So in previous classes, Fran did these paintings, which you probably can't see the writing. But they're kind of what we're talking about and maybe I'll hold them up at a certain point. Last week I said that I rephrased things a little bit and said that I would suggest that the ground or the source of perfect wisdom is the non-duality of Buddhas and living beings, of life and Buddhas.

[01:02]

And that's the ground. And from that ground, in that ground, there comes sometimes to be a seed of perfect wisdom. So the ground of perfect wisdom is the intimacy of Buddhists and living beings. And the seed for perfect wisdom is the aspiration to realize perfect wisdom for the welfare of all beings. And then Following that aspiration, if we engage in certain practices based on that aspiration, then the roots of perfect wisdom start to enter into and engage with

[02:07]

non-duality. And from there we have the roots and sprouts which lead to the realization of that non-duality. And then last Sunday at Gringotts, I... Well, let me just say this before I say that. In the Heart Sutra, which we just chanted, it starts out in this translation by saying, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. That's Sanskrit, which can be translated as something like, the one, the regardor, of the cries of the world, but actually in the Chinese translation of Avalokiteshvara, in this particular case, they say kanji zai, which means the contemplation, the contemplation of self-nature, or the contemplating self-nature, bodhisattva.

[03:24]

So this bodhisattva, who is also translated in English as the one who regards the cries of the world, in this version, in this Perfect Wisdom text, the one whose practice is being held up to look at is the one whose function, whose activity, whose life is to listen to the cries of all beings. And the one who is listening to the cries of all beings trains in such a way that the listening becomes completely total. Or, as I mentioned before, the listening is totally combusted.

[04:29]

And in that kind of listening, there is hearing. the true Dharma. And in hearing the true Dharma, there is hearing and seeing perfect wisdom, and there is relieving all suffering and distress. So I said, listening, training, hearing, and liberating. But before the listening, there is this aspiration. The one who's listening is aspiring to realize perfect wisdom for the benefit of all beings. Wishing to realize perfect wisdom, it follows then that one would listen to the cries of the world. And then there would be training or learning how to listen.

[05:32]

to learn how to listen so that you can hear. Like we can listen to a person and we can say, well, I'm listening to you, and they say, you don't hear me yet. So our ordinary psychological listening does not necessarily hear the true Dharma. when we listen to some human talking, when we hear the words that they're speaking, for example, that's not the same as hearing the Dharma. But if we train in listening to, for example, humans speak, if we train so that in our listening we listen completely, or we listen so completely that we do not abide in our listening, then in that kind of listening we hear the Dharma.

[06:45]

Or as I mentioned in another context, the words I use, the words for which or the things for which I find words, are already dead when I say them. Are already dead when I say them. Human speech is normally dead words. They're about something which is not present anymore. And this kind of language is the normal language of humans, and it is the normal language of suffering beings. But we must listen to it. And we must train, if we wish for perfect wisdom, if we aspire to perfect wisdom, we must listen to all the speech of beings and train to listen so that we can hear the living words of nature, the living words of Buddha nature, the living words of perfect wisdom.

[08:01]

So one of these drawings that Fran did, at the bottom it says, Seeds and Fruits of True Awakening, and it lists the six bodhisattva practices, generosity, ethics, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom. So if you aspire to perfect wisdom, then it would follow that you would listen to all living beings, and while you're listening to them, you're putting down roots for perfect wisdom, and then you train while you're listening to be practicing giving while you're listening, to be practicing ethics while you're listening. to be practicing patience while you're listening, to be listening enthusiastically, to be listening in a concentrated, undistracted way. And then you will be listening with wisdom.

[09:09]

Then you will be able to hear the true Dharma in your listening to the cries of those who have not yet realized the true Dharma. And then, putting down these roots in this way, this, in some cases, California poppy of wisdom will come up. Some, usually, lotuses of perfect wisdom come up. But those lotuses are rooted in listening to the cries of the world. And they're rooted in training to listen in such a way that, as I said before, that your listening is total. So if someone insults you, you hear it totally, and that's it.

