Well, like when we're moving, then there may be various judgments about how helpful the movement is. But what I'm suggesting is that if you can remember stillness while you're moving, that the stillness is helpful to liberate beings. whereas movement may not be helpful. Matter of fact, movement may distract you from freeing beings and being at peace. So like, for example, if you think you have to go someplace else to be free, and then you move to go someplace else to be free, I would say that that is a distraction from being free.

[01:03]

And being still helps you realize freedom. But you can also move and while you're moving be still. In other words, you don't move to become free. Stillness is the way we realize freedom. But you can be still while you're moving, while you're dancing, while you're singing, while you're surfing, while you're working in movement. But just to move is fine. It's just an opportunity. And if we think we have to go someplace else to realize peace and freedom, that thought unless you're still with the thought. That thought might lead you to not be still with that thought. It's to not being still, but you can move and be still.

[02:06]

One time quite a long time ago I was offering incense and I realized that even though my arm was moving through the air and setting the incense in the bowl, I realized that there was stillness. That was a lovely surprise for me. So we always are where we are. My hands here, not someplace else. Now it's here, not someplace else. Now it's here, not someplace else. Now it's here, not someplace else. So each position I'm in is an opportunity to realize stillness. Each position my arm is in is an opportunity to realize being myself, to realize enlightenment. But to think that I have to go someplace else to be enlightened, like go to Tibet or to a Zen center, and then when I get there, I can be enlightened, that's going away from enlightenment.

[03:20]

But most people do go to someplace to be enlightened and they move farther away from it. But when they get there, the people tell them that they missed the opportunity before they left. And then they say, okay, can I stay now and remember that? Is that like really clear now? Close. Could you speak louder for me? Yeah, so when you feel like you're not still, be still with that feeling. Like if somebody tells me that they're feeling not still, I can be still with them telling me that. Or I can not be still with them. I should say I can miss the opportunity to be still with them telling me that they're not still.

[04:30]

Or if they tell me, when I'm trying to remember stillness, they tell me that I'm not still. I can hear that and be still with that comment about me. So people make comments about me all day long. Each one is an opportunity to remember stillness. And I don't have to do anything. I don't have to move over from here to stillness. I just be myself. But certain movements of this body or your body, I might lose contact with being present. I'm still present, but my mindfulness breaks. Does that make sense now? Thank you for your question. Yes and yes? Yes? I hope I'm remembering this correctly, but you talked about... Would you like to come up and use the microphone?

[05:32]

Sure. You can sit here if you want. This is now working. Yes, it is. You spoke about helping others become bodhisattvas before working on ourselves to become bodhisattvas. Not before working on yourself. Helping other people be bodhisattvas is working on yourself. I see. The way I work on myself is help other people to work on themselves. Okay. All day long, I work on myself by helping other people work on themselves. That's the best thing I can do for me is to help you help me. Which means help you be yourself.

[06:37]

But I don't try to help you be yourself before I help myself. As soon as I try to help you, I'm helping myself. In a way, I put you before me But putting you before me, I'm taking care of myself. But also there's this thing, this example, which we're all familiar with, which says, if you're traveling with someone you're taking care of and the oxygen masks come on, put your own on first so that you can help them. That's exactly what came up for me when you said that. And so I had a challenging belief around... put yours on so that you can help him. Like, if there was only one oxygen mask and you were taking care of your baby, then you would want to put the one oxygen mask on your baby so that she would have oxygen.

[07:42]

You wouldn't put it on yourself. unless you needed it to put on yourself just for a minute to get an inhale so you'd have some oxygen to put it on her. But if there's two, put yours on and then put hers on. So if there's any problem, if she wiggles away or something like that, I don't want to wear that. You don't pass out in the process, right? So in a way, first you take care of yourself so that you can help others. Yes, I agree with that, and that's what I subscribe to, but I think I just got lost maybe in the way I interpreted what you said earlier. Very good. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Who is next? Karen, you want to come up? I have two questions.

[08:55]

One of them came up in tea time, and it was about samadhi. And the question was, how would I know or how would anyone else know if I were in samadhi? Well, before we get into knowing that you're in samadhi, you could say, how might I think maybe I'm in samadhi? If you're in samadhi, you might be able to notice that you're not distracted, that you seem quite present and things are happening but you're not getting disoriented by them, and you feel quite open and relaxed and bright. You know, you might be in samadhi if you felt that way. You could also go and, for example, you know me, right? Sort of. Sort of. You see me, right?

