I pray that the assembly is ready after all this meditation and practice for some subtle points, some subtle differentiations The differentiation that I'm alluding to or speaking of is the differentiation between intimacy and its realization and something which we have called grandmother mind or grandmother mindfulness.

[01:09]

Also, I hope that, I pray that because of all of our practice for these about 19 days, I can bring up some kind of like, I don't know what the word is. Not exactly secrets, but anyway, maybe I could say family, or skeletons in the closet, or Do you know that term, skeleton in the closet? But not exactly skeleton in the closet. It's more like some skeletons that have been brought out of the closet. Someone said to me earlier in the intensive, she said, I'm surprised how much dissent there is in the community. And I didn't ask her what the dissent was, but I have seen dissent at various points in the history of Zen Center.

[02:25]

There's an aspect of our practice community which is like a family. And some people think it's a good idea to work your cell phone at the dinner table. And some people think it's not a good idea. So mostly at Zen Center, people do not use their cell phone at meals, right? Maybe some people want to and disagree. And then in private, they tell guests, you know, I don't really agree with Zen Center policies of no cell phones. I think Zen Center is kind of living in the past or whatever. Anyway, there are, There is some dissent in the community. And like in most families, dissent is a normal thing in a family. And dissent can possibly break the family apart.

[03:35]

People can leave the family because of dissent. and I brought this point up before, of someone who described his own family and people, again, some people want to use cell phones, some people want to do various things besides eat at the table. And the person who was writing this article said, and he told that after a while at one meal, almost everybody left the table. And he said, what holds families together? And his point of the article was, good stories hold the family together. So I really don't like Zen Center, someone might say. But I stay because they have really good stories there about their family. I want to be in the family, even though I don't agree with a lot of the family members. But we have really good stories. So I've told some stories during this session.

[04:42]

And one of the stories was about a teacher named Se Ming, or Xie Suang, Xie Suang Huainan. And as I mentioned earlier, his two main disciples, all of the Rinzai lines after him were transmitted by his two main disciples. And then the story I told about the director of his monasteries, the director's name was Yang Chi. Yang Chi, I think, Hui Yuran. He was the director in the story. And I also have read that all the Rinzai Zen lineages in the world today, today means like in the 21st century, all of them descend from Yang Chi

[06:04]

Hui Ran. So, and I think I said before that this Tzu Ming, also known as Xie Shuang Hui Nan. No. Yeah. We are in the lineage of Tzu Ming. But I checked to see, are we in the lineage of Yang Chi? And we're not. So the other main disciple is the disciple that comes down to Dogen's teacher, Myozen. But Dogen did not maintain the Rinzai line, even though he was a student of that Rinzai teacher. And in our Ketchumiyaku, in our blood vein lineage, the line, the Rinzai line going through Huang Long down to Miao Zen.

[07:11]

That's the one that is included in our precept lineage document. But in our main document, we don't have the Rinzai line. But in our blood vein, we do have the Rinzai and the Soto. And it symbolizes that for both Rinzai and Soto, they share the Bodhisattva precepts. So there's a story about Yang Chi as the director. And there's another story, which I've told several times, about another director, Tetsugikai Daisho. So these two people, these two directors of monasteries working with their teacher, Both of them, these are noted and venerated Zen ancestors, but in their stories, in their biographies, we have stories about them which reveal that they did not really have this grandmother mind.

[08:27]

when they were working with their teacher. They eventually did, but they struggled with their teacher. They didn't believe. They didn't believe what? They didn't believe in intimacy. You know, all pervasive, universal truth of intimacy. They didn't believe it. They thought some things were more like better opportunities for bodhisattva practice than others. They thought some situations were better opportunities for the unfoldment of being a Zen master than others. And their teacher told them, you're doing fine. Period.

