Yesterday I joyfully witnessed evidence that the teachings of suchness are sinking into the minds of the Great Assembly. the teachings of suchness, intimate communication, Buddhas and ancestors. Recently someone brought up a poem which I have received and shared over the years. And the poem is a poem by a Sufi named Rumi.

[01:08]

And I went to Turkey one time and went to Konya, which is a a town in which Rumi I think passed away and his mausoleum is in Konya. Turkey is now emphatically not a Muslim state but Rumi is like the great sage of Turkey and He sang a lot of poems while dancing around the room. And one of his poems is, The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

[02:18]

Sleep. You have to say what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. Everybody is moving forth on the threshold where the two worlds meet. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. Given the teachings of the sentence of this poem, it seems of the pivotal activity of all Buddhas and also face-to-face transmission.

[03:29]

On this threshold where everybody, where we all are, we are all situated on the threshold where the two worlds meet. What are the two worlds? Well, one possible two worlds is the world of egocentric consciousness, the giddy world of self-centered concern, where things are quite giddy, turbulent, difficult to be oriented towards mindfulness of stillness. But not impossible, just difficult. It's the world of, I want to get that again.

[04:38]

which is, of course, quite distressing because we have it and we want to get it again and we kind of get distracted for a moment or two because we're thinking about how to make sure to have it again. What just popped into my consciousness is fed to it by the dark forest, is a memory of a day in San Francisco at the San Francisco Zen Center. After morning Zazen and service, I went up onto the roof of the Zen Center overlooking beautiful city of San Francisco on a sunny morning with a friend. who had a history of addiction to various drugs. And he said, it's so beautiful here this morning, and I can't help think how much more beautiful it would be if I had some heroin.

[05:59]

But even if we're not heroin addicts, we still have that sense of, this is good, how can we have more of it, or how can I have it again? It's a natural part of karmic consciousness which can be facilitated and enhanced with drugs and alcohol and so on. That's one world, the world where we're at risk of addiction. Addiction to having fun, addiction to getting ourselves under control, addiction to self-indulgence, and addiction to self-mortification, self-denial. So these possibilities of self-indulgence and self-denial are swirling around, but not only that, but addiction to them is at risk all the time.

[07:10]

getting caught by them, dwelling in them. This one world. I could go on, but that's enough for now. That world is meeting another world. And that other world could be called not self-consciousness, the world of not-the-self. The world where there's nothing in our loss. Gain and loss, not gain and loss. Self, not self. These two worlds meet at a threshold, and guess who lives at that threshold where they meet? We live there. Our self meets other. Our life is the meeting of the two. For a number of years, even though I loved the poem, I thought, I was thinking, when it says, the door is round and open, I was kind of thinking, the door is round and open, you can turn and look at the world of no self, which you can, and that you can step over the threshold and go into the world of not self, not gain and loss.

[08:38]

But then I came to feel, and my understanding is, we have the opportunity to not lean into either world. The world of self wants more taste of the world where they meet, where the worlds meet. Or even the world of self wants to go into the world of no-self. The world of no-self doesn't want to go anywhere. The world of self wants to go into the world that doesn't want to go anywhere. Or it doesn't want to go there. But there's another practice which is not leaning in either direction. Yesterday I quoted a line of heroic strength double enclosure.

[09:41]

So it takes heroic energy to be upright at the threshold with this karmic consciousness swirling around, making many suggestions and requests. And to sit at the threshold and listen to karmic consciousness. Listen to its cries. Listen to its cries. And we need energy and enthusiasm for the listening and staying upright at the threshold. where the two worlds meet face to face. The two worlds are meeting face to face, giving rise, giving rise to our experience, giving rise to our experience. And both worlds are bringing everything with them in a different way.

[10:57]

everything coming as karmic consciousness, everything coming as not-karmic consciousness. But they both include everything, and everything meets everything and is realized as our life. And we have the opportunity to be upright there and listen to the not-cries. But the not-cries, of course, sound like silence. the busy running around, and observe no running around. To watch both, in the middle, at the center, upright, to listen to them, to listen to the plans and strategies coming up. Those are cries. We don't push away the plans and strategies, we listen to them. And listen, we have a chance to realize that all the plans and strategies and techniques are meeting no strategies, no plans, and no techniques.