[10:15]

There's no time there other than the time of hearing what they say. There's not another time where you comment on it. However, there is another time when you comment, but if you listen to that comment in the same way, there's not another time where that comment is about something. All the cries are not about something. none of the cries are about something. And if we can learn to listen to the cries as not about, without thinking that there's something that's behind them, if we can learn to listen so completely that we don't get into seeking what's behind the words or avoiding what's behind the words, then we hear the true dharma. So, because of perfect wisdom, there can be the arising of a psychological state where there is wishing for or vowing to realize perfect wisdom.

[11:37]

And this psychological state is recommended and encouraged in order to realize the hearing of the true Dharma. So vowing to hear the true Dharma is a psychological technique for realizing the true Dharma. So the word Bodhi mind is used both for the mind of perfect enlightenment and for the psychological vow to realize perfect enlightenment. And the ancestors have recommended that we do not neglect

[12:48]

the exercise of the psychological technique, the establishment of the mental art of vowing to hear the true Dharma. And that means, number one, I'll just say number one, it means to be diligent about that psychological statement that psychological vow. I vow from this life on throughout countless lifetimes to hear the true Dharma. Yes? Could you say a little bit more about the cries that the world are not about? it seems like the cries of the world are about something or that there's something behind them but also it seems like the cheers of the world there's something behind them too you didn't seem to follow that did you

[14:15]

Yeah. There's not another reality behind the words. There are causes and conditions for the words, but they're not behind it. The causes and... What? Like there's some other reality, like if I say I'm unhappy, that there's a reality besides me saying I'm unhappy there. Or ordinarily people think that. And if I say I'm happy, then we think, well, there's something in addition to saying I'm... In other words, the appearance of the person who's saying he's happy, okay, is something in addition to the way those words work. That's what most people think. Hmm? when we hear words, the words, when they work in a certain way, we see a picture of the world.

[15:21]

And it seems like, often, that this picture is about something that's not just the way words are working. And in that way, you're not totally consumed by hearing the words and seeing how they work, which is the appearance of a world. Words, when they appear, a world appears with them. And the reasons why the words work that way is because of the causes and conditions of language. And the appearance of the world is because of the causes and conditions of language. And we think there's a world in addition to our talking about it. Yes? There is a chain of experiences and causes that we use the language to refer to. I'm not saying it's anywhere else than right here. However, there are these chains of experiences that we are talking about.

[16:30]

There are the changes of experience that we're talking about, number one. And our talk about them are not them. However, they have no existence in addition to our talk about them. And that's the hard part. That is the hard part, because let's say I have a feeling about something, and it was conditioned by some experience I've had. And then I say, OK, I feel sad. I did have to deal with the sadness. And I do have a language of sadness. So I'm not saying there's a reality outside of any of that. Yeah. But isn't the order of language and the order of experience, aren't they two phenomena? I would say that the order of experience is inconceivable. The order of experience is not an appearance.

[17:35]

our life experience is not an appearance. I would say reality is not an appearance. The intimacy of you and I and all of us with the Buddhas is not an appearance. And if it appears, that's not it. And when it appears, it is linguistic construction. So our experience conditions the arising of, for example, I vow to hear the true Dharma. But I don't know the causes and conditions that gave rise to that. I don't know the intimacy, and I heard in language that the intimacy of myself and you and all the Buddhas is, I'm saying, is the source of this thought.

[18:46]

And this is a wonderful thought which has a wonderful source. The source, however, is inconceivable. It's an experience but not an appearance. the source of this great vow, the source of the vow to live for the welfare of all beings and to do whatever is required, and what's probably required is the best wisdom, the wish for that, that psychological event that occurs does appear. and there's nothing to that in addition to language. However, where it's coming from, its causal source and base, is experience that's not an appearance. Cultivating this psychological state involves revisiting it a lot and training it so that you don't fall into thinking that this psychological state has something behind it because that brings duality into the picture.

