So may we continue the story about the ancestor Yaoshan and his sitting practice? The story goes that one day, Yao Shang was sitting, and a monk came to him and said, In Chinese, in go-tsu, go-tsu-chi.

[01:04]

Go-tsu means to be still or stable. And go-tsu, go-tsu specifies that. Sometimes there's also the expression go-tsu, go-tsu-za. which means steadfast sitting. So gotsu gotsu means dignified. It means high, great mountain. It means upright. It means immovable. It means steadfast and steadfast effort or intense steadfast effort We think of this in terms of Zazen practice. And chi means earth or ground. So the monk is using this colloquial expression, gozu gozu chi, for referring to this immovable, dignified stillness.

[02:22]

of the teacher sitting. And the monk says, in that state, in that stillness, what kind of thinking is it? What kind of thinking? He didn't say, is there thinking? He could have, but that would have been a different question. So I just wanted to stress again that the story is about a situation where somebody is already very awake and calm and still. So the tradition does encourage us to be composed and still moment by moment, cultivate to sincerely and diligently cultivate tranquility.

[03:26]

One of the kotsus I have, this is gotsu, we also have kotsus. Kotsus is a stick that the person who's leading a ceremony and one of the kotsus has carved into it, diligently cultivate tranquility. So it is part of the practice and many of you are diligently cultivating tranquility. Working and cultivating go-tsu-chi. So the monk is seeing the teacher and understands or assumes the teacher has entered the state of go-tsu-go-tsu-chi, of immovable tranquility. What kind of thinking is in immovable tranquility? And the teacher says, doesn't say not thinking. The teacher says, thinking, not thinking.

[04:30]

And the monk says, how do you think? Not thinking. And the teacher says, thinking. Thinking. In translating into English, there's a little bit of confusion here. Some people say, think non-thinking. Some people say, think not thinking. Some people say, think not thinking. And then for the next line, they say non-thinking. Some people say non-thinking. And for the next line, they say not thinking. So... clearer. It's shidio for thinking, fushidio for not thinking, and hishidio for not thinking. And I would use, and sometimes some other people say for non-thinking, for hishidio, they say beyond thinking.

[05:38]

Some people say beyond thinking for not thinking. So if there's any confusion, please ask I'll clarify what I'm intending. Can you say something about the he? Yeah. Yeah, so he... I don't know if I can say something about he. I've had to research the he. The he, it looks like this. I don't know if this is a character by itself. Huh? What does it mean by itself? I'll look it up. The other one is like this. That's fu, which means not.

[06:44]

And this is a little bit different. These are words which are trying to point to a practice, okay? These words are trying to point to a practice. They're just words, okay? So, I think, so now, so there's these three thinking which were hopefully somewhat familiar with. We certainly are doing it a lot. And not thinking is actually something that we need to become more familiar with, not thinking. And non-thinking is something which we need to become more familiar with in Zazen practice. So Dogen Zenji tells this story and he says that kishiryu, non-thinking, is the essential art of Zazen.

[07:58]

is the essential practice of zazen. And actually, I think he would say the central practice of the Buddha way. And he says that non-thinking is right thinking in the Eightfold Path. He only says that a couple times that I know of in all of his writing, but there it is. And he said it in his mature years that non-thinking is right thinking. So thinking we've been talking about and we're still studying that, right? Karmic consciousness. So what is not thinking? And so I propose to you that not thinking does not mean simply that there's not thinking. Not thinking in this story does not mean simply not thinking.

[09:16]

What just popped in my mind was a statement, a similar statement by Suzuki Roshi. So we have in the Buddhist tradition something called non-discriminating wisdom. Or you could say non-discrimination is often spoken of encouragingly. She said, non-discrimination does not mean not discriminating. It means to stop doing something. I would say The study everything means love everything.

[10:24]

Non-discrimination means love everything, which that maybe makes sense in terms of ordinary thought, that when we're trying to evade non-discrimination, we mean a way to love all beings. In Zen, in authentic Zen, love has a study aspect to it. When you love somebody, you're not done learning about them. Matter of fact, if you really love them, it's kind of like starting all over every moment. It's like I've been studying the same as this person and the same social security number for a long time. But this is a new person who I never met before.

[11:28]

And because I love her, I'm going to start studying her right now. So love, I would say, includes study. I'm not saying I know what love is, but I think it includes study. And study in Zen, study in Mahayana Buddhism, includes, is, should be love. Again, what pops in my mind, what Suzuki Roshi said during the first wedding ceremony I saw him perform, he said to the couple, each other, that's good or wonderful, but even better is to respect each other. I think he said even better, or if he didn't say that, but he said, you also need to respect each other. And respect means look again etymologically. I love you, but then stop, close your eyes, open them and look again. This person is not how they appear.

[12:32]

I feel that this not thinking, I think not thinking is a kind of consciousness or a kind of thinking, a thinking which is either you could say focused on thinking or thinking which is not thinking. I'm thinking karmic consciousness. I don't know. Oh, did you say he's not thinking karmic consciousness? I'm not sure what's the best answer to that.

[13:50]

Let me say a little bit more about not thinking. I think you can see perhaps that there could not be thinking without not thinking. Certainly you can't have the concept of thinking without the concept of not thinking. And of course there can't be not thinking without thinking. These two, thinking and not thinking, are logical. Now I don't want to tightly say this, or say this and have you tightly grasp it, but also we could say thinking and emptiness of thinking. But it's emptiness of thinking which is that thinking ultimately cannot be grasped as anything.

[14:54]

That's how thinking is actually not thinking. Not thinking is a window into seeing new creative, imaginative possibilities. Thinking gestures, not thinking, is a window or open to the emptiness. and the endless possibilities of thinking. So the teacher is thinking about not thinking.

[16:07]

In other words, I'm thinking about thinking in a very creative way. I'm thinking about thinking in such a way that I understand that whenever I'm thinking about thinking, I'm also thinking about not thinking. But not the not thinking where there's no thinking because there is no such thinking. There are states where there isn't any thinking, right? So there is that, but that's not what this practice is. This practice is thinking about the thinking which... Thinking, in other words, pointing out that whenever there's not thinking, there's thinking, and whenever there's thinking, there's not thinking. In fact, thinking is not thinking, and not thinking is thinking.

[17:13]

You might know other things about thinking besides this. But this is something about thinking that most people do not know. And this is what Yashan was thinking about. He was thinking about not thinking. And when you think about not thinking, when you get into it, you realize that you're thinking about thinking when you think about thinking. And that when you think about not thinking, you're thinking about thinking. You're using thinking, which thinking is usually a troublemaker. Thinking is basically not the problem. The ignorance which underlies thinking is, you could say, the source problem, the basic ignorance. But thinking is what really, karma is what really institutionalizes the delusion and creates all kinds of problems.

[18:20]

So thinking is a problem for us, but thinking also has a kind of creative ability and an ability to cut through habits. Thinking is saturated with habits, but it has a disruptive, transgressive part too, which can cut through our fixed ideas about everything. Thinking? Thinking has this ability. Thinking is the basic problem of humans. and some non-humans too, but it has a lot of possibilities. It's very limited and it limits us. It encloses us. It traps us. It also can cut through itself or disrupt itself, I should say.

[19:26]

So Zazen practice partly involves thinking about that is not thinking. And then how do you do that? How do you do that meditation on thinking? How do you think about thinking? He says non-thinking. And again, the way you, he's not calling thinking right thinking. Jorgen's not calling thinking right thinking. He's not calling not thinking right thinking. He's talking about something else that's right thinking. And right thinking or non-thinking is the way you practice thinking of not thinking. that's the essential part, is to negotiate between ordinary thinking and its intimate partner.

[20:35]

Which again, I'm almost the partner of thinking being emptiness. Dogen does say in the chapter called emptiness or empty space. It does say both thinking and rely on emptiness. So there it doesn't sound like he thinks not thinking is emptiness. It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like emptiness makes possible thinking. If there weren't emptiness, But there is emptiness so there can be anything. So there can be thinking and there can be not thinking. They both rely on it. Non-thinking is working with non-thinking.