[09:35]

And then brackets. But you think there's some other bodhisattva way other than your job. Other than you doing a job. You think that. And this is something you will get over. And both of them did get over it. the noted poet, yogi, monk, Shantideva, lived in India and lived in a big monastic establishment called Nalanda University. And in that great monastery at the time he lived there, there were three varieties of monks. worker monks, like directors and head cooks and work leaders, scholar or memorizing monks, monks who chanted and memorized all the Buddhist teachings, and meditation monks, the three.

[10:52]

And there was instructions about how these three would live together in the community. And there's some, I think, you know, at Zen Center, we have those three kinds too, but not so strictly divided. And there's Yeah, but the teaching of intimacy is that all these three types of monastic occupation or profession, all three are equal opportunities for realizing the Buddha mind seal of intimacy. But both Yang Chi and Tetsugikai thought that there was something other than their job as director.

[12:01]

And Sun Meng said to Yang Chi, just do your job. You know, you're going to be a teacher of people all over China someday. Just do your job. Don't rush. Don't rush. And Dogen said to Tetsugikai Daisho, you're an excellent administrator, you do such a good job, but you lack this grandmother mind, which is the competence of making every action of body, speech and mind the expression of the Buddha mind seal of intimacy. You lack that. And Dogen said this to Tetsugikai, I think, three times. And he also predicted that Tetsugikai would get over his lack of faith in this teaching, the teaching of grandmother mind, that there is no other Buddha way other than what's

[13:18]

your body, speech, and mind right now. And therefore, because of that, Tetsugi Kai was not able to be a direct successor of his dear teacher, Ehe, Ehe, Ehe Dogen. Dai Osho, whose birthday is tomorrow. We're going to have a little birthday party tomorrow morning. Please come. And afterwards, if you consult the Chidan, you might be able to eat some of Dogen's rice. It's especially nutritious after being blessed and offered Tetsugika, the great ancestor, didn't believe Dogen, even though he was devoted to his teacher, devoted, devoted, devoted, but couldn't quite believe this amazing teaching.

[14:34]

Again, maybe he could believe, yes, the work under the pasharob is intimacy, but he still thought, The teacher needs to tell me what it is so I can—that's when I'm going to understand this. Not doing my job. Anyway, Dogen died before Tetsugikai actually understood that. So Tetsugikai studied with Dogen's disciple, Koen Eijo Daisho, and then After about a year and a half, he understood, and he confessed to his teacher, his elder, Koen Eijo Daisho, when our master was alive, I did not believe his teaching. Now I do. And so both Tetsugikai and Yang Chi both of them who had been directors under their teacher, both of them were very emphatic about this teaching when they became teachers.

[15:49]

In a way, they emphasized the worker monk style rather than the sitting monk or the sutra chanting monk. And now at this point in history, if you go to the two main monasteries of Soto Zen in Japan, they do less sitting meditation there than we do during our practice periods. They mostly work and do ceremonies. And we make a big effort here to support people to sit quite a bit, like during this intensive and during the session. But this teaching is actually that whatever you're doing is opportunity to express the Buddha mind seal.

[17:01]

sitting upright in zendo, walking upright in the farm, standing upright in the kitchen, bent in an unhealthy posture over your computer down in the basement. There's nothing other than, at the Buddha Dharma, there's nothing other than being there for that. Still someone might come in if you're bent over your computer and adjust your posture, but not because you weren't in a good opportunity, just another opportunity to express intimacy by posture adjustment. So the intimacy is reality, and we want to realize it. And the grandmother mind is kind of, I think, almost necessary in order to realize intimacy.

[18:13]

It's slightly different than intimacy. It's more like a trusting of a teaching of how to realize intimacy. And the stories of these two directors both show this, again, these are great ancestors who had a problem of not having what was necessary for a while. And so if you don't have it, again, you're in good company. If you don't think that right now is that what you're thinking and what you're doing with your posture and what you're doing with your voice, if you don't believe, that this is the opportunity to realize intimacy, then you're lacking that grandmother mind. And if you do have the grandmother mind, then you can use this opportunity and not look for another one.

