Think of not thinking. And think of not yet thinking. Think of the unborn. How do you think of not thinking? How do you think of not yet thinking? How do you think of be unborn, non-thinking? This is the essential heart of . This is instruction in how to enter into the bodhisattva samadhi.

[01:10]

This isn't the whole of the Bodhisattva Samadhi. Many the sutra tells us about are far beyond this entry. But this is a way for us to verify that we're doing our part to Samadhi. Now, when I think of saying, think of the not yet arisen thinking, or not yet thinking, I don't mean that the not yet arisen thinking is any more not thinking than the other phases of thinking. So another way to say this, after settling, after relaxing into a steady, unmoving sitting position, think of emptiness.

[02:36]

Think of the emptiness of thinking. Think of the emptiness of mind. Settle into the understanding that mind is fundamentally empty. All activities arising from mind are fundamentally empty. settle into an unmoving contemplation of emptiness. Bodhisattva's realization is emptiness.

[03:44]

Those who wish to live for the welfare of the whole world Their realization, their understanding is emptiness. Their heart is compassion, their understanding is emptiness. So they think of emptiness. In other words, they think about how thinking is not thinking. In this way, one can enter the heroic stride samadhi. And in the heroic stride samadhi, the bodhisattva's samadhi elicits emptiness from every meeting. And because of this emptiness, the realization of this emptiness,

[04:53]

the Samadhi person can respond freely and spontaneously and appropriately. Not using thinking, but using the understanding of emptiness to respond well. A person who is firmly established. In other words, in samadhi, with regard to the emptiness of all things, can see straight into people's hearts. And seeing straight into people's hearts is realization of Buddhadharma. You are not it.

[06:02]

It actually is you. You are not this heart. This is another heart. This other heart is from this vision, the appropriate response, comes forth effortlessly, accurately, without any deliberation, is in the samadhi in a beneficial way for all beings. So we talk about being able to follow our thought and wherever it goes be awake and offering a meditation on the details of each thought is a way to verify that we are present and awake with each thought and is a way to verify and look carefully at the thought so that we can

[07:18]

Contemplate the emptiness of every part of the thought and verify our understanding of emptiness. And then extend that understanding, including emptiness. It too is empty. Emptiness is not emptiness. Therefore, we call it emptiness. Part of, in my heart, I've told you, I feel kind of like a little uncomfortable telling you about such a, well, you can say advanced or ultimate practice even to start this practice, even to be able to notice one's thoughts clearly, not to mention all the different phases of it, requires quite a bit of devotion to settling with everything that happens.

[08:39]

So we can see clearly and then examine. And then after examining it takes quite a bit of devotion to like be fluent with this very of mind. And again, to be awake each moment and with all the different turns of each moment, and then the turns with between moments or among moments, never moving, always awake, quite a bit of the mind. And then to be able to investigate and thoroughly analyze these appearances and find that there's no stand that we can take in regard to them and realize their emptiness. This is quite a project.

[09:42]

But then I noticed that Dogen Zenji says in the Fukanza Zenji, which is called the ceremony, or the recommendation of sitting meditation for everyone. Fu means universal or general. that can be understood as this is not an instruction just for the most advanced bodhisattvas. This is an instruction for everybody that wants to be a bodhisattva. This is not just an instruction for monks or professional yogis. It's a suggestion for everybody. In the spirit of giving instruction to advanced yogis.

[10:48]

Certainly this practice is appropriate for advanced yogis, but giving it to all people who want to practice the Mahayana, who want to realize emptiness. There it is, he's giving this instruction, which I see as the way to enter, the essential art of entering into the Mahayana Samadhi. Right. So this soothes my concern that I shouldn't mention something much to the point of the Mahayana because it's so difficult. But I again mention that it is difficult and we have to be very steady and part the practice of heroic effort, part of the practice of energy, the paramita of energy and courage and effort, part of it is to not try something that's too advanced.

[11:57]

So although you're hearing about... don't go too fast. When you hear about this mountain of... this mountain of samadhi range, Be careful at every step of the way. Check your footing. Don't be in a rush. Even though you aspire to something, step by step. What is it? Pick. Step. Pick. Step. You know, when you're climbing a mountain. climbing stick get the stick in the ground and then take a step so you have like one foot and one stick in the ground so like all the time have both feet on the ground have two feet on the ground as you climb the difficult terrain No.

