So, the way I use the term Zazen is a little unusual. Almost nobody talks about it the way I do. So, perhaps you'll be somewhat surprised to hear some of the things I say, but that's just what I'm saying. Don't worry about it. If you never heard about it before, if it sounds strange, It's just I'm in a position of talking to you and I'm talking about Zazen and so here comes some unfamiliar things, perhaps. Here are some Chinese characters. Ready? I think that character in Japanese is pronounced, Japanese pronunciation is yo.

[01:19]

And it often is translated as essential, necessary, and the translation that I think is most alive is pivotal. Pivotal. or pivot. And that character is pronounced ki. It's in my name, Zenki. And it means energy or function, activity, opportunity, working, machine.

[02:36]

So the two together mean pivotal activity or pivotal function or pivoting machine. Now, I don't know of a sentence that, for example, was written by an ancient Zen master which is like this, Zazen is... yoki. Zazen is pivotal activity. I never saw that sentence. However, we do have two poems written by two noted ancient teachers, one by Dogen Zenji and the other by his grand-grand-uncle, Hangzhi Zhengzhui. And the poems are called The Acupuncture Needle of Zazen. And then the first line of the two poems is, pivotal activity of all Buddhas.

[03:44]

It doesn't say Zazen is the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. But I think that's what they're trying to tell us. Zazen is an activity. What kind? A pivoting activity. Pivoting activity. and it's a pivoting activity of Buddhas. The Buddhas have a pivotal activity. Buddhas are pivoting in their pivotal activity. I could even say Buddhas have a job or they have a business and their business is pivoting actively, actively pivoting.

[04:50]

And that active pivoting that they're doing is also called Zazen. They do it when they're sitting, like Buddhas are sitting oftentimes. sitting in the middle of all living beings. That's where they sit. And they sit there and pivot. How are they pivoting? Well, they're pivoting by meeting face to face with themselves. in the form of meeting face to face with all living beings. Buddhas are sitting in the middle of all beings, meeting them face to face and pivoting with them, teaching them Dharma, showing them that Buddhas and living beings are identical.

[06:03]

Buddhas are changing positions with living beings. Buddhas are like becoming living beings and having living beings become Buddhas. Buddhas becoming living beings, living beings become Buddhas. Living beings become Buddhas, become sentient beings, become Buddhas, become sentient beings. This is the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. it's also the pivotal activity of everybody because the Buddhas are doing it with everybody. Also, we have this, again, Japanese pronunciation of Chinese Shobo Genzo.

[07:08]

It's actually Chinese characters and Japanese way of saying them is Shobo Genzo, which can be translated in English as True Dharma Eye Treasury or Treasury of True Dharma Eyes. And that can be made into an acronym. S-B-G-Z. And also, I almost heard some ancestors say this. Shobo Genzo is Zazen. Zazen is Shobo Genzo.

[08:15]

Zazen is the treasury of true Dharma eyes. And this treasury of true Dharma eyes is It's a living treasury of eyeballs, of Dharma eyeballs, and it's functioning, and it's pivoting with living beings. Treasury of true Dharma eyes is another word for the true Dharma. Zazen is the true Dharma eyes. I don't know if anybody said that before, but I'm saying it. Zazen is true Dharma. And true Dharma is not just something that's sitting on the library in some Zen teacher's office. The true Dharma is the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. Okay, well, I can go on like this indefinitely, and maybe that's enough for now.

[09:53]

And I might just ask, how are you doing with this presentation of Zazen? And this is the way I see it. And I understand that some people think that Zazen is something different. Many different views of it. This is just the way I see it. And I say this is the Zazen of Buddhas and ancestors. This is Bodhisattva Zazen. Yes. So when I hear Zazen, I tend to think of it as being seated meditation in the Zendo. But I also recall you saying once that you're doing Zazen all the time. Yeah. Is the Zazen to which you're referring today confined to the Zendo?

