We often say, we vow from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma. I cautiously say that this Dharma that we vow to hear is inaudible. This Dharma which we vow to see is invisible. Invisible. Like light. Light is invisible. We only see it reflected I didn't think in olden times that I had a wish to realize something that was invisible.

[01:32]

Now I'm thinking that maybe I do want to realize something, that I have a desire for something that's invisible, which I might call the Dharma. Can I see that card, please? about the World Honored One walking along with a group and pointing to the earth and saying, this is a good spot.

[02:34]

That part of the story could be interpreted as the World Honored One saying that the earth is a place, a good place to build sanctuaries. This spot is a good spot. And the earth is each one of us and every thought and feeling in our mind. Every sentient being is the earth and every sentient being is a good place to build a sanctuary. And also every sentient being, again, is the earth, is the ground that we build.

[03:50]

it's good to build sanctuaries on the ground. And the ground, one way to understand ground is ground is our karma. My karma, your karma. So our karma is a good place to build a sanctuary. Karma is where we have our Karma is the ground of our suffering, too. So the ground of our suffering is a good place to build a sanctuary in the middle of our suffering. And the first part of that is like to practice virtue, to practice generosity with our karma.

[05:11]

Be careful with it. Be conscientious with it. Be patient with it. Be diligent with it. be calm with it. And then we can have wisdom with our karma. And then the next part of the story is the leader of the gods takes a blade of grass and sticks it in the earth and says, the sanctuary is built. So I start out by interpreting this as, again, this leader of the gods is in the middle of all the gods, but also is in the Buddha's group.

[06:21]

So in the midst of this great assembly, one of the leaders takes a blade of grass and puts it in the ground and in this way builds the sanctuary. Puts a blade of grass, for example, in our karma. And the part that, so, and this comes from, I think, being grounded to be able to, like, take that grass and put it in the earth and proclaim the building of the sanctuary. I don't know exactly where and I wouldn't set a beginning on the mind of the great sage of India. I think it embraces this whole story and also the intimate and mysterious transmission

[07:28]

of this mind. Also, I don't see it in necessarily one part, but particularly the mystery of it I feel is in the building of the sanctuary. The Buddha points to where to build. Where to build, this is a good spot to build it. So that Buddha's instruction, and there's an intimate transmission there, but in a way it's not so mysterious. It's the Buddha saying, this is a good place. We can hear that. We can think, okay. But to build a sanctuary, that seems more mysterious. How is planting a blade of grass a sanctuary, a place of refuge and safety for beings? How is it my hand gestures that when my fingers come together, you know, my thumb touches a finger and a piece of grass is in between.

[08:54]

How is it that that karma builds a sanctuary? How is it that my action I want my action to be building a sanctuary here in my karma. How is it that my practice of working with these fingers makes a sanctuary for you? How is my practice your transformation and enlightenment. And I, in a way, that question stands, but then now I shift a little bit over to where Indra talks in saying, my hand gestures are like a sanctuary.

[10:01]

I still wonder how, but I know I'm proclaiming that my practice is building a sanctuary for me and you. My practice, which I can see and hear, my karma in here, the way I'm working with that to build a sanctuary is the same as building a sanctuary. even though I can't really see a sanctuary in a blade of grass. That's the hard part to understand. That's the mysterious aspect of the transmission. So sometimes the transmission seems to, seems to, seems to be visible and audible. Buddha. Karma.

[11:02]

Buddha talk. Karma. you point, you talk. I use these words to perform the building of the sanctuary. I use these words to perform the Buddha mind. And Again, as Indra would say, with these words, the sanctuary is built. And many Zen students, when they're, for example, sitting, their karma they're sitting, they do not think that where they're sitting and their action of physical posture, they do not think that they are building a sanctuary by that sitting.

[12:19]

They might think, oh, this is good for me to be sitting. And maybe if I sit here, I will be, I don't know what, someday beneficial, or I will be benefited. But they also often ask, in relationship to sitting, they say, how is our sitting here helping all the people who are not sitting? And particularly when things get very stressful and frightening, They feel like they have to do something other than what they're doing to help people. They are doing things, but they don't see what they're doing as the transformation of the lives of suffering people, of others. So I guess I'm joining those who assert

[13:29]

that by your own karma, by your own practice, all beings are transformed. So this is what I wish to work on this year. building sanctuaries moment by moment, building places for intimate transmission moment by moment, place by place, recognizing that this is difficult to believe and difficult to understand. Someone said to me in the kitchen yesterday or the day before yesterday at Green Dragon Temple that he heard that a novelist said that the job of a maybe was to harmonize or unify

[15:08]

or virtue and mystery. And maybe the job of a Zen artist is the same, to harmonize or unify virtue and mystery. Many Zen students, I think, do believe and they seem to think they understand that is good to practice. One way to practice virtue is to sit upright and be mindful of your life and be careful of your life and be conscientious with your actions and be patient and so on. These are virtues. What did they say? Patience is the greatest virtue? Generosity is the greatest virtue? Ethical discipline is the greatest virtue.