[19:20]

Or if you're looking for another one, you can use that opportunity. and not look for another one. Eventually grandmother mind will help you not looking for some other place to practice than here and now and this. This is not the Buddha way. The intimacy The reality of intimacy expressed through this is the Buddha way. And every this is a good opportunity for expressing, you could say, that. And that and this are not dual. That's the intimacy again. Perhaps this distinction was actually quite subtle and there's a thought that this subtle distinction between intimacy and the realization of it and the kind of attitude that is appropriate to realization, that the distinction between those different elements has been clearly articulated.

[20:56]

Still, since it's subtle, maybe take a while to, you know, maybe take a long time. Because again, even great ancestors had trouble understanding this, so we might have some difficulty too. AND ONE OTHER KIND OF LIKE, NOT A SECRET EXACTLY, BUT KIND OF A SUBTLE, I DON'T KNOW WHAT, PREFERENCE AT ZEN CENTER MIGHT BE THAT IT'S GOOD TO HAVE MORE OF THE SITTING PRACTICE THAN THE WORK PRACTICE. AND IN ANCIENT TIMES, HEIJI HAD THAT KIND OF BIAS. I DON'T KNOW, BIAS. ANYWAY, THAT KIND OF, YEAH, BIAS. So Eheiji, in the years after Tetsugikai, actually they kind of kicked Tetsugikai out because he was kind of like, wasn't enough, he wasn't sort of like, and the thing about sitting in the zendo is better than being a director.

[22:17]

When he was director, he thought maybe sitting in the zendo or talking to the teacher was better than being director. And Dogen was saying... If you think so and you believe, if you get into that, you're losing grandmother mind. So when he left Aheja because he was like so much into like grandmother mind that the monks who wanted to have lots of sitting didn't like him. So he left and his lineage went away and and was very prolific and spread all over Japan. And in Eheiji they kind of held to sittings a little bit better opportunity than working and studying and so on. And Eheiji got weaker and weaker and weaker and almost died, while the other lineage of Tetsugikai just took over Japan. And then just before Eheiji died,

[23:22]

They had a peace treaty with the lineage that they kicked out. And so Eheji's still a vibrant place where there's lots of worker monks still struggling with this point of intimacy to realize it. AND STILL MAY BE THINKING SECRETLY, SITTING IN THE ZENDO IS BETTER THAN TAKING CARE OF THESE GUESTS. EVEN THOUGH SOME OF THE MONKS DO TAKE REALLY GOOD CARE OF THE GUESTS. A FRIEND OF MINE WENT TO ANOTHER MOUNTAIN MONASTERY OF ANOTHER SCHOOL. I WON'T MENTION WHICH SCHOOL. AND SHE FELT LIKE THE MONKS... AND SHE WAS A GUEST THERE OVERNIGHT UP IN THE MOUNTAIN MONASTERY. And she felt like the monks there really were bothered by the visitors and wished that they would go away.

[24:24]

Probably thinking, our esoteric exercise program is better than taking care of these guests. So is that clear? Is everything clear now? So sitting in the Zendo is a good opportunity to express the Buddha mind seal. And working in the kitchen is a good opportunity. And being in Zen Center offices is a good opportunity. And taking care of guests is a good opportunity. And growing vegetables is a good opportunity. And every action of body, speech, and mind is the opportunity for expressing and imprinting, impressing, impressing and expressing the Buddha mind.

[25:43]

And each one of these areas might be good to overcome the resistance to grandmother mind. So, you know, if you think that the Zendo's a better opportunity than being in the farm, well, then maybe we're good to go to the farm. and experience your resistance to farm work. And if you think the farm's better than the zendo, it might be good to go to the zendo. And if you think the kitchen's better than the zendo, go to the zendo. And if you think the zendo's better than the kitchen, go to the kitchen. What I just said sounds like Zen stories. But we have to be careful, you know, not to destroy the zendo by putting everybody in the kitchen who doesn't want to be in the kitchen.

