Is there anything you'd like to discuss? Please come. Please come, you. Please come. Would you use this, please? Yes, sir. If you don't mind. You might be able to make a nice story out of this comment, but I heard the collected dragons, real dragon story, perhaps ten years ago or so, and I think the way you told it today would have made Suzuki Roshi proud.

[01:01]

I think your storytelling abilities are increasing if I can say so. I was wondering, I was thinking about the you talked about it being, first you used the word phases, and then you said levels, the last teaching. And I was thinking about that and how they're levels. And then when you were looking at the... Well, it is, but it's really, I mean, it kind of just goes around, really. And then the... trying to decide if it was the imperceptible and the perceptible or the imperceptible and the perceptible on the, you know, as the book comes onto the altar, the scripture comes onto the altar.

[02:19]

And then I thought about the teacher and his devotion and where it's imperceptible and perceptible. And then... And then it just goes, just keeps going, you know? Right, right. So I know there's a question in there. Yeah. I think you're right. I think there's a question in there somewhere. Yeah. I was formulating the question. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, the teacher... Maybe the teacher might have thought, oh, he thinks he's coming here just to tour the grounds. But I feel him asking for the Dharma. So I'll give him a Dharma book, but he won't notice that I'm giving him a Dharma book. He'll just think I'm just being polite.

[03:19]

But he really wants this. And he probably won't read it for many years. There's a... I don't know if this quite applies, but there's a story in the Lotus Sutra about these two people who are drinking together. I believe they're drinking together. And one of them drinks so much he passes out. And the other one, who hasn't passed out, has to leave. But he wants to give his friend a gift. But he can't give it to his friend because his friend's passed out. And if he puts it in his friend's hands, it'll just roll out of his hand. So he sews the jewel. He wants to give this guy a jewel. So he sews the jewel into his coat so he won't lose it. And he wakes up. His friend's gone. And he doesn't know he has the jewel. But he's got it.

[04:22]

So the teacher kind of did that. This guy came a little bit drunk, right? He didn't really understand. He was kind of passed out in terms of being aware that he was coming to receive the truth. He thought, I'll just take my daughter on a nice little walk. That's nice. But his Buddha mind was kind of asleep. So the teacher put this little jewel in his hand, and he took it with him. Something like that. And Dogen Zenji says that this jewel of the Dharma is always transmitted to us when we're drunk. Does anybody know where that is? If we knew, you know, if somebody said, I'd like to give you the treasure of the truth, we'd probably say, no thanks, or leave me alone.

[05:25]

When we're drunk, go, oh, okay. Or, you know. And then when we get sober, we say, something's poking my chest. What's this hard thing in here? Oh, wow. Where'd this come from? Who gave me this? How wonderful. Maybe it was my friend. I also wanted to say that Green Gulch and Zen Center have a certain aspect of being like that story. It's that we have these nice gardens. A lot of people think, you know, hear about Zen, they think, oh, Zen, yuck, you know. That's a place, you know, it's very severe and cold and whatever. But they have really nice gardens there. Let's go to the garden. So they go to the garden. And when in the garden, secretly, we come up and emanate meditative vibes towards them. Not directly, but through the trees, you know. We're sitting in here and we're sending the meditation vibes out and they bounce off the hillsides onto the trees and then onto the people in the garden.

[06:33]

And they get more and more meditative and pretty soon they say, hey, let's go to the Zendo. And some other people, they don't like the garden so much, but they really love It's that smell. It smells like fresh bread. And they come and they eat the bread and the Dharma's been resonating into the bread so the Dharma goes in with the bread into their stomach. And they go, I'm a Zen student. I hope they keep feeding me this bread. You can both come and sing a duet. Please come. What I'm appreciating from what you just described is that there was a practice that people knew about that if your child was sick, that it was beneficial to take your child into a garden so that common people, regular people,

[07:53]

had that option that had been passed down in their tradition that this was something that you could do that could be helpful. And so what's coming up for me is that it's so important to keep these options available, our parks or the tradition or the... grandmother's knowledge of the thing that's good for the child because It's precious Thank you Well, I was just gonna say that there must have been some real diligent generosity and in that gentleman to take his daughter to the garden. Just like for someone from near beach or anywhere to come to the garden or to feed themselves some delicious bread.

[08:58]

Right. It's there. You're both seeing it's there. But sometimes we miss it. So that's why we need to practice it so we can see it. And then the more we practice it, where we can see it, the more we start to see it where we didn't used to see it before. And pretty soon you see. I see trees of green, red roses too. You know, you start to see. So you have to start someplace where you can see your generosity and where you can see your patience. And then you start, then your eyes start opening and you start to see it in places, you start to see it in people who don't see it. So he's being diligent, but maybe he didn't know he was being diligent. But gradually he realized the truth that we are diligent beings. We really are. Please come.

[10:00]

I'm a teacher of children and I'm thinking about how it seems like some of the greatest exchanges between students and I are those which are imperceptible. That when the children don't know they're learning, they seem to learn the most and sometimes When I'm teaching and I'm not conscious of my teaching, I feel like I'm sometimes teaching the best. And so I kind of got a little stuck on that in terms of... I may have just gotten confused about, you know, imperceptible, imperceptible, and that. But then I have a question about thinking I'm a mother. And I have an eight-year-old son who's having a hard time right now. And I know how to help him.

[11:12]

I mean, I've learned about working with children who are having pain. But it seems like when... when I try to lead him, it's like he repels it because he perceives my trying to, you know, help him as somehow intrusive or invasive or bossy. And I just, I don't know what my question is exactly, but I just wondered if you had any words to say. What comes to my mind is that even if you are trying to help him, and even if you are trying to give him help, and even if you have no expectation of controlling him, and your giving is pure, he's testing to make sure that you're just making offerings to help him and that you're not trying to control him.

[12:13]

He wants to make sure your love is pure. So you offer, now if you do offer him some help and you expect some result, then he's right, then you are trying to control him. And he does not want his mother to control him, he wants his mother to love him. He does need your love, he does not want your control, and he does not need your control. But if he suspects you're trying to control him, if he's a healthy child, he will fight back. But even if your gift is pure, he may not be able to believe it. And some people have seen so much where people are caught up in trying to control them that they don't even know it's possible that someone could just be generous with them without trying to get something back. But even people who have been treated well still want to make really sure that the people who love them will love them

[13:15]

even if they do what that person does not want. Sure, Mom will love me if I do what she thinks is good, but will she love me just as much if I do what she does not want me to do? And wanting somebody to do something is not necessarily trying to control them. Like, I want him to be healthy, but if he's sick, I still love him. But some parents want their children to be healthy, and they do not like their children when their children get sick. And the children then feel, not only am I sick, but if I would pretend to be well, they would like me more. And some kids go along with that. But some healthy kids say, I'm not going to pretend to be healthy just because you'll like me. Matter of fact, you should be loving me even if I'm sick. But some children are not even sick. They say, I want to find out if they'll love me if I do get sick. So now I'm going to be sick. Or anyway, I'm going to do... what is not just going along with them.