[12:14]

They're meeting and they're pivoting. As they pivot, this is the pivotal activity of all Buddhas, which we can sit in the middle of, but it's hard. And we need, yeah, we need energy to . Now the earlier part of the poem says, you have to say what you really want. Now, you may not want to sit at the threshold, upright, and observe the cries of the world, and observe the not-cries of the world. You may not want to do that. What do you really want? But if you do want to sit upright at the threshold where the two worlds are meeting face-to-face, and witness with your whole body and mind

[13:15]

this pivotal activity, if you wish to do that, if that's what you're doing, you have to say it. You have to say it to yourself and you have to say it to others. And you have to say it over and over. And then if you say it over and over, you can look at what you're saying and you can start to see whether you feel some energy to do it. live that way. And you might say, I want to sit upright where the two worlds meet. I want to sit upright where they meet and pivot. I do. But I'm, actually today, there's some other things I'd rather do. So I don't want to do it today. But eventually, someday I want to do that. If you keep saying it, eventually you might say, well, not only do I want to do it, but I think maybe today I can, today, as a matter of fact, now, I'm ready." And we have to do that over and over. We have to refresh and recreate the energy to sit upright on the threshold where the two worlds meet.

[14:26]

And the energy comes from saying what you really want. And again, say it to somebody else too because sometimes when you say it to somebody else they can They can't understand what you're talking about. In other words, it's not clear to them. And then you say, oh, and you say it again. And by saying it to yourself and listening and saying it to others and listening, it gets clearer. And again, this is the source for your energy to sit upright. in this place where you receive a self and give a self, where self is meeting not-self. And then it says, the first line is, the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. When you sit at the threshold, then the breeze of each moment, of the dawn of each moment, tells you

[15:28]

Self, not self. Thinking, not thinking. Feeling, not feeling. Self, other, not other. And so on. This secret is told to you when you can sit there. And we need to tell ourselves what we really want in order to be able to sit there. If we're not clear that we really want to sit there, then we might feel that we want to sit there, but we're not sure, and therefore we would like somebody to force us to sit there since we're not sure. But if you really have a lot of enthusiasm for sitting there, you don't have to force yourself to do something you're really enthusiastic about.

[16:38]

But if you're enthusiastic about something and it's a little bit difficult, or very difficult, or super difficult, then you might think, well, I don't want to do it enough to do it, but if I force myself, then I can do it. So we get back into the control, which again is leaning over into Hoping that karmic consciousness can be enlisted to force us to do what we kind of want to do. Well, I would suggest rather than forcing yourself to do what you kind of want to do, why don't you be more sure you do want to do it? Because again, if you really want to do it, then you can have the energy to do it. If you really want to let go of discursive thought and be calm, then you'll do that, then you'll live that way. But you have to realize that you really want it, that you really think, I think it would really be good if my mind was calm and undistracted and open and relaxed and flexible.

[17:50]

Okay, I don't have to force myself to do that. I want to do that. I want to live like that. Right now. Great. And that has to be renewed. This is great. And the energy to do it has to be renewed. That's normal. And so now here we are at the threshold, and is there anything you want to express this morning in this situation? Would you say? Yeah, close enough, yes. Well, what you've been discussing is so much like what we spoke about the other day, of... All these conversations that I'm aware of having in my head, that we've been focusing on conversations, and I asked you about what to do with them, and you suggested I might try inviting those conversations into the silence.

[19:13]

So I've been practicing with that. And what has happened, and this is where I'm hoping for some guidance, but you've just now helped a lot, is this began at a place where I felt deeply at ease and at peace and calm. The first thing that came up was a conversation I was having with my daughter, which is a complex, of course, relationship. And I invited her to join me in stillness. And as soon as the invitation was extended, All of the words melted away and it was just, I was just filled with love and it just dissipated away.

[20:17]

Something else came up and I was aware of how this invitation felt like I was giving up control instead of the usual kind of dismissal. Not right now, I'm sitting Zazen and you need to just rise but now go away. Instead, I was inviting this in. So I felt in my body this release of attention, of control. And then I started getting my old patterns of planning and the rehearsal. And the next thing I know, I'd put out a banquet for the hungry ghosts. And I'm not... in stillness and I'm being swirled around and so I left and that kept happening and I couldn't write myself again.

[21:26]

It took a long time. How to have a conversation with what a particularly old deeply embedded patterns that when I bite them in, they seem to quickly like the feast and take over. Mm-hmm. at the beginning of this thing you just told, I thought I heard that you invited something into silence, and something came into silence, and there was peace. You might say there was, you know, And then you went on to say, rather than like say to some things, stay away from here, stay away from here, you invited something in.

[22:45]

And then some other things came which had been waiting to be invited and you thought you invited them and did come And then a bunch of other stuff that you didn't have a chance to invite came along, sort of in their train. And it's kind of like, I invited those guys, but not you guys. And then I think you shifted back to I thought of like when you're driving on a street and somebody wants to go in front of you and you let them go and then five other people sneak in behind you. I'm willing to let one go, but not five. Well, that sounds like kind of what... Because you let one go, the other people thought, well, I guess she's generous, let's all go.