[26:53]

You still have to take care of the zendo and you still have to take care of the kitchen. So again, that's one of the characteristics of this place and also in Japanese Zen monasteries is we don't have the monks sitting in meditation being served by people who, I don't know what the word is, who aren't monks. We have monks serving monks. We have the practitioners serving the practitioners rather than the practitioners being served by non-practitioners. And we have to be careful not to think that the people in the zendo are better than the people in the kitchen who are bringing food to the people in the zendo.

[27:59]

And the teaching of Grandmother Mind, which Dogen expressed to his wonderful disciple who didn't have it, the teaching which Dogen told Tetsugukai he was weak on, Grandmother Mind, Dogen also talked about in his discussion of the cook. Because in the kitchen, that's one of the minds that's being developed, the mind of It's called parental mind or grandmother mind. That's part of the kitchen mind. And there's another mind, which is the Buddha mind seal in the kitchen. And the grandmother mind helps the kitchen workers not look for someplace else than the kitchen to realize the Buddha mind seal. The great mind is in the kitchen, too.

[29:05]

But we need the grandmother mind in order to not look over our shoulder at Zendo or the teacher, being with the teacher and the teacher telling us what it is. No. The teacher is telling us, it's right here. Don't look someplace else. So the grandmother mind helps us homogenize, really extend completely this intimacy to all things. May I ask again, is that clear? So it looks like it's clear and the kitchen's leaving.

[30:19]

And also, I must excuse me for saying so, but I do, even so, I do appreciate the kitchen being so, I wonder what's the word, so diligent in their devotion to the Zendo. You have really been here a tremendous amount, considering you're working so much. Thank you so much for being such great Zendo participants, even though the kitchen is just as good as being here. We still appreciate you coming. rather than saying, oh, well, the kitchen's just as good. We don't ever need to go to the Zendo. So bye-bye. Please excuse us for not coming with you, but I know it would be too crowded if we all went into the kitchen now. But we can just imagine that we're all going with them, packing all of us into that little kitchen, and then being asked politely to leave and go back to the zendo.

[31:33]

We need to be careful not to think we're better than the other practice places where the people practice and where they hire people to bring them the food rather than cooking for themselves. We don't think we're better than those places, do we? No, we do not. Well, I definitely blew through my job.

[32:49]

What does blew through mean? Without complete intimacy while I was doing my service job. I knew it. I wasn't settling and being with this task, even though I was cleaning a toilet. I had done it the day before, and I had actually felt embodied with the way I was bending. So I felt whole-bodied and connected. And so I guess my question has to do with, and like at work, I can sometimes, when I'm touching somebody, I can still myself enough to show up in a whole-bodied, connected, intimate way. But other times, I'm just kind of like this. So how do I... It takes... I guess I want some forbearance, because I feel like begging you for forbearance. You're begging for forbearance? Yeah, because there's so many more minutes in a day.

[33:56]

It's being given to you. Thank you. Forbearance is being given to you. This is so hard. Well, it's hard to learn Spanish, too. So you're learning a new language, the language of intimacy. And I think when you say you blew through your work, you mean you missed opportunities to give yourself completely to this work and to appreciate that this was an opportunity for intimacy. You missed it. But now you're confessing, I missed it. And you look like you're kind of sorry you missed it. Yeah. It's kind of my life. You're sorry you missed it and your life, yeah. You missed your intimate life. Right. But you did get your non-intimate life. But that's not what you're working for. You're working to realize intimacy in life, with life, and all life, right? But then sometimes you miss.

[34:56]

You get excited and you miss, right? So then you confess and repent, and that confession and repentance is the golden light which will free your practice of the karmic tendency to not be here for this. Right. So it's built into our nervous systems like, you know, we're doing something and then we think, well, what's next? Before we even quite arrive at this moment of work, we're thinking of the next moment of work. That's part of our nervous system. It helps us mature as little animals to be always jumping to the next thing. It keeps our muscles working and so on. So it's built into our nervous system to flip around from thing to thing. So we're training ourselves into being completely here. And so sometimes that little Mexican jumping bean side comes into play and you say, I'm sorry, I missed.