[13:15]

No. So we're trying, we're getting ready, like we're settling into readiness to meditate on emptiness, to see that mind is fundamentally unborn, Hearing this, it sounds pretty clear. Is there anything more I need to say now? Yes.

[14:19]

It sounds challenging and beautiful. I wanted to get through that passion and that passion without people. It's probably good. I don't know. [...] Yes, until you've mastered the samadhi, you can do all the wrong things.

[15:22]

So, that's why, you know, that's why we do all the wrong things. So, until you've mastered the samadhi, you can do all the wrong things. All of them. You can do all of them. All of them. All you've got to do is dial in the conditions and you'll do the wrong things. Wrong everything. I can do anything wrong as long as I... have not mastered, or this samadhi has not mastered me. That's right. But once the samadhi is mastered, and part of mastering the samadhi, by the way, is kind of like is dropping off body and mind, is falling. Part of mastering the samadhi is giving up worrying about yourself.

[16:24]

That's part of how you enter the samadhi. So the falling part happens in the realization of the samadhi. Once the samadhi is realized, the proposal is being made that The samadhi will put everything in perfect order. All things will be put in perfect order by this firm settling into realization of emptiness, which includes no grasping of emptiness, a realization with no grasping even of the unborn, empty, pure nature of mind. Buddha nature will use this realization to respond appropriately in all situations without recourse to grasping thoughts.

[17:27]

But until we realize the samadhi, we're going to keep grasping thoughts. And when we're grasping thoughts, sometimes we do okay, as you see. Sometimes people do really nicely, like this practice nicely, I think. But some of the people in this practice period are grasping thoughts, like, I'm a server. I'm serving. I'm passing the gomashio. I'm operating my orioke equipment. People are grasping at that stuff, I feel. They're confessing it. But because the ingredients that we have are practice period participants, koryokis, zafus, zabutans, zendos, you know, no drugs or alcohol, we've got these ingredients. So put those ingredients together and things aren't so bad. Things are going kind of nicely. But if we change the ingredients... then the clinging can really cause trouble.

[18:29]

But we've got nice ingredients, so things are going pretty well, even though there's still some grasping in our community here. But if there wasn't grasping, change the circumstances, you know, like drugs and alcohol could be sitting next to every gomasho dish. And everybody would know what to do with them, you know. You know, freedom. You don't have to like, yikes, a girl, a boy. Yikes, skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. Yes? Did you have your hand raised? Well, I think, as I said, part of enthusiasm or courageous effort is to have the courage to not try something too advanced and also have the courage

[19:51]

to give up something is too easy and to do the appropriate action. So if someone offers a practice which is too advanced, you want to be careful that they understand what it might look like for it to be too advanced. So for example, if we're not yet calm, then we generally speaking won't be very successful at contemplating the nature So if we're watching our mind and relaxing with it and calming with it, our mind becomes calm, buoyant, bright, clear, joyful, flexible. And that mind can then turn and look at what we're relaxing with. So for example, Well, for example, if we're not yet calm, then we, generally speaking, won't be very successful at contemplating the nature of the object.

[20:57]

So if we're watching our mind, relaxing with it and calming with it, our mind becomes calm, buoyant, bright, clear, joyful, flexible, and that mind can then turn and look at the object which we've been relaxing with, and can examine it without accurately, can see clearly. But if we try to look at what's happening before we're somewhat calm, we just get more upset, and our view is all shaky, and we don't really learn anything. We don't learn much. Or sometimes we learn little, and sometimes we make big mistakes. But our opinion of someone, some negative opinion we have of ourself or someone else, if we're not relaxed with that, we might think it's true. So then we get really upset. So sometimes insight work is too advanced for some people. They just need to calm down more.

[21:58]

Understand what is too advanced and then not try it. but still it's good to know, I think, what the different possibilities are in the practice so that when the time comes we can open to that and give up the practice which we've been doing, which is now. We've done it long enough. So giving up what we've done long enough and not starting what is too soon, that's my concern. I think all of us someday are going to be ready for this great samadhi to really enter, to verify that we're in it. We're already in it, but to verify and understand that we're in it. That's my concern. Does that make sense? It does? Oh, good. Well, is there some aspect that you'd like to bring up? Is there any harm?

