In the Mahayana scriptures, there is often a description of the virtues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. There's also a description of the virtues of other beings. Buddhas are living in the world of truth. They're completely intimate with reality. And from this intimacy, from this unconstructed stillness of truth, great blessings flow forth from and through the Buddhas.

[01:15]

Great teachings and great blessings and kindnesses flow to all beings. And although these blessings are described, it is also pointed out that this description doesn't really reach, doesn't scratch the surface of the fullness, the completeness of the Buddha's workings. that even if all the Buddhas with their great skill and kindness would try to measure the virtues of a Buddha, they would never be able to do so.

[02:19]

They would never be able to measure or describe it completely. But they could say a little, and we can say a little about Buddhas. We can also say a little about how good some people are and how good some animals are and so on. And... in the teaching of the ancestor Ehe Dogen, he also sometimes mentions the virtues of the Buddhas and mentions how they're inconceivable and immeasurable. Or in other words, how the measuring never really encompasses the topic.

[03:24]

And he also speaks of the merit of a practice which he calls zazen and he also calls, sometimes he says, just sit, or he sometimes calls it dropping off body and mind. And this practice, this form of practice, actually not this form of practice, but this practice which no form can describe, cannot be measured, its virtues cannot be measured. The virtues of this practice of Zazen cannot be measured, just like the virtues of Buddhas cannot be measured fully. So there is a Zazen which is basically the same as Buddha.

[04:31]

There is a Zazen which is basically the unconstructed stillness of immediate realization from which all blessings flow. There are other kinds of activities which human beings can be involved in. which are also which are virtuous and blessed and blessed they're blessed and they bring blessing for example we can practice giving and we can practice bodhisattva precepts and we can practice concentration and the virtues of concentration practice are great however in a sense they're measurable.

[05:35]

You can measure the virtues and merit of concentration and it's a wonderful practice. But it doesn't reach the virtues of the Buddha's sitting. It has a form and the form can be measured and described. It has qualities. It's an experience. You can experience the form and its experience can be and is described in detail in experiential terms. but it doesn't reach the inconceivable, immeasurable practice of the Buddhas.

[06:45]

However, if we practice some form of light concentration, if we practice just sitting and we also understand while we're practicing sitting that this sitting does not reach the reality of sitting. We practice the form of seated Buddha, of Buddha sitting. We sit like a Buddha and that has a form, and the sitting we do, the form of the sitting we do, which is like a seated Buddha, doesn't reach the heart of seated Buddha. But if we sit wholeheartedly in the form of seated Buddha, knowing that this form does not reach

[08:04]

the heart of seated Buddha. This is called body and mind dropping away. The willingness to give yourself to a form of practice which doesn't reach the heart of the form of practice allows body and mind to drop away. To wholeheartedly sit, knowing that this form of sitting does not reach the essence of sitting, allows the form to be illuminated by the reality of the Buddha's sitting. Although our sitting can't reach it, if we practice it anyway, wholeheartedly, it illuminates our practice.

[09:18]

So Dogen Zenji used the form, the ceremony, the form and ceremony of sitting posture as a way to relate to the inconceivable virtues of the Buddhas. He had a contemporary in Japan named Nichiren. another monk who used the form of facing the calligraphy which says Namu Myoho Rengekyo, Namu Myoho Rengekyo, which faces the calligraphy which says homage to the Lotus of the true Dharma and look at it and say it, say Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.

[10:42]

That practice, that form, he used as a form, as a ceremony to relate to the true Dharma of the Lotus Sutra. Now I don't know if he taught his students this, but I would say that practicing that form, knowing that this form doesn't reach, the form of Namo Myoho Renge Kyo doesn't reach the Lotus Sutra's heart, allows the heart of the Lotus Sutra to reach the practice of Namo Myoho Renge Kyo. And also at that same time another important Buddhist master named Shinran taught a way to relate to the inconceivable Buddha is to say the Buddha's name.

[11:49]

But again to understand that saying the Buddha's name does not reach the heart of Buddha. Understanding that allows the heart of Buddha to illuminate everything, including Namo Amitabha Buddha, Namo Amida Buddha, Namo Amida Butsu, Namo Amida Butsu. Using that form wholeheartedly, knowing that this form does not reach the heart of Amida Buddha, body and mind drops away in this practice. So if you wish to follow your breathing, if you wish to be mindful of your breathing, this could be an enactment of the Buddha's teaching, because the Buddha did teach mindfulness of breathing.

[12:54]

And if at the same time that you're being mindful of your posture or your breathing, you also understand that this practice, this form of practice, does not reach the teacher who taught it as a way to relate to the teacher who taught it. It's a way to relate to the teacher who taught it, which is, I'm practicing this way, but this way doesn't reach the heart. And in that way, I allow the teacher in. this inconceivably wonderful way of wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas is not an experience.