[14:16]

I'm going to be true to myself, and I don't think they like this, but if they love me, they'll still love me. But they won't like me, they'll love me. So they'll be generous with me, and they'll tell me, I don't like what you're doing, but not to control me. And even if you hit the mark perfectly, once, twice, three times, they still want to make sure. you know, how about this, Mom? Will you love me even if I do this? And it's a great, this is a great struggle to verify love. And you're the main person probably in the world for him to work this on. So if you can be gracious with him and patient with him, not believing that you're actually loving him unconditionally, unconditionally means not trying to get anything. Even if you manage to do it, he still wants more proof. Like that story of, you know, the king who asked his girl to spin a room full of straw into gold.

[15:16]

His reward to her was, now do it again with a bigger room. So part of the reward of you being successful is him raising the ante to see, is this love unlimited? And if you can't, satisfy it, then also be generous with yourself, because it's hard to be perfect in that way. I don't know perfect, but really pure and love without trying to get. Of course, if you love this way, you'll get exactly what you want, namely a boy who understands what love is. That's the main thing he wants you to teach him. Teach him other stuff, too, like brushing teeth and so on. That's part of it. But now he's learned how to brush his teeth, and now he's not going to brush his teeth to see what you'll do. Okay? Okay, I'm not brushing my teeth. Do you still love me? I don't like you, but I love you. That's what I feel.

[16:17]

Yes, thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for surviving. From time to time, I do experience this, what I call, absolute bliss. And it's very welcoming. It's very kind. It's very open. And it's very, I define it as the truth. However, what I would like to open my horizon is not limiting myself to that what I perceive as truth.

[17:25]

That yes, when I do contract and when I forget and when all that what I feel like, this is not me, this is not me, that yes, this is me too. So to see this as part of that, that what it is. Good. Good. Please do. Please practice that way. Thank you. You said something today about appreciating your life.

[19:16]

And sometimes when it feels... When it feels like a struggle... When your life feels like a struggle? Yes. How do you do it? sometimes when it feels like a struggle, graciousness arises in response to the struggle. The struggle's there and somehow this thing arises called graciousness, which is intimacy with the struggle, which is giving the struggle to the struggle as an act of graciousness. And appreciation arises from just letting it be a struggle.

[20:23]

Other times struggle arises and it's hard to see the graciousness. It's imperceptible. It's there, but hard to see it. So you say, okay, there's a struggle and the graciousness is imperceptible. I don't feel giving towards this struggle. But there, that was gracious. I let there be a lack of graciousness, and that was gracious." How did that happen? I don't know. Other times But when the graciousness happens, it is a condition for more. When you see that when the graciousness appears and you can perceive it, it is a condition for perceiving it more. And thinking also maybe not only is it graciousness, but it is a joy. And that is a condition for it arising again. And there'd be more joy and more graciousness and more joy without the struggle necessarily going away.

[21:28]

But it could become stronger. Usually things, you know, go through some kind of rhythm. So I think in some sense life is a struggle and it offers the opportunity to learn how to ride it with graciousness. And then if you can ride it with graciousness you start to open to that there always is graciousness. But sometimes we can't see it. But again, to notice that we feel stingy or ungracious and we don't let something be what it is, or we turn away from it or try to control it, you say, oh, that wasn't very gracious, but I was just gracious with the ungraciousness. So that's good. This is kind of a story about how the practice might go. Yeah. but you're asking this question and this will have the effects of your perhaps continuing to meditate on the possibility of being gracious with struggle.

[22:40]

And the possibility that struggle will help you grow, will help your graciousness grow into areas it hasn't lived in before. So we need to be challenged for our graciousness to grow. We need to challenge be challenged in order for understanding of the pervasiveness of reality and then allow that illumination into our little world where we live. Did you give Nora a ride today? Yes. Thank you. Sure. I was glad to do it. We have been talking and I've been thinking a lot about the Buddhist concept of letting go, which you hear a lot.

[23:48]

And also, but however, one of the percepts is justice. Yes, good. And I'm not sure how to discern or when to seek justice or when to accept and how to tell the difference. Can you hear him? Yeah, so I hear a juxtaposition of letting go or you could say graciousness, how does graciousness go with practicing justice? And I also heard you say, yeah, I'm not sure when to practice justice. And I'm not telling you when you should, I'm just saying that I'm proposing to you that reality is justice and justice is reality. And so when we see injustice, it means we can't see reality. I'm not saying that the injustice should be denied, however.

[24:52]

I think you should be gracious towards the appearance of injustice and being gracious towards the appearance of injustice is conducive to realizing justice. If you see injustice and you're gracious with it, your eyes will open to more graciousness and more justice. And then you'll see this appears to be injustice, but actually there's justice here. And then you can show other people the way of justice, not the way of fighting injustice ungraciously. But you could fight injustice, you can fight the illusion of injustice with graciousness and with a vision of justice. So, graciousness and justice are always present and some of us are vowing to realize nonstop justice.

[25:54]

Not just occasionally, but always. But it's hard to practice justice. Justice is second. Now, you don't have to practice it second, but it's hard to practice justice if you don't practice giving. If you're not gracious, you get sour and depressed and angry and frightened. So then when you see injustice you respond with fear and violence, which is not justice. When you see injustice, when injustice appears, to respond with justice means you respond with not slandering. If you see someone doing something unjust or unskillful, To respond with slander is more the illusion of injustice. To respond with praise and graciousness is what will wake up the justice in the situation. Like the woman talking about her son. He may be testing, you know, showing, manifesting injustice to see if she can respond with justice.

[27:03]

to recognize his presentation generously and to see that there's justice there and help him awaken to it. And also, if there's injustice, you can put a boundary up or a border up and say, this is justice over there, this is injustice over here, and I want you to stay on the justice side of the line. I want you to stay on the side of the law, the justice, the truth, but you put that up as a gracious gift. You don't put it up as an injustice, as an expression of slander and praising yourself at the expense of others and so on. You appreciate the virtues of someone and then you maybe discuss some shortcomings or some apparent injustice. But if you still see injustice, If what you see is injustice rather than justice, then be gracious with your vision and then you don't get trapped by your vision of injustice.

[28:13]

And then you can address the situation to help all parties realize the justice, the precepts of the situation. But we need generosity to realize justice. if we don't have graciousness that will interfere with the realization of justice. That make sense? It's hard though, it's really hard to be gracious with the apparition of injustice. Very hard. That's a big growth opportunity for us to like not just be gracious with justice, which it's fine to be gracious with justice, no problem. When you see people being kind to each other, When you see people not lying to each other, when you see people not stealing from each other, to be gracious towards that, fine. But when the apparition appears to be injustice, continue giving. And that will help wake up the justice in the situation.

[29:16]

Justice goes with giving. Real graciousness. Real letting the injustice be injustice. In other words, let the appearance of injustice be the appearance of injustice so that people can become free of the appearance of injustice and become intimate through being intimate with it and realize the reality of justice and help others who do not see it clearly, who see injustice. And a lot of people who we think are being unjust, they think somebody else is being unjust. You know, it's like some people are being unjust about stamping out injustice, right? We see people being violent to eliminate the unjust, right? So we think, yeah, that looks unjust, but you're being unjust, you know, and so on. We know that. We have to bring graciousness into the field of injustice.

[30:19]

That's where the lotus of justice grows. It grows in the field of injustice, treated graciously. But it's difficult to be gracious towards a field, a polluted field. But that's where the most beautiful blossom occurs. It doesn't occur in sand, purified sand. organic silicone. Nothing, no problem with organic silicone, it's fine. You can mix that in there too, it's no problem. But we need some pollutants there to make them all beautiful, get the color. And we've got the pollutants, right? So now let's bring warmth to the pollutants and start growing the seed of compassion. Compassion is not guess what, is not to hate. During a real tough time at Zen Center, a lot of people were kind of hating for a while in our past.