[19:58]

And we are psychologically conditioned for language and for duality. Language is, generally speaking, dualistic. And when we listen to it, we're listening to dualistic expression. And we're not encouraged to ignore that or plug our ears to it. We're encouraged to listen to it in such a way that we'll hear the true Dharma, which is not an appearance, but which sponsors psychological states which, when cultivated and exercised fully, open the door to what transcends our psychology. and what is where our psychology, where our enlightening psychology comes from. How's that? Language can point us in the right direction and language can tell us how to study language.

[21:05]

Language can tell us how to study language and become free of language. Because language is the world of appearances. And the world of appearances is usually deceptive. Appearances usually appear to be non-consciousness. Like, I don't appear to you as your consciousness. I look like somebody who's not your own mind. that's the kind of mind we have, is that I look like I'm not people's minds. When they're talking about me they don't realize they're talking about their consciousness. Even though their experience of me is an inner state, their inner state of experience of me is that I'm an appearance that's not their consciousness. Words are telling us, study that situation in such a way that you acknowledge it and pay attention to it and contemplate it, but contemplate it so fully that you're open to the reality of the intimacy of all the different consciousnesses.

[22:23]

So listen to the words, listen to the appearances, listen to the cries, and then train and the training isn't training in perfect wisdom. So Avalokiteshvara is listening all the time, and she's training in perfect wisdom, which means she's training her listening, and she trains her listening until she actually clearly sees that everything she's listening to is her mind, and that everything in her mind is just mind, is just empty. and then she gives his talk about what she went through. You could say that too, that reality is one mind.

[23:35]

Reality is the oneness of the various minds with the Buddha mind, which understands the intimacy of awakening and delusion. And that understanding is also, that reality is an understanding. But it's not an appearance. It's an understanding of all appearances. It's understanding that all appearances can never actually be found. They appear, but if you study them thoroughly, you can never find them. But part of their appearance is words, and part of the reason why we think we can find something is we think there's something behind it. Like, I say, I'm in pain, and I think that there's a pain behind me saying that I'm in pain.

[24:41]

Yes. If I say I have a gulf of pain, I say that. But if I start to tell you a story about why I have a gulf of pain, that's empty. Well, the first statement was empty, too. The story that we make up behind our feelings. Say I'm sad. If you say, I'm sad, you can listen to that. And you can think, when you listen to it at first, you can think, I said I'm sad, and my sadness is something in addition. My sadness is something in addition to those words. No. No. But we think so, and we need to train ourselves to not think that there's a reality behind the words.

[25:52]

The word sad, when I say I'm sad, I think there's an I'm that the I'm is referring to, and a sad, which is a sad referring to, and that's right. There is an I'm that the word I'm is referring to. But the I'm... does not exist aside from the word I'm, but I think it does. And the sadness does not exist in addition to the word sadness, but I think it does. And the reason why I think it does in both two cases is because I'm not wholeheartedly listening to I'm sad. When you wholeheartedly listen to I'm sad, then it isn't like there's the I'm and something that the I'm referring to. The I'm does refer to something, but it's not like there's that and that. So Dogen says, the ancestors and teachers say, when you listen to I'm, I'm sad with your whole body and mind, then when one side's illuminated, the other's in darkness.

[27:05]

So there's, I'm sad, and that's it, and there's nothing in addition. Or there's just, I'm sad, and there's no words. When you're wholeheartedly listening. So the training is to train. First of all, remember what this training's about? It's about this, to take care of this psychological technique of I vow to hear it, The true dharma. I vow to realize perfect wisdom. To take care of that and take care of that and take care of that. And then train it. How do you train it? By treating everything with complete respect and not abiding in anything. Yes? Yeah. She's confessing that she's embarrassed to ask a question?