[10:58]

No. But it also is not forbidden in the Zendo. It's being done in the Zendo and nobody, nobody can stop it. Nothing can destroy this Zaza. It is complete and all-pervading. It pervades everywhere. It pervades sitting in the Zendo and it pervades Kinhin. It also pervades the people who are leaving the zendo and going to the toilet. However, if you don't practice it when you go to the toilet, you're going to miss it, even though it's there. Yes? This is a sort of a Wu Wei.

[12:09]

It's an invitation to a pivotal thing. But I have felt pivotal energy at times where it isn't Buddha, in my experience, because it isn't... It has to, I think, have a certain passivity to it for it to open. I've touched dying people with a little bit of... probably more aggression than I even realized. And I had frequent pain unintentionally. And so if I'm pivoting and we're pivoting, it's just a very subtle, gentle place. And I think at times it feels, I've had it feel as a boundary violation. And I don't know how to control it to keep myself safe. Did you say control? I did. Before you said control, you were doing fine.

[13:26]

Before that, you said something about boundary violation. Yeah. Pivoting energy can be piercing, I feel at times. I've had energy from other cities piercing my heart. Okay, so you're suggesting that pivotal energy can be piercing. It can be. Yeah. I would say it a little differently. I would say that this pivotal activity reaches, what's the word you use, piercing? Piercing. Yeah. Or we could even use a more aggressive word if you want to, like more aggressive or harmful. Okay. The pivotal activities of Buddhas is not harmful. However, it is non-dual with all harmful activity. So thank you for bringing that up. I mean that Buddhas are pivoting with all living beings.

[14:33]

Buddhas are non-dual with all living beings. And living beings get excited and violate boundaries sometimes. Even when they're trying to be helpful, they get excited and shock people. And sometimes when they're excited, they get frightened. Or when they're frightened, they get excited. And when they're frightened, sometimes they get aggressive. Living beings are like that sometimes. They're aggressive sometimes. They're violent sometimes. Buddhist pivotal activity is with all beings, including people who are really agitated and confused. Buddha's activity is not separate from them. But their agitation and so on, and their agitation and so on, is basically identical with Buddha's.

[15:42]

And Buddha's are wise and kind. And Buddhas see that all living beings, including the ones who are really confused and crazy, they see, this is me I'm looking at. And this person I'm looking at does not understand who they are, what they are, what life is. They're distressed, confused, and at risk of harmful activity. Buddha's activity is not Buddhas by themselves and living crazy people over there. That's not Buddha's activity. Buddha's activity is that Buddhas are pivoting with all living beings. Those who are calm and gentle and present and have bodhisattva vows that they are aware of.

[16:51]

and those who are very disturbed and have bodhisattva vows that they're not aware of. So thank you for that. Right away we bring up the implication which I mentioned yesterday part of the implications of this pivotal activity of being part of a major implication of living in the middle of all living beings, a major implication of being the center of all living beings, which I propose we are, is that we include them all. All of them. You name them. And then you start naming people that you think, no, I do not include that person. Not that person, no. That person is just too arrogant to be included in me.

[17:55]

I'm a very stable genius, yes. Not that person, no, no. I mean, I got some problems, but I'm not that bad. No, you're not that bad. But you include that person. They are an aspect of you. And everything about you is an aspect of Buddhahood. And everybody else. The way is all pervading. The way of what? Of Zazen. It's all pervading. It pervades from you, from you out, and from out back to you. There's no separation, really. But there is a Buddha way, which is

[19:05]

perfect wisdom and great compassion with all, and everybody's included. And some people are really super distressed and violent. Yes, ma'am. My understanding is that although when they are recently pivoting from Buddhism, Shosh may have said, although one may be always pivoting with Buddhas, one can't experience it. It's not in the realm of human consciousness. However, it is our experience. Our actual experience is more than just our consciousness. So, at the last... If I think, hey, just a few minutes ago I was pivoting with Buddha, that's a perfectly good thought.