[31:33]

And I remember Suzuki Roshi's wife saying, Suzuki Roshi's teaching was not to hate. It's like, and she said to me, you should tell the students that. And I was afraid to tell them because I thought they would hate me. You know? Like, who does he think he is to tell us that Suzuki Roshi's teaching is not to hate? Or that Okusan told him to say that? I didn't dare tell him. But it was almost like people forgot that that wasn't his... He did not come to America to teach us to hate each other. Really. So what were we doing? How come we were hating each other? Because we forgot that Reality is not hating each other. Reality is loving each other. Reality is not supporting each other, undermining each other, and blocking each other, and starving each other. Reality is about supporting each other and being gracious to each other. That's reality.

[32:35]

That's reality. And that's reality. but we get distracted for various reasons. We have stories about why, how it goes, but those aren't really how it goes, they're just stories about it. But we do have the appearance of injustice. Harboring ill will is injustice. And sometimes in our American legal system, I'm impressed that somebody is indicted for committing a horrible injustice, a horrible cruelty. That's the indictment. But still there's some justice being given to the person as they're going through the process in the court. They still call the person Mr. So-and-so. They don't say, sleazeball so-and-so is in debt. No, they actually say, Mr. So-and-so. They actually respect the person who is suspected and indicted for doing some very unskillful thing.

[33:45]

So he did an injustice, and now we're talking to him about how to bring justice. But they sometimes bring justice to the person who was unjust. They sometimes bring it graciously and respectfully. It's amazing. I just think that's great. There's still going to be maybe some consequence for this person, which might be justice. In other words, it might be able to be given as a gift. It's possible. Like a boundary. The gift is you cannot do that anymore. You can't practice law anymore, for example. You can't be in the military. Or you can't be on the street. Or you can be on the street, but this way. But these can be given as gifts where we actually respect this person and are trying to help this person who we have this thing of that they were involved in an injustice. Do you know what I mean?

[34:48]

But sometimes people act unjustly to people that are suspected of injustice. And I think, well, you're just joining that world of injustice, that illusory world of injustice, but it's a very, very horrible and painful world of illusion. The world of illusion is painful, very, very painful, or a little bit painful, or medium painful, or super painful, but it's basically not a happy place. But if we bring graciousness there, it opens up to happiness and justice. And then we not only practice graciousness, we also practice justice by practicing these precepts. But we also remember we're practicing these precepts, but we're actually celebrating reality. So even if I slip up in my precept practice or my justice practice, I also understand this is my slip up, but reality is still reality.

[35:55]

If I lie, yes I lied, but reality is still telling the truth. Telling the truth is still really what's going on, but I'm off base because I'm lying. I'm out of touch with the big picture, so I'm telling these lies. But I remember the big picture, so I, in one sense, slip up, but I don't necessarily forget. There's a teaching which is tell the truth or don't lie, but that teaching is also saying the reality is telling the truth. That's reality. That's really what's going on. We really are telling the truth. Like when my grandson lies to me, he's telling the truth. I can see that, you know. like he wants me to take him to, you know, Burger King. I took him twice. But then after two times, and I also saw some movies about Burger King, and after that I said, I can't take you to Burger King anymore because I think it's contributing to the ill health of our nation.

[37:01]

You know? The food that they're serving at Burger King is making people sick, contributing to diabetes and obesity. It's just, you know, it's really not good for people. And he says, No, actually, it's okay, because only 20% of Burger King food is junk food. The rest of it's really good for people. So he was able to tell his grandfather this lie, and maybe he had some hopes that I would then, that I would actually like, I would go for that and take him to Burger King. So he was lying to me, but really he was telling the truth. You know, he wasn't lying. He wasn't lying. That's not really what was going on. He was being generous with me and just with me and patient with me. He was being Buddha with me to give me a chance to see. But it looks to some eyes like he wasn't being generous and just, but he really was.

[38:06]

And that's the nice thing about being his grandfather is I often can see that he is reality. You know, he is actually not lying to me when he says stuff like that. Okay. Please come. You're welcome. You talk about being gracious with situations in your life and with other people, but the hardest part is to be gracious with yourself and patience with yourself and accept reality in reality terms and not what you would like the reality to be. You use a lot of graciousness, graciousness, but would that also be surrendering? Surrender? Graciousness?

[39:07]

I think you can use surrender. But I hope that your surrender has a warm feeling. You know? It's not like, okay, all right, okay. That's cool, but also, I warmly surrender. I love it. I surrender as an act of love. The warmth of it. Well, it is hard when you have to set life on life terms. If you can't be warmed, then just go ahead and surrender. And the warmth will probably come. There it is right now. Well, it's sort of like, you know, most people in this life, they have lots of dreams and things. Most people have lots of dreams, yeah. Yeah, but usually the dreams that they have doesn't come true. Yeah, usually. And you have to have a lot of surrendering every day because life doesn't go your way.

[40:09]

Yeah. And you do have a lot of surrendering and a lot of generosity every day. You do. But if you don't practice it, you might miss it. It's there, actually. You actually do surrender moment by moment. And you are actually generous moment by moment, but if you don't practice that, you miss it. But you have no choice. You have to do it. That's right. You have to do it. But you can also resist, even though you have to do it. Right. And we do that, too. And we do very well at that, yeah. So then we, again, be gracious with our resistance. Be kind and generous when we resist what we must really do. And we know we have to do it, and yet we manage to resist. So then be gracious with that, and we're back on the path. Yeah. Sometimes I just know that I have to do certain things and I just don't want to do them. You know, you're fighting with yourself all the time.

[41:10]

And I think one time I said to myself, you know what, I'm just going to be kind to myself and I'm just going to go with the flow. And one day, two days, and then the third day I was back to normal again. But you forget, you know, you forget that... That you have to be gracious with yourself. Yes, we forget. And then we admit that I forgot and be gracious with our forgetting and we're back again. Thank you. You're welcome. I'll try to practice that. I'm ready. Thank you. Thank you. Please come. Please come. You both can come. Please come. I have a question about giving and forgiveness.

[42:11]

and the relationship, and I have a story. I've been mentoring my teenage nephew who flunked out of school, and I offered my help to him after that, and he accepted it, and we formed an agreement. He's back in school. He's back in school, and he's done really well. He was made up two years of school in one year, and we followed this agreement very closely, and that's been wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. However, during that time, he's also been arrested three times for drugs, carrying deadly weapons, vandalism. And that's been outside of the scope of our agreement, and I've respected that. But each occurrence, he's been detained, he's been in ankle bracelets. It's interfered with our agreement just because of access and whatnot. And I've sort of ridden this turbulence with him and not put down a lot of expectations of where this is all going as best I can, but I'm starting to notice now that I'm forming an expectation about him.

[43:23]

And what it is, it's a lowering of expectation. Maybe I had an expectation that he would turn around or something. But my expectations are lowering about what he's capable of doing. And I'm distressed about that because I don't want to communicate that to him. If anything, I feel I've really tried to be generous and communicate to him that no matter what happens, he's capable of much more than sort of the stew that he's in right now. And so I've just been thinking about forgiveness there. I don't know if I'm starting to hold some grudge or resentment toward him. And, you know, I want to forgive these acts and not take them personally. So any feedback would be appreciated. Okay. Well, there's two aspects of what you brought up. One is forgiveness and the other is this expectation. Let's talk about the expectation first. If we take care of that one, we won't have any problem with forgiveness anymore.

