Yes. Remembering stillness is easier for me to do in stillness. So to integrate remembering stillness when I'm actively, physically, or socially engaged, without it becoming some manner of... And I don't know if this is just because you have a lot of facility, because you said you were remembering stillness while you were giving a talk. Trying to. Wishing to. So, yes. I would say that, well, first of all I want to say that we, as you know, we sit still.

[01:20]

That when you're sitting still, it's a little easier for you or you feel more successful at remembering stillness when you're literally sitting still. But as you know, after a while, we ring a bell a couple of times, and then we walk. And so that's an opportunity to remember stillness while moving. And so then you learn, oh, this is like stillness, but I'm moving. And then, again, when we... when we start talking, it's particularly difficult, I think, to remember stillness when we're talking. But sometimes we can. So one of the main things, one of the main processes that is encouraged is the process

[02:28]

of expressing, of remembering the aspiration and saying it to ourselves. So if I say, to remember stillness, when I say that, it transforms my body and mind to be more supportive of remembering. And I could also say, especially pray that I will remember stillness when I'm talking. And I pray that I will remember stillness when people are talking to me. I aspire to listen to people when they're talking to me. And while I'm listening, I aspire to remember stillness at the same time I'm listening. Such aspirations transform us into a being who is more ready and likely.

[03:39]

Then also go on to be mindful and remember not just stillness but remember that it's something that's given to us. by reality. In reality, we are in our position and we are actually not moving around. So receive it. You're not doing this all by yourself. The whole universe is giving you your position right now. So receive the gift of being still, which is to receive the gift of being you right now and nobody else. And if you do, to receive this gift and receive this stillness, then you can let practice from there. Which again means you've got the aspiration to remember it, you've received it, and you're in your dharma position. And now from this motion of stillness, now you can see it, you can talk and listen and walk from this stillness, expressing this stillness,

[04:50]

remembering the stillness, receiving the stillness, and making all your actions expressions of it. You'll notice that that's hard and they forget, so then you confess, I got distracted, start over. And this work of wishing to remember and receiving and acting from this place It's a process of transmitting to others. And also they're interacting with you and in some sense challenging you in their dynamic way to see if you can do it in the intense interactions of face-to-face meeting. That challenges us but also helps us go beyond our present level of skill. But part of it is we aspire to practice and we get distracted and we confess we got distracted and we feel sorry, we regret that we got distracted and then we sign up again for the course.

[06:16]

over and over and this process makes us more and more consistent so that someday we'll remember all the time all day long but it takes for advanced people it takes about 45 years I should say for gifted people for very gifted people maybe other people 90 but even to For me, even to be a little more mindful and remember more than I used to, or actually remember once, is wonderful. If you, sometime in your life, remember still, your life is worthwhile. And that sets a seed for remembering it more in the future. So, yeah, and of course we need to be generous and kind to ourself when we forget and patient with our forgetfulness and all that too.

[07:24]

And same with other people when they seem to be distracted from being present. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I'm wondering about remembering stillness and bringing stillness into daily life, or seeing how it's not separate from that collaborative process, but a responsive process that happens in activity that is dynamic. I have a real feeling that in the way that we realize Well, I heard you just say it.

[08:28]

You just described how to do it. So like, it just popped in my mind of going to the doctor's office and, okay, I'm going to go into the doctor's office I'm going to try to collaborate with the doctor. I'm going to collaborate. I'm going to tell the doctor stories. The doctor's going to tell me stories. We're going to tell stories together. Here we go. And if I was a doctor, then I would say, okay, here comes a patient. How can I collaborate with them? How can I remember stillness and have a real conversation with them? And in a way, the patients have their difficulty is that maybe they're sick, maybe not. But in a way, the patients maybe have more time, feel more time than the doctor does. Like the patient may be willing to be with the doctor for half an hour, hour. Some patients are busier than the doctor, so they could, I only have five minutes for you, doc. But a lot of doctors feel like they got a bunch of other patients waiting and they're also behind maybe.