[28:15]

Okay. And then she can stop right there. Did you do that wholeheartedly? I didn't ask how you knew. I just asked if you did it wholeheartedly. Okay. You want to ask a question now? Yeah. It feels to me like in this Zendo, over the years, over the decades, it's kind of pure and deep. That's what I'm saying about it now. The teachings with you and many other things. My question today is, I feel like every few years, the world out there feels like it's doing things that when I sit here, it's all about my psychological, it doesn't, I can't connect with planes being shot down and what's happening in Gaza and carbon dioxide

[29:33]

I don't know how to connect all that with what we're talking about. And secretly, that's true. And then you say something for a while, and I kind of sick up again, but I'm right now disconnected a little bit. Okay. That wasn't exactly a question, but that's fine. That's fine that it wasn't. It's more like a statement that... It doesn't ask the question that you could be like, how do you connect this teaching with the appearance of these cries? Yes. So we have these cries, and this teaching comes from listening to these cries. And the teaching is saying, this is being offered as a response to the cries. So the one response to the cries is, you've heard various responses. Now here's a response which says, when you hear these cries, if you, I guess, if you aspire to liberate all beings from suffering, then the first thing to do with these cries is to listen to them.

[30:40]

Next thing to do is to train that listening. Next thing, you flinched at that one. What does it look like when you're thinking about somebody? Oh, it could look many ways. Here's one way. You're listening and then you're trained by noticing that after you listened, you hated somebody, or you blamed somebody, or you degraded somebody, or you felt helpless or hopeless. Or you degraded yourself. Somebody could be you or somebody else. You said you're not helping, you're not doing any good. I think I'll kill myself because I'm not helping the situation. Or I'll kill somebody else because they're not helping the situation. We have all these responses, all these responses.

[31:50]

And some of those responses might be indicating that the listening has not been trained. And also, if you're listening, you can also check, am I by any chance hearing the true Dharma at the same time I'm listening? Doesn't seem like I'm hearing it. The proposal is, when the cries of the world are upon us, and they are, They are upon us now. They were upon us last week. And they were upon the ancestors thousands of years ago. They had war around them too. We are in a time of war. The Buddha lived in a time of war. Zen masters lived in times of war in India, China, and Japan. Suzuki Roshi lived in a time of war. We live in a time of war. I probably shouldn't say this, but as a slight digression, I sometimes think, how could I actually develop perfect wisdom when the cries around me are not bad enough?

[33:07]

You know? Like they're pretty bad, but we don't have Gaza over there. We didn't have Gaza in Oakland. So how could we actually learn to listen in the proper way with the cries so not horrible enough here? Like Suzuki Roshi, I think, part of the reason he was so good was because he lived in Japan during that war rather than in Iowa. California was at war, but the Japanese never really bombed us. I sometimes think, you know, I don't have enough horror in my face to really develop perfect wisdom. Close parentheses. But anyway, we do have some. We have some war around us. So that I think we can say we are living in a time of war. Our country is at war. Go right ahead.

[34:12]

Human beings are at war with the planet. Human beings are at war with the forests and the water and the earth. They want to dig up the earth to get some stuff. And they do not necessarily do it in what appears to be a kind way. So we hear the earth crying out. So in response to that I'm saying the traditional response of the Buddha Dharma is, listen to this war. But don't just listen to it. Train your listening because your listening probably has faults in it. Your vow probably has some faults in it, which leads you to listen. Your listening has some faultiness in it. It probably has like some ethical shortcomings. It probably has some lack of complete realization of generosity. It's like some people you listen to and some people you don't. Or you listen to, but again, not fully and not ethically and not patiently.

[35:21]

Like somebody goes on and on and on. How many deaths... How many deaths before I actually become patient? Some people say, I'll be patient with one, but not with ten. But really, are they really patient even with one? Look and see, are you patient with the cries you're hearing? Or are you kind of wishing that they would like, okay, that's enough. Avalokiteshvara listens, Avalokiteshvara doesn't say, that's not, that's not, it's okay, you don't have, stop crying. Avalokiteshvara doesn't say, stop crying, that's enough, you're a big girl. Avalokiteshvara doesn't say, do this and then you won't have a problem anymore. I shouldn't say that he doesn't say that. I mean, he doesn't say it when he's listening. When he's listening, he doesn't have any comments. And he trains that listening until it's complete, and then he hears the true Dharma.