[44:28]

So, I would suggest changing the word from expectation to standards. your standard for him, what you want from him, you can let that pop back up real high all the way to the top and try to move the expectation off the map. Just don't have any expectations of him. That's graciousness. But what sometimes people do is they have expectations of their loved ones and so they feel frustrated and then they think, well maybe if I lower the expectations I'll have my expectations met more, and that won't be so frustrating, which sometimes, if you're low and far enough, then you can finally be gracious. You know? If he's alive, I'm fine. You know?

[45:33]

That would be great with me. But that's great. Now, okay, now. Now I'm happy with him. He's alive. You know? He survived that last, you know, encounter with the police. I've got him, he's alive. Thank you for being alive. And now I'd like, now I'm going to let you hear it, now I'm going to raise the standards up again. But this time they're not expectations. I'll always want you to do the best. I don't expect anything. So he's doing this education thing with you, but he's simultaneously seeing whether you love him Partly he just wants to do these stupid things, but he also wants to know, will John love me when I do these things? John teaches me, but will he love me? Will he be gracious with me when I do these things which really hurt him? And if you can teach him that, but again, he may keep doing this stuff for a long time and get more and more lessons from you that you love him through this whole thing.

[46:39]

he still may have to go this route, this terrible, dangerous, violent route to test whether you love his style of testing your love. Not like, not hate. Intimate. Love him, be gracious. So I know this guy. I don't really know him. I know his girlfriend. And this guy went to prison. And she said to him, when you were doing the things which you did prior to going to prison, and he's been in prison a really long time, this guy, could anybody have done anything to stop you? And could someone have done anything to help you? No, I think, could anyone have done anything to stop you? And he said, no. I was heading in this direction.

[47:40]

I felt like I had to do those things. And I knew there was a good chance that they would take me to prison. But I had to do them. I had to try those things." And she said, okay, so nobody could have stopped you. And I think, did some people try to stop you? Yes. She said, what would have been helpful to you? He said, if someone had loved me through that whole progress, Maybe they could have tried to stop me, but the point is they weren't trying to stop me to stop me. They were stopping me as a gift. If someone had loved me through that thing, I still would have done the same things and I would have gone to prison. But then being in prison, I would have had the resource of knowing what it's like to be loved. And that would have helped me deal with the consequences of what I had to do. So I don't know how much more trouble he's going to get into. But before he does, you may be able to teach him to love.

[48:43]

And then if he does get into these problems, which will hurt you, he will have the teaching of giving to take care of himself and his friends in prison or whatever. Trying to control these young people is really a big mistake. It's an insult to their vital, uncontrollable being. And they want your respect. They want you to respect their power. They're powerful. You've got a lot of power and you can cause a lot of trouble here. Yes, you can. You are like awesomely powerful and you can do terrible things.

[49:46]

And, you know, I'm not going to mess with that, but I'm going to love you through it all. I don't trust you, but I respect you and I trust that I can't control you. But I also trust, most of all, that I can love you. I can love you no matter what you do and you're going to learn that. I'm not going to control you learning it, but you will learn this because I will continue to demonstrate this and I've got all of reality supporting me to do so. So you're going to learn this. Everybody's going to learn this. Like somebody said yesterday that it seems like this reality is like a black hole. You know? And then somebody says you can go into a black hole but you can't see it. But another thing about a black hole is that the reason why it's so black and why you can't see it is because it's such a powerful, attractive force. It pulls your vision into it.

[50:49]

You can't see it. And this reality is, according to these words I'm saying, this reality is pulling us into it. all going to go into this reality, and we can't see it, but it's pulling us. The Buddha is pulling us into Buddhahood. That's where we're going. We've got that working for us. But we need, in order to enjoy it, we need graciousness and patience and justice and diligence, because that's what's drawing us, is graciousness, diligence, justice, patience, concentration. That's pulling us. So let's enjoy being pulled and pushed into the Buddha way. Because that's what's happening. And the more we practice, the more we realize how wonderful it is that reality is graciously, patiently, justly pulling us into it.

[51:53]

including all the little resistances we have to being drawn in this wonderful direction. Into the great black hole. And another thing, when you go into these black holes, you change a lot. It's okay though, don't worry. You get turned inside out. My question has to do with honesty and the teaching of honesty. And when you said that when your child lies to you, it sounded as though you wouldn't challenge the lie. And I was wondering how one can challenge a lie or at least teach truthfulness without being demeaning or angry or so on and so forth. Well, one way that first comes to my mind is be devoted to the liar. Right. So the little guy is telling me that it's 20%, you know, junk food at Burger King and 80%, you know, nutritious, health-producing goodies.

[53:03]

You know, he's telling me that. So I respond graciously and justly, and I maybe say, well, tell me more about that. Let's, you know, where do you get this information? Should we go online and Google this, you know? You know, we can, you know, let's inquire about this, trying to find out what he's talking about. And I could also say, you know, I don't believe you. But, you know, that's... I know that's what I was worried about. Well, you can say that, but it's not that interesting. Because he'll just say, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, you know. But, you know, he's being creative. Why don't you be creative? So they say, well, it's only, you know, get into it with him. Get intimate with him. Don't, like, dislike him and also don't like that he's saying this. But don't dislike that he's lying and don't dislike that he's telling the truth. Become intimate with what he's doing and you will realize the truth. Get into it with him. So where did you get that information?

[54:03]

You know, and they'd say, well, then he'll tell another lie. You know? But you're being gracious. You're not calling it a lie. You're inquiring. So you just kind of walk with him toward the lie? You walk with him. Together? No, you don't walk with him towards the lie. You walk with him on the path of Buddha while he's talking, he's chattering to you, telling you these lies as you go along the path. Oh, it would really be good if we go to Burger King now. Now it's time to go to Burger King. That's really a good place for me. Okay, then what comes next in the dialogue? Oh, you say, I hear you. Let's go. I hear you. And then you go to Burger King? I'm not going to take you to Burger King. That's maybe what I say. And I'm not going to take you to Burger King because of what I just said. But that's not true. And then we can start talking back and forth about that. Like I said, where did you get this information? Let me show you where I got my information. Do you want to watch the video that I watched? And he might say, no. I say, well, are you sure?

[55:04]

It's got some pictures of Burger King in it. You know, that might be interesting. At least you could see Burger King and see all those toys they're going to give you and stuff like that. And you could actually hear how they try to brainwash kids in the show, you know. Wouldn't you like to see about that? No, I don't want to. Well, how about should we watch Harry Potter instead? Say yeah. So then we start watching Harry Potter. And although we're not going to Burger King, we're going to go to Diagon Alley and then we're going to go in all these interesting shops and buy wands and stuff. So then maybe we can go, how about instead of Burger King, I'll go and buy you a Harry Potter wand. So it's a distraction or a leading... No, it's not distraction. It's not distraction. Going on a different path together? It's going not on a different path. It's joining his path. Join his path. Don't try to pull him over to yours. You join his. As you join his, he'll join yours. When you join his, you influence him.