[20:13]

It's similar to, did you hear that thought? Yeah, I was just pivoting with Buddha. Hi, what's new? I was pivoting with Buddha. That's like a verbal expression coming from human consciousness. And I actually think I was pivoting. However, you could also say, hey, I wasn't pivoting with Buddha. I never pivot with Buddha. I never dance with Buddha. I never meet Buddha. That's another human thought. And that's not our experience. So I would try to use the word experience as a little bit bigger than consciousness because in a way most of our experience is not conscious. For example, part of my experience is I am digesting breakfast probably, but I'm not sure. Maybe my digestive system is actually taking a break. Who knows? But probably not.

[21:14]

It's probably working. And my digestion is part of my experience. People who are not digesting have different experiences than people who are. It's a big difference in experience. I have a lot going on with me that I'm not conscious of right now. I have many kinds of mental calculations that are going on that I'm not conscious of right now. Most of what's going on with me cognitively is not conscious. My actual relationship with everybody is Buddha's relationship with everybody. And I'm not... It's too big for my little control center... Consciousness is the control center. It's the place where you think that you can be in control and where control is possible, you think. And you can dream that you're in control. You can have a dream, like you can go to sleep and dream, I was actually in control.

[22:17]

So that can be reported from consciousness. Zazen, I think one translation is must be deportment, beyond hearing and seeing. So you can see, you can see me sitting in the Zendo sometimes. But this person you see, the sitting you see me doing there, that's not Zazen. Zazen is beyond hearing and seeing. It doesn't exclude hearing and seeing, completely embraces it, but it's not just what you can see. And everybody's like that. Whenever you look at anybody, they're not just what you see. Your eyes don't see all of what a person is.

[23:20]

A person is much too complex for what we call eye consciousness. Buddha's activity is not harmful. Buddha's activity is liberating. Buddha is, although Buddha can't liberate everybody, you know, can't liberate every human consciousness like that, Buddha's activity is liberating all living beings. That's the work of Buddha. And Buddha's activity can cause or trigger pain? Can cause or trigger pain? No, I don't think so. I know you do. I just mentioned to you that I don't think so. Was that painful? Well, one story of the people who are trying to kill the Buddha in one particular story is, or two stories, one story is

[24:32]

the person was jealous of the Buddha. That's one story. But the Buddha doesn't go up and cause people to... Buddha's not in control! Buddha doesn't cause you to be jealous of Buddha. However, if you see a Buddha, that would be easy to be jealous, not jealous. If you ever saw a Buddha, you might be envious. Like, look, everybody's so nice to the Buddha, why aren't they nice to me? Everybody's bowing down to the Buddha. Nobody's bowing to me. So people can get envious that people are so kind to the Buddha and so reverent. But the Buddha doesn't cause them. However, the Buddha is a condition because if the Buddha wasn't there, they wouldn't be able to be jealous of Buddha. So the Buddha is a condition for all living beings. The Buddha is a condition for all suffering beings. But the Buddha is not in control of any of them.

[25:38]

And the Buddha doesn't cause them to be the way they are. But they cannot be the way they are without Buddha. But also they can't be the way they are without Kristen. or maite, or myoe. So the way all the suffering people have includes you. But you don't cause it, like, you know, you're the cause of it. But you are a condition for it. And so am I. All the suffering in the world, each of us is a condition for it. Because if we weren't here, things would be different. But we don't like it. We're not in control. You can try to hurt people and be successful or unsuccessful, but you can't actually control people. But no matter how sweet you try to be and how patient you try to be and how gentle you try to be, people can still feel that their boundaries are violated. They can still feel aggressed upon. you can walk into this room, just open the door and stick your head in, and somebody in the room can feel like, aggressor.