[36:26]

And when he hears the true Dharma, then he has comments. And his comments are, for example, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, and so on. He teaches perfect wisdom. That's his comment. But it comes from listening, training the listening, until it's complete. Now, most people that I know, when they start listening, they do not have too much trouble noticing that their listening is not complete. So part of the training is to confess and repent that you weren't really listening. And by confessing and repenting that I'm not really listening to the cries, that I get distracted from fully listening to the cries, the teaching is that if you train yourself by confessing that you're not wholeheartedly listening to the cries, that confession has the power to melt away your half-hearted listening.

[37:45]

will melt away your distraction from total, complete listening in each moment. And then you'll hear the true Dharma. And then that will bring peace to this world of war. So somebody's beating up an old lady on the street. Basically, in front of you, you just listen. You don't help the old lady because that would be... It depends on who you are. If you're vowing to save all beings, if that's where you're coming from, basically, and then people are brought before you and who are beaten, but this is your vow, then the first thing you do is listen. You listen to the person cry. You listen to the person yell. And you listen means you also look. You look at the bodies of the people involved. You look at their faces. You listen to how you feel. The first thing you do is you experience the situation in terms of your senses.

[38:53]

And you vow to listen. They're not carrying on. You haven't gone anyplace. You're listening. You're right now listening. You're watching. There's not any carrying on. You're seeing what they're doing. Now, if you can do that completely, then you can hear the true Dharma at the same time you see this beating. No action. Cool. The action that will come when you hear the true Dharma is that everybody involved will be saved from suffering. Like that. Your action is the action of the wisdom that comes with hearing the true Dharma while you look at somebody being beaten. And you and everybody involved is liberated. Yay. [...]

[39:57]

But if I see you being beaten and I haven't trained myself by watching people have a hard time in various ways and watching myself have a hard time in various ways, so I'm not trained, then my listening and my watching will not be complete. I will not see the true Dharma. The true Dharma will not be relieved. And then... From there, my action will be the action of incomplete realization of perfect wisdom, and it will be more or less helpful. It doesn't mean I can't say, I don't understand why you're doing that. I don't get it. It doesn't seem helpful. It doesn't mean I wouldn't say that. It just means that I might have a sense that I wasn't really completely there when I said it. But if I really feel like, if I really realize completely being there with you when you're being treated cruelly, then that way of being with you, not so much me, but that way of being with you opens the doors to reality for all of us.

[41:11]

And we are liberated by reality. The reality is the people who are fighting are not separate from the Buddhas or each other. And it does happen that people who are fighting sometimes wake up and suddenly they're all liberated because they get it that they're not enemies, that they're not separate, that they're brothers and sisters. They get that occasionally. It has happened. And some people it's happened to quite frequently and then they start telling people about it and they say it over and over. And they also say, however, that I have, I sometimes, I'm not wholehearted. Because of my past half-heartedness, because of my past half-hearted karma, the results of my past half-hearted karma are obstacles to me being wholehearted in my karma now. So I vow to hear the true Dharma, but I can't do it wholeheartedly because in the past I've done things half-heartedly.

[42:20]

So by confessing and repenting, my half-heartedness melts away the root of half-heartedness. And then there is wholehearted listening. And then there is wholehearted hearing the Dharma. And then there is liberation of everybody at that time. At that time. If the practice doesn't happen in the next moment, it doesn't happen in the next moment. However, there's a practice to deal with it not happening, which is to confess, I'm back into half-heartedness again. I'm back into we're separate again. But then there's recovery. Say, okay, I want to make the vow again. Yes. You see that everyone's realizing liberation at that time, and sometimes you enjoy that, you feel encouraged to continue the practice, and sometimes the people who are there also do.

[43:45]

But the people who are thousands of miles away may not, and the people who are there right at that time, including you, in the next moment may forget. This is not a permanent reversal of delusion. This is not even a temporary reversal of delusion. It is a reversal of delusion in the present, which includes the delusion of the present. and the practice must be done again otherwise without the practice the realization is not there. So the teaching I'm giving is given for this time in this world where we're all sort of seeing these horrific violence I like the expression horrible violence and also pervasive hostility. Not all hostility is horrifically violent.