[21:42]

Non-thinking harmonizes and negotiates between these two to transcend both. Being trapped in thinking is pretty rough. That's ordinary karmic situation. Being trapped in not thinking is, for those people who get that problem, that's pretty bad too. So non-thinking is a way to transcend both thinking and not thinking while you're involved in both. And also, I say while you're immersed in both. So the essential art of zazen needs these three points of focus. Can you give an example of not thinking? Of not thinking? There's no examples of not thinking. There's no examples of thinking. Or you could say there's only one example of not thinking and that is thinking about that all kinds of thinking are not thinking.

[22:55]

Thinking has infinite variety. But any kind of thinking is not thinking. Any kind of thinking is empty. Because it's empty, because thinking is empty, it can be not thinking. Because thinking is empty, it can be beyond thinking. So the not thinking, there's not examples of emptiness other than referring to what's empty. So any kind of thinking you have is intimate with not itself. Matter of fact, as I often have mentioned, everything is nothing but the total of everything that's not itself. Nothing's anything in addition to what isn't itself. So everybody in the universe is who you are. And everybody in the universe is not you.

[23:58]

But you're in addition to all the other beings. Hmm? Hmm? Wisdom is the right thinking depends on wisdom. Wisdom depends on wisdom? No, isn't it? Right thinking, non-thinking, that type of thinking called non-thinking, which is called right thinking, that depends on wisdom. Right thinking depends on right view. The Buddha taught that.

[25:00]

Right view, right thinking. In the Eightfold Path, you know, right view is right understanding. That's wisdom. Right view. So the first two parts of the Eightfold Path are wisdom parts. One part is view, the other part is thinking. He's putting the emphasis on the thinking. So the right thinking is thinking which includes wisdom. But this thinking is... The thing about thinking is that thinking is more... Thinking is a definition of action. So the thinking, right thinking, is meditation practice. But it's meditation practice that's expressing wisdom. So it's wisdom in action or non-thinking.

[26:01]

Dogen Zenji says, we exert it. Yeah, we exert it. It's an exertion. It's an effort. Non-thinking is an effort. You exert it. So it's wisdom being exerted. in relationship to our karmic consciousness. It's wisdom being exerted in relationship to deluded karmic consciousness. So it's right thinking, but it's completely unified with right wisdom or right view. Yes? When I was looking up the word wisdom in the dictionary, I couldn't find a very clear definition of that. Could you maybe give your definition? My definition of the word? Wisdom. Wisdom is emptiness, insubstantiality,

[27:12]

Wisdom is the way things are. It's not knowing the way things are. You cannot grasp wisdom? You cannot, correct, but you can realize it. The proposal of the Buddhist teaching is that wisdom can be realized sentient beings can practice in such a way as to have wisdom realized. And it's to realize the way things are without any or something separate from the way things are. There can be recognition, like something recognizes the way things are, but that's not the wisdom itself. That's not realization itself. Realization itself is the way things are. And that's wisdom.

[28:18]

And wisdom needs to be in action, so the Eightfold Path isn't just wisdom, and it isn't just right wisdom or right view, and that's the end of it. No. In the Buddhist path, there's wisdom, yes, but there's a bunch of other practices, too. And for Dogen Zenji, the second part of the wisdom section The first two is that wisdom is exerted. Wisdom is put into thinking. That ordinary human, that living organism's thinking is now enacting and expressing wisdom. So wisdom, in this view of the Buddhist practice, wisdom and meditative exercise are united. There's other practices which follow too, but they follow from this core of this practice, this non-thinking.

[29:22]

Yes? I've understood non-thinking as a result of the effort to work with thinking, not thinking. So in the koan it talks about how, but to me it's always just, it's the result. It's not another thing. I see it as a result, not a process. A result, not a process. The process is in the application of energy. The application of energy. That's what I think is non-thinking. The result of the application of this energy is Buddhahood, is a state of being. I've described, in my way of looking at it, non-thinking as a state. There is a state. There is a state.

[30:28]

In Gilead, where non-thinking lives. Whoa. Over Suzuki Roshi's apartment in San Francisco, there's a piece of calligraphy by a Zen teacher named Kumazawa Roshi, who was the godo, I think, of Eheiji when Suzuki Roshi was a young monk. And I said to Sakurashi, what does that say? And he said, it means cloud driver or cloud farmer. And he said, Kumazawa Roshi wrote that. And then underneath cloud farmer, it says, Hishirio. It says, you know, non-thinking. So I think that non-thinking is an active thing.

[31:36]

It's an active thing in uprightness. So again, in the Bendo Wa, after describing this amazing way that everything's working together, enlightening each, everybody's enlightening each other, how this enlightenment's even... who are in states of woe. In that picture then it says, all this, however, does not appear within perception. It doesn't appear within karmic consciousness. So in that sense, I'm not sure I would say that non-thinking is karmic consciousness. The way all the karmic consciousnesses are working together in harmony That way that they're working together in stillness, that I think is.

[32:40]

So this great activity is unconstructed. This is an unconstructedness, an unmade situation that is the way everything's working together in harmony, that happening in stillness and silence. What I think is the essence of zazen, according to Dogen Zenji, and it's called non-thinking, and Buddha called it right-thinking. Which part? The essence of zazen is instructedness. But unconstructedness doesn't mean that there isn't a tremendous activity. There's a tremendous activity, just that it's not fabricated. It's not a constructed activity. The way you help me, really, and the way I help you, really, is not something we construct. It's not a construction.

[33:43]

It's the reality of our interdependence. And that reality is what makes us empty. And being empty is how we can't be trapped or stuck and how we're always flowing and how we can't grasp anything. But it is when we can't grasp anything, we also are helping each other not grasp anything. radiant, harmonious situation which occurs in this go-tsu-go-tsu-chi. It occurs in the character that they use there. It means silence and stillness together. So in silence and stillness, this great activity, this great Buddha work is going on in stillness. There's no movement and tremendous activity. Nothing reaches it and it illuminates everything. In terms of this story, I would say that that unconstructed, tremendous liberating activity in stillness is non-thinking.

[34:52]

It's also called, and being aware and the awareness of this, which again is wisdom, So we say the ji-ju-yu, the situation here is called ji-ju-yu, or there's a situation of self-enjoyment. The situation of the Buddha's mind is ji-ju-yu, or self-fulfillment, or non-thinking. And the Samadhi has done that, to be still and focused on this. That means to be aware of how thinking and not thinking are dancing together all day long, and to keep being aware that the dance has infinite possibilities, infinite dangers, infinite disruptive and harmonic possibilities. Yes? That's thinking.

[35:56]

She's thinking and wants to do some clarification work here. So I'm thinking that karma consciousness includes the five senses, sense consciousnesses, mind consciousness, manos, and those are all sort of karma consciousness. And then when you get to the ninth, that's the kind of consciousness that works. I didn't know about the ninth. You've got a new school there. So for your information, Jerry has just come up with a new consciousness, which she says is the one I've been talking about. It requires me to develop a new consciousness.

[36:59]

In a sense, you could call it number nine if you want to. But in this teaching that you're referring to, from the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra, in that teaching, it is if we study in a calm way, if we study and love these transformations of consciousness, if we study karmic consciousness, that will transform the consciousness into another kind of consciousness, and that other kind of consciousness is called the dharmakaya. So you could say it's another kind of consciousness. which no consciousness reaches and which can illuminate all consciousnesses. And you could call it number nine, if you want. Can I? Yeah, you may. It had been called nine previously, it's now called number nine. Sonia? I was coming back to the definition of wisdom.