[23:48]

And they said, but I wasn't ready for that. Okay, well then we... Then we have another thing that wants to come, which is, I'm going to be generous. Because, see what happens when I'm generous? And that's right, when you let things in, Other things which have been exiled say, let's go into stillness there. She's inviting us. She's listening to us. She's going to let us come. Let's go. And then it's too much. And then the doors are closed, but now there's banging on the doors. They didn't bang before because they didn't think they had a chance. They were like just languishing and feeling un-listened to.

[24:50]

Why even ask for an invitation from her? But now she's letting other people in. Maybe we can go too. And she says, that's enough. That's too much. Stop. That's a normal thing, is it? You open up and then maybe more comes and you can... and so... you go, you lean into karmic consciousness and start defending again. So you had a moment where you, like, gave up control and... great. And then the reward is, can you give up control of this? Yes. Can you give a troll this? Oh, I don't know. And even before you can say, no, definitely I can't, another one comes, well, no, I definitely can't. And then can you invite that one in? And this is called growing through challenges.

[25:58]

And part of the way you grow through challenges is is you can open to this challenge and remember stillness with this challenge, and your reward is a bigger one. And then the bigger one, you can't remember stillness. And so then you say, oh, I'm sorry. This challenge was, this storm was just too strong. I forgot stillness. I'm sorry. This is the... And then you reveal and disclose your lack of faith in remembering stillness and practicing it before the... Get it, and you start over. Okay, here we go. So we reach the limit of our practice and the limit of our faith and we say, and we confess and repent. We can let more and more, we can remember better and better in greater and greater storms.

[27:10]

So the Bodhisattva vow could be phrased in the form of I vow to become more and more able to remember stillness in greater and greater storms. And I also vow to confess and repent when I forget, when I forget and push away the storm. or to yell back at the shout? I'm aware I have a tendency to think I should take on more or handle more than I can. Let this go past a point that then the next time opening it up is more tenuous and tender.

[28:12]

So if you're remembering stillness you might notice, oh, there's a tendency to do more, well, to be grandiose, to think I can do more than I'm ready to do. There's that tendency. I often use the example in this regard. When I was abbot, I actually thought maybe I could do the whole job. So I became aware that I think there's a chance I could do the whole job. And I had an idea of what the whole job was. And I tried to do the whole job. But I was overworking because I felt like if I just worked a little harder I could actually get into some crannies of the job. I maybe made the symbol of a triangle and I was trying to practice the whole space there. But I couldn't quite get into the corners.

[29:13]

So I worked harder and harder. I guess in some stillness I saw, oh, But this triangle is not the job. This is the job. I can see I'll never be able to exhaust that. So then I kind of stopped Anyway, I more and more stopped trying to do the whole thing and rather do the whole thing right here rather than the whole infinite thing, do the whole limited thing, some small little thing, and do that completely. See, maybe I could do it all. And then we work overwork. We care too much. We think, oh, I need to control the situation.

[30:15]

And then, oh, I forgot stillness and got into, like, actually getting things completely done for once. So there is that. And that's calling for compassionate listening and observation. Over the last few days you've mentioned a couple of things that remind me of a third thing that I wanted to ask your reaction to. One thing is the conversation on the rooftop. at City Center. And the other thing was, as you know, I am who I am and that's who I am. I was sailing that. There was another movie that also, that Robin Williams had a fairly small part in.

[31:24]

It was a long time ago. I think it was called Ghosts. I'm not sure. that the Robin Williams character is interacting with this ambivalent smoker. This character wants to . He doesn't want to quit smoking. At one point, Robin Williams' character says to him, why don't you just fully be a smoker? Why don't you just be that? Yeah, I think that we got a smoke, we got a world where there's a smoker and that world where there's a smoker is meeting the world of no smoker and we're at the threshold and if we try to we're leaning into the world of smoker but if we let the smoker be completely the smoker

[32:27]

will realize smoker is not smoker. But in order to realize that, in order to let the smoker completely the smoker, we have to remember stillness. And we need help to let the smoker really be a smoker. that we get help doing that is to meet a smoker. And see if you can meet the smoker and remember stillness in that meeting. And let the smoker completely be the smoker and see that the smoker is not the smoker. And when you see the smoker is not the smoker, that is communicated to the smoker. then the smoker can realize, I'm a smoker, completely, and realize I'm not a smoker.