[23:03]

Waste of time, which of course there is no such thing, but anyway, waste of time... Well, there's two things. One is waste of time in the sense that you could be doing something that would be more appropriate instead of trying something too advanced. The other is, I guess, some people are upset, you know, analyzing their mind. and upset and think that that was enlightenment upset. Like, you know, this is really it, you know. Rather than, well, you actually should be relaxing with that. So that's kind of harmful and also sort of a waste of time. That's my concern. Did I answer your question completely? Wow, great. Yes, yes, yes. You're pointing at someone? Alyssa? Is your name Alyssa? Is it your birthday? You're pointing at Daniel? Was he pointing at you?

[24:04]

Daniel? The root, whole muck. I don't want to be in that part of it. vast variety of much more subtle . Very, very subtle thing, but it happens in such a continuous or so many that . Okay, so this is about what we call shamatha.

[25:22]

And a number of people have had the same experience during this practice period. So when we relax with what's happening, sometimes our reward is that more starts happening. And sometimes we can't relax with that because it seems like it's going to overwhelm us. So then we say, no, I can't relax with this. So then you might think, well, maybe some discursive thought will calm it down. In fact, you can use discursive thought. to calm your mind down, that you can do that. Discretion of thought can be used to create kind of a closet. Like you can say, you know, that wave is like, you know, not going to hurt me. You know, and that can be postponed two weeks. And that wave is really like totally, you know, for some other reason. So you talk to this stuff and it seems like it backs off.

[26:25]

And But then that talking also creates kind of lack of calm. You're losing your calm by talking to it. So you don't feel overwhelmed, but you're reversing, you know. When you, like, relax, when you look inward and look at the relaxed way of dealing with things, you're going in the opposite direction of our usual way of grasping. And part of what happens is when you relax and you open up, more vitality starts blowing, and then you have more to deal with, and if you can relax with that, then you're relaxing in a more energetic field, so then you not only have relaxation and calm, but you have this light and buoyancy, and so it isn't just calm, you have more energies flowing too. But sometimes as it's flowing, then the meditator says, whoa, Well, I can't relax with this." So then you're like stopping the shamatha meditation and you're going back to like trying to control your thoughts again.

[27:33]

So to calm down is just, for me, I feel like calming down, stop trying to control what's happening. And if you stop trying to control what's happening, you calm down and then it's almost like the world says, oh, you're not going to try to control what's happening, huh? Well, how about this? You're not going to try to control this. And you kind of go, well, no. How about this? And pretty soon it's like you're fully alive and you're not trying to control it. And that's shamatha. All your energy is flowing pretty much, except for the blockages due to deep misconceptions, your basic available energy is flowing and prior to insight. So it's basically the same practice, but sometimes we feel like, you know, it's just too much, and then we back off and resort to trying to control again.

[28:38]

Now, to use discursive thought, actually, which is also a backing off of the meditation, but doesn't create... but is more appropriate, is when you get too sleepy, when you don't get the reward of lots of energy flowing, but rather you get the sleepiness, not due to lack of energy, but due to your own complacency and success. That kind of sleepiness means a little discursive thought, like, you know, we have more work to do here, and stuff like that, you know. You know, it would be really nice, we'd all appreciate it if you would, like, snap out of this complacency and really be awake. Please be awake. It would be wonderful, really be wonderful if you would not only be relaxed and at ease and calm, but also awake. So that's a little bit of discursive thought, but it's for somebody who's getting sleepy. For the person, if he's overwhelmed, I would just encourage him, try to relax with that, too.

[29:39]

And if you feel like you need discursive thought, well, no, I'm not going to try to talk you out of it too much, but I will try to talk you out of it. I'll make a deal, you know, like... You know, I'll give you a dollar if you don't, or something. Does that make sense? Okay. Yes? There's a row here. Jackie, Esme, right? Oh, no. I'm listening. You just wanted to get him over there. Is that right? Okay. So it's like Jackie, Esme, Angelica, and then over to the side here. This is kind of a dope. Can you hear her? She had a lot of pain and she was grasping the pain and when she grasped the pain, it took over her whole being. Uh-huh.