[38:05]

Yeah. Yeah. it's uh like good things um the wisdom is like the whole world isn't the word is teaching as an appropriate response and then i just thought it was meeting like it's not yeah but that's kind of the wisdom part is not thinking what Well, I can almost say, yes, wisdom is an appropriate response. But then again, I think, well, maybe I would say that when we realize the way things are, then we have right thinking. That response to somebody is kind of like your thinking. It's your action. Hmm?

[39:07]

it's totally liberated because it's in accord with it's not constrained by the factors of existence anymore it's in harmony so the response is appropriate is apropos is to the point of the reality of the relationship so the response whatever is brought what's appropriate to what's brought is there but it's enacted so in that way I think Again, this story, the monk says to Yunmin, what was the teaching of Buddha's whole lifetime? And Yunmin says, an appropriate response, which literally means meeting one and teaching, meeting each and teaching, meeting each and teaching. Whenever the Buddha met somebody, taught and that was translated as appropriate response, which is fine. But in that way I would think that in some sense when you say what was the Buddha teaching, what was Buddha's activity?

[40:15]

Buddha's wisdom in action was the Buddha's teaching and the Buddha's teaching was right thinking. which includes right speech, right posture, right livelihood, which includes all the concentration practices that the Buddha taught and did. These are all appropriate responses to the reality of the situation, the wisdom of the situation which the Buddha realized. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Did you say something realizes how things are but that isn't wisdom? I'm saying that actually that there can be a recognition of the way things are, but that's not wisdom itself. Wisdom is the way things are, not a knowing which is separate from the way they are, a knowing of the way things are.

[41:29]

I might have said recognize. To realize is not itself to recognize. That's why I thought that realizing how things are is wisdom. Realizing how things are is wisdom. That's right. I would agree with that. But the word realize has this double meaning. One is to actualize and the other is to understand. But I think that the wisdom in this school is a wisdom which knows without separation. It knows. It's non-dual. So it knows the way things are, but it's not something in addition to the way things are. It's like somebody who knows the way things are. It is somebody who has become totally the way things are. And their knowing is just too. And of course it was already that way, but now it's been realized. Yes? That's almost what I was thinking.

[42:32]

And I want to check this out. It seems to me that in thinking and not thinking, there's an occasion that there's a thinker within us, and then not thinking that it's just happening or not happening, but without itself doing it. Some thinkers are implying what you said. A thinker could imply that. But this teaching is not implying that. This teaching is actually saying that there is no subject in addition to the knowing. The fact that there's no subject in addition to the knowing is the non-thinking. No, I think that's more like the not thinking. I was thinking that there was a being who was thinking or not.

[43:41]

There's a being who's thinking or not. Sentient beings can think or not, that's right. But when they're not thinking, it's not much of an issue. We don't have much problem with sentient beings that aren't thinking. My thought is not being done by the being. It's like that. Stop right there. The other thinking isn't being done by the being either. This school is saying that no thinking is being done by a being. Even in the early teachings of Buddha, Buddha said we have thinking, but no thinker. He means there's no thinker in addition to the thinking. So some thinkers, not the Buddha, some other thinkers think that there's a thinker and thinking. Buddha doesn't think there's a thinker and thinking. There's a thinker and then that's the end of the story. There's no additional thinking to the thinker.

[44:42]

Or there's thinking and no additional thinker to the thinking. That's the Buddhist thinking. And I'm thinking that right now myself. But unfortunately, I don't always think. I sometimes think that there's a thinker and thinking, that there's a you in your action. I do sometimes think that. But the Buddha taught there's action but no you doing it. So once again, I said at the early class, when you fully engage your body and mind in seeing colors and hearing sounds, it's not like the thing and its reflection. It's not like the listener and the heard, the seen. the thinking and the thinker. It's not like that. So in some ways, some Zen masters would say Descartes did not fully engage body and mind.

[45:51]

He's a genius, obviously, and changed the history of the world, but he didn't fully engage because if he did, there wouldn't have been thinker and thinking. There wouldn't have been somebody who exists in addition to the thinking. There wouldn't have been that. For the yogi that practices this way, if you illuminate one side, the other side's dark. So if there's thinking, there's no thinker. If there's a thinker, there's no thinking. There's only a thinker. And sometimes some people, particularly from Tibetan, they often put it, they speak of these consciousnesses as the thinker or the cognizer. They don't talk about the cognizer and the cognition. They just talk about the cognizer. There's no mention of cognition. It isn't, but people think that there's a cognizer who has cognitions. So this is something, again, which is very similar to non-thinking is encouraging the thinking to think about this.

[46:56]

Encouraging the thinking to think that there's no thinking. There's only the thinker who's working hard in zazen to remember what? Non-thinking. Not thinking. And not thinking. And thinking. Don't just go to non-thinking, which is right thinking, and just camp out there. You've got some work to do there. You have to exercise this wisdom to see if you can use it while you're thinking. Can you continue to practice even when you're thinking? Well, it's possible to learn this. You can actually think, like say, good morning disciples, I have some teachings for you today. The Buddha thinks in order to do that, but the Buddha doesn't get caught by that. Because the Buddha's also thinking and not thinking while he's talking.

[47:57]

And seeing possibilities all the time and not being stuck and therefore able to have appropriate response. This is wisdom in action. This is meditation and wisdom united. Yes, Andrew. It's okay. What do you understand? Not much. What I was... If I look at ,, could it be just a mis-translation, and it came down and it got distorted? Because one word could mean the twice of the verb. And if you put one word once, one letter, it changed. It becomes a sour cream. So somebody doesn't know the language. end up talking about it and translates it then uh talking about one and he's talking about so if we replace nothing not thinking for example a way of thinking a the other thing the way i think would be

[49:15]

Now, that whole story makes perfect sense. What are you thinking? And he says, no, I'm thinking the way A, which is a method, which is your story. No, no, I'm not. I'm thinking the way of beings. Therefore, except we don't know which is the way, thinking A or thinking B. yes so we're looking for some we try to look for something that's already lost the way of thinking is lost because you said the buddha was also painting but i assume he's not you're looking for a lost art basically You could say looking for a lost art, that'd be fine. Or you could say looking for an art that has been given away and found again.

[50:21]

So if we ever find this art of zazen, that might be nice, then we have to give it away and find it again. And so what you just said, and what I'm saying now too, Are we studying thinking? Are we studying thinking when we do this? And I thought you were studying not thinking. I thought you were thinking of not thinking when you were talking, but I didn't know if you were really tranquil when you were doing it, which would be good. Yeah, well, karmic consciousness thinking is is confused. It is confused. So how do you work with confusion? And I've been talking a lot about how to work with confusion, delusion, thinking. Basically I'm saying be very compassionate to the thinking.

[51:28]

So you just demonstrated some thinking, and if you're compassionate with it, then you have new possibilities. For example, that the thinking is not thinking is kind of a possibility. So you see something, and then you think about it. When you see something, you think about it. When you see something, you think about it. Then if you use your thinking creatively, and you can do that when you're kind to your thinking, You can realize that your thinking is not limited to what you think it is. It's not stuck. And now you're starting to work into the creative process to realize the true relationship between you and this whole process I'm calling non-thinking. So you just demonstrated a sentient being thinking and I'm wondering and I see the possibility that you were actually talking.

[52:41]

That you were actually caring for your thinking while you were thinking. Caring for your thinking while you were talking. Ah, let's see, I don't know, I've lost track of the numbers, but let's just, yeah, I think John was next. And so Michaela and Holly and Jim and Simon, yes, John, Ray, do you say Ray? Oh, and Grace, Grace, yes. I'm at the risk of just heading off on another question. I'm interested in the not thinking part. I'm trying to clarify that by thinking here. The analogies I've kind of seen in my mind are, what did we talk about?