[33:38]

And maybe they'll stop smoking. But if they stop smoking, then they're not stopping smoking. And maybe they'll stop smoking. Maybe they'll continue smoking. But anyway, the person who may be dying of lung cancer and is still smoking has now liberated before they get over smoking or lung cancer. And they may stop smoking, but they still have lung cancer. So now we help them be completely a person who has lung cancer. We don't think people are uncontrolled. And I don't think people are in control of smoking. In both cases, I don't think the person's in control. In both cases, if I let them completely be that way, they can receive that transmission and let themselves be that way. Then the person with cancer still has cancer.

[34:39]

So have not cancer. and therefore they have cancer, lung cancer, but they also have entered the pivotal activity of all Buddhas by completely letting their cancer be cancer. People who have cancer are challenged to completely have the cancer that they have. Some people who have cancer would rather have a different type of cancer. But some people who have cancer you know, like Suzuki or the Karmapa. It seemed like when they had cancer they were pretty good at just having cancer. Now some people thought they shouldn't even have cancer in the first place. Zen masters shouldn't have cancer. That's not a good disease. Matter of fact,

[35:41]

It's hard to think of a good one. But anyway, he had cancer, and some people thought that was not really fashionable. But he, I think, did a pretty good job of having cancer. And I'm offering the teaching that when he completely doesn't have cancer or be sick, he's not sick. And he's not teaching sick or not sick. He's teaching sick, not sick. i thought he did a good job of teaching sick not sick when he was sick he was sick not sick at that time i didn't think of it that way but i just felt like i didn't feel like well he was teaching along pretty nicely and then suddenly he has cancer and his teaching stops he was sick before he had cancer and he was good so good at being sick, he implicitly demonstrated not sick.

[36:48]

So he wasn't a smoker, but the same with the smoker. A smoker could be the teacher who's demonstrating that, or you could, in your concern for the smoker, be the person you are and be completely that person and realize that you're not that person and transmit that to the smoker. I don't know if the smoker will stop, but the transmission can occur. The transmission, which is the pivotal activity of Buddhas, can be realized by a smoker and by non-smokers. And here at Green Gulch we, I don't know what, smoking areas. We don't let people smoke in the zendo. I mean, I shouldn't say we don't let them, we say don't smoke in the zendo.

[37:55]

A group of Japanese priests came to visit. With Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoichi Roshi, about 30 of them, they came in the zendo and they didn't smoke in the zendo. They went outside the zendo and almost all of them started smoking. Can those people be saved? Can they practice face-to-face transmission while smoking? I would say yes, they can. Who's going to teach them? somebody who can do something so completely that it's not that. You don't have to start smoking to teach a smoker, but you have to be completely yourself who's concerned with the smoker in order to enter the face-to-face transmission with the smoker, with the drug addict. But it's hard.

[38:59]

They're hurting themselves. Yes. I have a mat out here, but these people are better than the mat, so you can just stay where you are. I have a question for you. I think I have the answer, but I'll ask it anyway. You can give me the answer, too. I will. For having an environment that... Did you say how do you maintain freshness? In an environment that wants to sort of stamp it out. So you might call it hatred, or whatever you call it, but absolutely fascist. Or a lack of cynicism, or an environment that might not... Yeah, how do you maintain freshness in an environment that really wants to stamp it out?

[40:06]

And thankless, if you ask me, compassion. That would be my answer, yeah. Well, the other question would be how. How to be compassionate? Well, God sent us in, for example? I think there's some words that are not able to... When cynicism shows up, when meanness shows up, in an environment.

[41:09]

And actually, Karmic Consciousness has a place where meanness and cynicism show up. But also, we can say a physical environment is in Karmic Consciousness. When I see cynicism and meanness, that challenges the practice of compassion. It challenges it, and it's also calling for it. But it's also like, again, a sudden slap in the face, you might not understand, is calling for compassion. Cynicism can be very shocking. Meanness can be shocking. And then I forget that that meanness is calling for compassion. It's hard to remember. That's a request for compassion. It's easy to slip into, like, I've got to protect myself, or whatever.

[42:12]

There's two worlds. One world is a practice of compassion. And the other world is there's no compassion, or there's no people, there's no problems. And those two worlds meet all day long. Make the world where it's difficult to practice compassion into another world. But we can develop wisdom which understands that world where it's difficult to practice is the same as the world where difficulty to practice But in order to realize that, we have to remember stillness, which helped us remember. From stillness we can remember to be compassionate in the place where it's hard to remember compassion. We can remember compassion when there's cynicism and meanness and cruelty.