[09:34]

So it's hard for them maybe to remember stillness. But I just recently talked to a doctor who remembers stillness. in his practice with his patients. No pun intended. And so like, it's like each meeting it kind of, it could be like, well here we go. Let's see if we can collaborate. Let's see if I can, like now I'm telling you a story. You told me a story. Are we collaborating? I want to. In stillness, maybe I can see you and I just collaborated. And the next time I meet you, it's kind of like, oh, here we go again. Here's a chance to collaborate with Amanda. Here's a chance to be present with her. Here we go. And it could be challenging, but I want to give it a try over and over, each person. So how have you met the doctors and the doctors?

[10:39]

however your doctor is. Yes. I've known Amanda for quite a long time. I talked to Amanda about the wind bell being like a wind bell hanging in space. And the wind bell doesn't have some agenda like, well, I'm a wind bell and I'm going to move to the right. I'm going to move. when those don't have that agenda, I'm going to move to the north.

[11:44]

But when the wind comes from the west, they might move to the east, but not necessarily because the wind might not be strong enough and they're heavy chimes. But if the wind's right and the chimes move, it's some music, which is actually expressing the relationship between gravity, mass of the chimes, and the wind, and the humidity, and the temperature, all that's coming together. So, you know, when we go see the doctor, we can be like a wind bell. We're there, the doctor is like the wind, and we respond, and also we are like the wind, and we watch the doctor respond, both wind bells, practicing wisdom together. Very flexible and aware. And if both sides have the opportunity to do this, and some patients want to do this, and some doctors want to do this.

[12:53]

Some patients do not have this idea, but if the doctor's practicing it, it can be transmitted to the patient. The doctor may be very busy, but the patient might be an old wise woman, who helps the doctor wake up to the opportunity of meeting her. Not by telling him to, like, slow down, but by, you know, showing him how to be flexible and responsive. And, you know, some doctors might seem to be busy, so you might think, well, the doctor's too busy for me to ask the doctor how his But you still might ask, and they might look irritated. Who knows? I don't have time to get into how I feel. This is about you. That's the sound you get when you maybe give that kind of wind.

[13:55]

But you still are happy to do that and see a lot of that close. Yeah, here we go. Here we go again, taking a chance on love. Presence. Presence is good. And in the presence and in the presence and also in being you might discover clarity. It's harder to discover clarity if you're not present. If you're going away from your situation all the time, it's hard to clearly see it. So presence could be almost like a synonym for... But another aspect of what I mean by stillness is that each moment we are what we are, and we're not the least bit otherwise.

[15:12]

the least bit otherwise. Like right now you're sitting in that chair close to your ear. You're not otherwise. That's your position right now. And you're not, each moment you're not moving from that position. And then things change and you're in a new position. And that's where you are. And everything in the universe is conspiring, is breathing with you that position. you are the whole universe in this form. And you're not moving from that in this moment. Next moment, the universe makes you another person. And as it makes you, you are still. And that's where you are pivoting with the whole universe, right there. And I'm pivoting here. And I'm pivoting with you, you're pivoting with me, and we're both pivoting with everything in our position. but I have to be here to realize how my position is pivoting with yours.

[16:16]

And that requires... I mean, I am what I am, but I don't realize it if I'm not mindful of it, or if I don't sing the song. You know, I am what I am, and I am what I am. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man. You know, I kind of need to sing that song. Uh, in order to realize it. You could have a preconceived idea and you could notice, oh, there's a preconceived idea, like I could think. I thought, I had an idea that that was Marian. I could have that preconceived, I could notice that was a preconceived idea. And I can be still with that preconceived idea and realize that Marian is not my preconceived idea. If I have a preconceived idea, there can be stillness with that.

[17:23]

And in the stillness of that, we have Buddha's activity, which is to liberate me from my ideas about who you are. And you to also be with me while you can enjoy me being free of my ideas of you. Right, that's funny. It's a joy for you if I'm free of my ideas of you. And you might say, except if you think I'm great. I don't want you to be free of those. So I just want to tell you one story, okay? So, is that all right? Just one story. So quite a few years ago, I, together with a yoga teacher, offered a class, a Yoga Zen workshop here at Green Gulch. And at the beginning I went around the room and introduced myself to the participants. To one of them I said, Hello, my name is Rev Anderson. And the person said to me, Hello, my name is Robin Williams.