[16:11]

Heroic effort is the greatest. All these are great virtues. Students say, yeah, practice those virtues, but even though they are happy to practice those virtues, they still sometimes are asked, or ask themselves, what does this have to do with all the suffering people in the world who are not practicing virtue? I've never heard of it, or I've heard of it, but they're too stressed to think about practicing it. How does that work? And I think, again, many people say, the Buddha practiced virtue? Many people probably say, well, yeah. But still, many people think, well, the Buddha's practicing virtue, which is great. The Buddha has this great practice.

[17:18]

And then there's other people who are who need to be transformed. But again, part of what I want to go over with you again and again is that the Buddha's practice is the transformation of beings. That's what the Buddha's practice is. And the transformation of beings, that's the Buddha's practice. The Buddha's practice of virtue is the liberation and edification of others. That's what the Buddha is in our meditation, or in its meditation. And beings transformed in our meditation of Buddha.

[18:22]

And this is hard to understand and hard to believe. Within the Buddha, within the Buddha mind, are the guided and the guided. Within the mind of living beings, there is the guide. In the mind of the guide, there is the work of mysterious transformation, communication. in the mind of the guided, it's the same. And our karma is the place to build a sanctuary for contemplating this intimate communication and transmitting it.

[19:49]

Transmitting it by contemplating it, and contemplating it by transmitting it. Contemplating the transformation of others as our inner meditation, and contemplating our inner meditation as transforming others. a verbal expression which I now give you, which is, there are so many things to talk about. And each one of these things is a good place to build a sanctuary.

[21:16]

This may be seen as an advertisement, but please excuse me to mention that I'm offering a class in Berkeley and the title is Zen Meditation, Transforming the World. I think I heard Suzuki Roshi say something about, something like, we want to extend our zazen outside the zendo. That's one way I think I heard him speak. Extend our Zazen practice into daily life.

[24:31]

I didn't hear him say, he might have said it, extend our Zazen into the transformation of the world. which is the transformation of our daily life. To use our karma as the place of transformation and to use our karma as the performance of the transformation and not just the transformation of our karma, not just changing the way I talk, but using the way I talk to transformation of others. It's like there's no other transformation of others, no other transformation of others than the way I talk.

[25:48]

Usually you think, well, there's me talking and then there's others who are transformed. Like my talking is by itself other than you being transformed by my talk. You sort of go with that? Isn't that the usual way? I'm talking, and then you are transformed, rather than my talking is your transformation, and your transformation is my talking. The way you're changing right now is what I'm doing. That's hard to understand, isn't it? It's a little hard to talk that way, too.

[26:55]

I told this story several times. One time, Katagiri Roshi was giving a talk at the San Francisco Zen Center. And he often, when he talked, he seemed to be having a hard time talking. His verbal karma seemed to be difficult for him. He would sometimes hit himself in the forehead while he was trying to say something, but it wasn't quite what he meant. He'd whack himself in the forehead. Occasionally he would laugh. Suzuki Roshi didn't seem to have such a hard time. Didn't hit himself while he was talking. Hiroshi struggled to speak English. He could hear quite well because he had two boys who were like virtually native speakers of English because they grew up in America.

[28:12]

So he would hear them talking all the time and he would he could understand quite well the high-speed utterances of his boys. But when he spoke the teaching, he sometimes had a hard time articulating some of the complex teachings he was wanting to share. One time he was struggling away, giving a talk, and I was listening. I could hear it, and Yeah, it was, as usual, fairly interesting to me. I wasn't bored. And while he was talking, I started to hear something else. But it was inaudible. And I kind of wondered, what is this other thing I'm hearing while he's talking?

[29:20]

And then I could hear something in my own mind, which was a hypothesis about what I was hearing. I thought, maybe what I'm hearing is the Dharma. It was one of the first times I... I heard inaudible things before, but one of the first times I really like to say, one of the first times during a Dharma talk when I heard this other, this inaudible message. And part of the reason I thought of Dharma was because I felt somehow transformed by it. I felt like I was being transformed not by his words, but by something else. And then I was simultaneously... I wasn't talking, right?