[56:09]

Your generosity towards his path leads him to the path of generosity. If you try to distract him ungenerously, then he's going to try to distract you ungenerously back to the true path of Burger King. So finding a path that we both like. Find the path you both like, yes. Okay. But you start that way by joining the path that he likes. He wants to talk about Burger King. Oh, it's like Aikido. Yeah, it's like Aikido. Okay, got it. We have to go now. Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by telling a story that I first heard from our teacher, Suzuki Roshi.

[57:26]

So the story is a story about something that happened in China. I think there was a man named the Duke of Zhou, and he was a dragon aficionado, or at least he was a lover of carved dragons. And he was quite wealthy, so he was able to acquire for his estate many carved dragons made of different materials like wood, but some even made out of coral and lapis lazuli. So here he was in his estate with all these wonderful carved dragons.

[58:38]

And one day an actual dragon just happened to be flying over his estate and sensed the dragon affection or dragon love, dragon pheromones. And he looked down and saw all these carved dragons and the duke and thought, well, if this man likes carved dragons, he might like to meet a real one. and I'm a real one, so maybe I'll just swoop down and pay him a visit. And so I picture the dukes out on one of the veranda of his pavilions, and here comes the real dragon, swoops down, and he sees it, and he's shocked and terrified and faints.

[59:49]

And some of you chuckled just then. When Suzuki Roshi told the story, he kind of went, and then he laughed. But I didn't laugh. So thank you for laughing. So that story... I think there's some merit in that story. That story might be helpful to us to understand what the practice of the Buddha way is or how it functions. I often think this, but I've been thinking it more frequently.

[61:01]

It's been coming to my mind more frequently that especially the basic practices of the Buddha way are really just practices in relationship to the way things already are, or they're practices which are in relationship to reality. They're not practices to make something happen that's not happening already, but they're more like practices to celebrate reality. And by celebrating reality, sometimes it dawns upon us more intensely and more fully It's possible that sometimes celebrating reality might actually distract us from it if we were well attuned to it.

[62:03]

But if we were out of touch with it, sometimes celebrating reality in some form may make it, may deepen our awareness of it. And that without celebration we might miss it pretty much. I often use the example of whenever it's our birthday, it's our birthday. That's kind of like sort of a fact in the world. But your birthday can dawn and set and you may not even notice it. Or you may notice it and say, oh, it's my birthday and let it go at that. And that's, you kind of notice the reality of your birthday that way. But if you have a birthday party, it might in some ways make you more aware of your birthday.

[63:08]

The fact that a lot of people come and celebrate your birthday might make you kind of like think a little bit more about it, like, oh yeah, yeah, I was born and I've had several birthday parties. And then you might also think about all the birthday parties you've had, and they're different qualities. So the celebration doesn't change the fact, but it may help realize it. It may deepen your awareness. Just like if you love someone, well, it's a fact. But if you celebrate it by saying, I love you, it may actually help you, you know, it may help you. Or if you think of some act of devotion to do in relationship to this thing you love, that act, that celebration of this love might deepen your awareness of it.

[64:13]

So we have all these practices in our tradition or all these practices or these ways of being that we can experience but our experience of them is kind of like a celebration or a ceremony in relationship to their reality to the real So, for example, in the heart of a human being there may be a feeling arising, or I should say there may be a feeling in a human being that from the heart there is a desire to live life for the welfare of people. others, to live life for the welfare of all others. That thought that you may feel something like that arising from your heart.

[65:22]

And that feeling might start to pervade your mind. So if you think about it, actually, you think, I would like to be devoted to this person and [...] this person. I would like to live that way. I would like to think that way. I would like to talk that way. I would like to posture that way. You might think that and you might feel that has something to do with your heart. And you might think, not only do I want to live for the welfare of others, but I want to attain complete perfect enlightenment so that that service can flow forth in this world with no hindrance, so that this wish can be fully realized. So I would like to actually really understand reality so that I could live a life like that.

[66:25]

We call this the thought of enlightenment, this kind of wish. And when it first comes up, we call it the first coming up of the thought of enlightenment. It arises at some point and maybe you can't remember feeling it before, but suddenly you dare to feel and you allow yourself to feel this. And then you may continue to feel it for a minute or an hour or a week. And we call that the thought of enlightenment or the spirit of enlightenment arising in our experience. It's the seed, sometimes we call it the seed of Buddhahood, this feeling, this wish to live this way. The seed of Buddha. we call it the Buddha mind, and the seed is called the Buddha mind.

[67:31]

But then there's another Buddha mind, in a sense, which is the fruit of the seed. And that fruit of the seed is also called mind of enlightenment. But it's the fruit, not just the seed. It includes the seed. And it's got seeds in it. But it's not just a feeling in a person of wanting to live for the welfare of others. It is the actuality, the reality of a life that is nothing but living for others. It's not just, I would like to live for others. It is living 100% for others and it is complete perfect enlightenment. And that's what Buddha is. Buddha is that you are living for others, that you are supporting others.

[68:41]

That's Buddha. And it's not just that. Others are supporting you. The reality of Buddha, the real Buddha, is the way that you, each of us, you, you and you, me, you and me, it's the way we are living for others and the way others are living for us. That reality is Buddha. That's the fruit. To realize that and have a life which is that, to awaken to that life, but not just to awaken to it, but to live it. That's the fruit of the seed. That's the real dragon, and the other one's the carved dragon. And they have the same name because the Buddha is happy to give the name of enlightened mind to that beginning little seed mind, which is a wonderful, wonderful mind.

[69:50]

It's a wonderful seed. I think so. When this seed comes to exist, when this thought arises, when it comes up, it is sometimes described as like a candle flame, a flame of a candle. It's beautiful, it's warm, It can set things on fire. It can be cared for. It gives light. It's really a wonderful thing, this seed. However, it can also be blown out very easily. And when this seed arises, it can be blown out easily. And then I often use the example of this seed, this little candlelight, is to the fruit as a firefly is to a galactic firestorm.

[71:01]

And the galactic firestorm is already going on. By caring for this little firefly, for this little flame, by caring for it, it realizes the great fire, the cosmic fire of Buddha's love, which is the way you're helping everyone and everyone's helping you. So this little seed has to be cared for, otherwise it can be lost. Now once it's lost, it's not forever, it can arise again. But once it's also, once we find it, it's good to take care of it. because if you go back, if you lose it, you sort of a little bit have to start over again. There's not a strict rule about this. There's some, what do you call it, advanced placement. There's credit for everything, good and bad. And the ways we take care of this seed

[72:10]

this carved dragon version of the real dragon of Buddha's wisdom, the way we take care of it is by practices which are similarly carved versions of reality. Which are, you know, our own personal human versions of reality is the way we take care of our personal version of the reality of enlightenment. Our own personal version of the reality of enlightenment at the beginning is, I want to help all beings. That's our personal feeling of the reality of helping all beings. And so we have six basic practices which care for and nurture and protect and mature this seed into reality, the happy reality which we call Buddha.

[73:26]

And these six practices are giving, ethical precepts or justice practices, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom. These practices are practices which we can do now today, which some of us are doing now, right now, And these practices are practices about the reality that already is so. So last week I talked quite a bit about giving. But today I want to emphasize that giving, when I, a human being, try to practice giving, when I am devoted to practicing giving, when you are devoted and devote your energy to practice giving, that is giving, but it's the carved dragon, giving.