[13:58]

But we have experiences. We human beings are experiential creatures. We have experience after experience. But our experience can be measured. And to wholeheartedly live our experience moment by moment, to live this experience right now wholeheartedly, while realizing that this experience doesn't reach the realm of Buddhas, lets the realm of Buddhas illuminate our realm of experience. So practicing concentration is a wonderful, virtuous, experiential practice. But it's measurable. It's conceivable. It's limited. And this is part of our life. To wholeheartedly practice concentration during this session within

[15:05]

knowing that this practice does not reach the Buddhas allows the Buddhas to enter this practice. Or another way to say it is to practice this concentration in the midst of the practice of giving. That you give up body and mind and you give up the practice of concentration knowing that it does not reach the virtues of the Buddha. Again, that is practicing concentration and body and mind dropping away. Just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind. just wholeheartedly sit, understanding that this form of sitting doesn't reach the sitting of the Buddha.

[16:14]

That way is dropping off body and mind. This is the same as practicing concentration without trying to get concentrated. you're practicing concentration as a gift. You're practicing concentration as letting go of body and mind. You're practicing concentration knowing that this practice does not reach the real practice. To do this practice knowing that it doesn't reach the real practice allows the real practice to take over this practice. And it makes this practice really easy when we allow the real practice to take over and lift it up and carry it forward. This is the same as to say practicing the form of the carved dragon, knowing that the carved dragon doesn't reach the real dragon,

[17:33]

allows the real dragon to come. If we practice the carved dragon, all day long we're carving dragons. If we practice the carved dragon of sitting and think it's the real dragon, then we're doing the carved dragon in a tight, closed way, and we're pushing the real dragon away. but to wholeheartedly do the carved dragon practice, knowing that it doesn't reach the real dragon. The real dragon not only comes, because it's already here, but it enters, and we enter it. We enter it by knowing that the form we're using doesn't enter it. wholeheartedly embracing and sustaining the sitting posture, the walking posture, the bowing posture, the eating posture.

[18:49]

Knowing that these do not reach allows what they don't reach to illuminate. Another way to say this is this is to wholeheartedly practice the forms and ceremonies within delusion because the forms and ceremonies are gifts to us to practice in delusion. The delusion of formed. So sometimes you might say, I don't want to wholeheartedly practice in delusion, I want to wholeheartedly practice in enlightenment. That's understandable, but that doesn't necessarily work in the best way. I have a deluded impression of what Zen is, and I'm going to practice that wholeheartedly. I'm going to use my deluded version of Zen, my carved version of Zen,

[20:00]

And I'm going to practice it wholeheartedly, knowing that it's delusion, knowing that it's in illusion, knowing that it's just a little carved dragon, and knowing that body and mind are dropping away. But if I'm half-hearted in the practice, then the part of me that's not participating is still thinking that this is a real practice. And some people say, again, my practice is just sitting, but another way to say it is my practice is just body and mind dropping away. So if you practice concentration, that's fine, and then practice concentration as body and mind dropping away.

[21:05]

If you have an unconcentrated practice of concentration, then that's the practice which doesn't reach the Buddhist practice. If you have a concentrated practice of concentration, that's the practice that doesn't reach the Buddhist practice. In either case, no matter how concentrated you are, you can still give your concentration away. You can still make your concentration a gift to all beings, but also just give it away. Give it away by realizing, by understanding, by admitting, it's just a limited experiential version of my life, which I'm taking good care of. So once again, intimacy with delusion, intimacy with the forms and ceremonies of concentration and so on, opens to intimacy with reality, with the real formless practice of the Buddhas.

[22:24]

And once more, if one wishes to practice concentration during Sashim, that will bring blessings to this world. Well, I shouldn't say it will. If you practice concentration skillfully, it will bring blessings to the world. If you practice concentration and get angry for not getting concentrated and blame your neighbor and start punching him, that won't bring blessing. But if you practice concentration skillfully, you know, and actually become concentrated. That brings blessings to the world. That's good. But if along with that you make your concentration moment by moment a gift, then the benefits are inconceivably greater. If you practice concentration together with the bodhisattva vows, it makes the concentration practice, at whatever level of skill is attained, it makes the concentration practice inconceivably more beneficial.

[24:05]

If you practice concentration and keep in mind your relationship with the Buddhas, namely that your practice doesn't reach their heart and that you humbly admitting that and remembering that allows their light to reach your heart. Remembering that makes your concentration practice extremely more beneficial. So it makes the benefit increase tremendously if you do open your practice up to your relationship with infinite Buddhas and bodhisattvas and sentient beings. However, your practice does reach the heart of sentient beings. That your practice can reach because you're a sentient being and your practice does reach you.