[18:27]

And then later at dinner, we're going through the buffet line and one of the participants said to me, is that person Robin Williams? Yes. And they said, I thought so. And I thought, well, why did you ask me if it was Robin Williams if you thought so? And they said, well, because it looks like him and I, you know, I wasn't sure if it was him. And we went through that a few times and I thought, was he famous or something? And she said, yeah, he's a movie star. I said, what movies has he made? And then they told me the movie. Oh, I know who that is. And the movie they told me about where I recognized him was called Popeye. Movie Popeye. Anyway, and when I finally got it that Robin Williams was the Robin Williams, then somebody said, welcome to 1985, Reb.

[19:33]

And the yoga teacher, we were doing some poses, some yoga poses, and the yoga teacher went over to him and made some suggestions and he said, in your dreams. Anyway, he was very funny in the retreat. And when I saw him and said, you know, I saw this movie you were in and I really enjoyed it. It was really a Zen message you delivered. And he said, what I am and I am what I am. I said, right. Yes. Yes. signs, and they put the words of the sign at home before they traveled.

[21:04]

They would tell anybody to stay out close to one of their own markets. And they were interested in somewhat provocative words. that they had left a square right in the middle of each of their national signs where they had intended to print a colored photograph of their current president of the United States. And the printer wasn't working. The streets were very crowded, and they were concerned that if they went to page their signs, they might have to get back if they were to want to be on the line to be there. And when they arrived, when they looked at their signs, they said, well, this place might not be nice enough to go through with our plan to print the photograph, even though it was signed.

[22:13]

Right in the middle of their provocative words. I think that's great. No matter who it is, we should be still with our... And that would allow us to see, well, they are that way and they're not that way. So that blank space, I think, opens to revelations and a possibility of a conversation, even though they did make a contribution to the conversation. But there's also an openness. And my leader has learned to say, which I listen to.

[24:04]

I don't tell her not to hate. She says, I hate so-and-so. And So I listen to my wonderful leader talk like that. She does not, as far as I'm concerned, need to learn any better how to hate. And she's learning to remember stillness. I saw this video of her at school. It was, for me, unprecedented to see her act like she acted in that video. So she was sitting at a desk, and the other children were around her, and there was a cupcake with a candle on it, and then the birthday in English. And she was like just sitting still.

[25:06]

I never saw her do that before. Like sitting upright and still. And she wasn't like looking like she was being forced to be still. I think remember stillness, and she did. It was impressive. We can learn this at six, or actually at five at that time. And then she blew it out. And then the teacher said, not yet, and lit it again, and then they sang it in Spanish. And then again she sat there. She remembers stillness all the way through, moment after moment, and then blew it out. And then everybody clapped. But we have this capacity to be present even when we're little people. and nobody's really necessary. And we can do that without being pressured sometimes. And sometimes nobody tells us and we just sit there and enjoy stillness when we're little people.

[26:17]

Yes, Jimmy? Did you say not knowing? You have problems with not knowing? You resist it somewhat? Yeah, karmic consciousness resists not knowing.

[27:33]

And unconscious also... Our karmic sense is not so comfortable not knowing. And our unconscious process also doesn't like not knowing. That's why it feeds us stories all the time as a way to cope with our resistance or discomfort with not knowing. There are some people where there's nothing to know about them. Nobody knows anything about them. But we have a mind which doesn't accept that and makes a story that makes a way to know it. So we naturally resist not knowing. it's scary, like what will happen to us if we don't know. Yeah, I can say a lot about it. Let's see what time is it. Okay. One thing I would like to say is that some years ago,

[28:36]

I think I heard somebody else say this first. Somebody asked somebody, does prayer have a place in Zen? And the person said, I think the person said, our sitting practice, our Zazen practice is prayer. He could have also said, for me, our sitting, or he could have said, for me, my sitting is a prayer. And And I started to think about that. More and more, my sitting is a prayer. So when I sit, this physical posture is like a sign which says, This sitting is wishing for peace. This sitting is wishing for compassion. This sitting is an offering to the enlightened ones and an offering to the welfare of beings. Those are kind of like prayers.