[74:32]

It's your own personal take on it. It's your conceivable version. It's the way you think about giving, and then you think about giving, and then you try to practice it, and you might say, well, I didn't quite make it that time, or I thought of giving, and I practiced giving. And I feel joyful about that, and so on. This is my own card-dragon version of giving. And that kind of giving I can, like, forget to do. Like, I'd like to practice giving, and then I did practice giving, but then for several hours I forgot about it. So that giving kind of, like, seems to come and go. Sometimes you can practice giving like almost all day long sometimes. If you give, give, give, this is what I'm just, I'm totally giving. All day long it was wonderful. But sometimes you forget. You forget to celebrate the real dragon which is constant, ceaseless giving.

[75:49]

Giving is reality. It's already happening. We are already giving to each other and receiving from each other. But that's a reality I propose. That's the real dragon. We practice our giving. We celebrate giving by practicing this giving in terms of our own experience. But the real giving is not an experience. but we can realize the real giving, which is bigger than anybody's experience, by practicing through our experience and taking care of our experience and opening to and letting the real giving in. So the ancient teacher Dogen says, don't esteem or despise the carved dragon. Become intimate with it. and don't esteem or despise the real dragon.

[76:54]

Become intimate with it. It's not that the real dragon is better than the carved dragon. You know, like, oh, I have this little giving practice, this little, you know, pint-sized giving practice that I do, and it's a huge giving practice, and really the huge giving practice is what's really real, and I have this little kind of puny little thing here. Well, it is kind of like that, but I don't despise that. But I also don't say, well, this is really where it's at. Neither of those. I don't like or dislike my little practice. I mean, I try not to. Rather, I'm trying to be intimate with my little practice, really intimate with my giving practice, and also with my practice of forgetting to practice giving, to be intimate with forgetting to practice it.

[77:55]

And I'm not trying to shift over and be doing the big practice, but I want, because I don't like it better, I just need it to fill the picture out, because it's reality. I want to become intimate with it. And basically by being intimate with my little practice, with my carved dragon giving practice, and intimate would include that I would become actually more consistently involved with what I'm intimate with. that through intimacy with the giving which you can practice and I can practice in a conceivable realm, we open to the real giving and we open to being intimate. We learn how to be intimate with the little, then we can be intimate with the big. We learn how to be intimate with the graspable, then we open up and become intimate with the ungraspable giving, the giving which is ungraspable. and understanding dawns on us.

[79:01]

So when we first start giving, we may think, oh, now I'm giving to you and you're receiving from me. But as we become more intimate with how I'm giving to you, we realize that you're giving to me. And I may think I give you this gift But as we become more intimate with me giving you this gift, we start to realize that you're the gift and I'm the gift and the gift is the gift and the gift is giving and receiving and you're giving and receiving and that the actual process is you can't get a hold of who's the giver, who's the receiver, and who's the gift. It's too big, actually. But by opening to the little and becoming intimate with it, we open to the big. So that's the way giving is enacting what's already going on. Enacting to what's already going on and opening to what's already going on and letting what's already going on illuminate our understanding of the little thing we're doing.

[80:09]

Open to the little, open to the big, open to the graspable, intimate with the graspable, intimate with the ungraspable and be illuminated by reality while we continue to practice giving, but now with more and more illumination. Our giving never reaches the big giving, but the big giving can illuminate our little giving. So all these practices are like that. Practice of justice, practice of precepts, like the precept of not killing. We practice not killing. We're devoted to not killing. We practice not stealing. We practice not misusing sexuality. These are practices of justice. We practice not lying.

[81:11]

This is a practice of justice. It's not justice to lie. Not lying is justice. We practice not intoxicating mind or body. We practice not slandering. We practice not praising ourself separate from others. We practice not being possessive. Being possessive is not justice. We practice not holding on to ill will. We practice not disparaging reality. These practices we can do. These are our carved dragon practices, which are related to the real dragon, the reality of not killing, the reality of not stealing. That's reality of the Buddha. Patience.

[82:15]

We practice patience. We practice patience, or we don't. But we do a car dragon version of patience. We practice being present. When we're in pain, we practice being present with the pain. We practice feeling it. We practice not running away from it. When we're experiencing pleasure, we also feel it. and try to learn to not run away from it. But we don't tend to run away from pleasure so much, we tend to grasp it. But we do have a tendency to run away from pain, to try to avoid it, to try to deny it, to try to stop it, rather than to feel it and be present in the moment with it. In reality, when we're in pain, we do not move. In reality, we're still and present all the time.

[83:21]

That's reality. Practicing patience, we celebrate that by doing the hard work of being right here where we are when we're in pain. It's a practice to celebrate and realize that even in the most painful situations that we can go through, we are actually present and not moving. If we open to that practice, that way of being, if we become intimate with the practice of patience, we open to the reality that nothing's moving. The stillness of reality. And Zen students struggle with this. They sit long periods in meditation and they have quite a few experiences of discomfort and that

[84:26]

Over the years of practice they celebrate practicing patience. But they also celebrate, not so celebratory, but they also experience wiggling and twisting and writhing and trying to get away from the pain. They sometimes resist it and fight it and not the pain, but celebrate being present and still in the moment with it. It's difficult for us to practice that practice. But giving is sometimes difficult, too, when you can't do it. Usually when you do it, it's totally joyful. But there's some encouragement when we actually are able to practice being still with our pain. But it's not exactly joyful. It's more like really good medicine. But good medicine is not necessarily fun. It's more like, yes, this is where reality is here.

[85:34]

And there's something about us like that. that we like reality even if it's not fun. Just like when we're with someone we love and they're sick, it's not exactly fun that they're sick. It's not a treat that they're sick. But we really feel good to be able to be there with them and not try to get away. we really think that's good. And we do not think it's so good to be with somebody we love who's sick and want to be someplace else right while we're with them. And they don't like it either too much unless they want to get away and they'd like you to get away so they can get away. One time I was I went with Suzuki Roshi to Portland And we went to do a sitting and during the sitting he kind of, he was sitting and I was carrying a stick around the meditation hall and he suddenly kind of put his head down in front of him on the floor.

[86:51]

And I went over and said, you know, what's the matter? He said, oh, I have a lot of pain and I have a bitter taste in my mouth. Maybe I should go." So he left the sitting and then he was really sick and was having a gallbladder attack. We didn't know, but it was a gallbladder attack and he was in a lot of pain. And on the way back in the airplane I was sitting next to him and I noticed it was really hard for me to be in my seat next to my teacher. Of course, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to be with my teacher, especially if my teacher's sick, right? But I somehow didn't want to be in the seat next to my teacher. I wanted to be someplace else. I kept drifting away from being in that seat next to him. And I felt ashamed to be missing just being there with him. It's hard to be present in pain. But in the moments when we are able to do that, we feel, yes, this is reality.

[87:59]

I want to live my life with the people I'm living my life with. But we have to train at this. We have to celebrate We have to celebrate being present. Otherwise, we may be closed to the reality of presence. And pain, when it comes, tests us. It says, okay, time for patience. Want to practice patience? Here it is. And then diligence is another practice to take care of. But again, it's the diligence we practice... is not the actual diligence. The actual diligence is inconceivably, you know, it's the diligence you're practicing which is supporting all beings, and it's the diligence which all beings are supporting you to practice.