[30:22]

But I was doing another kind of karma called thinking. So right while I was doing the karma of listening and doing the karma of thinking, right in the middle of the karma, I was being transformed. And I was in transformation. And if I look around my life, I can probably find an ever increasing number of examples of where I think I'm looking at something, where I see something visible, and I'm seeing something invisible at the same time. For example, I'm seeing your faces and I'm seeing something that is entirely different from your face at the same time.

[31:33]

But it's really different from ordinary visible things. I'm seeing something which is otherwise than seeing something. And I'm seeing it otherwise. And now another karma has arisen. And again, I accept this karma. And the karma that arose was a thought. And the thought was, that's probably enough talk for you. the thought that arose that I'm telling you about. So it was a mental action, and then I turned it into a physical action of speech. And I mentioned to you that I accept responsibility for this thought, but I don't think I did the thought.

[32:35]

I wasn't sitting there, okay, now think that you've talked. That thought arose, and I accept responsibility for it, but I really don't feel like I made that thought arise. And now a question. And I accept responsibility for this question, but I don't think I made it come up. But it did come up. and it's in my mind, and now I'm going to tell you what the question is. The question is, who made that thought come up? Who made this question come up? Who's responsible for the questions that are arising in my mind? Now I'm speaking out loud. Who's responsible? That's a question you can answer. I already answered inside, but I'm not telling her yet. Well, since nobody's saying anything, yes.

[33:39]

I very badly want to say I am. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I agree. You are. I want to say who is not responsible. It's not who, but it's... Well, I think who is responsible. And if you mean it the other way... If you say who is not, I would say, and this is, again, this is hard to understand, and it's scary, but I would say no one is not responsible. No one is not? No one is not responsible for the thoughts in my mind. Who is responsible? No one is not responsible. Who is responsible? And who... Who accepts responsibility for all my thoughts? And who is also an acronym for World Honored One? That who is an acronym for our founder?

[34:45]

The World Honored One accepts responsibility for all my thoughts. for all my speech karma, for all my physical gesture. And World Honored One is transmitting that wholehearted responsibility from my actions to me so that I will learn to accept responsibility for my actions, but also for everybody else's like it does. most people have some difficulty accepting responsibility for their own. Especially accepting full responsibility for their own actions. And even more people have a hard time accepting responsibility for everybody else's. So again, I'm not in control of my thoughts.

[35:54]

I think things like, that's enough. I have a question. I think things like that. I'm not in control of my thoughts. But I believe I am responsible and I wish to be more. and more mindful of being responsible for all my actions and also for all of yours. I wish to be mindful of that. And I wish to do that as a transformation of all of you. My work on my responsibility for your action is a transformation of you. And if you're more wholehearted and you're accepting responsibility for your actions and other people's, that would be my meditation. That is my meditation. That's my meditation.

[36:55]

And if you were that way, my meditation is. I mean, you are that way. My meditation is the way you are. And that's hard to understand. So again, the full responsibility is not me being fully responsible. It's me being fully responsible with you. It's the way we're both fully responsible. And you, I mean, all of you. The way we're in our full responsibility, that is the planting of the grass. That is the building of the sanctuary. This is already the case, but we have to perform it.

[38:07]

And performing means we have to use our performance facilities for that purpose. We have to use this place and these actions as the actions to perform full responsibility. Which also includes getting feedback from others through their karma about how we're how we're doing it because it's possible to take responsibility. Like, you know, I'm responsible but you're not. And of course it's possible to take too little. You're responsible but I'm not. Or, you know, you're mostly responsible. It's not really, you know, like 80-20 or 50-50. It's more full than that kind of measurement. And that is Buddha's meditation.

[39:10]

That's what Buddha is. That's how Buddha is. It's that full responsibility. And that's where all the expressions of Dharma come up in that full responsibility. That's where we actually meet the Dharma. Yes, yes? So when you speak about the full response, you're speaking about the karmic energy, the karma, to fully be the karma. Am I correct? Fully be the karma, and meditate on how fully being the karma is the transformation of other beings. So the fully being karma and the meditation of the fully karma, there is no karma.

[40:22]

You don't see the karma. The karma almost doesn't even exist. So I'm not quite sure. Well, just right there. The karma doesn't really exist. In a way, I agree. Karma doesn't really exist. We use what doesn't really exist to realize what really is. So it doesn't really exist, for example, that I think this or I think that. This is just my karma. This is just like the place I'm standing that I can see. So yeah, my karma doesn't really exist, but I use what doesn't really exist to realize not what really exists, but to realize what's real. And that's, again, difficult. How can using what doesn't really exist be the way Realizing reality, which liberates all beings.