[29:42]

And so I more and more see my sitting and walking and daily life as a prayer, as an expression of a wish and as an offering So both prayer and also offering. And when at the end of our sutra chanting, when we chant scriptures, after we chant them, we say, for example, may all enlightened beings manifest their mirror-like wisdom and witness our dedication. So, at the beginning of our dedication of our service, we pray that great beings will witness our chanting and our offering of our chanting. to them and to the welfare of beings. So prayer is in our practice. That too, that too.

[30:58]

You could say I do trust this practice and I offer my trust. Not only do I trust it, but I make my trust a gift. Well, it depends on the prayer. The prayers that we usually do are for the sake of the fear. So if we're doing a prayer, if we're, you know, if we living beings are doing prayers and wishing for good things and there's fear, that prayer applies to the fear.

[32:05]

We're wishing the fear will receive the benefits that we're wishing for these other things. So the fear is not exactly the prayer, but the fear is what the prayer is living, what the prayer can do at that moment. So when we pray that our practice helps all beings, the beings aren't interfering with the prayer. The beings are the reason for the prayer. Does that make sense? Yeah. If you see me praying and you're afraid or I'm praying and I feel afraid, the prayer is for you and me. That's who it's for. It's for our welfare that the prayer is offered. So the prayer is a prayer and then also the prayer is an offering. And it applies to any kind of resistance or fear that's present with the prayer.

[33:07]

I don't know if we'd keep practicing it, nobody would be resisting it anymore. I would say prayer grows, is nourished by resistance. Resistance is food for prayer. Yes? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I heard from one Catholic priest that there's a fourth kind, which is the prayer of being present.

[34:16]

Also called centering prayer. So like being present. So that's like Zen. Our presence, our stillness is a prayer. And one Catholic priest priests I heard at the fourth time. He mentioned those and added that as a fourth. Yes? So you're practicing silence and stillness with, well, with everything. If you're practicing that long enough, would it inherit in what, well, if somebody's practicing silence and stillness and they got something that they're practicing silence, they're practicing presence with, so eventually someone would realize that there's this thing and then there's not this thing.

[35:25]

Yeah, exactly. And then the liberating activity of Buddhas comes alive at that moment. And that realization the pain and suffering of the situation. And everybody's included in it. Is that right or no? Also, something about not this thing being the rest of the universe? Not the rest of the universe, the universe. In this way. So, let's say you're being present with, for example, a pain. And if you can eventually be wholeheartedly present with the pain, In that stillness with the pain, when it's full, you will see, oh my God, the pain is not pain.

[36:33]

The pain is the whole universe. The entire universe is this pain. The whole universe in the form of this pain. You will discover that in stillness when you can be wholeheartedly still. Another thing that happens when people are still is you get the gift of having your stillness challenged. So people who are still attract people to come and say, oh, that person's still, so that would be a good person to bring my problems to. If somebody's having a hard time, we don't rush to ask them to help us with our problems. We think, they've got enough problems, they move on. We don't necessarily always do that, but And once in a while somebody's having a lot of problems and some wise person comes up to them and says, could I give you some more problems?

[37:37]

And they wake up. But oftentimes if someone seems to be dealing well with their problems, we feel like that would be a good person to bring our problems to. And sometimes when we bring them, that person feels really challenged by this problem we're bringing. And if they can be present with that, then they get rewarded for bringing them more problems. And if they can be present with that, people bring them more. And in that way, their presence becomes more deeper and deeper and more and more wholehearted. And in the wholeheartedness, when they're wholeheartedly present, in other words, when their wholeheartedness is completely the pain, it's not pain. If the pain is a little bit the pain, then the pain is a little bit not the pain. But when it's completely the pain is the pain, when we bring all of our compassion to help us let the pain be completely the pain, there's this great discovery.