[25:14]

So your practice does reach the relatively, yeah, the limited, the more or less, the relatively more or less amount of virtue of sentient beings. Our practice does reach that. So you're like pretty good at concentration and pretty good at giving and pretty good at honesty and pretty good at kindness. in a kind of limited way and that reaches the way other people are pretty good. But to open it up is also possible simply by realizing this is very little what I'm doing here. This is just a little thing and it doesn't reach the big thing. I'm willing to be little and I'm willing to be wholeheartedly little It's not bad to be little.

[26:17]

It's reality. I'm kind of into littleness. My life is something that a human being can experience. Hey, that's where I'm at. I'm a little guy. And I'm totally okay with that. And because of that, these enormous, inconceivably huge and all-pervasive Buddhas are like totally coming in and taking care of me. And they always were. But when I wasn't willing to be a little guy, I kind of pushed him away because I wanted to pretend like I was a big guy like them. But now I'm ready to be a little guy and receive this wonderful assistance from the unlimited big guys and gals. and be wholehearted about my littleness. To be really like, oh, this little sitting I'm doing right now, this little tiny, wonderful little virtuous sitting I'm doing wholeheartedly.

[27:17]

No problem of how little it is. No problem that it is an experience. It's not the state. It's not the realm of the real dragon. It's just a wonderful little experience of the carved dragon. Thinking about the carved dragon and the big dragon. So we all have a chance now to do our little wholesome practices wholeheartedly and remember how little they are. And get, you know, really comfortable with them being little and, yeah, confined, limited and so on. Wonderful, but little. Wonderful, but not reaching the fullness of what surrounds us all day long.

[28:20]

And that lets the fullness in. That way of being opens to the fullness, the completeness. that way directly indicates the complete, the absolute. Any feedback to offer? Oscar.

[29:27]

Could you open that mat up and put it over there, please? In case anybody wants to use it. Thank you. I've heard it said that Bodhicitta is a great Encouragement to the practice. You've heard it said that bodhicitta is a great encouragement to the practice? Yes. Or sometimes the seed of the practice. The seed of the practice. And I've also heard, and I think I heard you say today, that insight into the true nature of things generates blessings. And I think one of them would be, and I'm thinking one of them would be bodhicitta, for instance.

[30:30]

Yeah. So my question is, Does that insight and bodhicitta, do they arise simultaneously or does one arise before the other necessarily? They arise simultaneously. Bodhicitta is born together with insight. Bodhicitta is born originally bodhicitta is born as a human experience perhaps. For a human, it's born for you as a human experience and it's born when you're in communion with Buddha. So when you have some insight and a little bit of insight of your relationship with Buddha, there's some insight there, then with that insight, in that communion with Buddha, bodhicitta arises. And then continuing to pay attention to this relationship

[31:38]

the bodhicitta grows and grows with more insight into the communion with Buddha and more insight with the communion of Buddha. And then the bodhicitta grows and [...] finally becomes the fruit, not just the seed. And the fruit is not an experience of bodhicitta. It's the actual bodhicitta. So we experiential beings sometimes have insight of our relationship to the non to the Buddha state, to the Buddha realm, to the way Buddhas are. Not the experience of Buddhas, but the Buddhas. We have an insight into that, and when we do, bodhicitta is born of that communion through that insight, or that insight through that communion. That's the beginning, that's the seed. And then again, it grows and grows and grows until finally it reaches its full fruit, a flowering in fruit, as not just an experience of our relationship with the Buddhas, of our wanting to be, of experience of us wanting to realize Buddhahood for welfare of all beings, but the actual state of realizing Buddha for the welfare of all beings.

[32:59]

But the original rising happens together with insight into relationship with that which we wish to realize. They rise together. Buddha doesn't make you have bodhicitta. You don't make yourself have bodhicitta. Bodhicitta arises out of you and Buddha in communion. And we're already in communion with Buddha, but the communion All of us are in communion with Buddha, but for some people the communion is not yet sufficient for this bodhicitta to arise. And at some point the time is there, and then it's with the insight. Nagarjuna says, when you have insight into impermanence, bodhicitta arises. But insight into impermanence is the same as insight into your relationship to the one who teaches impermanence.

[34:05]

So communion with impermanence is communion with Dharma. Communication with the Dharma is communication with the Buddha. So it's through this relationship that we all start to awaken to the mind which wishes to realize our true relationship. Thank you for your question. You said that we sit and offer as a gift our sitting and our form to Buddha, but that doesn't reach Buddha.