[41:24]

That's really hard to understand. But we do have plenty of stuff that doesn't really exist. That we've got plenty of. All of our karma, everything that appears, these are all good opportunities. And to use them, and again, but to use them not just like I'm using them, but to use them in a face-to-face relationship, to use this skillfully, virtuously together in a relationship with somebody fully responsible, which is everybody, the way they really are. And the way they really are is watching us struggle to find our full responsibility and seeing that we are even while we find our full responsibility, we are actually the same as the fully responsible ones, the Buddhas.

[42:27]

I keep going back and forth. The way you really are, No, no, no. Yeah, well, the way you really are, you're not, and also you are. You are the way you really are. But the way to realize the way you really are, you use the way you really aren't. The way to realize how you really are, which is you use the way you really aren't. The way you really aren't is you really aren't just here. like this. But you use the way you appear to be and you use the karma you seem to be doing and also you use it in a relationship with others in full responsibility. That's how you realize the way you really are. Yes? A couple of days ago I was very preoccupied

[43:39]

With the tasks I had on hand. Kind of like Katagiri Roshi trying to give a talk in English. Kind of like what? When you said that, I thought, oh, Katagiri Roshi also, he was trying to give a talk in English, you know, like trying to speak this foreign language. ...about really difficult topics, he was really occupied with his task of giving a talk. And you were kind of like that with your task. I was. But throughout the day, throughout several hours, something was nudging me. Something was nudging you, that's right. It was a very strong... It was to call my accountant. You thought it was your accountant, but actually it was Buddha. Anyway, so I called. I called. I picked up the cell phone and I called. And I called his office.

[44:41]

But I called his cell phone and a woman answered. And I was shocked because I was not expecting a woman answering the phone. And I I apologized for calling, because then I realized I'd called the cell phone. And I said, I'm sorry, I wanted to talk to Tom. And she said, he passed away. Wow. And ever since, and I was taken aback, because number one, I got the snudge. about this question that I had for him, and number two, I called not his office number, but his cell phone. So when you said, who's responsible for the question arising in my mind, there's a part of me that thought, well, do the dreams put the thought in your mind too?

[45:44]

Mm-hmm. They do. They do? Well, is Suzuki Roshi putting the thoughts of Suzuki Roshi in my mind? Is he responsible for putting the thoughts of him in me? You know, he came to America and then there he was. Is he responsible for the fact that I have ideas of him? Hmm? Yeah, he's partially responsible. You know, he went to sleep. And then, you know, he walked around a meditation hall so I could see his feet. And then I left the meditation hall and he bowed to me. Is he responsible for me having the idea of, oh, there's a Japanese priest. Is he responsible? Hmm? Yes, partially. Is he? But he was alive at the time. I know, I know, I know.

[46:44]

Am I responsible for that I had the thought that I'm leading up to something? Am I responsible? Yeah, I am. Are you? Yeah, you are. And what I'm leading up to is that he's so-called dead now, right? We say sometimes, Sukhreshi has passed away. Is he like, you know, not responsible anymore? I mean, is he not partially responsible? Or is it now he went from partially to fully? Partially? Yeah, it could be. Could you be fully partially? Can you be responsible after you're dead? A lot of people right now are really concerned for their post-mortem responsibilities. Oh. It's a very common thing for people in their 50s, 60s. They're concerned about their post-mortem responsibilities. They're concerned about their children and grandchildren. It's not like, well, after I'm dead, I won't be responsible.

[47:51]

Some people think that, actually. I won't be responsible. I'm out of here. Some people feel responsibility beyond the ceremonies. The funeral ceremonies are not about, like, okay, responsibility has ended. So, yeah, Suzuki Roshi is still nudging some of us. Your accountant is still nudging. Your accountant is saying, Jackie, take care of your business affairs. Let's be diligent. Let's be diligent. Let's be careful. Let's be conscientious in your work. Let's make your work virtuous, your accountancy. Yes, beyond death, there is responsibility. And before birth, there is responsibility. So we ask people in Zen, what was your faith before you were born?

[48:55]

It's a relevant question to go check out who you were before you were born and what was your responsibility to who you were before you were born. And how is it that who you were before you were born will be the place where you'll find full responsibility? So many ancestors In the early part of their practice, they had a very limited sense of responsibility. And so the teacher said, would you please stop talking to me and talk to me from before you were born, would you please? And they said, well, how am I going to do that? Well, that's more talk from here. But they could have said, Okay, right now I am talking to you from before I was born. I'm using this talk.