[43:27]

All these things are actually calling for compassion. and sometimes they're operating and we don't even notice them. But when we notice them, now we're starting to have a chance to listen to them, which is difficult, but now we have an opportunity. Your answer was right. And And then the comment on the answer is, but it's difficult. In the place where it's difficult to practice compassion, it's difficult to practice compassion. In the place where it's being called for, that's the place it's hard. Names for our world of karmic consciousness is in Sanskrit, Saha, Saha Loka.

[44:29]

It means a world where there's opportunities for patience. So the place of our world is a place where Opportunities are the necessity to be patient because these cries are really difficult to hear as cries for compassion. They seem like, often they stimulate us to think, did you say suppress or what did you say? Stomp out. Stomp out, yeah. So the cries, it sounds like, why isn't that cry asking to be stomped out? when it actually is crying to be listened to. But I think stomping you out would be better than listening to you. Or maybe I'll stomp you out and then listen to you. Because that would be better. So, yeah, I would say that everything's calling for compassion. And one of the things that's in the place where compassion is being called for is the cry which is, stomp out those calls.

[45:36]

Stomp out those cries. That's another cry. a particularly tricky cry. The solution to all these cries would be to stomp them out. Yes. Thank you. I want to ask you not to help me with this. Okay. You know, I have a lot of... It's easy for me to feel compassion for drug addicts and smokers and... You know, there are a lot of Zen masters who have abused sexuality. And I don't get it. You know, I...

[46:38]

I love this practice, and I love this tradition, and there seems to be a missing piece among the most exalted of the tradition around morality, some kind of basic morality of not abusing others. And I just, I can't... I can't... It's not time to pivot from it. It's not time for me to release my... May I say something? I'm not interrupting you. You know what I thought you said? I thought you said, please don't help me with this. I did. Not today. OK. Whoa. Whoa, boy. Whoa.

[47:41]

Whoa. I'm listening to you. Just take it easy. It's okay. Okay. Yes? Listening to these cries for compassion that are in the form of cruelty, these things that we've mentioned, but responding to that cry, to me, seems one of the skillful means of countermeasure. countermeasure to cruelty count, which both helps situation into silence or into stillness.

[48:44]

So I just want you to maybe say a little bit more, switching meanness and cruelty or abuse, understanding it as a crime that there isn't countermeasure. Is that, would you agree? Did you say, it does not mean that there's not encounterment? Is that the word you used? Countermeasure. Oh, countermeasure. Countermeasure as expression of compassion. I would say what I'm suggesting is that if the appearance of cruelty arises, I'm suggesting remember stillness, and in the stillness a response may come, and the response might look like a countermeasure.

[49:47]

Or it might just look like not even a countermeasure, but just a response that the person wakes up. This cruelty, and the cruelty just drops away, but it might not seem like a countermeasure. For example, a murderer might approach the Buddha, and the Buddha might be friendly to the person, but they might not feel like it's a countermeasure. It's just like the Buddha was already friendly, remembers stillness when this attack, when this cruelty comes, and then the Buddha says, I'm your friend. So that might seem like a countermeasure. And then, but the person didn't get it, so then the person still tried to attack the Buddha. The Buddha started walking. And you might say, well, that was a countermeasure. Okay, but it was, I would say, it was certainly a response.

[50:49]

when the person tries to attack the Buddha and the Buddha starts walking, that's the response which I think came from the Buddha remembering stillness. The Buddha didn't necessarily think, oh, I'm going to walk. This walk sort of came into his body. There he is, and he's upright and balanced, and now the walking comes. And it's an unusual walking, as you know, because the person runs after the Buddha and can't catch him. and says, well, how come I can't catch him? Buddha says, again, I would say the Buddha is still remembering stillness, and the Buddha says, because I've stopped. So this kind of, in some sense, miraculous responses comes from hearing the cry, wanting to be friendly, and remembering stillness, and And these responses come, which you could call countermeasures, but I could also call them as skillful measures or liberating measures. So from remembering stillness, if we really do that, the response is, that's the appropriate response, which is healing or liberating.

[52:06]

But to skip over remembering where we are and being settled here, I would say that's what we usually call impulsive or reactive. I want to but I haven't fully listened to the person yet. So you can listen to a person in stillness and there can be a shout in response. And the shout It's for everybody. It's not just your shout. It's a shout that everyone wants you to give on their behalf in response to this, for example, cruelty. But it's coming, it doesn't skip over being here. It doesn't skip over taking care of your own position. It means remembering your position and letting the response come.

[53:09]

And it's hard to trust this seat, this Dharma seat, to be occupied and trusting that that hard work, when it's completed, then the action isn't personal. The whole situation is coming to make that action. Thank you. Yes and yes. This is kind of a shift in conversation. I wanted to ask you, he's talking about, you brought up several times, drop off body and mind. The question is, and dropped off body and mind being experienced within perception and known by consciousness?