[53:51]

Can I say something just one second? You said you're interested in the not thinking? Yes. Yeah. So I think, I just want to say, one teacher, is when you ask the Zen teacher what kind of thinking he's involved in, he tells you that his thinking is interested in not thinking. So he's interested in not thinking too. And part of the reason why he's interested in not thinking, I think, is he wants you to be interested in not thinking. In other words, he wants you to realize that your thinking has lots of possibilities all the time. Okay. So he's got you. Interesting. So I'm thinking of kind of like object awareness, like seeing an object. Yes. To see an object in some sense, it emerges from a background or a field. And so I'm thinking of

[54:52]

kind of non-thinking, or excuse me, not thinking, this field, what you said, possibilities, and thinking comes along and seizes on possibility and separates something at all into thinking. That sounds like thinking. If you think of a cow, you're not thinking of an elephant. You're not thinking of all the other possibilities. So I'm thinking in some sense that that's not thinking what we said is like a possibility. So when you kind of come in to think, Well, when you talk about the creativity of it, the creativity is there and altogether possible. Like the word cow is cow because it stands in relation to every other possible word or object.

[55:56]

It's not all the other things. Right. And so then I'm thinking of non-thinking because you can't. Excuse me, cow conceptually is that way. Cow conceptually is the way that it's not all the other things. However, cow as a perception is not the same. But cow as a perception is biased in the sense that you chose to pay attention to this rather than those. So first in direct perception there is a limiting, but you haven't yet then further limited by mentioning that it's not a bunch of other things. Placing a sign on it, you mean? Yeah. But first of all, your mind has chose to pay attention to it. So there's a first bias in the first case of sense perception, and then in conceptualizing it, you even, what do you call it, impoverish the phenomena even more by saying stuff.

[57:01]

And this is thinking, as you're talking about. Right. And so if you take good care of this process, it naturally leads to understand, to being more and more aware of not thinking while you're doing this. And not thinking, you mentioned, I think, negotiating. And it's the relationship, right? I couldn't see it as a process. It's that relationship of equanimity. It's not so much the relationship as meditating on the relationship. The relationship's already there, but the non-thinking is actually meditating on this relationship. It's exercising the relationship. So it's another meditation practice in addition to the the first two. So first we meditate on our karmic consciousness, on our thinking, and as we get better at that, we can meditate, we can think in such a way that we remember non-thinking at the same time.

[58:10]

And then we also exercise that relationship which has now been realized. And that's the non-thinking. You just changed the definition that you described earlier. Well, how did it change? You said non-thinking is the way things are. It's not constructed. Yes, right. But just now your definition seemed like it was a construction of some sort. A construction is an exercise program. Non-thinking is an exercise program. It's a doing. It's a doing. It is a tremendous doing. It's a doing that's not constructing. Constructed doing. Yes. The Buddha is an activity. Buddha is an activity, an unconstructed activity.

[59:11]

And it embraces all kinds of constructions. The thinkings are constructions. So the Buddha activity embraces and sustains all construction projects. But it itself is not constructive. But it is active. It's an activity which occurs in stillness. The other ones often occur in the realm of movement. The one that occurs in the realm of movement. Yes, Michaela. This is a question that I've had for a while about effort. So the other day I had the experience of going into Zendo and sitting down and kind of felt a little bit crazy because, you know, thinking was occurring. I was thinking, okay, you know, here's a guest. Okay, so welcome the guest. And I didn't exactly know how, and I didn't know if I was supposed to tailor to that specific guest's needs, or just make sure what to do in Xamarin, which maybe that's a good thing, because I guess I had thought that I knew what to do.

[60:28]

I'm interested in finding out the specifics, as specific as you can be. When we're in the Zendo and we're practicing right concentration, what does that look like? I will be happy to be specific and I intend to continue to do so indefinitely. So this is just an example. If you happen to be in a zendo and you're sitting and you have a physical sensation arises, this is an example of something which you could take care of. And this physical sensation I'm proposing to you is your karmic consciousness, your karmic consciousness version of a physical sensation. It's a guest.

[61:35]

Now, if your karmic consciousness also has, which is I don't know how to take care of guests, that's another guest. That opinion I don't know how is another guest. Along the first one, being open to the first one, you actually were a hostess of that one. You also thought. The thought came, which is another guest, should I tailor make my welcoming to the guest? That's another guest, that question. A good hostess might think, should I tailor make my reception? But a good hostess might not think that. The point is the good hostess welcomes whatever comes. And what comes might often be questions or uncertainties or anxieties about caring for what's coming or what might come in the future.

[62:37]

are examples of karmic consciousness to welcome, to be careful of, to be patient with. So you gave some examples, so I used your examples. sitting, you welcome the thought that you're sitting. You welcome the thought, I'm not sure how to welcome things. You welcome the thought, should I tailor, make my welcoming to what comes? Each one of those were things to welcome. I felt like I welcomed them. I wasn't upset. I don't know what to do. Here we are. However, if you became upset, then you'd welcome that. Right? Yeah. Yes? So maybe I should pay attention to my breathing. Like I haven't heard... Right, and then I would say to you, when you think, maybe I should pay attention to my breathing, don't miss that opportunity.

[63:41]

Welcome that too. Welcome the thought, maybe I should pay attention to my breathing. Don't wait until your breathing comes to start being welcoming. Welcome the thought or the interest in meditating on breathing. because that's what's happening now. Then you might go, oh, wow, an exhale, and be very welcoming to the exhale. And maybe the exhale is several different moments of exhale, which is several different phases of the exhale. Maybe you welcomed each one of them. You got really into welcoming exhales. You welcomed the exhale, and then there was somehow no more exhales. And then you might have noticed an inhale, or not. But let's say you did. And then you welcomed the inhale all the way to the end of the inhale. And that's no more transformative than welcoming without a person, when I think about them?

[64:44]

Correct. In my view, it's no more... I thought you were going to say, no less transformative. Because a lot of people seem to be able to welcome their breathing, but they can't welcome their stories or their friends. It's always more advanced to welcome a story that your friend is a low-quality friend. A lot of people have trouble welcoming that kind of story. And they have an easier time welcoming the story, inhale, Not too many people are upset about the story. Inhale. So we start people with an easy story, like, inhale. It's not that much of a problem for most people. The problem with most people is they're not as interested in the story, inhale, as the story, my friend's low quality. They're interested in that one, so they keep going over to the story about the friend, and they have trouble with the story, which they would be good at welcoming.

[65:48]

So I would say if you can't welcome the story of your friend, maybe it's too advanced. So go ahead and look at inhales then. Forget about the stories of your friends for a while because when you think about you're not very welcoming. You shouldn't be the hostess for that party. You should be the hostess for the breathing party. And then when you're good at hosting inhalation and exhalation, then you say, well, maybe now I could go host my thinking, which is why people find the tougher stuff. Now, some people, what they do is they're welcoming their breathing, and then they get into the story, I'm a below-average meditator on breath. You know, I'm very unmindful of breathing, so that's a hard thing to welcome. But people do have a lot of problems. They say, I can't follow my breath. They don't feel like, I can't follow my breath. I love this not being able to follow my breath. I'm so patient with it.

[66:51]

I'm so careful. I mean, I'm just joyfully welcoming my inability to follow my breathing. People like that often can just turn around and follow. So I would say they're not more transformative. Breath, difficult stories, pain in the body, fear, all these things are equal opportunity employers. They're all our doors to Dharma. The compassion is the transformative part. The compassion which goes towards all of these things. gets you ready for wisdom and helps you calm down so that you can now look at your thinking like, I think I'm breathing in, I think I'm breathing out, I think I have pain in my back, I think I'm a lossy Zen student, I think I'm a great Zen student, I love practice, I hate practice, I have good practice, I have a bad practice. Then when you get concentrated by caring for your karmic consciousness in this concentrated way, then you can start looking and

[67:59]

this stuff is actually not this stuff. This stuff is not trapped in the way it appears. That there's tremendous possibilities that it could be that this could be the body of the Buddha. And all these things are equally transformative. Everything is equally transformative. However, some things are too advanced for me. I can't relate to them in a way that will be transformative. So sometimes it's good to say, I'm going to set that meditation project down for a while. I'm not going to think about how to get my mother into a skilled nursing facility right now. I'm just going to follow my breathing. I'm just going to think about my posture, and I'm going to welcome my moment. And then when I get concentrated and can meditate on that,

[69:04]

Then I'm going to maybe let my attention go towards this other thing which I get very agitated about and unwelcoming about and wish I was in a different world. So I can't welcome that. I have to recognize it's too advanced for me. And ask your teacher if she thinks this is an opportune topic for you to be meditating on. Not to control yourself, but but just simply to realize that some things are too advanced. And when they come up and say, it isn't that you push them away, you just say, you know, I'm probably not going to be able to be compassionate. And actually, that was a little bit compassionate. Maybe I could be compassionate. I'll just keep saying, I'm sorry that I'm not compassionate. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's pretty good. But when you can't even say you're sorry that you're not compassionate, then it sounds pretty advanced. I don't like you, I hate you, I'm not going to pay attention to you, I don't welcome you, and I'm not sorry. Then if you can do that too much, you can't even follow your breathing, as you may have noticed.