[35:29]

Is that what you said? I said the form of our sitting, our experience of our sitting. You know, when we're sitting, our sitting is not just our experience of our sitting. My experience of my sitting is not my sitting. It's just my experience of it. When I'm sitting, you also have an experience of me sitting. But your experience of me sitting is not my sitting. But obviously, since you have an experience and I have an experience of my sitting, mine isn't it. And yours isn't it. And you add up all of our experiences, and that's not even it. But anyway, I do have a form of sitting that I experience. That doesn't reach my sitting. My sitting, the reality of my sitting is actually the reality of Buddha sitting. And so my experience of my sitting doesn't reach the reality, the heart of my own sitting. Now, to be aware of that and continue to sit

[36:35]

in this awareness of my limited sitting is body and mind dropping away. To continue to sit with the awareness that my experience of my sitting doesn't reach the heart of Buddha's sitting or my sitting opens to my sitting being fully illuminated by the reality of my sitting. This is the same as to say to sit wholeheartedly, realizing this is a limited sitting here I'm aware of, and give that away. Because giving that away to Buddhas is the same as body and mind dropping away. Making my little experiential version of my sitting as an offering to Buddhas helps me realize the merits of Buddhas, which are beyond my experience.

[37:37]

If you want to realize the immeasurable virtues of Buddhas, then give every moment of practice to the Buddhas, which is the same as make every moment of practice body and mind dropping away. Body and mind dropping away is another way to say, make your life, make your experience an offering to the Buddhas. And Buddha, you said the Buddhas then reach us as we sit, rather than... Well, they always reach us. Buddhas are always reaching us, but we don't necessarily experience the illumination of their reach. Their hand is always coming out to us, but we're not necessarily open to it. The way we're open to it is to think of the Buddhas, In other words, to think of reality and realize that this form doesn't reach it. That opens the door for us for it to illuminate us and make us realize, oh, it does reach us.

[38:40]

It is illuminating us. But this experience isn't it. This experience is what is illuminated by admitting that this experience is just an experience. It's not the state of the Buddhas. But we have to be wholehearted about our limited efforts in order that the wholeheartedness is part of it. Wholeheartedness and limitedness together. Is the reason that the form of the sitting doesn't reach the actuality of the sitting that it's completely within it? So if something is within something, it can't reach it. That is another conceivable version of why it's so.

[39:48]

And if you... wholeheartedly go ahead and have those kinds of reasons, realizing that if they don't reach the heart of the reason, the reason will illuminate that very theory. But, you know, it's still a nice theory. But in order for it to work in practice, you have to remember it's a theory. Anything we say... Anything we experience. ...doesn't reach it, but anything we say is within that which we can't say. Yeah, always moving in that space. All our little, all these theory-making people, you know, all these little theory-making machines that we are, theory-making machines dash delusion machines, we're operating within this total reality, which is pulling us into illumination.

[40:55]

And we got this message from reality saying, if we would keep admitting that we're deluded and that we're theory makers and be wholehearted about theory making, but don't be half-hearted about theory making, otherwise you sort of think, well, if I was more wholehearted, I'd probably have a better theory that really would work. This wasn't that good a theory, but that's just because I wasn't really making much effort. Basically, theories could reach reality if I was smarter or something, or if I took cocaine or something. So it seems I can imagine a kind of a danger in these very discussions and Dharma talks. You can imagine a danger? Yeah, there's the fact that we... that such discussions, even trying to clarify the matter, is all kind of off.

[41:58]

You can say it's off or you can say it's delusion, but to wholeheartedly go ahead and clarifying... To do it. I mean, you have to do it, but it's good to do it. To wholeheartedly make an effort to clarify these delusions while remembering that they're delusions is very generous. You're making this effort, but you're also giving it away by saying, well, all this is delusion, but I'm totally wholeheartedly practicing it. And it'll never be clarified in the realm of discussion except in an inconceivable way. But it can be illuminated by that which is constantly surrounding it if we wholeheartedly practice within delusion, within the awareness that what we're doing doesn't reach what's most important to us. And that illumination will not be experienced in the discussion?

[43:00]

You can have an experience of the illumination, but the experience of the illumination is not the illumination. And experiences of illumination are wonderful. People who have them are very happy about it. But it's not the point. It is a point, but it's just not the Buddha. It's not the Buddha's wisdom. Because there's still a little bit of separation there in experiencing the illumination. But such clarifying discussions as we might be doing now aren't any more beneficial than watching a cloud in the sky. The thing that makes more or less beneficial is the more or less wholeheartedness and more or less concentration on the limited quality of our discussion. And some discussions, however, because they require so much attention, You know, some discussions are impossible to do half-heartedly.