[30:54]

Yeah. And it got so heavy that I just, like, all of a sudden... Mm-hmm. It was like, drop it. And I have many to thank for, but at one time she told me it was dropping. And you're aware of it. Mm-hmm. So I find that in my meditation practice. It helps to just say, drop it. Mm-hmm. And it's not really better to drop grasping. It's just lighter, and it's just freer, and it's just Buddha. But it's not better. Grasping, grasping, cool. It offers the opportunity to not grasp, which is the practice.

[31:59]

It's not any better. It's just the practice of meditation, whereas grasping is just our normal habit. And it's wonderful that we have this habit because then we can have Zen centers to help people, you know, give up their habits. But it's not exactly better after they give up the habits because the welfare of the Zen center, because maybe nobody will be here anymore. Like I was going to go to Minnesota to do a retreat, but it's been canceled because last time I was there I enlightened everybody so they don't want to come back. Nobody wants to come. It seems like whatever you do, whatever you say, it seems like it's not really a warning. And it's just like a... Yes. Yes. Yes, it does.

[33:21]

It makes sense to me, but the people in the back couldn't hear you, so it probably doesn't make sense to them, right? You couldn't hear that, could you? No. So it doesn't make sense to you, does it? It doesn't make sense to you that you couldn't hear her, right? That's one problem. We need a microphone for the people who are asking questions. Sorry. If you speak louder than the people, talk backwards. That's what Daniel said before. And he said, say, we all do the work. And then we can work. Without going out. Because there's so much happening. Freedom. Right. Unless you're really calm, like, you know, I don't know what. If you're riding on a surfboard, I like surfboards. I like the surfboard example because no surfers are trying to get the ocean to be calm. Well, I shouldn't say no surfers.

[34:22]

Some surfers surfboard in swimming pools, I suppose. But most surfers who are in the ocean, they like to have waves. They travel to where the water is not smooth. They don't try to calm the water, they try to ride it. So it takes a while to stand up on a surfboard for most people. Some people have not yet been able to do it. But if you can stand up on a surfboard, okay, that's pretty good. But to be able to, like, on the surfboard have a tea party, and to notice that you're pouring the water into the teacup. you know, and when the water actually hits the teacup and when the teacup's full and then when you drink the teacup and when the teacup's empty. That kind of takes a lot of concentration. Got to be a really skillful surfer. Not to mention if the weights are really big in combination with the tea party. It's like you're in a full-fledged life.

[35:23]

You've got a full life. Lots is happening. Stuff's going all over the place. You're trying to learn how to stay upright and awake in it. And you feel, after a while, you feel like, whoa, I'm... I'm kind of like... Yeah. You're actually... You know? And then actually you start to relax with... By relaxing, you can stay in. You can't stay on the board if you're tense. You've got to relax and move. So finally you're actually kind of calm with it. And then you can have a tea party. Then you can, like, write poems. And, you know, express yourself very clearly. It's hard, so you have to get really calm before you can deal with the full-fledged, you're full-fledged, vivid, living mind. Yes, it is difficult to be that calm, to get to the place of being that calm. Actually, being that calm is not difficult. It's very joyful and easy. We have to train quite a bit to not tense up around pain and pleasure and gaining ideas.

[36:29]

Yes. No, I think you should be more calm before you try this meditation on the four phases of thought. I think you should, I would suggest to you that you come and tell me when you think you're calm enough to start that practice. You can be open all the time to having a flash of understanding that mind is unborn. That's fine. But you don't look for it. You're actually just dealing with what's happening in a relaxed, non-involved way. So no matter what comes, colors, sounds, smells, tastes, all kinds of ideas and views, whatever comes to you, you're not getting involved with it. You're calming down. When you're really calm, you can naturally look to see what's happening.

[37:34]

But I wouldn't try to take on this thing until you feel really calm. If you think you're calm enough, come and tell me about it. Sounds like you're not. Yeah. I didn't follow that. You can do it. Put it on. Yeah. You can do it, but I'm saying give up discursive thought first. So if you've given up discursive thought, then you can analyze discursive thought. So please tell me about how you've given up discursive thought. Show me. Show me. And then when you can give up discursive thought, you're ready to analyze the discursive thought. Like we were talking about yesterday, it isn't that there's no trains of thought, it's that you've given up the trains. If you can give up the trains, then all the trains can be coordinated very nicely, and they won't be smashing into each other anymore.