[70:07]

Yes, Simon. Thinking, not thinking. Yes. Could be think of or think of emptiness. Yeah. Think of the emptiness of thinking. emptiness of thinking. Because the emptiness of thinking is the way we know that thinking is not thinking. That, you know, thinking's got the conventional designation thinking on it, which is correct, but that identity is nothing more than a word, which is, there's not much to that thinking. And it could also be, what was that, It could also be a statement. Thinking is not thinking. It could be that statement.

[71:10]

And it could also be thinking, not thinking. Yeah. It could be thinking, not thinking, or it could be thinking, not thinking. If you could get that. Are you using all of those as non-thinking? Non-thinking is what is, you know, immersing, entering into this dynamic relationship between thinking and not thinking. It's entering in the dynamic relationship between thinking and not thinking. entering into the dynamic relationship between thinking and how not thinking is a way to understand thinking. And how thinking is a way to understand not thinking.

[72:12]

How thinking is a way to understand emptiness and how emptiness is a way to understand thinking. It's entering into that and thereby... And really working that as the meditative life, that's the actual exercise of zazen, at the core. And that's the core of the Eightfold Path, this exercise. This is the meditative core of the Eightfold Path. Thinking of not thinking may not be non-thinking, but its realization would be non-thinking. Yes. Grace? Wisdom is always dependently co-arising. Well, when there's wisdom, it's always dependently co-arising, yes. It is a dependent co-arising, yes. So it happens, it doesn't happen in here, it happens out here somewhere.

[73:14]

No, it doesn't happen out there either. No, it certainly doesn't. Well, it doesn't have a location, so in here doesn't hinder it. It's not limited to in here. And it's not limited to out there. Out there and in here are karmic consciousness. And that kind of out there, in here thing doesn't reach wisdom. It can illuminate out there and in here. I think my problem has always been looking at this, thinking, not thinking, happens up in here, in my own brain. Yeah, that's thinking. That's where I get tied up. It happens somehow in awareness of the path of global biases. It color-dependently arises. You're right, it color-dependently arises, but also confusion-dependently color-arises. The thing is, the wisdom is that you're working with how talking or referring to, which is called karmic consciousness sometimes, is tangling you up, is tying you up.

[74:26]

Putting it in here or there ties us up. Non-thinking is being kind to that process of the mind being tied. and trying to engineer something that can't be engineered. The non-thinking is dependent core arising. The tangling is dependent core arising. But the non-thinking is playing with dependent core arising. The non-thinking is relaxing and being playful with dependent core arising. It's entering into and exercising dependent core arising in relationship to the mind that's tying itself in knots. So in that way, what is it? His name was Houdini. Houdini is like knots. he engages the tying up wholeheartedly and exercises it in such a way that he liberates it.

[75:28]

He totally immerses himself in being trapped as his way of demonstrating release. So the non-thinking plunges into this mind which is everything is and get everything organized and limited. Okay? And non-thinking totally embraces that and engages that and actualizes it and liberates it. Are you done? Timo? Just adding... What? Holly? Sorry, Timo. Holly? Holly? Did you say thinker and not thinking? It would be more like thinker and not thinker.

[76:29]

Keep these things straight. So we do have the non... Not necessarily dynamic, but we do have the experience of a thinker who thinks she's thinking. Or the thinker who thinks she's not thinking. Or the thinker who thinks she's not thinking, yes. At that level, there's a certain amount, even the thinker who thinks she's not thinking, which maybe is the same thing as a kind of non-dispersive level of still clinging to the self. still the self-knowing itself, it would seem that after a non-thinking aspect, there's a sort of a pure... rather than a generative process, generating... Yeah, yeah, it's more, it's receptive, but it's receptive, but I wouldn't say it's not generating, it's maybe not constructing. It's receptive and non-constructive, but it's also generative.

[77:37]

Generative but not constructive. So, yeah, it's very warm and welcoming and receptive to this process. In this way, it facilitates and mediates the relationship between these two so that these two do not wind up to be dualistic. Thinking and not... and the thinking, not thinking. Or even that. So there's no... It negotiates and mediates all dualities and harmonizes them. And it seems like that, the tranquility of that sort of receptivity... The what? The what? The tranquility that permits that receptivity and also an open... recognize its own dependent for arising. The tranquility doesn't exactly recognize anything. No, no, but the non-thinking consciousness is able to be or seems like it is realization of

[78:45]

the duality of both the thinker and not thinker, the incarnate process, as well as just the pure receptive consciousness that's both arising together. I think it is the realization of that, yes. Well, if you moved from non-receptive thinking to receptive consciousness, then you would be thinking that you move like a shift. Well, that's okay, but just don't lose track of that. That was an example of thinking. You just thought you moved someplace, and that's welcomed. So that's fine. That whole thing can be appreciated. The non-thinking is that whole thing. Whatever that thing is, appreciating the whole thing, that's the center of zazen, appreciating the whole thing.

[79:48]

If you appreciate the whole thing, you're going to be able to enter into the center of this practice. But it's appreciating the whole thing in tranquility. It's not agitated, distracted, appreciating the whole thing. You just fall on your face sometimes. Even though you're appreciative, you're not paying attention and you're not balanced. I think, Jim, some time ago you had your hand raised. Yeah. I was thinking that in my experience, it doesn't take very much effort to think. Yeah, well, it feels like that, but actually if you stop eating, you'll realize how hard it is to think. You have to rest and eat and stuff like that. It does take a lot of energy, but you're used to the usual. You've got some, so you know how to eat. And when I sit down in the kitchen... You know how. I'm glad you can find it. So thank you for feeding me so well.

[80:54]

Okay. But then not thinking, the realm of making an effort on the question. No, the not thinking is always there. Whenever there's thinking, there's not thinking. But you won't realize the not thinking except to hear the word. You won't realize the not thinking unless you actually calm down with your thinking. This thinking of not thinking or actually starting to feel that whenever there's thinking, there's a not thinking right there. This sense, this realization, developing realization of not thinking and then thinking of it, that comes with being calm with your thinking. Then you can start to realize this intimate relationship between thinking and not thinking. And then you can start to exercise this relationship. Well, the care for the relationship and the exercise between thinking and not thinking is the center of practice.

[82:04]

But the not thinking is always there, it's just that we don't notice it until we calm down with the thinking. Just like we don't notice the emptiness of the thinking unless we calm down with it. And then as we calm down with it, we start to notice that thinking is not thinking. And then we're thinking of not thinking. And the way we do that, of calming down with it and being kind to it and caring for this thinking, reveals the not thinking and then caring for the relationship that we've discovered It's a great meditative realization to discover this intimate relationship between thinking and not thinking. And then to continue to care for that, for the welfare of all beings, is the continued life of non-thinking. And it's unconstructed. The whole process is unconstructed in reality. And it's tremendously active.