[54:14]

It can be perceived, but the perception of it is not it. Just like it says in the self-receiving and implying section of the text, That which can be met with recognition is not the realization itself. But realizations can be met with recognition. But the recognition is kind of like, it's a re-cognition. It's not the cognition itself. So dropping off body and mind is a cognition, but I would say not a perception. Perception is kind of a concoction. It's a version of what's going on. So we can have realization and then have a fabrication of what realization is. And that can be a perception. But that's not the realization itself. The workings of realization do not appear within perception.

[55:25]

That which can be met with recognition is not realization itself. And again we have, when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't necessarily think that they're Buddhas. But they are Buddhas. But they don't necessarily recognize. But they could. There's two translations. One is they don't recognize their realization. The other is they don't necessarily... I would say not necessarily. Because you can get a Buddha to recognize their Buddha. You could say... Oh, thank you. So... What happens is something happens or you have some impression and then we make a story about it. That's more common. Usually we have experience And we also have part in process is an ongoing making stories out of our experience and feeding those stories to consciousness.

[56:28]

So it might be the case that there's realization and the body and mind of a person a story about that realization and feeds that story to the consciousness. and the consciousness has now a story of realization. But the realization is there regardless of whether the story of realization is being concocted in the case of realization. Yes? This is a follow-up to Linda's question. Professor Jean Sharp studied the nonviolent responses to social injustices, and he came to some number, like he'd identified maybe 198 different tactics to respond when faced with social injustice. I think what I hear you say, you're recommending one tactic, which is member stillness.

[57:36]

And then if we can do update that there is a spontaneous device, is that? Yep. I'm recommending one practice from which more than 198 will come. But start with 198, I'm sure they all could come. But there's some we cannot imagine that might be really good that could come from the stillness. Yeah. I'm wondering if that's enough, if there are specifically trainings to do so to prepare oneself for a situation and then be able to respond appropriately. Well, I just thought of two types of training.

[58:43]

One type of training is a training which you could start right away before you've been trained to remember stillness. And in that training, you might stumble upon, or not even stumble upon, but walk right into stillness. So martial arts are a form of training where people learn how to be present and maybe discover stillness in that practice. Then you have what we call martial arts which also help people discover the stillness. But in the martial arts area before they discover the stillness they might be trying to concoct the non-violent response but as they get more and more into the training where the non-violent response just miraculously and surprisingly emerges from their training and they do a non-violent thing without

[59:52]

without thinking about it anymore. The main part of their thinking is to the training of being present in their body with the other person. And then this non-violent thing comes up where they protect the other person and themselves and everybody in the neighborhood from harm by the way they respond to the person. And they're surprised. They don't know where it came from. But this wonderful nonviolent response comes up in that training. So there does need to be training at remembering stillness. And you can train at remembering stillness ...relations with people, and also, you know, verbal conversations, and you can train at stillness in a zendo, and you can train at stillness in a judo, aikido.

[60:55]

There's various arenas where you can train at being still and discover the kind of response that comes when you're still when you're attacked. when you're attacked and you can remember stillness and you see this wonderful, surprising, non-violent response come. But it does require training in stillness. But the environment where you're training can vary. Could you come up? I would love if you could remind me of some techniques of what to do during zazen with difficult body sensations.

[62:04]

My knees are In pain, pain in my shoulders, I have to move, just probably to the knees, but yeah, just lots of discomfort that kind of makes you feel like you're going to run. So there's difficult, there's painful body sensations, and then there's also mental things like maybe it would be good to leave this endo. And probably a little dash of fear Ooh, how bad is this? Yeah, and fear, plans of escape, and pain. Well, that sounds like very similar to what everybody else has been asking about. I'd like a different technique. I'd like a different technique. I hear that you're asking for a different technique. And so would you tell me the technique that you don't want?

[63:07]

Well, I have been guided into telling you that another word for the teachings that have been offered during this intensive, another word for it is One Practice Samadhi. It's the awareness that there's really one practice. Doing together. And it is the practice of being where we are. And in order to be where we are, we need to train. We need to be compassionate to where we are and how we feel in order to completely be here. So if there's pain, the pain is calling for compassion. And if it doesn't get it, it's just going to keep calling. Now, of course, if the response to the call is mean, the pain might actually say, okay, I won't say anything anymore.

[64:25]

But if it's responded to with compassion, it'll just keep calling until it gets enough. I say welcome to my pain. I say welcome to it. And then also I practice ethical discipline with it. Try not to kill it. Try not to get something other than it. Try not to lie about it. Try not to misuse sexuality in relationship to it. I try to respect it and listen to it and not think I'm better than it, and so on. Not try to possess it or control it. That's being careful of it. And then I try to practice patience with it, to try to be in the present with it.