[49:59]

It took a while for them to get there. Because they had this habit of not being willing to use this karma, which doesn't really exist, as the performance of what's real. This is the Dharma. It's real. But we need to use what isn't real to reveal it. And we've got plenty of what isn't real. You know, like our ideas of each other. We just carefully, respectfully say, well, that's not real. Now we say, but use that open that up with virtue. Because that's how we're going to perform. And that's hard to understand.

[51:02]

Practicing virtue with the unreal is not so difficult to understand, although it's pretty difficult. And even when you understand it, it's hard to remember. Yeah? It's difficult for me. At least, I think it's clear. Our love is here to stay. Not for a day, but ever. Yes? It's very clear. It's born being born. It's purely intelligence. Purely intelligence. Now, that's very clear, but what you're talking about is not from your expression is not from before where you're born. Your expression is from after you're born. Me too.

[52:09]

That, I don't know, maybe that was from after you're born, I'm not sure. But my case is that your talk about before you're born is from after you're born. I want to hear, by the way, you get this assignment now too. Congratulations. Please say something from before you were born. Okay? Yes. Is it true that there's a story that you saw Suzuki's feet and thought, these are good feet to teach me. Yeah, it is true that I told that story. I wasn't sure if I made it up in my head. I wanted to reconfirm. And you made me up in your head, telling you that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought, I said, these feet can teach me Zen.

[53:12]

The first thing I saw of him was his feet. And do I think he's responsible for his feet? I do. I thought he was responsible for those feet. And I thought he was being, you know... fulfilling his responsibility very nicely. They were, like, clean, and the toenails were, you know, I don't know how I got them to be even, like those Buddha statues. But anyway, I thought, these feet can teach me Zen. And then I thought, maybe later I'll see the face, and I'll think the face can. And actually, I did see the face, you know, like half an hour later. Face to face, I saw it. And after I saw it, I thought, I think this person wouldn't. And I understood as much about his face as I understood about his feet. Usually we don't look at feet and say, how mysterious.

[54:15]

Right? I didn't think that when I was a kid. I didn't think, how mysterious. These feet can teach me Zen. But now, today I think, how mysterious that I would think such a thought. That feet could teach me Zen. When we meet the Zen teacher's face and we think, how mysterious, that's quite common, right? Mysterious face. Mysterious Zen student's face. But mysterious feet? Wait a minute. Zen teacher's face can teach Zen, right? Zen teacher's face can teach to learn Zen, right? Oh, yeah. The student's face can make it more difficult. Right? Why don't those faces all smile? Why aren't they all concentrated? It's very mysterious.

[55:16]

But the feet, yeah. Story being told. Yes? I struggle greatly to do the Dharma. The only question is, can I learn the Dharma from someone who is not interested? Yeah, well, can you learn it from them? Definitely you can learn it with them. I don't know if it's exactly from them, because even if you met someone who, did you say wasn't interested? Yeah, if you meet some people who are really interested, you don't exactly learn the Dharma from them. Well, as you learn the Dharma with them. And yes, you can learn the Dharma with anybody. Even people who say, I'm not interested, you can learn the Dharma with such people.

[56:22]

Yes. Yes. And those people, I'm suggesting, are actually practicing the Dharma in the way of not being interested in the Dharma. That's the way they are practicing it. Be Buddha. They will eventually realize this intimate communication. And you can also learn the Dharma with people who are really interested in it. And a lot of people are trying to learn the Dharma with or from people who are really interested in it. Like they go places like here where there's some people who are really interested in the Dharma to learn about the Dharma. So that's fine. But if we could have another center in Mill Valley, you know, which is set up as for people who are not interested in Dharma to come and learn it.

[57:25]

This is a place that a lot of people aren't interested in, and those who are interested can go meet those people. So if we could have another place for that purpose. And we could call it, I don't know what. Abode. Yeah, abode. Yeah, we'd call it abode. Yes. Yes. So just back to the story, because when they're walking, it's Indra who plots the grass, is it? Yes. But that's after the... Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, because to me it just seems so literal, like, I don't know, maybe it's a misunderstanding. When I first was taught the Zen mantra, because I was taught that a blade of grass, it's like you have a blade of grass between your thumbs and it should never be bruised, but you're not aware of that. Yes. And to me, it seems like it's such a sort of direct story, saying, yeah, we're all walking with the Buddha all the time.