[36:04]

So just there is forbearance for this missing the chance. And so while confessing that we missed the chance, we also are patient with our forgetting. We're kind and patient with our forgetting that this is the opportunity for practice and that we don't have to look anyplace else for our life. We're training at that. So thank you for your confession. The Golden Light Sutra teaches that the process of confession and repentance is the golden light which frees us from our karma.

[37:06]

By confessing our karma and reforming it, we become free. I wanted to say thank you for yesterday's conversation. When I was sitting here, I wasn't aware that I heard what you were saying. When you were sitting here, you were not aware of? That I wasn't really aware of what you were saying, but somehow in the aftermath, things happened.

[38:11]

And one thing was, I remembered the title of the Shinjin-mei, the faith mind script. It seems like, oh no, now I know why there's this faith in the title. Because if I let go of my ideas of good and bad, I kind of lose the grip on things. And they on you. And they on you. And then I need big faith to let the whole work. Yeah. And it feels like I can't do it.

[39:16]

I'm not doing it. You can't do it. You can't give everything away, but that's the practice. Somehow this other poem is present in my mind. I think it's the teacher of Matsu. of the soul fully sown with seeds. When moisture comes, the formless samadhi blooms. How can it be limited to good or bad? I think. Sounds good. So all we do is planting seeds and waiting for the moisture. And we can also pray for moisture without trying to get anything.

[40:19]

And if we're praying for moisture and trying to get something, we can confess that we're trying to get something and let go of trying to get something by our prayers and keep praying. trying to get moisture seems like a pretty good way to cause a drought. Exactly. Without blaming anybody, because people are trying to get something, we have droughts. And we're all involved in that. And the more we are free of trying to get something, the more abundant the moisture. up to the right amount. But we have a lot of work to do to get everybody to cooperate with the grandmother mind, which is not trying to get anything or get rid of anything.

[41:28]

When I heard you talk about the grandmother mind, somehow this picture of the little chick picking. Yeah. Maybe little grandmother mind meeting big grandmother mind. Yeah. Dogen was. Tetsugikai was pecking by his wonderful devotion. And Dogen pecked back, you're lacking grandmother mind. And then Tetsugikai pecked back saying, how could that be? And Dogen pecked back, you're lacking grandmother mind. Back and forth until finally. the shell broke and he saw the wonderful grandmother mind. But he needed to be energetic enough so that Dogen would say that to him.

[42:36]

And Dogen needed to be compassionate enough to say it in such a way that the shell didn't get broken before. Tetsugikai was ready for grandmother mind. But the teacher died before, and then the successor kept pecking. So we have this wonderful mind that's transmitted to us. And we take care of it by pecking back and forth to each other. By the way, please make yourself comfortable in your sitting posture, if possible.

[43:41]

It seems that so much of this teaching rests on having a role, having a sense of one's job and one's place. And I feel such a... this is so lacking in our world, I think. from my experience and people I know to be able to find work, to find a job and be able to rest there and then to have, to find a role that feels worth taking up with one's whole heart. And so many people that are entangled in doing jobs and being in roles that are themselves tangled in larger systems of pain and destruction and unwholesomeness.

[45:44]

It's my great wish to find for myself and by doing to support others to find a sense of place that they can take up fully. Can you give me some advice? Well, in this intensive, I started with what's most important. Once we find out what's most important, then it will be much more, then that's very auspicious for finding our place. And once we find what's most important, a lot of different things could be our place. And also looking for our place but not finding it, we can also do wholeheartedly. But if we're not clear about what's most important, then all these options, we're like picking and choosing, looking for which one is it.

[46:55]

And then it's hard to believe that this could be it. But this could be it if this is in accord with what's most important. So I think, yeah, once we find out what's most important, then we can see, oh, this, this, this, and this are all in alignment with this. So each one of these is a good seat for me. And I could aspire to doing any one of those. I aspire to realize what's most important, and these activities are good activities. So you can be a schoolteacher, you can be a parent, you can be a monastic, you can be a nurse, you can be a car salesman, if you see that that lines up with what's most important. And then you can fully exert those positions. Because we do need to accept our place at some point.