[09:58]

Yes. So you could go towards this thing you see and you could ask me about whether I think you're in samadhi. And then I might say, no way. And you might say, thank you. And I say, you are now. But if I say, if you ask me if you're in Samadhi after you tell me about how you are, and I say, you are, and then you get excited about that, then I say you're not, and you get depressed about it, and I say, well, it sounds like you're not. I said you were, and you got excited, and I said you weren't, and you got depressed. It looks like you weren't. So there is a way to kind of... When you're in samadhi, you're not too concerned about knowing that you're in samadhi. You're kind of like, I have a feeling that it's possible I'm in samadhi. And even when I'm not, I think it's possible. This is samadhi people being kind of playful with samadhi. Samadhi is not like, am I in samadhi?

[10:59]

No, it's more like, maybe this is samadhi. Maybe this is bliss. Maybe this is calmness. Maybe this is openness. But I don't know. But it might be. Who knows? Something's coming. Samadhi. Okay, next question. Well, it relates and you kind of answered it. For me, the word stillness has some associations with repression and control. Yeah. And so just recently I've been thinking, well, what if it had associations with relaxation and generosity? Yeah. And so I just wanted to check that out. Yeah, I think for some people stillness is associated with relaxation and stillness, in some other people it's associated with restraint, even disparagement of movement, and so on.

[12:04]

So stillness is to be still with those negative associations. If I say to be relaxed with them? When people hear stillness and they associate it with repression, they actually don't repress themselves from repression. They go right ahead and repress themselves. So actually, that's kind of like they let themselves do that. They're kind of still with the repression. But some people actually... When they notice they're repressing, they try to repress the repression. So they move to repress, and then they move to stop themselves from repressing. And then they move to stop themselves from repressing the repressing. And so not much stillness in the neighborhood, even though they think they're practicing stillness. It's a misunderstanding. So in that case, come up and see me.

[13:07]

I'll help you out. In the meantime, is it okay if I use those other words? In the meantime what? Is it okay if I use those other words? What words? Relax and generosity. Yeah. Another instruction for samadhi, for taking care of samadhi. This isn't instruction for getting samadhi. This is instruction for taking care of it. meet whatever comes with complete relaxation. That's another in Samadhi, that's another instruction in the Samadhi care book. Meet whatever comes, whoever or whatever comes, meet it with complete relaxation. You want to do that? Yeah, well great. Another disciple of Samadhi. Yes, please come.

[14:10]

Thank you. Welcome. My question is, Your bodhisattva, whether you know it or not. Yeah, if you're a bodhisattva, whether you know it or not. Yep. And if you can be still when you're moving and you can be moving even though you're still. Yep. I agree with that. That's what I was hoping. I'm setting up agreements. And if we're in samadhi, kind of like all the time, even when we're doing normal things in the phenomenal world, and if your place is where you are, but...

[15:27]

you might not be in the place where you were. If you're putting everything... I don't agree with that part. Like you were talking about Castaneda's book where the student was, he said, go to your place, and then the student couldn't find it but fell asleep on the floor somewhere, and he said, well, that was your place. Yeah. Actually, at that time, that was the place you stopped looking for your place, other than where you were. That's a little bit of a harder example, but I think that in all of these, we're putting something in a big enough container that... Sometimes, like, the container is so big that I don't know if we're talking about anything at all.

[16:30]

Yeah. And also, also, I don't know what to do because there's like no variation. No variation? Right. Well, that's why sometimes people say, pay attention to your posture. and maybe pay attention to your nose or your lips or your fingers. So they give that kind of instruction. And then if you start taking care of that, you maybe find your place. But for some people, just to say, be still, it's too big. So they say, give me something more specific. So you give them something specific, and they work on that. And while they're working on it, they stop trying to find where they are someplace else. They give it up. And they start realizing they are where they are.

[17:33]

But they maybe need something like they need to move over to that, to look at that, to find out that they don't have to go someplace to be where they are. So that's why we give follow the breathing, you know, cut the vegetables, follow the schedule. We give those things so people can find out that they don't have to go someplace to be where they are. And then the world of variation re-enters. Yeah, variation, like there's a schedule, and that schedule is a variation of schedules. It's this one. And then there's another one over here. Like we have this schedule for session, this schedule for the intensive, this schedule for interim. All these different schedules. This is the variation we're going to use today. Some people use that. And then while they're using it, they realize, oh my God, I'm here. I'm alive.

