putting our chips down, and betting on compassion. We're in the middle of what we call a January intensive in this temple, where people come from all over the world, all over the country, to practice intensively, to practice Zen? Because it's a Zen temple, right? Did you know this is a Zen temple? I don't know that. But anyway, we call it a Zen temple and people come here to practice. And at the beginning I asked the people who came, are you joyful to be here? And most of them said yes. One person went, I don't know. Anyway, We've been celebrating for about two weeks, celebrating the practice.

[01:08]

What's the practice? The practice of compassion. The practice of wisdom. We've been celebrating it. We've been sharing for it. Are you people happy to be here? the people who came today. So, last week I gave a talk here on Sunday. Were you here? Was it good? You came back. Okay, so I gave a talk last week and afterwards the the person we called the Eno, asked me, what title? And I wrote back and said, how about Delusion and Enlightenment Dancing Together.

[02:25]

Is that right? Did I say something like that? Yeah. So the title of last week's talk was Delusion and Enlightenment Dancing Together. So I'm kind of like, yeah, I'm not so much into like, okay, practice is getting rid of delusion. I'm not so much into that, which would be pretty much the same as practice is getting rid of living beings. We don't want to do that, do we? Living beings are precious and beautiful. And at least this one is deluded. Do you know any other deluded people besides me? And do you want to get rid of them? I don't.

[03:26]

And I propose a path of Buddhahood. The path of Buddha is the dance or a dance of delusion and enlightenment. It's not enlightenment conquering delusion and eliminating it. I would propose that. Some people think that's what the practice is about, is enlightenment conquering, dominating, whatever, delusion. I propose that Buddhists live in this intimate reciprocal relationship of delusion and enlightenment. And I may have brought it up last week that those who had deluded ideas about awakening, we call them living beings.

[04:40]

Those who have enlightenment about delusion are Buddhas. So the Buddhas are working with delusion. in an enlightened way, and other living beings are working with enlightenment in a deluded way. But maybe you can see there that they're working together. The enlightenment and the delusion are working together slightly in kind of complementary ways. And I also brought up, and I'll bring up again, that one way to define, kind of define delusion is like this.

[05:42]

I practice Zen. That's like delusion. When I think I practice Zen, that's a delusion that I practice Zen. Or that I realize awakening. That's delusion. When Zen comes forth and practices me, that's awakening. When Zen realizes me, that's awakening. When I realize Zen, that's delusion. When I practice compassion, Me practicing compassion.

[06:45]

I practice compassion. That's delusion. When compassion practices me, that's awakening. And in this picture, I would caution anybody to think that the enlightenment is better than the delusion. Because compassion practicing me and me practicing compassion totally include each other. They're dancing with each other. So for me, it's not that enlightenment, although it's considered higher, is more the point than delusion, which is often considered lower. It's the dance that's where the Buddha lives. all over the world and during this intensive in this valley people are experiencing rough water, rough waters.

[08:08]

People are having a hard time during this intensive and all over the place people are having a hard time. Recently somebody told me about a really hard time she was having. And I brought up something that an ancient teacher said just before he died. This is a story about this ancient teacher named Lupu. It's from a story called Lupu About to Die. And in the beginning of the story, he's just about to die and he wants to use his last effort to wake up his students to this dance of delusion and enlightenment. And his students make a big effort to meet him in this effort.

[09:17]

And one of them really gets close to a real meaning to the dance. And in the end, the student says, I just don't get it. I don't understand the dance. The teacher says, you must. I can't. You must. I can't. This is like right before he dies. You know, this is not like a happy story. This is like a great teacher trying to do this dance. And the student says, I can't. And he says, you must. And then the last thing the student says is, I can't. And the teacher says, it's really tough. This is really hard. This is really hard. And then he says, which I remember so often, the boat of compassion is not rowed over smooth, pure waters.

[10:33]

And then he died. But he transmitted that to us. He reminded us that compassion is not rowed over pure, smooth water. It's rowed in rough water. And we have rough water. It's rowed over polluted water. However, the rowing of the boat is dancing with the polluted water. But it's really hard. So we're trying to learn this. And then, again, we're trying to learn how to row the boat of compassion over this rough water. And then we think, oh, I'm rowing. That's delusion. And then we think, not think. And then we wake up sometimes to the boats carrying me.