[38:43]

we people need other people to get that way. Because we can't challenge ourselves enough with enough variety and enough... Yeah, I think variety seemed to work. But other people bring us... Just like the Buddha, the Buddha brings to us the opportunity to look at our situation from other angles. But the Buddha comes to us as other human beings or animals, like we have rats now at Green Gulch. bring us, you know, they kind of like stimulate us to look at life differently, from different angles. It's kind of, you know, it's difficult to live with rats. Most of us have some difficulty living with rats. Very nice people, like I know some people who just love birds. and they love and they love newts you know they're very careful not to step on newts we have a lot of newts here when it's raining on the paths and so very careful not to step on any newts and maybe they even like mice because we have real tiny little cute mice here and we have rats

[40:19]

And so the rats are coming to get Dharma transmission. Can you be still with me? I'm coming to... Can you look at me from another angle? They're challenging us. They're challenging our practice. How can we relate? It's challenging to relate to rats. I put a have a heart trap out... And at Nobo Temple, where I practice, we don't even use half-heart traps. Some of the people there don't. That's unconscious. I admit I put a half-heart trap out. And then I came back, and the half-heart trap had been tossed about 50 feet away. And not by a human, I don't think. So there's mice, but there's other creatures which are a lot more powerful around here. quite interested in various things.

[41:23]

And they're eating, every night they eat some of my tulips. I'm challenged by these rats. They're challenging me to be still, to remember stillness. Oh, another tulip. Be still, my heart. Thank you, rat. I don't even know if it's rats, but I think it is. I see lots of bunnies around our house. Yeah, many bunnies. Anything else this early afternoon? Yes? Yes? His temple is available for the rats?

[42:31]

Yeah. Well, if Zen Center was for rats, it would be simpler for us. But since it's for people too, it's more complicated because some people have problems with rats. For example, they don't like rats. Like one of the rats out in the bedroom back there climbed into my teapot, my teacup. Some people don't want me to drink out of that cup after the rat went in. So you have to wash the teacup. It makes life, you know, but if we just had rats, that would be nice. But then what about the humans? Should we let them come too? So we have all these challenges. Our wish to remember stillness. And that's how our wish gets stronger, is to keep wishing even though it's getting challenged and we're getting shocked and excited and sometimes disoriented.

[43:37]

I'm sorry, I got disoriented. And again, the more skillful we get, the more challenging gifts will come to us. In a way, the longer you practice, the more subtle, I shouldn't say the more subtle, but the more you notice. And because you practice a long time, you can tolerate noticing more than you could when you first started. If you immediately, when you first start practicing, noticing all the little ways that we don't It would be overwhelming. But after years of practice, we can see how challenged we are, how fragile we are. We're fragile when we first start practicing, but it may be too much to note to be aware of how fragile we are.

[44:40]

As we practice longer, we become more and more open to our fragility. and therefore more and more less at risk for getting defensive. I think the more I'm willing to open to my fragility, that I think that people would open to theirs. And I think that would be good if we open to our fragility. We've got the fragility. We don't have to be more fragile. We're fragile, we're plenty fragile, but we may not be open enough. We may be resisting it or embarrassed about it.

[45:43]

I'm sometimes a little embarrassed by my fragility. I'm sometimes a little bit embarrassed about my fragility. I confess that. And I feel good about confessing it. I don't feel so good about being embarrassed, but I am that way sometimes. I'm encouraged that the Buddha once confessed his embarrassment about his fragility. Before he was Buddha. So before Buddha was Buddha, Buddha was fragile. The historical Buddha. Before the historical Buddha was Buddha, Buddha was fragile. Becoming Buddha, he was fragile. And afterwards he was fragile. But he, after he got over the embarrassment, he was like, okay, I'm just fragile.

[46:44]

And he was completely accepting of it. When he was coming close to his death, he was really fragile. And he didn't seem to be embarrassed about it. But before he was awakened, he was embarrassed about being fragile. And he confessed it. And he got over it. And after that, he was just fragile. like us. And we can learn also to accept our fragility. And that would encourage other people to accept theirs. And this would make a more peaceful world. A lot of people are really trying to stamp out fragility. It's not peaceful because that means stamping out everybody. Even rocks are fragile. The rocks too. Even mountains will crumble.

[47:45]

So we have to get rid of everything. So let's forget that, shall we? Let's like open to our fragility. Share it and encourage other people to open to it. We are fragile. Let's accept it. Okay? Thank you very much.

[48:10]

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