[18:38]

I'm awake. But, you know, those things sometimes help people find out that being awake is being where they are. And if you say any schedule, then they don't somehow find a way to be where they are. So we offer these forms for the people to find out that wherever they are is where they are But I'm, you know, opening it up, and then we can close it down. Open it up, close it down. I think I see what you're saying about that practice, but I still feel confused as far as, like, real life. Well, right now, is feeling confused real life? Yes. So is it difficult to be still with this confusion?

[19:46]

Yeah. A lot of people have trouble being still with confusion. But that's a real life situation. Here's confusion. And can you be still with it? A lot of people know how to run away from confusion, and so I don't have to instruct people how to run away. They know how perfectly well. So I'm not teaching people to run away from confusion. I'm teaching people to be still with confusion. So right now if there's some confusion, I want to be still with you telling me that there's confusion. And maybe if I remember to be still with you telling me that there's confusion. I can practice being with you telling me that you're confused and maybe the being still will get transmitted to you and you can be here with me still and confused. That sounds ideal.

[20:47]

That's ideal. That's the ideal that I'm working on is to realize stillness because realizing stillness realizes in stillness that's where enlightenment's living. So I'm trying to remember where enlightenment's living and practice where enlightenment's living and transmit where enlightenment's living. That's what I'm trying to do. Are people pushing you around? People are supporting me to do this. I wouldn't be able to do it without everybody's help of offering me opportunities to be still with. So everybody's helping me do this practice. Either actually or rhetorically. actually, rhetorically, positively, negatively, a complete range of the way people are, whatever, they're all assisting me to do this stillness practice.

[21:58]

And the stillness practice is open to everybody helping the stillness practice. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for the question. Leave it on. Yes. Pamela? Huh? Is that your name? Oh, wow. You didn't change it since I saw you last. Hi. Okay. I feel like the answer is going to be very obvious, but I feel like I understand intellectually why and psychologically why I'm constantly moving. And I've moved since my divorce, well, and prior, sort of constantly moving from house to house to house to house, constantly running to find, you know, the perfect place to live and the perfect house and like every single house.

[23:07]

A place where you can be still. Yes, which I'm very bad at. And every single house that I've been at, I have completely rebuilt and completely made my own. And the last house in Mel Valley, after my divorce, I literally had to rebuild it from the studs up. And it was perfect. It was up the hell. I had these incredible neighbors. Green College. Yeah, Green Gulch was here, and it was karmically supposed to be. But it was in Mill Valley, and I felt like it was so... My children didn't know what black people were. I felt trapped in living in this place that I had fled from, even though I was in this magical place, and my children had the woods, and blah, blah, blah. And I regretted leaving my house in San Francisco, and anyway... Long story shortened, I moved back to San Francisco because I wanted my children, my sons, to have that culture and diversity and the intellectual and cafes that stay open past 5 o'clock.

[24:16]

And... And now I'm rebuilding another house that I can barely afford. And my children, like, you know, we just drove up here and they were like, Mommy, I miss the trees and I miss the beach and the ocean. And I was like, oh, my God, we had all those neighbors and the woods and I could open the door and there weren't, like, you know, people breaking into my car. And yet, like, I love being in the city, but I'm back in this, like... crappy house. And I'm like, what am I doing to myself and to my children? And how do I... I feel so much grief and loss. Every time I drive over the bridge, I feel loss and grief. And every time I go back, I feel just torn constantly between the beauty of Marin, and yet I'm like, oh, but I love the people and the city. So, yeah. Can you fix me? It doesn't look to me like you need to be fixed.

[25:28]

It seems to me that you're great, you're a living, you're a bodhisattva, you're great. And bodhisattvas need to practice stillness. So you need to practice stillness in order to realize what you want to realize. In order to work for the freedom and peace of your children, you need to practice stillness being who you are. This person who is, once he crosses the bridge, he has lots of feeling. And also remembering stillness when you go back and forth. Remembering stillness when your children say, Mommy. And then something happens to you. Be still with that. Be still with the cries of the world. Listen to them and be still with them. The bodhisattva listens to them. Mommy, Marin, San Francisco.

[26:35]

Like my daughter. She was born in the city. No, she was born in Green Gulch, then moved to the city, then moved back to Green Gulch. I went to high school in Greenwich. I went to high school in Marin and then went all over the world. Not all over, but anyway. Her friends, her high school friends said, you should come back to Marin. My daughter says, I will not come back to Marin. The same reasons you have. She doesn't want to live in this beautiful place because of the lack of diversity is one way to put it. And She'll come out to visit, unfortunately, but she doesn't want to live here. She wants to live in San Francisco or L.A., you know, or New York where there's diversity. And when she tells me that, then my job is to remember stillness when she says, I'm not going to go to Marin.