[89:00]

That diligence is inconceivable and ungraspable and insubstantial. It's radiant, but you can't get a hold of it. And it manifests, but it manifests in each of us. We are actually diligent beings. We're diligently receiving graciously all the support that's coming to us. That's a lot of work. You're working hard to receive all the support. And you're also working hard to support all beings. You are diligent beings. That diligence is very big. But we have a little bit of diligence that we can be aware of. And celebrating, practicing that diligence celebrates the big diligence. And the big diligence and the little diligence are always working together. They're always, the big dragon's always kind of like looking down on the little dragon. The little dragon is actually always paying homage to the big dragon.

[90:04]

are little practices of giving and justice and patience and diligence. They're actually offerings to the big reality practice of all beings and all Buddhas. And all Buddhas are totally cued into and supporting and rooting for us to do this being relationship. And so on. All the practices really are wonderful in their smallness and also they're wonderful because they are celebrating reality. Giving is not trying to make things other than what they are, even while you're hoping that things will become more and more wonderful, you still appreciate the way things are. Whatever is happening, you're gracious with it. Because in reality, whatever is happening, reality is gracious with it.

[91:08]

And if we lose track of how reality is gracious with what's happening, we lose touch with the beneficial potential of our life. And part of generosity is another way to say generosity is the way I was talking about relating to the practice of generosity and also the way of relating to the practice of justice and also the way of relating to the practice of patience and diligence and concentration and wisdom. The way of relating to these practices is don't like or dislike them. You say, well, shouldn't you like patience? I'm actually suggesting no thanks. It's okay if you do, because I think, and if you like patients, I don't want to like or dislike you for liking patients.

[92:21]

If you hate patients, I don't want to like or dislike you for hating patients. I recommend to me, if you're hating patients or liking patients, I recommend to me to be intimate with you. to be gracious with you if you're hating or liking patients. Now, if you're intimate with patients and if you're gracious with patients, well, I also want to be gracious with that, but then I feel like I'm so happy for you because now you're on the beam of reality. Because reality doesn't like or dislike. Reality is intimate with everything. Everything's intimate with reality. likes intimate, dislikes intimate, likes graciousness, dislikes graciousness. So giving is intimacy and enlightenment is intimacy. I have another major issue to bring up, but I'm aware that it may be overwhelming for me to bring it up.

[94:00]

So I kind of want to... Can you take in any more? Is it okay? This might be too much. This might be a mistake. but it's related, just a big another unfoldment and it's about what's called spiritual communion or spiritual responsiveness or inquiry and response. So this is a little bit of discussion now going into some detail about how the carved dragon relates to the real dragon. Just getting into some details of that relationship. which is another way to say how the practice and activities of sentient beings, of unenlightened beings, how that activity relates to the enlightened beings, to Buddha.

[95:16]

What's the communication there? How do they communion? Another way to say it is inquiry and response or devotion and guidance. When we're devoted to practices celebrating reality, how does reality then come to guide us in our devotion? When we inquire of reality, how does reality respond to the inquiry. And one of the teachings, first of all, is that inquiry and response come up together. It's not inquiry and then later response. because the real dragon's always here with us.

[96:22]

Reality's already here, so as soon as we are devoted to it, we're already communicating. As soon as we inquire, there's already some guidance. One ancient Chinese teacher taught that there's four kinds, or four, basically four kinds, or in some sense, four phases of this process of communion. One phase, which is the most basic, and we don't get out of it. It's a phase, and the phase isn't maybe so good because it's not a phase you get out of it. You don't go through this phase. This is the basic condition. The basic condition is that the inquiry And the response, the inquiry is indiscernible.

[97:25]

And the response is indiscernible. The inquiry is imperceptible. And the response is imperceptible. Basically, this inquiry, this request in us of reality is imperceptible. And reality's response to us is basically imperceptible. In the biggest scale it's inconceivable, ungraspable, and imperceptible. That's the most basic. And again this is another way to talk about the seed of enlightenment. The seed of enlightenment is that we are actually always inquiring about reality. But the way we're always doing this obviously is imperceptible because there's a lot of times when we don't feel like we're inquiring about reality.

[98:36]

Some people maybe have never noticed that they're inquiring about reality. They have not yet noticed that in this lifetime. Some people have noticed it once in a while. Some people have noticed it often. But that noticing is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the level where it is imperceptible. And that's the basic one and that will always be there. You will always, I will always, we will always be inquiring about reality. Always. We're always doing that and reality is always responding. We're always supporting others. Others are always supporting us and we're always inquiring into how that's so. We're always devoted to this. And the way we're always devoted to this is imperceptible. and it's devoted to us and the way it's devoted to us and the way it's responding to us is imperceptible.

[99:43]

That's the most basic. And it's reality and we want to realize that. So how? The next level or next dimension is is perceptible response, imperceptible inquiry. Somehow we can see the response but we don't see the inquiry. The next level is perceptible inquiry, imperceptible response. Perceptible or discernible inquiry into reality

[100:50]

but the reality's guiding response is imperceptible. And the third level is perceptible inquiry and perceptible response. Did you get those? Imperceptible devotion or inquiry, imperceptible response or guidance. imperceptible inquiry, perceptible response. Perceptible inquiry, imperceptible response, and perceptible inquiry and perceptible response, or perceptible guidance. In some sense, in the history of the Buddhadharma, the simplest one is perceptible inquiry and perceptible response. Buddha appears in the world. People go and say, what's happening?

[101:52]

The Buddha says so. Tells them, teaches them. Students are devoted to the teaching and the teacher. The teacher gives teachings. This is perceptible inquiry, perceptible response. And you can see, they can see, you can see, everybody see, wow, what a relationship. Look at that. How lovely, the way they're working together, student and teacher. It's so beautiful. and this applies, by the way, of course, to a dance teacher and a dancer, too, or a music teacher or a math teacher. Any time when you can see, oh, they're inquiring and there's a response. And it's the same principle. As soon as a student inquires, the teacher is right there. You can see that sometimes. It's beautiful, right? That's easy. Simultaneously, I'm saying with that is this deep thing that neither one of them know, perceive, and on both sides it's also going on. Now I can explain the first one. For example, when you don't feel that you're interested in practicing the Buddha Dharma.

[103:00]

You can't perceive it, you can't discern it, and nobody else can either. But it's there. And at the same time, even though you didn't ask for any guidance, you know, in In practice places all over the world, people are practicing and they're practicing for you. They're thinking about you. They're making vows for your welfare. You don't know anything about it and it's imperceptible to you. They don't know anything about you either, but actually both of you are requiring and responding to each other. They're influencing you. You don't know how and they don't know how. people have told me, if you'll excuse me for saying so, they say, you know, you're helping people in ways you do not know. And they gave me an example, so then after they gave me the example, I knew.

[104:04]

So the example was they were getting married and they went to a jeweler and they asked the jeweler to show them the rings and they showed them the rings and the jeweler gave them not a very good price. They thought the jeweler was asking for too much for the ring they liked. They liked the ring, they were willing to pay for it, but they thought the jeweler was trying to get more money than was necessary. And And they just happened, no, they were, I don't know what they were doing, but anyway, they saw this picture, they saw a Buddha up on, kind of a precious Buddha up on the shelf among all the diamonds. There was a diamond Buddha or whatever, a gold Buddha. And they said, oh, look at the Buddha. And the jeweler said, yeah. And they said, well, do you practice the Buddha way? And he says, yeah, I go to Green Gulch. And I was going to do the wedding, so they said, do you know Reb Anders? He said, oh yeah, he's my teacher. And then he said, well, maybe I could lower the price. I wouldn't want you to go back and tell him that I didn't give you a good price.