[48:03]

But it's hard to accept our place fully if it's not lining up with what's most important. So once I found out what was most important to me, I was happy to go to the monastery and be a plumber or a ditch digger. or somebody who sits in a zendo a lot. I did all those things, and each one lined up with . That's why you have to keep going back to the faith and the aspiration to realize it, to have energy so that whatever we're doing, we're not looking for something else as we're doing it. So when you're a plumber, Like I tell the story, one of my first jobs at Tassajara during Tangario, there was lots of storms and the water pipes got blown apart. So one of my first jobs was to put the water pipes back together. I was happy to do that as part of this Zen monk thing.

[49:06]

But even so, when I'm working together with Mr. McGuire, my partner, when we put the pipes together and we went to fix the next pipe, and I said to him, do you know what I said, John? I said, let's go back and fix that pipe. And he didn't say, what do you mean? He knew what I meant. What I meant was, let's go back and do it without looking at the next joint. We were fixing this one, but we had several to do, so we weren't really here. We were in a Zen monastery to be here, but we weren't at this joint when we were working on this joint. We were on the next several. So we went back and did it again. And we did it more thoroughly. We were there being Zen monks repairing those joints. And we went to the next joint. We knew what we wanted to be. We wanted to do everything thoroughly, intimately.

[50:07]

And we knew we weren't that way with that thing. Like Anne was saying, we knew we missed the opportunity of doing something intimately with that joint. And when we're plumbers, as a way to realize this, we're intimate with plumbing. And we're doing, we're expressing the Buddha mind seal. But we need to be clear about what's most important. That's where the aspiration comes from and that's where the energy comes from. And I also tell the story over and over about my daughter, you know, she said to me, I don't know what I want to do. And I said, Yeah, until you find out what you want to do, you're not going to be able to really apply yourself. But when you find it, you will be able to apply yourself, and it will be great when you put yourself into that.

[51:09]

But you have to find out what's most important, and then you're going to be able to aspire to realize it. And then everything you do will pretty much line up with that. And not too long after that, she found out what she wanted to do. She was pregnant and she wanted to take care of the baby. And she accepted that position and exercised it intimately. Because it was very clear to her what was most important now. So we need to find that again and again and again. And sometimes you need to take a rest from the work. And during rest time, What's most important again? Oh, yeah. Sometimes we get so tired we can't remember what's most important, so we need to take a little break and then reaffirm our faith and then rediscover our aspiration and go back to work.

[52:17]

And for people who have not found this, who we feel such deep sorrow for because they're lost, we can tell them, yeah, I know it's miserable when you haven't found it yet, but that's your work, is to find it. And nobody can tell you what it is. And until you find it, you're going to be spinning your wheels and it's going to be miserable, but that's your job. And you can tell them that with confidence if you believe that and if you've found it for yourself. And what I've found is not for you. I'm not going to be a mother, but I've found something else. And I can tell you, you've got to find what's for you. And you can say that to your friends who have not discovered it and tell them that it's normal that they'll be frustrated and miserable until they find it. That's normal. There's nothing wrong with them for feeling that way. They just haven't found it yet, and we don't know how long it's going to take.

[53:23]

But they're not going to be able to really engage until they find it. And then you can hold their hands, because maybe that's what you've found is what you want to do. And they might find something different, and you'll hold their hands for that. That's what I would say to your friends who haven't found their thing yet. I'm sensitive to how things have been going on for a long time, so are you up for another person? Is that okay? One more?

[54:25]

Okay. Who will it be? This is for clarification. I've really appreciated the teachings during this intensive on compassionate inquiry, that distinction of compassionate inquiry rather than just compassion. And so... I've been exploring it or trying it out. And kind of the idea that I have these thoughts and that to inquire compassionately about them.