[58:31]

Yes. you know, but until the moment of pointing, we don't, or we don't have a way to relate to that, or whatever, because then, but, and Buddha isn't going to sort of pick us, it has to be sort of his, you know, what's it, king of the gods, right? But that's our seal to Anytime anyone sits with a blade of grass between their thumbs, we all enter the stream. Well, saying what you just said is, first of all, like pointing to the ground. You said, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, yes, you're pointing to the ground. Now, use wherever you are as the building of the sanctuary. It always has to be something beyond words, because... No, no, it has to be words.

[59:34]

Oh, what? You have to say, he has to say. You have to use hand gestures to build the sanctuary to the real, or for the real. The refuge of the real is built by using the unreal. Or, you know, but not an unreal that's being offered as a way to realize the real. It's not like we don't use, like, cruelty. The Buddha did not teach, well, let's use some cruelty here to realize, to build a sanctuary. Hold someone's raw heart in your hand. Let's use these words like, we're going to use this, right? Ready? This is a good place to build a sanctuary. That's something that doesn't exist. We're going to use that. Now, okay, now we're going to use my fingers to plant this grass. Now I'm going to try to do some sanctuary building.

[60:37]

And some people think, well, what happened? Did they ask permission from that blade of grass before putting it in the ground? Some people are really upset about that part. But anyway... We're using something that's been set up provisionally as an opportunity to show the real. And anything for that purpose, that's also something that teaching right there is a provisional teaching. And now we're going to do this other provisional teaching. And then this story is a provisional teaching. And we're going to use it. But all the other stories we could use for the same... ...all the other stories in a similar way. Were you looking around to see if anybody else wanted to ask a question? And you didn't find anybody? So you, raise your hand.

[61:38]

Yes. I have a question about the ground. Okay. because it made me think of something that I often think. Whenever I think I know what Zen is, it always changes. So it seems like the ground is always changing. The ground is unstable. So declaring that this is a sanctuary is not permanent. It's not permanent, no? It's something that... is a process that can be repeated over and over. Yeah, it would be something we would repeat with the next karma, and the next karma, and the next karma. Just like I'm talking over and over and over again, basically saying the same thing, which is, the sanctuary is built

[62:45]

Provisionally. I keep thinking of something Chögyam Trungpa said, and I'm going to mess it up, so if someone remembers it, please help me. It's about, talking about groundlessness. Yes. Do you remember the quote? Well, he used that, no, I don't know, because he used that term a lot. Like the... He's talking about the fear and it's okay because actually there is no ground. You're following? No, I know the point. Yeah. He's talking about such and being thrown out of an airplane. Yeah. But it's, yeah. I don't know if it's wrong. It is something right. So yeah, I guess the ground feels groundless. And I'm not really sure what to do. I know. I'm not sure what to do with that.

[64:08]

Well, that is, what do you call it? Those words are a ground. And so you can build a sanctuary in those words. Those unreal, those words which don't really exist, those are good places to build sanctuaries. And then by building sanctuaries in words that don't really exist, we realize the truth of groundlessness, the reality which is groundless. Thank you. Yes. I theoretically moved to perform acts and to do things for the world.

[65:10]

Yes. You feel moved ethically, you say, but also you feel... You said ethically moved, but also you feel... for the world. By being with others, ethics arise. It's a function of us being here, doing bad things to each other. We're supporting each other. And that is a condition for us to continue to exist. So in that sense, when activities or people or circumstances actually put that in peril, I'm moved And that moving to act is one that happens right here in this grounded, on these grounds.

[66:14]

And so there is a pull and tug between the groundedness. So they're both here, and they exist here. So as much as I appreciate the story about the airplane, there is a ground, and I will hit that ground. Yeah, and the original, the first story is saying that the ground is the place to build a sanctuary. You don't build a sanctuary in groundlessness. Groundlessness doesn't... You can't build a sanctuary in groundlessness. We build a sanctuary on the ground. You wouldn't need a sanctuary. You wouldn't need a sanctuary if you were in a situation of groundlessness. You wouldn't need a sanctuary. You do because other people need it. If you don't need it, you don't need it.

[67:19]

Okay? Their meditation is the transformation of the people who do need it. Some people think the Buddha is like, they got this nice situation. Well, their nice situation is that other people are liberated from fear of groundlessness. That's the Buddha's realization of groundlessness. So the Buddha says, let's build sanctuaries. But while the Buddha says that, the Buddha realizes that the words that are being said, there's no basis for these words to be apprehended. And the Buddha uses words which cannot be apprehended as a way to realize that they can't be apprehended. And then one of the students understands and demonstrates the understanding by building a sanctuary. which gives opportunities for other kinds of ground to build other sanctuaries.