[26:44]

You can't stop that. You can't control people. However, it is possible to accept that you can't control people and accept all their reactions to you. It's possible to do that. And you're not in control of accepting either. But it does happen. People do accept every now and then. And that is Buddha's activity. Yes? So when I hear the word pivot, in my background, it's usually to change course or to change direction as a result of hitting a wall or a company is pursuing a strategy that's not working. They say, well, let's pivot our resources to a different market. Let's pivot. A lot of what you said I think is relevant to what I mean by pivoting. And another word for pivoting is exchanging or reversing.

[28:16]

And also pivoting doesn't require going someplace else or changing anything. So one of the main stories about pivotal activity of Zazen is the story about a Zen teacher who was sitting and a monk says to the teacher, when you're sitting still like that, when you're like really like just there being you, What kind of thinking is going on? And the teacher says, thinking, not thinking. And then Dogen and other people, like me, comment on that statement, thinking, not thinking. That is the pivotal activity of the sitting, or of the Buddhism.

[29:33]

When you think completely, your thinking becomes not thinking. Your thinking is actually, in its completeness, your thinking is not thinking. And that's thinking pivoting with not thinking. There's no boundaries there. There's no boundary between thinking and not thinking. And that story, Dogen says in Fukan Zazengi, Dogen quotes that story and also that story is quoted in the essay where he brings up this pivotal activity. You could also say to the Zen master who's sitting, you can say, what kind of a self is there?

[30:48]

What kind of self you got there? In that sitting, still, what kind of self is there? And the Zen master says, self, not self. That's the kind of self. It's not there is no self. It's the kind of self we've got when we're sitting in our Dharma position. The kind of self that's there is self-not-self. What kind of not-self we've got there? I've got a not-self-self. Not-self-self. And that's happening in stillness, that reversibility of everything, including thinking and self. Self is reversible with not-self. Thinking is reversible with not-thinking.

[31:50]

Cruelty is reversible with not-cruelty. Compassion is reversible with not-compassion. There's no compassion without not-compassion. Ethical precepts are reversible with not-ethical precepts. In Buddha's activity. Buddha's activity is not stuck in ethical activity. Buddha is exercising ethical activity in a way that liberates beings from adhering to ethical activity or adhering to unethical activity. That liberating process is zazen, which can be done in zendos or on the street. The liberative activity of

[33:35]

Zazen is its pivoting with not Zazen. Well, if you say the form of Zazen, then the form of zazen is pivoting with not the form of zazen. If you're talking about the feeling of zazen, that's pivoting with not the feeling of zazen. And again, the form of zazen, you can see, And Dogen also calls that form of Zazen. Sometimes he calls it the carved dragon. It's a carved version. It's a constructed version of Zazen.

[35:03]

But the carved dragon is pivoting with the real dragon. And the real dragon is not the form of the carved dragon. My question, I think, was around the... The carbon dragon pivots and becomes not the carbon dragon when it's complete. Is that what you were saying? When it's complete, yeah. In its completeness, it's pivoting. In other words, the thing, something, you could say most things are completely the thing they are. In being completely what they are, they're not what they are. But if we don't, again, if we don't practice, somehow we miss it. Even though we don't miss it, it's like we do. If we're half-hearted, we miss that the way is all-pervading, even though it pervades our half-heartedness.

[36:09]

But somehow it seems like there's a strong message which is pivoting with not a strong message, that the ancestors of the tradition fully exerted their phenomenal life, and when they were able to give themselves completely to being where they are in their position at that moment, they realized that they were not in their position at the moment, and the moment was not the moment, and they realized liberation, and they taught it from that position. So there is something about being wholehearted that's being encouraged in order to realize this pivotal activity. Even though, even if you're half-hearted, you're just pivoting with not half-hearted. You can't get away from, we can't get away from the reality that we're including everybody

[37:15]

and included in everybody. But we can certainly resist it. And our resistance includes everybody that we're resisting including. All the people you don't want to have in your life are completely included in your life already. All the people you want in your life that you don't think are, are already included. So we can, you know, we can actually we can actually feel like there's some people we don't want to be close to. I don't want to be close to that person over there. I don't want to like physically be close to them.