[65:29]

And what does that look like? What does it look like? Well, here I am. I guess this is what it looks like. I'm doing it right now. I'm in pain right now. And maybe you are too. Are you? Oh, well. But even though you... You said not right this moment. There's some other pains you're feeling, maybe some concerns for the world. I don't know. Anyway, I am in pain now, and I'm trying to do these practices. And when I do these practices, this is ways to fully recover stillness. And in stillness, did you see that? You wanted to know what it looks like.

[66:36]

Okay? Remembering stillness? That's what it looks like. When I'm remembering stillness, that's what it looks like. But it looks like all these different ways. Anything can emerge from this stillness. For example, like this. Now, this coming from stillness. Hello, Mr. Eno. I think I need to take a walk. That can come from stillness. Hello, Mr. Eno. Hello, Mr. Tonto. I think maybe I'm getting sciatica. In silence, in stillness, I discovered that maybe I'm hurting my sciatic nerve. I think maybe I should take a walk." And that can come from pain, being careful of it, being patient with it, and then saying, maybe this is a harmful pain.

[67:47]

I heard the expression, suffering is the curriculum. So we bring all these compassion practices to the pain over the decades. And we get more and more skillful at responding compassionately to our own pain in the zendo. And then we extend to our pain in our conversations. with, well, in the Zendo we are having conversations like, I want to get out of here, and then, but maybe I should stay, because, you know, people might get upset if you ran out of the Zendo. Well, how about walking out? Yeah, why don't you actually walk out? No, I don't think I should. Conversations like this, I think, have occurred in the Zendo. Maybe you heard something similar. So there's the conversation, but is it a conversation?

[69:01]

And if there is, that compassion is the point of the practice. But also, also, I want you to say something. I invite you to say something now. What I keep thinking is that and I hear compassion, I hear patience, I hear a lot of qualities I have, but they don't... they sound like words, not actions. You mean like... your arm? Is that what you mean? No, because they could be... they could be words too, but... What do you mean by an action that other than... Could you give me an example of what... It doesn't seem like a response. It doesn't seem like a response. Yeah. You should probably have patience.

[70:04]

Yeah, I agree. So here comes pain, okay? Here comes pain. I hate you. Does that seem like a response? Yeah. Okay. Here comes pain. I love you. Does that seem like a response? Well, that's what I'm saying. Pain, you say, I love you. And there's various ways to say it. One way is, I love you. The other is, welcome. The other is, you can be here, pain. Another way, and those are generosity. Hello, pain, hello. Hello, pain, you can be here. That's what I mean by compassion. It's a response. There's a call for... There's a call... And the response is, hello pain, welcome. You can be here. I'm not going to try to kill you. And also, I'm going to be here to try to get you to not be pain. That's patience. Does that give you more feeling?

[71:06]

That's totally what I was thinking. Thank you. I don't know if it's because they're overused. There's nothing I know. Well, thank you for the conversation where I could help you see that I'm talking about a response, a call and a response. That's the conversation. Suffering, compassion. Suffering, response. So forget compassion, just say suffering and response. But it's a loving response. You can be here pain. If you want to go away, you can go away. I'm going to be with you. I'm not going to try to get rid of you. This is my response to you." Okay? And that will maybe guide you to sit through the whole period, or it might guide you to change your posture. And it might guide you to leave the zendo, or not go to the next period.

[72:10]

We'll see. But the point is, can we realize that there is this response to the pain? There's always a response. Solidarity of the response and the pain. Not the solidity, but the intimacy. Thank you. Loka. You know what loka means? World. Lakota. I'm happy that we're having this conversation about pain. That's really helpful to hear. I began this session and the intensive with an injury. No, I'm being really fast. I'm seeing the process that's happening around the physical pain.

[73:13]

It's just this amazing kind of analogy for something that also happens everywhere in my life and in people and in relation with practice. There was pain and then there was tensing up against it, like fighting it. I don't want this. I don't want it to be here. And the tension itself was more pain. And with willingness to kind of just sit with it, like some curiosity, and I think some patience and compassion. And then yesterday, at some point, there was just this, I don't think there's anything that I did, it just felt like grace. Where the all the muscles relaxed and the pain completely released and there was just this beautiful warm glow that lasted for some hours.