[68:33]

Like, once you build a sanctuary, then you have the problems of taking care of the sanctuary, which are more sanctuaries. Or you could also say more trouble. Yes? that when they're walking actually Buddha could not appoint unless he had been walking with Indra and the king of the gods. That's right. Because if there was no group there would be no Buddha and if there was no Buddha there would be no group. But there was a Buddha which is nothing but the group and the group then through the Buddha is to the ground. And then again In the group, there's a response to the Buddha's pointing, which is this planting, and then there's a response to the planting, which is a smile. So this mysterious transformation was going through every moment of the story and beyond.

[69:44]

And we're in the beyond part. We're in the carrying on the mysterious transformation of that story. and checking out that we have sometimes some confusion about how what we're doing is transforming other beings. How the transformation of other beings is what we're doing. We sometimes feel like they're two different things. Again, people just think, and then that's the Buddha who's got this understanding, and then there's other beings who are to be transformed. But there's no Buddha if there's not the beings transformed. When the beings aren't being transformed, there's no Buddha. There's not only no Buddha, living beings, but there's no Buddha without the living beings being transformed.

[70:46]

If the Buddha was with the living beings and they weren't being transformed, you would just have living beings. There would be no Buddha. But because you have Buddha with living beings, living beings are being transformed, which is what the Buddha is. And then the Buddha says, well, now we have to, like, it would be good to build some sanctuaries. Yes? A little while ago you mentioned cruelty. And I was wondering... Cruelty is defined by interactions. Yeah. Yeah, the cruelty is a sentient being. And the Buddha's provisional activity and also the Buddha's provisional activity is the transformation of that cruelty. which is a living being.

[71:49]

That cruelty is a living being. Hatred is a living being. And there's no Buddhas aside from that living being, which is hatred. And none of us are here aside from that living being that's hatred. We're the same. We're the same as these other living beings because we include them. We include these other living beings and they include us. And that's our groundlessness. And so we're responsible for cruelty. Pardon? We're responsible for the cruelty.

[72:51]

I'm responsible for all cruelty, yes. And everybody else is too. And again, that's difficult to understand. And fully doesn't mean that I'm the only one who is. The fullness is the appropriate, you know, relational responsibility. I can respond to all cruelty, and I do. All cruelty is a response to me. How is the response to you, for example, the bombing that occurred in Turkey today, and 40 people were killed? I don't know how it is. I don't know how it all works. I don't. But you still believe that you're responsible for that? I believe it and I wish to understand it. I aspire to understand it by believing it.

[73:55]

Would you turn yourself to the police? Would I turn myself to the police? I hadn't thought of that. But somebody else might turn me in. That might happen. And somebody might bomb me. If I express myself, it might happen. And as I'm being bombed, I aspire to accept responsibility. Fui, which means with others. Not being, what do you call it, arrogant about it. Not being possessive of it. But more like being responsive to it. That's what I want.

[75:01]

And in that way, in that meeting, the Dharma will be alive. That's what I want. But I know it's very difficult to understand and believe. Yes? So is that like the scale of confession? Like in the sutra we just chanted, confessing and repenting. Is that like the... Is that the scale of it? Scale? Of our... I see, uh-huh. That's not really a scale. That's my open to that it's measureless, immeasurable. That's like what you just said. It's like recognizing the immeasurable side and then there's also a measurable kind.

[76:03]

In other words, I just measured what I did as impatient. I just had this impatient thought in my mind so I could measure that one. So there's measurable, which I can measurably acknowledge. And then there's immeasurable. And as I confess immeasurably, I sometimes think of measurable ones. And then the measurable ones, I can work with them in a measurable way. I can say them. And I can say them ...relationship with somebody who feels responsibility for me. So it's recommended that once you see that in both immeasurable and measurable confession, that you do that in a relationship with someone in a relationship to you already, who's already looking at you, struggling to understand this bodhisattva path.

[77:07]

And also they're seeing you struggle and they also see you as themselves. They're not wishing you would stop being the way you are, any different than they're wishing that they would stop being what they are, because they are you. And you are struggling with your karma, measurable and immeasurable. So we, in the early days of Zen Center, we did not practice, you know, formal confession and repentance. But people did informally, I should say, people did specifically, measurably sometimes, and say, I did such and such. And teachers sometimes did ask people about certain specific karmas. But we didn't, as a group, do confession and repentance for quite a few years.