[38:20]

And part of the reason I don't want to be close to them is because I think they don't like me. They think I'm worthless. And it's really difficult for me to be near someone who thinks I'm worthless. I don't want to be near them. And then sometimes you get into positions where you wind up close to somebody like that and then you kind of, what am I going to do now? I don't want to be near them and I am near them. Should I like to try to close myself off to protect myself from this feeling that they don't appreciate me? If I'm far enough away, maybe I don't care that they don't appreciate me. What if you're married to somebody and you usually go to bed in the same room at night and get the feeling that the person really thinks you're worthless?

[39:27]

You're quite exposed to this person who thinks badly of you. So what are you going to do? How are you going to live with that? Do you want to close yourself off? from that person who doesn't care for you, doesn't appreciate you? And you might say, yeah. But what about the other people in the universe? Are you going to close off to them too? Well, no. But the problem is if you close off to that person, you close off to the other people too. It's closing off. It's not working. is not working. We can try, it's not working. Everybody is close to us already. Everybody's already got access. And also we have access to them.

[40:30]

Buddha's pivotal activity is to help sentient beings accept this reality. What reality? The reality that every experience you have is the whole field of all phenomena. meeting the whole field of phenomena, giving rise to the whole field. That's our life. And Buddhas are working with us to help us accept that. And then, if you accept it, remember it. Be mindful of it. And again, many people think in Zazen you're just trying to calm down. Definitely part of Zazen is to, you could say, calming down or being calm, which means, another way to say it is, a big part of Zazen is actually to be at your seat when you're at your seat.

[41:48]

To like actually be there. To like actually sit there and don't go anyplace else. And if you're agitated, sit in that agitation and be with that agitation. And if you're afraid, be there with that fear. And if you're in pain, be there with that pain. So I said, it is about stillness. Yes. Yes, it is. And the stillness is already there. You already are at your seat and sitting in the middle of all your anxieties and confusions and plans. Where's the planer? Where is she? Okay, yeah. Zazen is to be sitting in the middle of planning. If there's planning. And if there's no planning, zazen is to accept. No planning. Wow. That's part of zazen. The other part of zazen is actually to be mindful. To be mindful.

[42:50]

To remember something. Remember what? Well, remember the dharma. Remember the Buddha activity. You're sitting there, here I am, well, I'm here finally. I finally made it, I'm here, I'm sitting at my seat. Oh yeah, and there's a pivotal activity going on here between me and all Buddhas, and between all Buddhas and all beings, and me and all beings. I can remember that. When I'm sitting in the Zendo, I have a really good seat. Hmm? And also I, because of the, I don't know what, because of various situations, I face out so I get to look at all the people that I'm taking care of. I see the people in Zendo, those are the people I'm taking care of. I'm looking after these people.

[43:51]

Buddhas are looking after everybody. And we can remember that, and we can remember to try that on. So when we're sitting in the zendo, yes, your job is to sit at your seat. But you also have another opportunity, which is to be mindful of taking care of everybody else in the zendo. Buddha's activity is to take care of everybody in the zendo. to look after all the beings including this person sitting here, to accept the responsibility of being at this seat at this time and remember that this seat includes all beings and from this seat all beings are cared for. So zazen is being a deceit and it's remembering the bodhisattva activity, the Buddha activity, to remember it.

[45:05]

Is that enough? Yes? I would say Buddha is nothing in and of itself. And Buddha is the understanding that everything is like that. So Buddha is nothing in and of itself. I'm nothing in and of myself. Rain is nothing in and of itself. Buddhas are like that. And Buddha is also the understanding or the cognition that nothing is anything by itself.