[38:35]

But first of all, can you really give up your favorite trains? And if you can't, then you're calm. And if you really can give them up and you're calm, then you can analyze the four phases of your trains, if that's what's happening. Does that make sense? I think they're going to lose you. No, no. I said, first of all, give up discursive thought. That's the first step. That's the samadhi. The first kind of samadhi is give up discursive thought. Have you given up discursive thought? Wrong. In that moment, yeah, okay. In that moment, But I'm not talking about just one moment. I'm talking about that you're well established in giving up discursive thought. That it's like, you know, you're like, you're like, hey, give up discursive thought here.

[39:42]

I mean, like, that's what I'm into these days. Like, give up discursive thought. And I, you know, and I'm feeling, and I'm not just giving it up, but I feel different now. I'm very relaxed, buoyant, light. All that stuff's going on. My body and mind have changed as a result of giving up discursive thought. moment of it. Now, let's look at this discursive thought and see what it is. Okay? So I think it sounds like you need to do a little bit more giving up. You need to be more well established in the samadhi of giving up discursive thought is one basic definition of samadhi. Not grasping discursive thought. But it doesn't mean there isn't any. It just means you don't hook on to it. And when you're steady in that and well established in that, then we can look at what is the discursive thought? For example, what are the four phases of it? Okay? Thank you to the world itself.

[40:43]

I think Patty and Jill and Dennis and Jonathan. Is that okay? We have more questions? Patty? Patty? ...and not thinking, and there's simply not thinking, not thinking, not thinking. And, and, oh, granted, the thought's not arising. It seems like, it seems like there's, there's not a mind. It's a child mind. And then when, when I feel a thought, and I feel it arising in the thought, It seems like there's just, there's like a, you know, a facility for thought to arrive and for contact to, to find a way. Mm-hmm. And it's great that, that when we point the mind at helping with looking, uh, death is the least part that we need. Yeah.

[41:43]

Can you talk to me more about this, about death? She said, yesterday I said something about if you could see, if you could actually feel like you're contemplating, for example, if you could contemplate an ordinary, pledged thought, well, if you're contemplating that, that's an arisen thought. So most people don't think arisen thoughts don't exist. Right? To think that an arisen thought doesn't exist is contradiction. Some people might think that, but... The main problem is that the unarisen thought is considered to be non-existent. So the world of samsara is the world where things arise and cease. The world of nirvana, things are unborn. They unarise. There's no arising. But in a sense, because nirvana is unarisen, we think there's no nirvana.

[42:49]

We ignore nirvana. In other words, we ignore the unarisen aspect of things. We think that when something has that it doesn't exist. We only count arisen things as existing. And that bias is a kind of ignoring the unarisen quality of things. But things have an unarisen quality, ultimately. Ultimately, things are nirvana. quiet, unarisen, unborn. Ultimately, that's the way they actually are. It's only superficially that they're jumping around, going, hey, I'm gone. Now I'm up, now I'm down. They do that, too. And the reason why they do that is because we, they don't really do that. We see them that way because that's useful to us as animals to see how things jump up and go away. Although it's useful, it's also painful.

[43:50]

Whereas the un-arisen quality of things is calming and joyful, but we ignore it. Our habit is to ignore the un-arisen quality and actually think, it doesn't exist. If it's not going to stand up and shout, I say it's not here. So that's one definition of root. And I think it's our self-clinging Like, if something's not going to arise, it's nothing for me. Of course, it's no use to me. Re-arisen things are useful. Some of them I don't like, but anyway, they're useful. This is the way things are, which is not useful. It's just liberating. We do have that tendency. When we see something that's unarisen, we think it's the same as something that doesn't exist. And also, we have a tendency to think that something that's perished doesn't exist, too. So those are the two sides that we feel like, well... And people have trouble even understanding how they would contemplate it.

[44:59]

Now, you see people contemplate it, but a lot of people have trouble contemplating something that they think is nonexistent. So that's why I think it's kind of funny that it's like we ignore nirvana because it's so peaceful. And when people think about peace, they think, well, that wouldn't be very interesting. You know, no football games, no arguments. But it turns out that it's not so bad, that there's lots of life there and lots of bliss. And also, coming from there, realization of the emptiness of the unborn and the emptiness of the about-to-be-born and the emptiness of the born and the emptiness of the perished, coming from that understanding that something that is unborn also doesn't perish.