[44:03]

So you'll see some monks who are, what they're doing, they could only be concentrated having that conversation, you know. It's like somebody who is, what, that guy going from one World Trade Center tower to the other one, you know, that French guy who walked, do you know about that? No. This French guy and his friends put a cable from the top, when they were building those towers, they put a cable from the top of one to the other, and this guy walked across from one tower to the other and was up there for half an hour or so on. So, you know, no question about his wholeheartedness. You can't be half-hearted and do that kind of thing. And, of course, he was very concentrated in that. But then, at that same time, remember that this is a delusion. of me standing up on this wire above the World Trade Center with, you know, making history and all that. This doesn't reach the truth of what I'm doing right now. Remember that too. So some people could think, realize the limited and diluted quality of their thinking, which is correct, but they're not wholehearted in the thinking.

[45:14]

And in half-hearted activity we can't appreciate the illumination. And also, we don't really believe the delusion, because we're half-hearted about it. We're not really giving ourselves completely, in your case, to the effort to clarify something. So it's not so much the topic, but how can we with such and such a topic really be wholehearted? And some very simple things are very difficult to be wholehearted about. It's easier to be wholehearted when you're tightrope walking, for most people, than when you're walking on the ground when you're like, you know, more than two or three years old. When you first watch a baby walk, At that moment, when they're first learning, they're really wholehearted. Then later it gets easy. You can daydream while you're walking.

[46:17]

So then you're walking, but you're not as wholehearted as you were when you first did it. So if we're halfhearted, it's like we think that if we were wholehearted, in the back of our mind we might think, if we were wholehearted, that would reach it. Yeah. Whereas if we're wholehearted, we realize that it doesn't reach it. Well, if we're wholehearted and already admit that it doesn't reach it. It's almost like wholeheartedness reveals that fact. Yeah. So that's another approach is think that you're living in reality and be wholehearted about it. That's called, what is Oscar Wilde, I think, says that's really being wholeheartedly foolish. I'm wholeheartedly living in reality. If you push that far enough, you'll get to the same place. But it's called insanity or foolishness.

[47:22]

But if you could be insane and somehow you had the ability to really be insane all the way, in other words, think that your version of what's going on here is reality and really push that, it's a much more dangerous path, but you might be able to get there. That path in some ways is better for writing novels on that kind of guy. Rather than humble Zen monk who says, yes, I know this is delusion. I'm trying to be wholehearted about it. Sometimes I think that might be more fun, going back to writing novels. Did you hear what she said? Huh? It was a secret. Never mind. It wasn't the question.

[48:22]

She said sometimes she thinks it'd be more fun to go back to write novels. How about going back to be a character in a novel? One of the crazy ones. That would be good too. I like that. Maybe this relates to my question after all. You said, I think, that our practice does reach the heart of sentient beings. Yeah. And I was really startled by that. So I was going to ask... Our experiential practice. Our experiential practice. Our experience of our practice reaches the heart of sentient beings because that's what sentient beings are, is they're experiencers who think that's what's going on. They're built that way. So does that mean that in that, okay, I have an experience of practice and I have a story that I can tell about it and I can tell it to Luminous Owl and he can recognize and hear the story?

[49:25]

Is that what that means? Even before you tell somebody else, the fact that you have a story, that's the heart of a sentient being. So, because I have a story, and that's my story in my heart. You've reached the heart. And you all are sentient beings, and I can express it to all of you. Well, just start with yourself, first of all. You're a perfectly good sentient being to reach the heart of. So if you have an experience of whatever... And I'm aware of it, and I have a story of it. Yeah, you have just reached the heart of you. Because that's what you are. You are like a story. You're a story and a storyteller. So it's reaching... And then if you think that your story is true, then all the more you've reached the heart of a sentient being, because sentient beings believe their stories are true. So then you're like totally reaching the heart of a sentient being. Right. And... Yes, go on. Well, I think it's the first time I've heard you use the expression about reaching...

[50:27]

what's there or what, you know, that such and such does not reach reality. This is the first time I've heard you say such and such reaches something. Yeah, it reaches, it doesn't reach reality, it reaches a sentient being. Right, so the sentient being's not reality. They're kind of not reality, right. Sentient beings are beings that think they're not connected to everything. So, but there is the reality of our dependently arising existence together. Right, and that... That is not reached. That's right. That's not an experience. Right. That's not reached by experience. So a story I tell doesn't reach that, but it reaches my storytelling ability and somebody else's storytelling ability. And what the experience of storytelling is and what the experience of believing stories is, because that's really important, because Buddhists do care about people who are suffering because of their stories. That's part of it. They're really into it. They want to help people that are in that situation.

[51:31]

So we want to use stories to reach suffering beings, to liberate suffering beings and ourselves from stories. Yeah. Liberating beings are suffering because they're caught in their stories, and we use stories to help liberate the suffering beings from their stories. So in this way, our practice and experience, that's how it reaches sentient beings. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Yesterday I was reading a book by a Tibetan lama, and in it he professed that mindfulness and compassion are directly correlated, that the more we practice mindfulness, the more compassionate we become, and vice versa.