[83:08]

And let's see. Gee whiz, I don't know who's next. I'm just going to give it to Timo, if you still want it. Yeah. I was just wondering about proposing that the thing not thinking is... literally could be a literally meant instruction rather than now what I hear from you which was new to me putting not thinking in a sort of thinking just like the instruction of literally dualistically think not thinking which is which turns out to be an impossible thing and by that huge amount of energy and effort, totally impossible thing, this balance or middle way is realized. You want to try that?

[84:11]

And I'll see how it goes with you? Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. And I don't know. Nancy, do you know if you were before or after Peter? I don't know. Okay. Peter, and then Nancy, and Lawrence. I'll take it. Yes. So I hope you'll comment on this in the context of what we're talking about. I got an email during a break yesterday, a family emergency. You have to come to Los Angeles, you have to see this lawyer, you'd have to do that. And so this morning, I was sitting with it, not welcoming. First of all, the email was not welcoming. You had trouble welcoming the email. I had a great deal of trouble welcoming the email. And that's got its own long tail on it. But in Zazen, I was... That was my... And as I resisted this campfire, what came into my consciousness was all my ancient wisdom from the beginning was really a delusion, bored, mind.

[85:41]

I now fully... which we'd been chanting a lot, and it was a welcome night. The avowal was a welcome night. And this whole web of what I would call difficulty, mother, very elderly mother, and I could just feel it rippling out through time. your grandparents, and between my own children and my grandchildren. I was so in this mess, you know, what one would call a mess. It's a story of a mess. I felt grateful. Okay. So that's... That was my experience. Wonderful. It feels like this. It is. My first comment is congratulations to all of us for programming Peter.

[86:46]

To think that way when difficult guests come. And again, to be technical, this It sounds like the straightforward welcoming didn't occur, but you moved into the precepts. You moved into ethical discipline, and in ethical discipline you came upon the practice of confession, and the practice of confession led you to welcome. Yeah. Confession is usually recommended as a step after you welcome. But in some sense you welcome this twisted confession. And then you articulate and confess it. So usually we start with welcoming, being generous towards the guest, and then we get into being careful with it.

[87:54]

And part of being careful with it is to notice, well, I'm a karmic being, so I've got to be careful. And patience because the situation is still in your life. So this is how you... care for your karmic consciousness and get ready to realize that this mess is not a mess. But not by denying that it's a mess, but realizing that all messes are also not messes. This is the other part. All not messes are messes. You can put it in non-mess. Yes, exactly. And caring for this all non-messes as messes, you're willing to go into messes and caring for all messes as non-messes, duality of mess and not mess, and then re-enter the dynamic between mess, you know. So one of the advantages of the January Intensive is the illness we've been having. It's been very messy, but it's been perfect for this teaching.

[88:59]

given us great opportunity to have the messy element of coughing, sneezing, fever, diarrhea, upset stomach, mix that in with pristine pure Zen practice. Nancy? We've been using a lot of words and concepts to describe this, and I do appreciate that. I appreciate all of our collective efforts to grasp this intellectually, and it wouldn't really be possible without being able to use words for it, but yet I wonder if it's absolutely necessary when working to use words and labels and concepts. If you have karmic consciousness, You have, if you're a human being, you have karmic consciousness, you have words and phrases. So, if we just, we, they just, sentient beings to have words and phrases.

[90:02]

If you're a human sentient being, it's part of the deal. So, like birth and death. Part of birth and death is the word birth and death. We can't get away from naming them. They don't really exist. Birth and death don't exist unless they're conventionally designated. However, because their existence is so pivotally connected to conventional designation, we can become free of them. They don't really substantially exist. They exist dependent on conventional designation. So we have to deal with the words birth and death because we got this word and et cetera. And the kitchen worker left. I'm sorry. What was his name? Husky guy? Elliot. Elliot. Elliot left. I don't know if your question is Elliot, but I bet it was a good one. Yuki and then Kathy and Sonia and Yuki. All their stories.

[91:09]

I think compassion, you know, if you look at Abhidharmic analysis, compassion is not on the list. It doesn't have compassion with all the other mental factors. So, in a way, compassion, it's a mystery what compassion is. But we have instructions for it. So, for example, we have bodily awareness, we have stories about ourself. So the way to train compassion, which we're not saying what compassion is, because you can't really get a hold of it, but you can train it by doing this practice, and you can think about this practice of welcoming the stories.

[92:14]

So I've got a story about a problem with my friend, a problem with my enemy. So you can train compassion by trying to be generous and say thank you and welcome to that difficult story or that difficult sensation. So where the compassion is, we don't know, but you could say, well, giving is compassion. Okay, so giving, if you start to practice giving, it's hard to find giving because are you the giver? Are you the receiver or are you the gift? At first you may say, well, I'm going to be the giver. Okay, fine. But that's not really what compassion is. Compassion is this whole process of giving. You can start by thinking compassion is giving. Certainly giving is happening in compassion, but it's hard to actually grasp anything in there. Well, giving attention, like giving attention to your body, giving attention to your posture when you're sitting, generously giving

[93:19]

Bring your body in the Zendo and give your body to the Sangha. Give your body to the Buddha. Make an offering of your body at your seat. Then give your attention to your body. Then when your body gives you body sensation, Welcome them. See them as gifts. See the pain in your leg as a gift. See the pain in your back as a gift. See the pleasure in your life, in your body, as a gift. Well, here's a gift. Here's a gift. Thank you, thank [...] you for every physical sensation. Then you're practicing giving. You're seeing everything as a gift. See everything as a gift. Every breath is a gift. Every thought is a gift. Every bad story is a gift. Yeah, welcome those stories. No, compassion isn't a painful thing.

[94:24]

Compassion is a joyful thing. However, when you feel pain, you don't feel pleasure about the pain. It's pain. The compassion... You love the pain. That you want to be with it. And you want to be with it because you care about it. You care about the pain. You care about the person in pain. It's not warm and fuzzy necessarily. It's kind of warm. Because you want to be with the suffering person. It's sort of warm. You don't want to push them away. But if you have a feeling like you want to push some suffering person away, then if you would welcome that and be close to that feeling, that would be what the Buddha would do. If somebody doesn't want to take care of somebody, he goes to that person who does not want to care for somebody and takes care of that person who does not want to take care of somebody.

[95:28]

But you can't really get a hold of that compassion because The Buddha is both a giver and a receiver because the student's a gift to the Buddha. The Buddha understands all the students. All the students who don't know how to give are gifts to the Buddha. and the Buddha is a gift to all the students, but also the Buddha is a giver of the gift, and also the Buddha is a receiver of the gift. So, as we practice compassion, you can't actually say exactly, it's this, and get a hold of it, but we can practice it. I know it, or I cannot grasp it, but I know it, or even I may not know it? If you practice it wholeheartedly, you may not know it, but you won't care that you don't know it because you'll be unbelievably, inconceivably happy.

[96:33]

Compassion is the greatest happiness possible for a living being. And when beings are that happy, they don't care whether they know what they're happy about. Most people do care about knowing what they're happy about, but their happiness is not so good. Happiness of compassion comes from giving, precepts and so on, but it's not being concerned with getting a hold of your compassion and owning it or keeping it. You give away your compassion and you give away the joy of compassion and that's even more joyful. Did we take care of all the questions? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Earlier, someone, I couldn't see who it was, was asking about not knowing what to do in zazen. Yes. Maybe mention, should they follow their breath or something like that? Yes. There's one lecture, one of Suzuki Bershi's lectures that I have to say I really love a lot, where I think it's a lecture on the heart.

[97:39]

In response to a question, he says, this is the main office. This is the main office. This is the branch office. The hara is the main office and the head is the branch office. Yeah, they said he was gesturing. Yeah. I was thinking that maybe following the breath might be... avenue to actualizing welcoming what arises. And then I think some words came forth, something like, you're not being welcoming to that story. I'm just thinking that if there can't be thinker in addition to the thinking, there can't be somebody not being welcoming either. There might just be some non-welcoming. That's right.