[27:42]

So we need to realize that this practice is necessary. The practice of being yourself, wherever you are, is necessary. And until you understand it's necessary, it's going to be hard for you to commit to it. Because it's another job on top of all your other jobs, or it's another job in the midst of all your other jobs. You've got a lot of stuff you're taking care of. You're building all these houses, taking care of these kids. You've got a lot of work to do. Now here's another job called being still all day long. But if you know that's necessary, then maybe you'll commit to it and then maybe you'll remember it. And Zen Center is here to help you remember to be still when you're in Marin, when you're in San Francisco, when you're going back and forth, and when you hear people cry, to be still. If you want to help them, you have to be where you are.

[28:47]

If you're with somebody and they're suffering and you go someplace else, you can't help them. You can only help them from where you are. But the hardest thing is to be where you are. It's easy to be somebody else. It's easier to be a divine goddess than to be a human woman. And to be there and be this, it's hard. Again, as I was saying to Rachel, I don't have to teach people to run away from where they are. They're perfectly good at it. They know it from childhood. They know how to try to get away from where they are. It's animal, animal nature. Go someplace else to be happy. We got that. Now be still with that. If you really understand it's necessary, then you can commit to it and try it occasionally.

[29:50]

And the more you try it, the more you're going to be able to be there. And be there with people who seem to not yet want to be there. I guess I'm just wondering, how do you, you know, I want to be able to let go of the grief and just... Just now you were kind of here. Just now you were sitting there, you weren't too much running away. Just now. Weren't you? You were kind of here. You didn't seem like you were trying to go someplace to be happy. You didn't seem like you were trying to get something to be happy. You were just like here with us and we were here with you. And you didn't know how to do that, but it happened. You just didn't, somehow you didn't go anyplace. But sometimes you may have to remember not to go someplace. Sometimes you may notice, oh, I just went someplace else, even though that's... I don't want to go someplace else.

[30:54]

I don't want to have another life, because then I'll miss my life. Because when I get to the other life, I'm going to want to be... I'll never be here if I go there to be here. So somehow... We all helped you be here, and you helped us be here. I don't know how that works, but it has something to do with remembering, of being mindful of the teaching. And we're mindful of teachings that we think are worthy to be mindful of. All you've got to do is remember this. And if you want something else to remember, I'll give you something else. But maybe after you're good at this one, I'll give you something else to remember. But this is enough to remember. This is hard enough. Stillness is hard enough to remember. Isn't it? Anybody, like, totally got it down? Let me know. We can give you something more difficult. I don't know what.

[31:54]

Thank you. You're welcome. Did you already ask a question? OK, would you wait a second? Anybody else that hasn't? Yes, Nancy, you want to come up? Would you move that piece of wood back? Thank you. So I was maybe unclear about the meaning of singing and dancing. I was thinking that they are really vulnerable activities for many people. And I don't know if that's important to stillness, vulnerability. But wondered if you could elaborate on any relationship that there might be. Stillness and vulnerability.

[32:57]

Samadhi is stillness. Stillness is open. And being open, you're vulnerable. And being vulnerable, you can be hurt. Samadhi is open to being hurt. Samadhi isn't being hurt or not hurt. But Samadhi is not concerned with not getting hurt. It's open to being hurt. And sometimes being hurt comes up in our life and Samadhi doesn't argue with it. Samadhi's still with being hurt. So then it's important to be vulnerable or to be open. Being vulnerable, you could say... It's a byproduct. No. Being vulnerable is our nature. We're impermanent, vulnerable beings.

[34:00]

We can be hurt. We've already got that down. Nobody needs to be more vulnerable than they are, as far as I know. I don't know anybody who I feel like, you need to be more vulnerable. But most people need to be more open to being vulnerable. A lot of people are like, no way, no vulnerability in this life. Like I remember at 9-11, Donald Rumsfeld said, now Americans are feeling kind of like endangered and vulnerable. We should not feel that way. That's what Donald Rumsfeld said. He wants to make everybody in America feel invulnerable. Nobody can hurt me. This is not what I recommend. I recommend opening to feeling like I could be hurt. That horse is really big, and if it stepped on my foot, you know, it could hurt me. That wind is strong.