[78:15]

And I think, I don't know if Suzuki Roshi brought it up and, you know, but he was in the Zendo. I don't know if he did. It would be really interesting to ask him, did you bring this up earlier and decide maybe we were ready for it? And he might have said, yeah, I did bring it up and I felt like people just couldn't They got all this because of their Western religious background. They were too reactive to do the practice. So I didn't mention it. But then towards the last short period of his life, he started to bring it up again. And then as I also mentioned to people, a few years after Satsangharashi died, Kadagiri Roshi said to me, I'm becoming more and more impressed of how important confession and repentance is to Dogen Zenji. Even he, in the later part of his life, had not really understood that confession and repentance were a big issue for Dogen.

[79:22]

If you look in Dogen's massive writings, you don't find that much discussion of confession and repentance. That's part of the reason I have his chant this, that in this vow, he's very keen on confession and repentance. And this is not specific, right? This is immeasurable. Was this vow part of a larger piece of writing? One place it's found is in a text the sound of the streams and the color of the mountains. The sound of the valley streams and the color of the mountains. There's a fascicle by that name. And in the later part of that fascicle, most of these parts, not all together in one piece, but kind of broken up,

[80:26]

And then it was, I think, excerpted and put together into one piece called The Arousing of the Vow of the High Priest of Heiheiji. And then another, there's another name of it. It's in the regular Sotoshu liturgy book, like this. But I don't know if he wrote it especially just like this someplace, other than in that text. There may be that Dogen excerpted, but I don't know that. And then the other vow, Tore Zenji's vow is also, you know, it doesn't say confession or repentance, but it says, you know, he speaks of his evil karma mind. And but he doesn't so much strongly emphasize the power of the practice of confession and repentance in relationship to those who totally support us to do that practice and who share the responsibility with us.

[81:50]

Buddha does not say, that's your responsibility separate from me. So it's so much fun to tell children, you know, you did it, when they have some great accomplishment, you know. They seem to love for us to tell them when they eat, you did it. And so we say that. And if I say to my granddaughter, we did it, she said, no, I did it. It's too late for me to... But I still can say, she can say, no, I did it.

[83:02]

And then after I passed away, she said, he always used to say, we did it. What was he talking about? I wonder what he's talking about. Mommy, what was granddaddy talking about when he said, we did it? And she said, I don't know. He's a strange granddaddy. Yes? There's a clip on Amazon that can be one of Suzuki Roshi's writings where either the translator or the student says that they've gone with Suzuki Roshi to Yosemite to show them the waterfalls. It's so stuck with me because his reaction to the waterfalls, to the steaming, really signified how he looked at the world and that was, he was so sad. He said he was very sad for the waterfall because they weren't part of the pinkest stream.

[84:05]

I'm not really giving it justice, but you can find it. But it's just that it was framed as the everything he saw. He saw it from the point of view of compassion for the non-Buddhists and the non-Tibetan, the stream-joying-at-means Buddha. So it's just this beautiful level. I mean, it could be complete and wrong. Maybe you know. Maybe you were there. Maybe you never said those things. But it's very... Well, yeah, well, those things are... are things that don't exist. But we can use them. We can use them. And really, they're all we have. And they are sufficient. They are what we have and they are sufficient. We can use them.

[85:08]

And I think, I don't know, he did sometimes say, you know, things that we have that are kind of special, some really great provisional teachings that we have, But he kind of liked something, you know, more ordinary things, like rocks. He liked to use rocks to build sanctuaries rather than very complex, eloquent verbal and intellectual expressions. Kind of secretly, he did study those things. And when I studied them, he encouraged me. But I think he's trying to emphasize he really did like to use rocks, and he's also trying to emphasize that it wasn't just those lofty teachings that we should use to realize what is real.

[86:24]

So the Buddha said some really amazing things, which are all, like, don't exist, really, to help people realize what's real. But also he said some not-so-lofty things for the same purpose. And, but, and Sukhoreshi also said some not-very-lofty things for the purpose of realizing the real. like move that rock and move that rock back. Put the broom with the head up, the head with the straw up, rather than that practice is in jeopardy. So I go around and take the brooms and put them back up like this in various locations.

[87:39]

Yes? I'm thanking you for all the teachings and all that you do for us. And you do quite a bit. I wanted to also thank Eileen for all that she does. Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much, Eileen. And thank you to the parking attendants. Thank you. I know that can be a difficult job. So difficult? Okay. And thank you, Elenia, for taking care of so many things here, too. And thank you, all of you, for taking care of this sanctuary and to re... again and again, because it's unstable, impermanent, not worthy of confidence.

[88:50]

but it is worthy of practicing virtue with it and using it as a place to transform all beings. So should we set things up and sit for a little bit? Just sit for a little bit? After we chant? Let's chant... May our attention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's Way.

[89:35]

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