[105:18]

So they said to me, and I said, see, you don't know about, you don't know the effects of what you're, we do not know. And also we don't know, when we do unskillful things, we also don't know the extent of those either. So good is beyond, the effects of our good action is beyond what we know and also the effects of our unskillful action is beyond what we know. It's bigger than what we know. So all the more But maybe I don't want to get too much, keep you here too long, but I'll just tell you one short story about this, which I thought was quite nice and simple, down to earth, about this amazing, you know, big cosmic thing going on. It's this person who's described as a gentleman, which I think means a rich person. who lived, I think, in Tokyo.

[106:23]

And he had a child, a daughter, who was convalescing from an illness. So on a summer day he thought it might be good for her health to take her to Kamakura, which is near Tokyo. And it's a city which from ancient times has had a lot of beautiful Buddhist temples. And Buddhist temples often in Japan have beautiful gardens and grounds. And people go there sometimes to experienced the beneficial influence of the serenity and diligence of the people taking care of the grounds and the buildings. So he took his daughter there and I guess it was to a temple called Kenchoji and I guess in the process of coming into the space they would say, they would ask the abbot or the teacher of the place, can we come in here and walk around your grounds? And the teacher said, yeah, make yourself at home.

[107:25]

And when you've had your walk on the grounds, I'd like to serve you some tea. So they did. And he served them some tea. And they had a chat, a pleasant chat. And in Japan, oftentimes, if you go visit someplace and they serve you tea, they also give you a gift. just exchanging gifts. Maybe the guy, maybe the gentleman gave the abbot some gifts too. I didn't hear about that part, but he probably did. He probably brought some gifts for the temple and the teacher gave gifts to the guest. But it just seemed like normal Japanese etiquette. But what he gave him was a Buddhist scripture, a Buddhist teaching, a book. He received it and went home. So in that case, he didn't think, I'm going there to inquire about reality and the Dharma and get guidance from the teacher.

[108:29]

He didn't think he was. And it didn't look like the teacher gave him any guidance. He didn't say anything about the Buddha way. Just tea and here. So the inquiry was indiscernible and the response, the guidance, was indiscernible. at least as far as that guy was concerned. Maybe the teacher had a different story but we're hearing the story I guess from the gentleman's perspective. And probably his daughter didn't think there was any big heavy practice thing going on either. So he went home and when he got home he didn't just throw the scripture in the garbage or put it in goodwill. He put it on an altar, a Buddhist altar. So he was a Buddhist but he Buddhist family, but he wasn't thinking of going to the temple to receive Buddhist instruction. So he put it on the family altar and that was that.

[109:32]

But he did put it on the altar. So there was some devotion there, but there wasn't a... So in this case the... let's see... Now I guess in this case you could see that... now you can start to see that the teacher gave him a teaching. Now the guidance is starting to be there because this teaching has been put on his altar. And then I guess some years went by, and he was taking a nap in the room where the Scripture was. And maybe sometimes you can imagine when you wake up from a nap, you see a Scripture on a shelf, you think, hmm, well, maybe I'll read it. If you're kind of stressed and busy, you don't think, oh, I've got to read that scripture.

[110:39]

So he opened it and read it, and it was a scripture about being devoted to your children, instructions about how parents can be devoted to children and love their children and the beneficial consequences of this kind of loving karma. And he thought he was very impressed by it. So now he was actually aware of practicing. But he didn't feel like he was, he didn't sense that he was being guided somehow. And then time went on and suddenly he he started to practice more and he started to buy more books and read more about Buddhism and started to practice more. So he became more aware of that he was Now he was aware that he was practicing.

[111:45]

So I guess when he read the book, he was not aware that he was making an inquiry. He was just kind of like, oh, I'll just read the book. But then he felt the guidance come. And then he started practicing more and more diligently, but he still didn't feel the guidance coming. He thought he was practicing, but he didn't feel the response. And then he decided to go ask a teacher to practice with him. And he did, and then the teacher did start practicing with him, and he could see it, that he was discernibly inquiring and the teacher was discernibly responding. But back at the beginning, he was going to the temple, walking around the grounds, smelling the flowers, looking at the rocks. He was inquiring, but he didn't get it. And the teacher was responding, and he didn't get it. In the end, he could see he was inquiring.

[112:49]

He was a Zen student now, and he had a Zen teacher. Now it was happening. But all the stages before, it was happening too. It's always happening. It's always there. And at some point we start making an effort and then we don't feel a response, but it's there. We don't discern it. And then finally we start to feel, oh, I make a response. I make a, I mean, I make an inquiry and I get a response. And also, there's another level at where I'm making an inquiry that I can't discern, and that's also, I understand now that there's a response. So at this level, at this Carved Dragon level now, I am discernibly inquiring, I am discernibly requesting, I am discernibly devoted to practicing practices which embody the Buddha way.

[113:52]

And I'm discernibly getting a response from my teacher. But all the while, even if I would stop doing this wonderful discernible practice and having this wonderful discernible guidance, all the while I know that I'm living in a world where really I'm inquiring and really I'm responded to. In reality, we're always doing that. And the more we think about that and then devote ourselves, the more we realize through the discernible and the discernible, the carved dragon, we start to realize the indiscernible and the discernible and the discernible and the indiscernible and the indiscernible and the indiscernible. All those levels are always going on all the time throughout the cosmos. So that's to give some context to our efforts which we can discern. And somebody might think, well, since the indiscernible and the indiscernible, since the inconceivable inquiry and inconceivable response are always going on, why don't we just enjoy that?

[115:07]

And I would say, because we don't. Unless we do the discernible and the discernible. We don't. or at least unless we do the discernible and the indiscernible, like, you know, I'm practicing but nobody's responding to me. You know, I'm practicing but I don't have a teacher, or I have a teacher but I don't want to practice. That happens too sometimes. I've got a teacher but I'd rather, until this teacher goes away, I'm not going to practice. Rather than, that statement was my practice. That's a discernible practice called rebellious student or whatever. I'm like really into wholeheartedly being a rebellious student with this wonderful responding thing here. So unless we do the discernible, we don't let in the inconceivable.

[116:07]

Although the conceivables are working on us all the time, we need to make our carved dragon. And to allow this way that we're working together with all beings to illuminate our life, it's best, generally speaking, to be constantly, you know, doing the practices of reality, to constantly practice giving, to constantly practice justice, to constantly practice patience and diligence and concentration and wisdom, to learn how to do it constantly, and then of course to get some guidance on how to do it constantly.

[117:16]

That way allows us to become intimate with these practices. And again, becoming intimate with these practices, we become intimate with reality. We open to intimacy with reality. We're already intimate with reality, but we need to do practices which celebrate and are devoted to that reality in order to open up to it. We need to become intimate with what we're doing in order to open up to the fullness and reality, the totality of what we're involved in. Here's a Louis Armstrong song. You can sing along if you want. I'll sing it slowly. I see trees of green, red roses too.

[118:21]

I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky are also on the faces of the people going by. I see friends shaking hands, saying, how do you do? They're really saying, I love you. I hear babies crying.

[119:24]

I've watched them grow. They'll learn much more than I'll ever know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. Yeah, I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

[119:49]

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