[46:02]

Because it appears to exist. And we need to bring our vision of the appearance of things to the place where we can see that the appearance is ungraspable, that the appearance is an illusion. It's an illusion, but it's an illusion that's appearing. There is the appearance of things that don't exist. There's appearances of something that actually isn't there any more than just the appearance. All there is is appearance, and we can't see it in the appearance, and therefore we and don't know how to behave properly, because we're using the appearances which we think are more than appearances to negotiate our way. So, if the appearances are just that, then the bodhisattva is more effective.

[47:07]

Then they can respect everything and everybody and care about everything with equal devotion. Dennis? Last year, I remember you saying something like, for those of us, anyway, who have a hard time letting go of things, between letting go and leaving it alone, the thing to do is to hold on so tight that you actually break whatever it is. It will not be metaphorically breaking, but that if you can't let it go, just hold on tighter. Do you still stand by that? Yeah, it sounds pretty good. But I don't mean as much to break the thing, but to break the grip, to exhaust your gripping, to grip and grip and grip until you can't grip anymore. So that reminds me of that story of the archery teacher who said, just pull until the bowstring goes.

[48:22]

This is the way we usually are, actually. We're holding things like that. If you just can settle with that, you'll notice someday the string will go. And some people, they pull it and it seems to go soon. It goes, not I release it. He said, the bowstring goes in itself. You don't release it. It'll be like going through your fingers. But you've got to hold it there. And sometimes some people have to hold it for a really long time before it goes without them releasing it. They get really exhausted in the archery class and say, it's already released, see you later. You know, they never pull the string. And they go on to study tea ceremony or something. Or, you know, be a business person. Because they can already see the bowstring's already been released, I'm not going to pull it. But once it's pulled, you're pulling it. And this is the normal situation. Now, how's it going to go without you letting it go?

[49:28]

But it seems, it happens. That's what the people's experiencing. They hold it for years and finally it goes. And then they're initiated into, like, then they can start shooting arrows. Because I should say, then they start shooting arrows, cross that out. It's like, then the arrow shooting can start. And like, you know, they shoot in the dark, right? Can't even see the target. They just stand there until the bowstring goes and the arrow goes off. That's the practice. And of course, it hits the target perfectly, right? Which means, I don't know where it hits the target. Yeah, I think that's still good practice. And that's sort of like what a lot of people think Zen is. Get these people to work, grasp very hard for enlightenment. until they all just sort of flop on the ground. And they're sort of like their faces on the ground. They go, oh, I get it. Wow.

[50:31]

But that's not the way we usually do it here, although people do sort of spontaneously fall. Jonathan? Okay. Jill? Jill? And also, there's a popular Christmas song. Well, tell everybody to think. But we'll watch it. Come on. Because then everyone... Yeah, it sounds like that, like being exposed to repetitive songs, like overwhelmed by repetitive songs, like... No, I got to make up another repetitive song to stop that repetitive song.

[51:37]

This is the normal way we do it. We try this song to stop that song, and hopefully this song won't stick. It'll just get the other one to go away, and then I'll be kind of like... But if you relax, you know, you may be totally inhabited by a Christmas song. And a lot of Jewish people hate that. You know, Christmas song? God dang it. Who's responsible for this? Well, the Christians, of course. But the bodhisattva is not afraid of a repetitive, like, bodhisattva can go and work it. No. And like, oh, a Christmas song, wow. And somebody else says, that's been going on all day. Some former Elvis back there, it looks like.

[52:48]

Yes? No, that doesn't necessarily motivate us to want to save all beings, but it might let that one overwhelm you. I think the motivation to save all beings is more like suffering and then compassion. Suffering, feeling suffering, and noticing that other people are suffering and that their suffering is probably like yours, and wanting them to be free. That situation seems to be the situation in which we want to be bodhisattvas. And then this practice of tranquility helps us be happy enough to do this work, which is sometimes difficult.

[53:55]

So bodhisattvas come to play with miserable people. They happily suffer with them. But they don't bring more misery to the miserable people. They don't go in there and say, boy, this is really bad. Let's, you know, oh, my God. Oh, no, I'm so sorry. I'm here with you. I wish I could get away from you, you know. Maybe they do that as a joke sometimes. Some of the people who are saying that to you, you know, just kidding you. They're just sort of like reflecting you. They come and say, oh boy, this is really bad. Let's get out of here. Let's escape this world. And then you wake up and, oh, I see. That's the problem. I've been trying to escape. This stabilization is so you can be willing to face more, you can become more intimate with things when you feel more relaxed and buoyant. And the happiness and ease of it makes it possible for you to get intimate with pain and anxiety and the objects around pain and anxiety.