[11:48]

The boat gives me a ride, and I make the boat a boat. Delusion and enlightenment are working together on that boat of compassion. They're always working together, but we usually approach the ride from, I'm riding the boat. I'm practicing compassion. Well, that's a nice thing. But if I see it that way, that's delusion. But also, compassion is practicing me. I may occasionally think, deludedly, I practice compassion. And I also might forget to think that. But compassion never forgets to practice me. And compassion practicing me is awakening. I thought, while I was imagining talking to you about this, I thought, you know, when little humans, not little humans, when humans, little or big, when they're babies, oftentimes around one year of age, they

[13:15]

there is this event of them walking. They take their first few steps. And I have actually seen that happen a few times when a baby takes those first few steps. It's like the baby and everybody else are totally awestruck by this amazing thing. A walking baby. is so wonderful. And we don't, babies sometimes can't even talk at that time, but we don't have to teach them to think, I did it. I walked. We don't have to teach them that. Babies are perfectly deluded, just like we are. And they think, I did it.

[14:18]

And it's so beautiful, this delusion. And then the adults in the neighborhood might reinforce that delusion by saying, you did it. And the baby goes, yeah. And it's triumphal, triumphant delusion. We don't usually say when the baby takes the first few steps, we did it. We don't usually say the whole universe walked you everything in the universe has been coming forth for a long time and particularly for the last year everything's been coming forth to support you to be here now and walk this is the whole universe walking you we don't usually say that matter of fact yeah But today we're saying it, the whole universe walks you.

[15:20]

So we can now contemplate that when we walk, when we walk, there's a dance between I walk and the walking does me. I do the walking and the walking does me. I am the walking and the walking is me. We can meditate on that. And this is a meditation which I'm bringing up, the meditation of the dance between I live my life and my life lives me. I row the boat and the boat rows me. I practice Zen, and Zen practices me. Now when I say those two things, the second one, Zen practices me, my saying that is not the actual way that Zen's practicing me, but still I feel kind of liberated, because me practicing Zen sometimes is hard.

[16:23]

A lot of people say, this is hard. But Zen practicing you is really very easy for Zen to practice you. And that's awakening. But awakening is not trying to eliminate. I practice Zen. I practice compassion. I practice the Buddha. It's not trying to eliminate it. So how do we get into the dance? One might wonder. Well, we're already in it. How do we realize that we're in it? By practicing it. How do we practice it? Well, we practice delusion. Which you don't have to go out of your way to do that. Your nervous system is naturally built to think, I do this, I do that.

[17:24]

We need to practice compassion with the delusion that we do things by ourself. And with that compassion, we can let that delusion be more and more completely that delusion. Not try to make it a little less deluded. I don't know how you might adjust your language a little bit. But to fully understand To fully accept, to fully allow, and fully be careful and respectful and gentle and tender and patient with the delusion. To be really, really kind with the delusion will open the door where delusion is dancing with awakening. Not reduce the delusion.

[18:34]

Let the delusion be what it is. If there's varieties of delusion, fine. Let each example be itself completely. Really, you know, really encourage it to be completely just what it is. That's what a Buddha is. A Buddha is letting delusion be completely delusion, and then there's great awakening right there with the delusion. In the midst of delusion, Buddhas are greatly awakened. Buddhas are not... going someplace where there's no delusion and waking up. They're waking up in the middle of delusion and they wake up by letting it be completely what it is without moving it at all, with not any comment, just let it be. And if there's a comment, let that be. That's another delusion.

[19:35]

In order for us to wake up to delusion, we have to be very generous towards it. We have to be very tender with it. And when we are, we see it dancing with awakening. not even see it, we realize it. Because this dance is beyond, is deportment. It's a deportment. It's a living relationship and it's beyond hearing and seeing. But that doesn't mean we don't take care of our hearing and seeing. We take care of our hearing and seeing completely and that's how we realize the deportment beyond our hearing and seeing. Again, in China, a lot of things happened there in the past. A lot of Zen teachers were there. One of them was named Yunmun, which means cloud gate.

[20:47]

And one time, I think he asked the question, or somebody asked him, I don't know, I can't remember. But anyway, the question was, where are the Buddhas born? and I tried to find, I was looking for the original Chinese. I didn't have time before the talk. I think the character might be also translated as, where do Buddhas live? Where are they born? Where do they live? And Yuen Mun's answer was, eastern mountains. travel over the water. To make a long story short, let me ask a question.