[52:32]

And I wondered if you agree with that, and if you would talk a little bit about how that would be the case. I agree with it. compassion needs some mindfulness. You have to be aware that there's some suffering. And then also kind of like be there with it a little bit. So mindfulness isn't just like briefly noticing something. It's noticing it and it's also remembering it and it's also being, you know, ardent about noticing it, and it's also being like alert to how it's happening right now.

[53:34]

So when it comes to suffering, you know, and you're actually mindful of the suffering, that's compassion. Because you're not just like, oh yeah, they're suffering. It's more like, they're suffering right now. And I'm really paying attention to it. I mean, I'm really like giving my heart to being aware of this suffering. Because I'm giving my heart to be aware of the clouds in the sky, too. So I'm really warmly paying attention to my experience, and I'm doing it in the present, and I'm remembering to do it, and I'm really trying to be clear about it with everything. But now when it comes to pain, If I'm that way with pain, I will be compassionate. Now if I'm compassionate, I will want to be that way with pain too. So if I'm mindful with pain, I'll be compassionate.

[54:37]

And if I'm compassionate with pain, I will be mindful. But, you know, it can be mindful of some things that like being mindful of happiness doesn't give rise to compassion. So mindfulness doesn't always, in every moment, doesn't make compassion arises. But mindfulness with suffering, and that's often the case that we have suffering, so mindfulness of suffering will Well, do that. But you can say, well, but if you look at something, eventually you'll see the mark of suffering. So then if you're mindful of that, that will give rise to compassion. So I don't know if it's always the case that mindfulness is giving rise to compassion. Sometimes mindfulness is giving rise to wisdom because you're not so much looking at suffering right now. Not everything is the object of compassion. Or if you're looking at a Buddha, you wouldn't necessarily feel compassion for the Buddha if you were mindful.

[55:43]

But under the phenomena of suffering beings, compassion would entail mindfulness, and mindfulness would bring up compassion. I agree. Does that make sense? I would like to ask about wholeheartedness. It seems to me that once we start doing something, we're doing it because we have to do that. And the illusion is the half-heartedness, not the wholeheartedness. It seems to me we can't do anything without not being wholehearted. Could you hear that? He says, it seems to me that we can't do anything without being wholehearted.

[56:50]

And do I agree with that? So apparently it's not so clear to you that I agree with that. Yes, I agree, you can't really do anything half-heartedly. Everything you do is wholehearted. But if you don't practice wholeheartedness, you might miss it. What do you mean by not practicing? Well, for example, not think about wholeheartedness at some point. And if somebody says to you, do you want to practice wholeheartedly, and you sincerely say no, then you might miss that you wholeheartedly said no. Similarly, I say you're always wholehearted in everything, all your activities wholehearted, but if you don't practice it, you might not realize it. You're always being generous, but if you don't practice generosity, you might not realize it. So we have to practice in order to realize reality.

[57:53]

So the realization of reality requires the practice of reality. The realization of wholeheartedness requires the practice of wholeheartedness. So we're talking about a practice to realize the way things already are. Like I was saying the day before yesterday, most of these practices are just about the way things already are. But we have to do them to realize the way things are. I have to think about it a little bit. Pardon? I have to think about it a little bit. Go right ahead. Thank you very much. Thank you. And you'll do it wholeheartedly. I will. Thank you. To carry yourself forward and experience many things is delusion. that many things bring themselves forward or... I knew I was going to get this one.

[59:04]

It's okay. Many things come forward and... Experience themselves as enlightenment. Or that many things come forward and realize you as enlightenment. So is this what we're talking about when we're talking about not reaching the heart of Buddha's The heart of Buddhism? Yes, it is. It sounds, when I look at this quotation, both halves of it sound very similar and it's easy for me to get confused in it. They're similar, yeah, because they both are pivoting on the self. So to have the self and to carry it forth to realize things is delusion. For things to come forth and realize the self is enlightenment. So the self's there in both cases.

[60:04]

Just in one case, the self is a priori, and in a sense separate from the things. Like, I got a self, now I'm going to put the self on things, rather than things come, and that's the self. So in the second one, the self's there, but it's just the coming of the things. It's not something in addition to the coming of things. The first one sounds like there's a self in addition to the things that it's going to be practicing relationship to. So that's delusion. But another nice thing about the way Dogen writes that is he puts the delusion in quotes. But he doesn't put enlightenment in quotes, maybe he should, but he puts delusion in quotes because that's what's called delusion because there really isn't such a thing as you practicing on the world. It's really just the world which totally gives rise to you. But again, remember, the Buddha way is not enlightenment in this case.