[35:01]

I could be hurt. That cliff is like really steep. I could get hurt if I fall off. Yes, that's normal. We don't have to be more vulnerable. We have to be more open to it. We are vulnerable. We are impermanent. Like I saw somebody, after the talk I saw somebody and then I saw him again and then I saw him again and I said, me again. But it really isn't me again. It's another me. I'm not, there's no me again here. There's just a me. And now there's another me. It's not the same one as before. I'm vulnerable to, I'm basically vulnerable to disappearing. And I just did and here's another one. And this one disappears. And this one disappears. I'm vulnerable to complete transformation. That's my nature.

[36:03]

We're constantly changing. We're vulnerable to change. If I'm healthy, I'm vulnerable to be sick. If I'm sick, I'm vulnerable to be healthy. We cannot be any more vulnerable than we are or any less. We're sufficiently vulnerable. Nobody needs to be any more vulnerable than they are, in my opinion. But many people, including me, need to be more open to it. Like, you know, I don't know what, take a fingernail off me, even under anesthetic, and I might have trouble being open to that. Can you maintain stillness in that, though? I have a hard time with that. With practice? Yes. Without practice? Maybe not. I often use the example which is about 14 years ago. I remember because I had this operation the day before my grandson's second birthday.

[37:07]

I had this operation to fix a hernia in my abdomen. And so I had the operation, and then they gave me general anesthetic, I think, and I was in the recovery room. And I came out, and some caregiver came to see me, and she said, we're going to give you some pain medication to help you deal with the pain. And I said, okay. And she said, but we have to like just not give it to you until the anesthetic wears off, because we want the anesthetic to wear off so you can feel the pain. And then when you start to feel the pain, then we'll give you the pain medication to see if it's an appropriate pain medication. So then I was lying down, I was lying there, and I felt some pain come. I said, oh, there's the pain. And then I felt some, it got, more came.

[38:12]

And then a little bit more came. I said, okay, I've got the pain. So you can come and give me the medication now. I've got the pain. But I didn't cry out. I just felt they could give it to me any time. And then the pain, you could say, grew. It became more, more vivid and alive. And then I thought, well, you know, maybe, I don't know much, I said, I wonder how much longer I can be still with this pain. And I kind of, I was getting a little unstill, thinking, what if they don't ever come back? But then I kind of was still with that. So I kind of did okay. I didn't cry out, where are you? Come back here! I didn't. I was kind of like, okay. But I could feel I felt like I was feeling the tip of a huge mountain.

[39:16]

And even the tip of it was kind of like, hmm, this is like, it's starting to get a little challenging to be still with this. And I felt like, if you opened up all the way to the bottom, I don't know if I would be able to be still. I could kind of feel like, I don't know if I would be able to be still with this. I felt like my stillness has some limits about what it can open to. That's very vulnerable. But she did come back, and she gave me the pain medication, and then she gave it to me, and I swallowed it, and then the pain kept growing. And then again, I felt like, this is getting right on the edge. I don't know how much longer I can relax with this. And I don't think this is even really near the whole thing. I was kind of like, okay, you've got some room to grow here in your practice.

[40:22]

And then the pain medication started to come in. And then I've been happy ever since. And the next morning I woke up I took the pain medication that day. The next morning I woke up and there was no pain. And I didn't have to take the pain medication anymore. But stillness is relaxed. And it's hard sometimes when pain comes. Sometimes pain comes and you can go, relax. And it gets stronger and you go, relax. And it gets stronger and you relax. It gets stronger and you start tense up, tensing, tensing, stronger, tensing, stronger, tensing more, stronger, tensing more. But then sometimes, wait a minute, this is okay. And then you relax. Sometimes the tensing becomes even worse than the pain and you trade

[41:26]

You trade the pain of closing down for the pain that you feel when you open up. So we find our way to samadhi. What do you say, willy-nilly, trial and error, we find out that actually we really do want samadhi, we really do want, we do aspire to eventually open and relax with bigger and bigger challenges. And the Buddha gave examples of his own practice of patience. And he said basically, with practice you can be patient with anything. But you have to start with what you can be patient with and relax with and then gently expand it. Until no matter what people do to you, you're still with it and that means then no matter what people do to you, you can transmit stillness which might sound like, you know, I'm here for you even though I'm experiencing a lot of pain with you.

[42:42]

Thank you. You're welcome. I really appreciate your openness and stillness with me today. I pray that we continue to practice this stillness, this samadhi together until everybody joins our practice. Thank you very much.

[43:06]

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