[21:54]

What do you think the mountains are? Go ahead, you can say something. Or not? What? The journey of life. The journey of life, yeah. Particularly the deluded journey of life. The mountains are the mountains of delusion. Where are the Buddhas born? They're born in the mountains of delusion, the eastern ones, which is short for the eastern and western, and northern and southern. It's short for all mountains. It's a little bit more colorful than just mountains. The eastern mountains, those lovely eastern mountains of delusion. Walking over the water is where the Buddhas are born. What's the water? Yeah, the water of enlightenment.

[22:57]

The water of realizing the true nature of delusion. The mountains of delusion are traveling over the waters of delusion and the waters of awakening. That interaction is where the Buddhas are living. They're not living just up in the mountains, but they are living in the mountains. They're not just in the mountains, though. They're in where the mountains meet the water. They're in the mountains where the mountains travel on the water. They're in the delusion where delusion meets awakening. We sometimes say mountains have feet, right? They live all throughout the mountain, all the way to the foot of the mountain. Matter of fact, they live all the way to the toes of the mountain.

[24:03]

and the toes of the mountain splash in the water's awakening. And the toes do a little dance with the water, and the water does a little dance with the toes. And the water gets all toe-y. No, not really. The water gets this wonderful relationship with the toes, and the toes get all nicely watered. That relationship So our job is to go all the way to the toes of the mountain, the mountains of delusion. We've got the delusion. Now how to thoroughly, thoroughly be with it right to the toes by practicing compassion with it. All the way, the whole mountain. And then we realize where the mountain does the water and the water does the mountain. I do practice and practice does me.

[25:17]

I am practice and practice is me. There's no practice but me. There's no practice but you. There's no you but practice. And you do practice and practice does you. That's the dance of the Buddha. That's where the Buddhas live. I guess you probably understand now, right? It's pretty simple. It's pretty simple to write It's pretty simple that the job is to ride the boat over the rough waters. That's pretty simple. The riding is hard, is challenging. There's a possibility of falling out of the boat into the rough waters. Maybe then you can find, instead of the boat of enlightenment, you can find a twig of enlightenment to hold on to.

[26:24]

Anyway, maybe that's enough for me. So if it is, I'll just, is that enough? If it is, I'll just do a little trick at the end, okay? And the first trick is to help you imagine a cartoon that I saw a while ago, quite a while ago. And the cartoon was, I think maybe the cartoonist might have been a cartoonist with a Scandinavian name. Do you know any cartoonists with Scandinavian names? How about Larson? I think the cartoonist, his name might be Larson. And it's a picture, it's a drawing, black and white drawing of a dog riding, I think, a unicycle, or maybe a bicycle, but anyway, a dog riding a bicycle on a tightrope.

[27:32]

And The dog is also, in addition to riding the bicycle on the tightrope, the dog, I think, is juggling various balls. And the subtitle of the cartoon was something like, High Above the Hushed Crowd. Roger thought to himself. The dog's name was Roger, I guess. Roger thought to himself, this is a new trick. And I'm an old dog. So that's a kind of an overture to my trick.

[28:40]

I'm kind of an old dog. And I'm going to try a new trick, which is a new song I never sang before, even to myself. But I'm going to sing it to 100 or so people. I know I'm an old dog. Here we go. Ready. Oh, I forgot my pitch pipe. I was going to bring, somebody gave me a pitch pipe because I was using my pitch pipe. So let's just try it one. When, when, [...] maybe when. When an irresistible force such as you meets an old immovable object like me, you can bet as sure as you live something's gotta give, something's gotta give, something's gotta give.

[29:54]

When an irrepressible smile such as yours Warms an old implacable heart such as mine Don't say no, because I insist Somewhere, somehow, someone's gotta be kissed That was my new trick. And I thought it was apropos of my talk about the mountains and the water. So I hope that lecture might have been easy, but what I'm talking about is really, really challenging to find that place where delusion meets enlightenment. and where they give to each other, and where Buddha is born.

[31:00]

It's very challenging, but I'm celebrating it. I'm celebrating the Buddha way. I think it's just so wonderful how delusion and enlightenment are not separate. And not only they're not separate, they're not just sitting next to each other like, okay, we're not separate. They're like They're dancing together. They're including each other. They're respecting each other. So I hope that was a long enough talk. It's a little shorter than sometimes it is. Is that OK if I stop now? Thank you for celebrating the Buddha way today here with everybody.

[31:52]

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