[61:07]

It's the leaping beyond delusion and leaping beyond enlightenment. It's the leaping. It's not just to be on one side of that turning. And the leaping is continuous. And the leaping really is continuous, yeah. Continuously going beyond delusion to enlightenment, beyond enlightenment to delusion. Continually turning and going beyond, not just kind of like, okay, now I got it and I'm over on the enlightened side, I'm going to stay there. Keep going beyond that too. When I was a little girl, I was around a lot more people who talked about God and less people who talked about Buddha.

[62:26]

And I remember going through that phase where I imagined God as an old man with white hair and then eventually kind of grew out of that and started realizing that God is everything or that there is no human embodiment type thing. limited visualization of God. And that was very helpful to me to kind of get past the old man with white hair. Unless I was looking at an old man with white hair who is particularly godlike. But the same could happen with an old woman or A young woman or anything. An old woman with dark hair. Yeah, yeah. So my question is about carved dragons. Yes. And I think that I'm kind of being a little girl again because when I think about the real dragon, I think about a dragon-looking thing or like a...

[63:30]

something that looks like a carved dragon, but is vast and huge with, I don't know, not really white hair, but white fur, white feathers. I don't know what dragons have. And maybe the same is, I think about, when I think about Buddhas, reaching the heart of Buddhas, I think about people looking things those people that we have on our altars, kind of. So I wondered if you think there's a... Do you think of people-looking things when you think of Buddhas? Or dragon-looking things when you think of dragons? Or kind of... Yeah. Me? What do I think of? Yeah, yeah. I don't so often think of the people-looking Buddhas. I don't so much, no. Okay. Okay. But I look at statues, which are people-looking statues, and I think that Buddha can take the form of a human being.

[64:42]

But I also know that Buddha can take the form of mountains and rivers. But I also know that all those forms are not the real Buddha. The real face of Buddha is radiance. And the radiance is the radiance of how we're helping each other. So I'm mostly, I think, more of that beneficence, inconceivable mutual assistance, which is radiant. But I'm happy to think we're taking some form. That's lovely too. But I do think of forms of practice a lot, bodily forms, verbal forms, mental forms. I think of those, but I don't think those are Buddha. I think those are what I'm devoted to in order to realize the real Buddha. I like the act of reverence toward one thing, kind of bringing about reverence for all things.

[65:59]

And maybe that's, to me, the story of why we have things on the altar, whether it's a person sitting cross-legged or flowers that remind me that all flowers are Buddha. So we reverent to a male form, to bring reverence to female forms, reverence to female forms to bring reverence to male forms, reverence to male and female forms to bring reverence to forms beyond gender. So all these things understood as to open up the gates of compassion. But it's tricky because once you focus, you know, there's a great power in focusing on a particular image, and there's a danger of becoming narrow and sticking there. So we have to be careful of that. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, so like in Soto Zen we have sitting.

[67:25]

In the Nichiren school they have paying homage to the Lotus Sutra, to the name of the Lotus Sutra. In the Pure Land school they have homage to the Amitabha Buddha. So these forms are ways for people to concentrate and get focused and develop group energy, which is very helpful. But they all are in danger of becoming narrow and thinking that this is the only way. And so we have to be careful of that and open up a conversation with the other forms. That's the nice thing about practicing the Buddha Dharma in California is there's lots of other forms of Buddha Dharma practice around for us to converse with, even if we don't talk to them, to be aware that they're there and people are finding them helpful. So maybe those are also good ways.

[68:29]

And so in our heart we're conversing with them and respecting them. and supporting them and feeling supported by them, that they help us by being different I have, well, actually, it just occurred to me, thinking of wholeheartedness. Is this okay? Can you hear me? If someone falls and breaks a leg and it gets, you know, operated on and everything, and it begins to heal, and is it healing now? wholeheartedly can you be wholehearted about more than one activity at a time i kind of feel that the body and mind are all one so i'm i don't know i'd like to know what you think i think that the buddha way is wholeheartedness and so uh someone who gets hurt and gets

[69:38]

treated or and heals or someone who gets hurt and gets treated and doesn't heal they're both wholeheartedly the way they're both wholehearted is the buddha way the person who it doesn't work and the person who the person who doesn't heal their their path is the wholeheartedness of their path is the buddha way the way they're practicing together with all beings is the same practice as the way the other person's practicing together with all beings. Everybody's practicing together with all beings is the Buddha way. But some people the way it happens is that they get injured or sick and then they recover and then later they die. But everybody, when everybody gets sick they're actually wholeheartedly sick on the Buddha way. On the way of sentient beings, it looks like some people are wholehearted and others aren't.