[46:06]

And some sentient beings could, I don't know what the word is, experience the cognition that nothing is anything by itself, and then they would be cognizing Buddha. they might still be a somewhat not fully developed bodhisattva, but they're having the kind of cognition that would be called Buddha. And that kind of cognition is the pivotal activity of Buddhas. The pivotal activity of Buddhas is also nothing in and of itself. A pivot can't pivot by itself. It's things pivoting with each other. That's the pivotal activity. And that's nothing in and of itself. There's no, you can't get a hold of anything that exists definitively by itself. Because everything depends on everything that it includes and that it's included in. Yes? It sounded like just now you were describing a sentient being.

[47:24]

To be sentient is to things come in and then things go out. I mean, in a sense, there's a response in... Is that, what, 50? 50? That sounds like pivoting, yeah. And also, when I describe Buddha as nothing in and of itself, or nothing by itself, that applies to sentient beings also. Sentient beings are exactly like that. However, most sentient beings, if you interview them, they do not a sense to their cognition that nothing's in and of itself. They won't agree to that, usually. Except maybe something super neutral, they might say, okay. Because things look a certain way.

[48:27]

Yeah, and they look a certain way, and that way that they look, most sentient beings, a lot of sentient beings anyway, cannot agree that the way they look is nothing in and of itself. Because it looks like what's appearing is something in and of itself. And they have trouble like saying, well, that is nothing in and of itself. They have trouble understanding that. But sentient beings do sometimes wake up to that. And the process by which they wake up is called Buddha activity. Now, another sort of theme song of this intensive is face-to-face transmission, colon, the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. And you can reverse that. You can pivot that. Pivotal activity of all Buddhas, colon, face-to-face transmission.

[49:31]

So sentient beings really are in the process of zazen. They're in the process of pivotal activity of all Buddhas. And sentient beings are also in the process of face-to-face transmission. obviously little babies are. They've got those little baby faces. And the baby faces are looking at the mommy face and daddy face. They're doing face-to-face transmission. Everybody says, oh yeah, I'm sure, right. We're doing the face-to-face transmission with the baby, right. Okay, well, I agree, yes. But we're also doing it when we have adult faces. We're also doing it with other adult faces. And this is like a quote.

[50:37]

The great way of all Buddhas is nothing other than giving a face and receiving a face. Sentient beings give faces and receive faces. Many of them aren't aware of it and would rather not be involved in that, but I would say the Great Way pervades their relationships where they are giving a face and receiving a face. So accepting that we're giving our face and receiving a face is accepting the Great Way of all Buddhas, is accepting the Buddha activity. And again, there's accepting it and then there's like practicing it.

[51:38]

And practicing it involves, you know, again being still or rather accepting stillness. You know, being in your position is like having a face. If you're running around, you don't appreciate the face you have to give. But if you actually sit still, you've got a face. Now you can give it and receive another face. And now you're ready for face-to-face transmission. I think this morning we recited a text called the What's it called? The Harmony of Difference and Unity. Did we chant that this morning? And it starts out, one English translation starts out, in Japanese is, Chiku-do dai sen no shin.

[52:38]

Sen no shin. Chiku-do dai, Chiku-do dai sen no shin. Chiku-do is like India. And the sen is the sage. And the shin is the mind, the mind of the sage of India. Part of zazen is stillness, which you're doing your best to practice now. Another part of Zazen is to be mindful of the mind of the great sage of India. If you want to just sit and be still, fine. If you don't want to practice mindfulness of Buddha's mind, it's okay. But I just want to tell you that Zazen can be more than just stillness. that in the stillness there can be mindfulness, mindfulness of the mind of the sage of India.

[53:48]

And the mind of the sage of India is the mind of how we include all beings and how we're included in all beings. That's the Buddha mind. And by the way, it then goes on to say that that mind which we are being in... Somebody went to the trouble to write that poem. Why did he write it? Why did he want to tell people about the mind of the sage of India? I don't know. But anyway, he did write it, and he did tell us he brought up this mind of the great sage of India. And then he said, this mind is intimately transmitted... And in our school we recite that poem to remind Zen students that when you're sitting still, when you're remembering stillness, you also have the opportunity to remember the mind of the great sage of India which is intimately transmitted right now.