[55:32]

And so yesterday I decided to test it, to try it. And I quantified how many... unwholesome thoughts I had after lecture. I counted for the rest of the day. And there were 17. 17 times when it's like, ah, you know, ah. That's a traditional number. Is it? Okay, well, I nailed it. So then, so I was trying to understand how to compassionately inquire. And so first I thought, okay, there's the thought. And then I thought I was supposed to say, oh, poor Tracy, you had that thought. That must be because, you know, you didn't have enough love as a child or something. Don't be mad at yourself. But then I thought, no, no, I should be being compassionate about the person I was mad at and thinking, oh, poor them.

[56:35]

I'm mad at them for doing it, but really they had their reasons. So I couldn't figure out who I was supposed to... be inquiring about. And then I thought, I started judging it, and thought, oh, this is mediocre inquiry. And then, so I felt like I was just making the whole thing into another thought pattern. And I felt like I missed the boat. Yeah. You missed several boats there. Could you relaunch, please? So there was a thought, compassionate inquiry. Then there was some emotion towards somebody. Yeah. So that emotion is the thing to inquire about. Then there's the somebody. That's to inquire about.

[57:37]

That's to be compassionate towards. Then there's the judgment of how the process is going. And that's to be studied. Then there's the idea, oh, poor me. That's to be inquired about. Then also, what about the me and the poor and the activity? Inquire about that relationship. Are those stuck together? But what's the difference between thoughts and inquiring? Well, compassionate inquiry is to look at a thought and not try to get anything from it. For example, compassionate inquiry would be to look at the thought of compassionate inquiry and just look at it and let it be and be careful of it and patient with it. And then the thought, I have to do something or I did something, contemplate that without trying to get anything or get rid of anything in that thought.

[58:42]

This compassionate inquiry is below average. That's calling for compassionate inquiry too. Compassionate inquiry doesn't fall into the thing that's being contemplated. It doesn't lean into it. Like this is above average, this is below average inquiry. Such thought may arise if you're doing inquiry. This is above average compassion. This is like below average compassion. Those are opportunities for compassion. Compassion looks at these thoughts. Below average, above average. below average person, above average person. It looks at them without getting excited or turning away. It's just present and upright with them. And that's not a thought. That's present. It's being present and not thinking about it. You can think about that, but that is not a thought.

[59:47]

That's a presence. Presence is not a... We are present with all our thoughts. Whenever we're thinking... there's presence. I said we're present, but anyway, actually, whenever there's thought, there's presence. And there's a presence which is clear, uninvolved, not stuck in anything that it's present with. And there's somebody here, but the somebody is not the presence. there's presence with somebody, often called me. So there's me, there's all kinds of thoughts, and there's presence with me and all kinds of thoughts. And the thoughts can be often evaluations of situations, and there's presence with them. And with presence with them, there's also presence with the thought that might arise.

[60:47]

What's the relationship between all these elements that are going on here with with me? What's the relationship between me and all the evaluations of me? What's the relationship between me, all the evaluations of me, and all the things that are being evaluated? And that question's not trying to get anything. It just arises. And then you can take away the question and just be present with it, and a revelation comes even without the question. Oh, I see the relationship between self, all beings, all evaluations, all judgments. I see the relationship. They're all dependently co-arising, and none of them are stuck in any of the other ones, and none of them are attached to any of them, and none of them own the other one. But if any one of them owns anything, they all own everything, and so on. All these revelations of intimacy come by compassionate presence. which, again, is willing to be there and let things be and not trying to avoid anything or get anything.

[61:51]

And that's not a thought. That's wisdom. And it's not someplace else from whatever is going on. And it's not trying to get something other than what's going on. And if there's some impulse to get something other than what's going on, there's presence with that. and with presence with trying to get something other than what's going on, we realize that's just a thought. It's not actually doing anything. May I address Janna? Janna, she asked if she may address you. Is that okay with you, if she addresses you? You sure? Maybe no. Thanks for asking. Thank you. You can ask her some other time. Maybe she'll be up for it. Okay.

[63:03]

May I address you all? Is there anybody who doesn't want me to address them? Is it okay? May I address you? Thank you very much. May our intention...

[63:22]

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