking that. Well, he probably wasn't. You're right. He wasn't going throughout the day. I'm present, I'm present, I'm present, I'm present. Anyway. It just said he looked back and he realized, I didn't notice any distractions all day long. But most days I do notice distractions. In other words, for 45 years of practice, who knows how many past lives too, he noticed all those years. Every day he noticed he was distracted. I'm distracted, I'm distracted. So one day he said, oh, it didn't happen today. Wow, it's the first time. In other words, it took him 45 years to get to a place where all day long he didn't notice a distraction.

[47:26]

That means before that he did most days. So it is possible to know that you're being present. It is possible to know you're present, and when you're present, you don't think so, usually. It's like we say, when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't necessarily think, I'm Buddha. They could. You know, like if somebody came up to a Buddha and said, you're Buddha, the Buddha might think, I'm Buddha? I'm Buddha. They might think that. But most of the time, they've got other things to do. And the way they act shows that they know what a Buddha is. They act like a Buddha because they know how. But they don't think that they're Buddha necessarily. But they could. Usually they don't. And same with bodhisattvas. I sometimes say, actually I frequently say, bodhisattvas do not walk around thinking that they're bodhisattvas. But maybe on their birthday they think they are. Mostly bodhisattvas go, they think, I want to be a bodhisattva.

[48:29]

I want to be a bodhisattva. I want to live for the welfare of all beings. I want to practice these precepts. I want to, I want to, I want to, I aspire to. Or I'm not. I aspire to, or I'm not. Mostly that's what they're doing. But they might occasionally say, I'm a bodhisattva. Dalai Lama said when he was a kid, people told him, you are an embodiment of Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva. You are an embodiment of infinite compassion. And he said he just thought that was really amazing that people were saying that to him. And when he was about 70 or so, he thought, maybe I am. Maybe I am. But he wasn't thinking all that time that he was. People were telling him that. He was going, wow. It's amazing. So people do sometimes give you compliments, but you don't necessarily hold the compliment with you for the rest of the day if you're a bodhisattva.

[49:30]

You say, thank you very much, and pass it along. But you don't necessarily say, somebody gave me a compliment. You say, maybe give somebody else that same compliment. Be relieved of that burden. I mentioned recently that someone asked me, do you have some desire, I don't know if they said, do you have some desire for the appreciation of very advanced practitioners? How do you find if some advanced practitioner praises you? And I said, well, I just read recently that when bodhisattvas consider the praise of exalted people to be like vomit. They don't like actually, you know, they try to be respectful if an exalted person gives them praise, but it's like they do not want to eat it. They don't eat praise. They don't grow on praise. They grow on presence.

[50:34]

And they don't grow on praising themselves either. But they might occasionally think, well, that was skillful. Wow. But not in a way that puts anybody else down. It's more like, wow, everybody helped this happen. It's amazing. It's wonderful that this happened with everybody supporting it. It's beautiful. Thank you. You're welcome. Just like sometimes things happen around Green Gulch that I think are really great. And yeah, I don't think I made them happen, but I'm just happy that they're happening. Hey, it seems to be that time. I am very grateful to your wonderful presence. Thank you for offering this presence to the world.

[51:40]

Please continue to offer it.

[51:42]

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