[54:52]

And now. So now is a good place to be because that's when it's transmitted. And here is a good place to be because here is where it's transmitted. So stillness is where it's transmitted. The Buddha doesn't run after people that are trying to get away and say, I got a mind for you. The Buddha sits still and shows the example of how to receive the Buddha mind. The Buddha is sitting still receiving the Buddha mind and transmitting the Buddha mind and we can sit still and receive the Buddha mind and transmit the Buddha mind. It's like I said yesterday also, it's rarely met with. Rare, I would say, change rare to fresh. The Buddha mind is freshly met with this morning in this rainy, beautiful place we're in. We can freshly receive this Buddha mind in stillness.

[55:57]

Yes, is your name Deirdre? Can we sense it? You can sense it, but your sensing of it isn't it. It's beyond your sensing. But it doesn't exclude your sensing. It's pervading your sensing. It's beyond hearing, seeing, sensing, feeling. It's beyond all those things and totally including them. So if you're feeling like, for example, if you're feeling like, I don't feel any direct transmission going on, that's not a problem.

[57:09]

If you have the teaching to tell you, that's not a problem. You're thinking about whether it's going on or not, are completely welcome, and have basically nothing to do with it. It's, yeah, it's like, it's inconceivably, immeasurably, unthinkably present. It's unthinkably, inconceivably, unstoppably, unceasingly fresh. It's like so fresh it's before you even have a sense. Yes? When I think of the word pivot, I imagine an atom with a It's kind of just this active, like, two things spinning around each other. And the idea, I also think you're holding two ideas in them at the same time sometimes.

[58:17]

I think it's closer to the second thing, of holding two ideas at the same time. Well, I'd like to share a little... expression I heard recently about time that I find kind of does that. Tedious but brief. Tedious and brief. It was an old expression that was put onto sundials and time works. I like that, time works. but tedious and brief to me it just feels like that you can almost sort of feel time how it's just amazing to think that it can feel at the same time tedious and you just know it's so brief yeah yeah tedious and brief it's almost like a pivot mm-hmm

[59:24]

Yes. My understanding is that Sheen is both heart and mind. Yeah. Which I kind of like. But how is the decision made to translate it as the mind of the sage of India instead of the heart of the sage of India? And would it make any difference to do it the other way? I think... one way to try to answer your question would be to do a survey of several, many thousands of Buddhist scholars in the West and ask them why most of them chose mind on that occasion. But that wouldn't really, that would just be a survey. But I think it is true if you would say the heart The heart of the sage of India is intimately transmitted, totally true. So you can use heart too.

[60:28]

You can sit zazen and enjoy the stillness of being Julian. and nobody else at this moment, and not even past Julians or future Julians, you can just remember the stillness and you can be aware of the heart of the sage of India. That would be perfectly wonderful mindfulness practice. And the heart is also, you could say, intimately transmitted, but I also emphasize that the heart of the sage of India is intimate transmission. Intimate transmission is what is their heart. That's all they're about is taking care of people and transmitting this heart. Doing this heart work, I should say, of helping people become free of their attachments and and misconceptions.

[61:32]

So is that enough for this morning? Yes? Is your name Louie? Hey Louie. One word, one meaning, if you look at the translations, one meaning of pivot is like a fulcrum, where the fulcrum turns. But also I think a pivot can be at the center of something that's rotating. Yeah, I keep on thinking of gyroscope. Yeah, it could be like that too, yeah. But anyway, it's a place where this side sort of turns into that side, and that side turns into this side. It's where you become me and I become you. It's where I become not I. It's where self becomes not self.

[62:33]

It's that reversing or interchanging of all things. But like for a teeter-totter, There's a fulcrum there and it's where one side takes turns going up and going down, with the other side going up and going down. This side is illuminated, the other side's in the darkness. And now, reverse it. Okay for this morning?

[63:09]

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