[98:42]

There's no non-welcomer in addition to the not welcoming. Yeah. So I guess for me, I find it helpful when I remember that because then I don't start dumping on myself. Yeah, that's right. Or anybody else. Yeah, that too. Thank you for pointing that out. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you for pointing out that not only is there not a thinker in addition to thinking, there's not a welcomer in addition to welcoming. They're just welcoming. And someone might say, you're welcome. I don't know who welcomed you just now, but there was a lot of welcoming here. Thank you. You're welcome. Sonia and then Linda. I partly want to do this because I want to do something scary today. Okay. Okay. Well, please stand up. Please be scared to stand up. Can I give you a microphone, too?

[99:45]

Well, actually, I can't hold the microphone. Oh, okay, okay. Yuki, would you hold it? Carolyn, would you hold it for her? No, hold it for her. Okay. Okay. So this story came up in my head as an example or a manifestation of moving from thinking into not thinking and then non-thinking, which all happened kind of like that. Simultaneous, yeah. Yeah, well, simultaneously. Yeah, both. So this was years ago, and I was in the kitchen, and I was thinking that I was doing something, And I was moving a glass or whatever. But then my mind was somewhere else, it seemed, because the glass flipped out of my hand. But the hand, now imagine if anybody's a football player here, you know about these things.

[100:49]

I'm not. The hand just, without thinking, just kind of kept following the glass all the way down and caught it right before it hit the ground. I wouldn't say that there was non-thinking, because there was something happening, but it wasn't me thinking, oh, I'm going to try to follow this glass down and catch it. Yeah, I think I disagree with you. Yeah, that's what I wanted to know. I think you were thinking all the way with that glass. and I think you were I think you were thinking I think you were very intimate with your thinking and welcoming of your thinking you welcomed your thinking which thought the glass was in various positions and your hand was in various positions you were kind to that thinking and you realized not thinking too all the way down I didn't okay I didn't have the

[101:54]

Well, maybe I think that thinking has a time duration and the whole thing happened so fast there wasn't really time to think. So there was just like response. Right. And that's the way you think about it, but I think differently, so I have a different story. So for me, your story is a perfect example of how when you're really intimate with your thinking, she's not thinking. Because she thought she wasn't thinking. And partly because she has a different idea of thinking, but even with her idea and my idea, I can see that you were not thinking. All the way through that, you were not thinking. You were not thinking, in my view, was because you were totally thinking. And so maybe you should play football more. Because football players are totally thinking about football. And therefore they realize not football if they're really good.

[102:58]

But if totally not thinking, is that not non-thinking? And the non-thinking was what negotiated the whole thing, what sponsored the whole thing. So I can see that you are somewhat aware in your ordinary life that you think. And what I'm saying is that when you're totally engaged with your thinking, you realize not thinking. And I think you, in that case, you were thinking all the way through that process, in my view. Yeah. But you were doing it more so than usual, and therefore you could perform this amazing feat. And when you performed this amazing feat, afterwards you thought, and I didn't think. So again, your example for me is a good example of how when you're totally engaged in thinking, you realize nothing. It doesn't seem like any idea you have of thinking when you're totally engaged in thinking. including totally engaged in your ideas of thinking, when you're totally engaged, you realize not, not, not, not.

[104:08]

And non-thinking is the way you're totally engaged. It's the way you actually care enough to give your very best. And so, yeah, so there was no thinker. In this case, too, I would say there was no thinker in addition to the thinker. And oftentimes when there's no thinker in addition to the thinking, we might think there's no thinking. Yeah, yes. But actually, I think there... My story, I don't think a human being could follow a cup down to the floor without thinking, because thinking is what operates your... Nervous system. No, it doesn't operate your... Motor. Your motor activity, which you did. That wasn't an... It was a voluntary karmic act you did, and you did it so wholeheartedly. You gave yourself to it so completely. You didn't halfway down or two-thirds of the way down say, darn, I wish I wouldn't have to be catching cups.

[105:15]

You were totally there like a football player. This is my life. This is your life, Sonya. Okay, I'm doing this. And actually, maybe some glimmering of, hey, this is life, isn't it here? This is like amazing. So that both was total thinking and therefore not thinking. And non-thinking was your willingness to give yourself to saving this glass. So is it kind of like non-thinking sponsors? Yeah. Non-thinking sponsors. Existence. Non-thinking is the sponsor of the path of liberation. It's the center, the core of the whole thing. It happens together with the whole. Nice example. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Yes, Linda. Should I? No, thanks. Linda. I know I raised... I wanted to refer back to my answers that you had given about appreciating all of this, and I feel so much that I appreciate all of this here.

[106:29]

Amazing good fortune. Yeah, it's like, how does Zen Center... To sponsor such an intense study period, it's wonderful. Zen Center does want practice to happen, obviously. Because this is not an easy thing for Zen Center to allow to happen, to stop certain kinds of work projects and so on and make this happen. So it's really wonderful. And it allows all these people to come and be wonderful people. Well, it's not that there's no welcomer. It's just that in the welcoming, there's no welcomer in addition to the welcoming. There is a welcomer, and the welcomer is the welcoming.

[107:36]

So there's a welcoming committee, but there's nobody in addition to the committee, and there's no committee in addition to the welcoming. That's all. But there is, there's no compassionate person in addition to the compassion, and so on. There's no actor in addition to action. This is from early teaching right through the Mahayana, this teaching. But we don't say there's no practice, it's just there's no practice. Okay, yeah, so I guess that the question that was answered because it was bringing up for me thoughts about choice and intention and how we choose to attend. In a way, it is like the welcoming passion. Yes. You should attend to how you organize your laundry. You should. If you're organizing your laundry, you should appreciate that organizing activity.

[108:37]

If you're sitting in zazen and you're organizing your laundry in your mind while you're sitting, thinking of how to separate the different laundry items, if you welcome that totally, that's non-thinking. If your mind is choosing and you welcome that choosing wholeheartedly and thoroughly exercise that choosing, you realize not choosing. Just like Peter's example, if you totally engage and welcome encounter the mess, you realize not mess. So it isn't that you're not supposed to have messes or choosing or wanderlust in Zazen. Wanderlust can arise in the mind of Zen students. But the Zen student is supposed to thoroughly engage whatever it is in realizing that that thing is inseparable from not that thing.

[109:47]

And this engagement with it, this total engagement with it, this total compassion with it, realizes the wisdom that these things are not separate. It's almost as though So the compassion is there and it's responsive. There's something before or somewhere. Well, it's not before, and it's not after, and it's not... But it's there. So that's why sometimes we say, would you please come here and take my seat? You know, the compassion is already here, but we have to sort of, if we welcome the compassion, the compassion is here. If we say, please come, it's here. And it's here anyway. Exercise it. This is another part of the thinking and not thinking. The thinking is the exercise of a form that has no substance.

[110:52]

So we exercise these forms. you know, that don't reach the essence. And that's non-thinking. Exercise the form of seated Buddha which doesn't reach seated Buddha. The form of seated Buddha is not seated Buddha. But we have to exercise the form of seated Buddha in order to realize seated Buddha. We have to exercise the form of compassion, giving, ethical discipline, and so on, in order to realize what it doesn't reach. My compassion doesn't reach Buddha's compassion, but I have to do my compassion and be kind to my compassion in order to realize that my compassion is not my compassion. I have to do my bodhisattva practice to realize that my bodhisattva practice is not bodhisattva practice to realize bodhisattva practice.

[111:56]

And one more was discussing whether you can trust relaxing and welcoming things and what do you need to trust that you can relax and welcome whoever or whatever. Part of what I think helps us relax, helps us trust that it's all right, is a really deep and sincere commitment to ethical disciplines. without gripping the ethical commitment, but sincerely making the ethical commitment. So now I can interact, play with these ethics and be creative with them and understand them. Yes? Giving yourself wholeheartedly to whatever prize it is. Yes. It sometimes seems that it requires a certain amount of rigor or alertness.