[74:15]

And then like with that warm glow, The body loosened up, all the muscles loosened up. I was walking around outside slowly. I felt like in that stillness, enjoying the glow. I met someone on the path and bowed. And in the bow, something in the back just went pow. It was like the muscles that had been so tight had loosened up. And it felt amazing. And then it was like an ice pick. I was like, oh, like way worse. You know what I mean? I was like, damn. I was so enjoying that glow. I was like, I thought I figured it out. Like, the stillness, relax. Oh, it's amazing. And then, no, it made it worse. It was so interesting that, like, then the system took it as a lesson. You know, the lesson was like, forget that, you know, loosening up stuff. Like, don't relax. Like, it gets worse. You know? And so now there's like this fear on the cushion. It's like, don't go to a stillness place.

[75:18]

really bad. You thought attention was bad. It can get really bad. You don't even know how bad it can get. And it's just fascinating. You know, I see that process everywhere. I see it in relationships, how I am with people, you know, there's attention, and then there's grace, there's opening, there's some beautiful glow. Then there's... There can be pain, and it can be intense. And it can be very tempting to burn a lesson or go to that place of, I'm never doing that again. But, you know, I don't know, here I am still on the cushion and there's some level of, I guess, curiosity still. Well, let's see. Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for that reiteration of the process. Is there any encouragement about... About, no.

[76:24]

That tender spot, that tender place that happens in stillness where it feels like the body physically, but also, you know, out in the world, emotionally, the heart, that tender space that can feel so vulnerable to that much... How to be with that? Like, there's fear, but there's also a curiosity. How to be with the tenderness? Or... When I'm with the tenderness, what is with the tenderness? How to be with the resistance that comes up to the tenderness after the pain? Yeah, so... One time, Sister Chris said, Zazen is the great tenderizer. More tender, and then when you're more tender, things that don't hurt you when you're not tender can get to you.

[77:27]

And then they do, and then you think, enough tenderness. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm out of here. That's stupid, etc. And then as you're walking on the path away from the Zendo, and away from all these crazy fools, it might arise in you, well, maybe give it another try. But, yeah, as we become more tender, things that wouldn't have hurt us before now hurt us. Our body says, and then things hurt us more deeply, you could say, or things that don't usually hurt us hurt us, and then we think, well, maybe I should just get away from this situation.

[78:32]

And then you get away from it, and you kind of think, yeah, but it's kind of dead over here. Maybe, well, maybe not now, but maybe someday I'll go back there and give it a chance again. Again, what? Give the tenderness a chance. But maybe we have to recover from the injury first. Maybe right now it's too early to become tender and get poked. So part of tenderness would be to let yourself rest. And not relax, but rest. You know, get away from what hurts you for a while. And then you don't have to try to tenderize yourself. All you've got to do is sit here and you become more tender. So this is, again, this is not about... Again, we use the expression, ending the suffering.

[79:39]

It's not about... The main thing is not liberation from suffering. The main thing is to help people become liberated from suffering. Liberated from suffering, that's great. Now you can do the real thing, which is help other people. And when you start helping other people, then you get back into the suffering again. which is the Buddha's work, is to go and deal with the suffering, to respond to it. And it's okay to be relaxed, but the relaxation is now, and the tenderness is now coming to meet the suffering, and therefore it's open to being hurt again, to transmit openness to being hurt again.

[80:51]

I think that's the Buddha's work is openness to be hurt in order to help people who are suffering rather than go to a place where there's no pain. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for the conversation. One more? Yes. I wanted to talk a little bit about stillness. And in part, I think I wanted to see if I could have stillness while I asked about it. It's very remarkable, the word. I hear a lot of mindfulness. And as a person who's kind of a kinesthetic learner, it doesn't really work. Whereas stillness has a connected effect.

[82:02]

I feel as though the body, my body, knows stillness in ways that are not cerebral. When I'm in stillness, I feel it's almost pulping the space between each and every one of us. And I use stillness to help people become still at my job who are dying in hospice. And it helps me get out of self, because I'm helping them. And I guess my question When I'm stuck, there's this self-me that's not still at all. She's just not still. Caught in the conceptual mind, thinking, talking, running around, not being present.

[83:05]

And when I'm in that place, and like, something as simple as eating Orioki, like, I get caught in it, and I just cannot even separate that. And so I guess I want some tricks. Some tricks that get me to embodiment, that get me, not just, I mean, I can say, is there stillness here? That's a language. I mean, maybe I could say, focus on the thing and just put your awareness. But one other problem is that when I'm really in my... my more original face, my vulnerability, my tenderness, it's often a withdrawn. I live a very kind of sheltered life in a lot of ways. It's withdrawn. And so how do I do it? Like a social stuff. It's a different gear. Signing a contract.

[84:08]

You need a sky hook? We actually have some tricks for sale in the ... Yeah.

[84:47]

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