[55:05]

You can get intimate with them with this relaxed, this mind which is saying, OK, I'll be a servant to this meditation. But it doesn't really make you want to help people necessarily. People do have this kind of meditation, but they don't necessarily want to be bodhisattvas. But some of those people then meet a Buddha, and then they kind of think, that's the way I want to be, I want to be like that. And then, totally, and then it's awakened. Like I told you, some people have told me over the years that they don't know if they want to be a bodhisattva. In some cases, then, it's questionable whether they should receive the bodhisattva precepts. to receive precepts which are for, like, just Buddhists who wish personal liberation.

[56:06]

So, you know, you could receive the Buddhist precepts with the intention of taking refuge in Buddhadharma and Sangha for the sake of personal liberation. And you could receive precepts with the motivation of attaining personal liberation. So you might not want to receive bodhisattva initiation with these precepts. And someone asked me, well, when you received the precepts, were you thinking that you wanted to be a bodhisattva? And I thought, well, you know, I didn't really think of that. I really didn't have this bodhisattva. The word bodhisattva was not very big to me when I first came. For me, the word was zen. I was into zen and zen masters. This bodhisattva thing was like, hmm? Mahayana Buddhism, hmm? Buddha, hmm? To me, it was like zen masters. Bald people. you know, in black robes, scuttling through the mud, you know, carrying pretty ladies across the river with no attachment.

[57:10]

That's what I thought was cool. I didn't think of them as bodhisattvas. So then, for me, a bodhisattva is that I wanted to be like my teacher. I wanted to be like those Zen monks. I found out later, sort of, I mean, I sort of knew, but I found out more and more that these People were bodhisattvas. So, in fact, I did want to be a bodhisattva, but I didn't call it that. When I received those precepts, it was just part of becoming like my teacher, who I think he wanted to be. But I don't know if he thought of it that way when he was ordained. I just wanted to be like that Zen teacher. I wanted to do the Zen thing. And then I find out, oh, that's Mahayana Buddhism? Oh. And what's the point of Mahayana Buddhism? Realizing emptiness. Oh. Okay. Let's do it. Is that enough for today? I mean, I know there's more questions, but just, you know, we've been having these really long lectures.

[58:13]

Not lectures, not lectures. I stopped a long time ago, right? But the questions can go on all morning, but I know Jonathan, I know Jonathan, but should we stop before Jonathan or after Jonathan? After. After. Jonathan, they want to hear from you. Well, yeah, that makes sense that you can really call it emptiness. That's true emptiness. Emptiness that's not grasped and also that's not dreamed of being grasped, then that's a real, fully realization of emptiness. That's truly, you know, the mind of no abode, doesn't even abide in emptiness.

[59:16]

What is emptiness before that? Before what? Before realization of it? It's always beyond itself. That's the way it always is. It's always not... emptiness is always not any self. It seems like that, again, those who realize emptiness, which is non-dual and inexpressible, those who realize it, talk or write. They come out with verbal designations to relate to people who are caught by verbal designations, so those people can be oriented properly towards meditation on emptiness. So they draw their attention to form, which they're familiar with, and they tell them how to be with form, but emptiness will come up and say, hi.

[60:23]

And then they teach them what to do when they see emptiness. Don't grasp it. And then they realize emptiness, and then they start talking too. And they make these conventional designations, which are just arisen from mental formations, mental constructions. So they don't really exist, but they put them together so that people can be oriented properly. So they stop ignoring nirvana. They stop sort of like They stop ignoring their self-cleaning. They notice their self-cleaning. They notice their grasping, and they relax with that, and then they become more and more educated as to reality. But they need these verbal designations like emptiness, warm, let go, don't move, be compassionate. all these words get to give them a little stimuli for them to somehow be dragged into this bodhisattva path by all this kindness in the form of blabber.

[61:34]

Is there such a word as blabber? It's a verb though, right? It's both a noun and a verb? Pardon? Is it in the dictionary? Blabber? Lease? Mick? It's over.

[62:05]

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