[113:13]

Yeah, it does. Wholeheartedness requires rigor and alertness. So sometimes we're called to relax and be alert at the same time. Yeah, right. Yeah. And if I am too relaxed, sometimes something that I thought I could welcome like I'm sick my back hurts whatever then there's some little pokey thing going great or that's great Yeah, welcome to, like, you know, like 10 minutes ago. What's the problem? Yeah, so I feel like is my openness lacking or my welcoming lacking? Continue again and then. Welcoming. Continue.

[114:17]

Oh, good. Yes. These classes only take me to the age of my capacity to understand word, language, ideas, and over the edge. Somewhat uncomfortable at the time. conscious of the people and the language as a second language. And I'm so impressed or inspired by people being willing to take this journey in a language where they want. Not that I think it's a physical language. I can't tell you much. But I'm stunned of the members of the Sanda who are here doing this work. It makes it easier. Big glamour. Well, I'm glad you're inspired by all these people.

[115:32]

That's what we're here for, is to inspire each other. And so, we give ourselves to each other and realize also that everybody else is wholeheartedly giving themselves to us, too. They may not realize it, but they are. Yes? When you listed the seven points where they were trusted at the time before you realized I was wondering about this ability to trust. You just said that you need a deep and sincere commitment to ethical discipline. I also was wondering about some very particular work that someone may need to do in order to Yeah, well, right.

[116:42]

And in fact, some people do have to do, you could say, remedial work before making the commitment, where they come and discuss the precepts. For example, someone just recently said to me, Well, I want to receive these precepts, but I have a precept here, particularly the precept about not lying, because the person saw that in some cases not lying might be beneficial. So I pointed out there's another precept which is not to be possessive. And that not being possessive, you also wouldn't be possessive of the precepts. You know, you wouldn't have a fit. So one of the recommendations in practicing precepts is not to rigidly hold to your understanding of the precepts. So that kind of remedial work may be necessary for this person to make the commitment to the precepts. And that takes quite a bit before you can really wholeheartedly promise

[117:45]

I just realized I had in mind something more than the cycle of life. In order to work with the content, the container of trust has been broken. That was the work I was thinking of. Well, if you were talking to someone and you felt, you know, if you were asking someone, what do you need to trust that you can relax with your experience in meditation, they might tell you, they might feel like, you know, I feel like I need some assistance in working with you. I want you to find what the resources you need in order to be able to trust that you can really open up to your experience. But I think I need some help. And so I recommend you also. I think they would be good to help you work with that. And I think if you worked with that more, you would feel more confidence that you could open to your experience.

[118:52]

And so I'd like to work with that person so you can keep practicing Zen meditation with me, but I think I need with this particular thing, who I think is really experienced with helping you with this thing. It could be a massage, you know. It could be a urologist. It could be a psychiatrist. It could be a lawyer. I think you should talk to a lawyer, tell you how to relax with this particular law. I don't know what the consequences are, but I think you should talk to a tax expert. I don't know the subtleties here to help you relax. you know, to recognize when we need more resources or when a person needs more resources that we need to get some other people to help us gather the resources.

[119:53]

Because this is a big step to actually safely relax, safely be upright with our experience. It's a big deal. So we should be very careful. Thank you. This might be our last class in this intensive. I would like to continue this discussion during the Sashin and relate this to particularly the sitting practice itself. But the Sashin is different environments, so I just wanted to acknowledge that this is something I feel grateful we could have this venue. And I really appreciate your Oh, wait a second. I saw one person. I really appreciate your great rigor and alertness and warmth and honesty and courage.

[120:57]

And in this venue and the other venues. And Melissa had a question. I didn't call on you before, right? Yes, but this came up in a group in different ways. Okay. Yes, Beng? I have a quick question about relating to your own experience. I said before what? To want to be with it? Just a second.

[122:02]

Could you wait one second? Wanting to be with it. Wanting to be with a suffering person. Wanting to be with a suffering person. Okay? That's the first question, whether it's how it's... And the second question is whether, in order to be compassionate with the culture of a lot of lives, whether we have to sort of selectively focus on it, or whether we can just be a bit more... Yeah. So what are the two questions? One is about, sounds like, is there some selection involved? That was the second, and the first is wanting. It seems like if there is wanting involved, there's a selection.

[123:06]

unless you want, there may be selection in either case, but if you want to work towards being close to , you still can select, but that wanting will eventually free you from the ill effects of selection. You used a number of examples of being compassionate with a person. Yeah, for me it's about a particular item. It's not a general thing. General principle pushes me to not completely, to not let myself, to not relieve myself of the responsibility of taking care of each item.

[124:14]

Because that pushes me to realize that no items are an exception to this practice. But that also includes me saying, I'm not ready for certain items yet. They're too advanced for me right now. I cannot relax with this. I cannot welcome this. This is also part of this process. Well, that's fine. Go ahead. Tell me what I haven't answered. Well, I want a person who's not afraid to be close to anybody. I want to be that kind of person. Right. Or there might not be, but also there might be, and there might be a contradictory, like I might want to be with you, but I have a contradictory intention to be away from you.

[125:25]

That's also possible. That's why we make vows to work towards doing certain things which we actually want to do, but are difficult because we have contradictory intentions. What's the difference between wanting to be with the thought and being attached to the thought? What's the difference? What's the difference? Well, wanting to be with the thought sets up the possibility of being able to be with the thought without being attached to it. So most people that want to be with things are also unable to be with the things without attachment. But you can't learn how to be with things without attachment unless you're willing to be close to them. The difference between being with them with attachment and being with them without is one's called Buddhahood and the other is called being a sentient being.

[126:39]

So suffering people try to get away from some things, but there are some things they are close to and they do attach to, and that's their suffering. Buddhas are close without attachment. And then they're happy and they're very happy to help other people who are close or far away and attached. They want to be close, but not just to be close. They want to be close so that they can transmit wisdom. They want to be close enough so they can show the person how to be close without attaching. A lot of people don't seem to notice they're attached with things that they're far away from. They don't notice they're attached to their distance. But usually if you're really devoted to something, you notice that there's some attachment, most people. So then Buddha wants to help us how to be really devoted to it without attaching, really generous with it without attaching to it.

[127:47]

So Buddhas are very generous with each being and not attached to any, any, any, each being. And this is what I... I already know, but I'm attached to everything, but if I don't, without devotion, I don't notice my attachment, and the attachment is just latent, you know, asleep or active. It's never overcome, unless I notice the thing, and then the attachment becomes quite clear, and then I can totally engage the attachment, realize it, and understand that it's an illusion. Is that clear now? It's okay. Great. Yes. In meditation this morning, I was attaching to the story about my friend.

[128:55]

Can you hear her? I thought about other possibilities. of why this friend was behaving the way he was. Yes. And so my story kind of fell away, and then all these stories kind of fell away. And out of the antidote of thinking about these various possibilities, what came up for me was empathy. And out of that empathy came up compassion. So the story that I held, which had some negative energy to it, ended up becoming positive as a result of

[130:02]

thinking about other possibilities, other stories to my story. So in this process, the thinking was my story, the not thinking was my story, the antidotes to my story, the other possibilities, and realizing the emptiness of them all and a process with non-thinking? Let's say, I would say yes. You would? I would. A particular, unique example of it. Congratulations. So, your story sounds a little bit like Peter's. Some liberation from your story. by through caring for it, and was to actually be able to play with it a little bit.

[131:07]

There was some play in the story, to let some other stories come in and play with it. And pretty soon it's hard to tell which story was the story. And then that's compassion to flow through the ocean of stories. And to understand that in my story there was delusion and could be delusion in all these other possibilities. Yes, that too, right. And to compassionately embrace all these varieties of delusion. But actually kind of giving them away. Well, that's part of compassion, is give them away. Not throw them away, give them away. I have a bag of delusions I can give you. But not anymore. Thank you very much.

[132:02]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_85.73