[70:42]

Looks like some people are suffering and other people aren't. It looks like people have different practices, and they're better at this and worse at that. That's the world of human delusion, which we respect. and care for. And that respect and care opens our eyes to the wholeheartedness of all the different sentient beings who do not realize it. But the broken leg, my other question, the broken leg, that's not a delusion. The broken leg is just a broken leg. But what you think about it is not the broken leg. And what I think about it is not the broken leg. But if I believe that my view of the broken leg is the broken leg, that's a delusion. Right. And I do believe it. I beg your pardon? And I do believe it, so I'm deluded. But I'm not saying I'm afraid to admit that I have a story about the broken leg and that I believe it and I'm deluded.

[71:51]

And I want to be wholehearted with my delusion about the broken leg. And that will open me to realize the wholeheartedness of my broken leg. My broken leg is a wholehearted broken leg. And if you were, at the same time as your leg is healing, you're doing something on the computer which isn't related to that healing. It is related to the healing. It may, in a way, may be related to the healing is that it's slowing the healing down. But it's related to the healing. Things that interfere with something are also related to that thing. Right. All right. Here's a sticky microphone hand. I notice when you talk about Buddha can inhabit or embody as a mountain or a rock or a tree, that I stumble over that language.

[73:23]

I think because I've been hearing you talk about Buddha as how everything is inconceivably connected, So to say, a tree or a mountain or a rock, it starts to sound like a consciousness embodying, choosing to embody a particular object, which doesn't seem to make sense to me. I don't mean a consciousness embodying an object, I mean the Dharma, the interdependence of all things, embodied as a thing. In other words, a mountain is the embodiment of dependent core arising. So all mountains are such. Yes, all mountains. Not just sort of like the ones in California. Right, the pretty ones. And the mountains in Iowa don't. Don't put mountains. I mean, I could see a particularity in... They call them molehills.

[74:25]

...of a person seeing some kind of experience of looking at a particular mountain, and there could be awakening in that experience, but it's not that. That seems something different. All the mountains are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhists, all of them. All the time. Yeah, all the mountains. But also the mountains of the immediate present. So if a person isn't present, then it's hard for them to receive the teaching of the mountains, all the mountains, every mountain, each mountain, each mountain, each river. They're all teaching. They're all manifesting the path and teaching the Dharma. But we have to be present with them to allow our life to be illuminated. So Buddha does, you could say, does embody mountains and it can be awakened to, in a sense.

[75:32]

Yes. The enlightenment of Buddhas is emanating and and influencing the mountains and then it bounces off the mountains back to Buddhas and back to sages and ordinary people. And ordinary people then bounce it back to the mountains and then it bounces over to the other ordinary people and they bounce over to the Buddhas. The enlightenment of all things is resonating among all living and non-living beings. What is this that's bouncing? The enlightenment of all things. Which is other than the interconnectedness. Same as interconnectedness. So it's always there, it's not necessarily balanced. It is there and is balanced. It is there, but it's also influencing back and forth, it's resonating. And it's also still, it's not moving. It's resonating without moving. We're supporting each other without moving a muscle or moving a particle. So our existence is immediately that we're helping each other and being helped.

[76:39]

That's the Buddha. And that's the enlightenment of everything in the cosmos. That's the way the universe is. I mean, obviously, right? I don't think any physicists would disagree with this. They just want to get into some theories about it. That's all. So they can get a hold of it. Well, that's fine. It helps them be wholehearted about this, the way the universe is working with itself. Does that make better sense to you? It does. Thank you very much. Yeah, what you're having a problem with was not what I was saying. Thank you.

[77:42]

You were speaking before of our practice, our little practice, but it's our practice, and that it doesn't reach ultimate reality. Is that similar to emptiness, that what we're doing we think is a real thing, but it's not? Is it similar to emptiness? Yeah, it is similar. And the way it's similar is that our experience of our own practice does not reach our own practice. Our practice is actually free of our experience of it, of our ideas about it, of our graspable version of it.

[78:54]

Our practice is free of the form of our practice, and that freedom our practice from the form of our practice is emptiness. That form is emptiness. And realizing that is meditating. Meditating on that is meditating on emptiness of our sitting. And as that meditation progresses we open more and more to the reality of our sitting. The reality of our sitting which is emptiness which can take a form. Not take a form, but which has a form that it's the emptiness of. And opening to that, we open to the real dragon. So we can sit on our little, I think of it as a little teapot. Just sort of hanging out there.

[79:58]

Become intimate with it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And do the best, whatever little teapot does. Do the best, practice intimacy with it. Thank you. afraid that if I really hear the answer to this question, I will die. What is the truth of what we're doing here now? Thank you for coming to see me.

[81:07]

Thank you for coming to see me. If you should happen to die, do you want a funeral ceremony? Specify the location you'd like and who you'd like to be the officiant. .

[82:02]

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