[44:48]

But there's a pervasive hostility. And back in the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha said, even in the times of a Buddha, like me, there is resentment and jealousy, even when there's a Buddha around. So we have that situation, but we also have a practice. I'm saying this is one rendition of the Buddha's response to war. All kinds of hostility, all kinds of unkindness, all kinds of suffering. Listen to it. Engage with it. Learn, train yourself to engage with it 100%. And if you ever make it to 100%, then you'll be in a good position to notice when it's not 100%. you'll be even better educated about what not 100% is. But even before you get to 100%, you kind of know what not 100% is.

[45:55]

And you kind of know the difference between 2% and 60%. And you kind of know 60% is kind of where you want to, you like that better than 2%. That's what you want. You kind of know that living your life fully is where it's at. And what's really beautiful in this life is living it fully. However, we have lots of background of falling for language, and therefore it's hard for us to do this, so we've got a lot of confessing and repenting to do about our incomplete living. But that's part of the training to live completely, to listen completely, to look completely, to touch completely, to hear completely, to taste completely, to think completely, to be afraid completely, to be confused completely, to feel worthless and helpless completely. And to engage with people who feel worthless, helpless, frightened.

[47:00]

To engage them fully until there's freedom. But I flinched. And I'm sorry that I flinched. And I want to try back again now to engage without flinching. I want to train myself at not flinching. And I want to listen to that flinching wholeheartedly. Did you have your hand raised? OK. So I noticed that I tend to obsess about what's true. I mean, when I get obsessive about something, I get obsessed about what's true, like I just did with Bertie. And lately, I also think when that happens, if I understood what Bertie's teaching, I don't think I'd be obsessing about it. But I don't really know where to go from there. Confess and repent. Right there. Confess that this way of dealing with truth right now, I feel like it lacks faith and practice right now.

[48:10]

And I'm sorry. But I also... But I also do have faith in confessing what you just confessed. I have faith in you confessing it. And I have faith in me confessing it if I felt that way. And the teaching is if you do that practice, that practice of confessing that you got this issue of truth and there's some messing around, some meddling with it, some mulling it over, whatever, you know. Bodhisattvas learn to not... Well, it can be energetic, but the thing is, is it like total? And you feel like, no, I'm not totally there. I'm kind of like somewhat distracted from just listening to this. Yeah, yeah. And like I said before, like last week, to vow to do this practice and then want somebody to know that you're doing this great practice.

[49:18]

That's an impurity which we should drop. Also to know that I'm doing the practice. Bodhisattvas do not go around and indulge in knowing that they're going around being bodhisattvas. They aspire to be bodhisattvas and they watch to see if they're trying to be known for their aspiration. And if they are, they try to confess and repent. I had this great aspiration. And I actually looked around to see if anybody noticed that I had it. Did Suzuki Roshi know that I had that great aspiration? Did Suzuki Roshi notice that he had that great aspiration? But how about... If you could switch to make that wholehearted, that would be it.

[50:23]

But if you miss the chance of your distraction being wholehearted, then you confess it that you are half-hearted. And then you watch when you're confessing Was that a wholehearted confession? And you might say, I looked to see if it was. I don't know. But I'm going to do it. I'm actually not going to spend much time to see if it's a wholehearted confession. But it was a confession and as a result of confession I was sorry and I feel fine about that practice. I actually feel good that I did that and I don't know if it was wholehearted or not. And I feel more convinced of being wholehearted than I was before. Not because... I'll propose this to you. I don't feel more wholehearted because I know that I was wholehearted.

[51:29]

I feel more wholehearted because I confessed that I wasn't. And when I confessed that I wasn't, I was willing to do that without knowing that the confession was wholehearted. Part of the reason I wasn't wholehearted because I was looking askance to see if I was or not. Part of the reason I'm not wholeheartedly a good person is because I'm checking to see if I am so that I'll know that I was and then be able to pat myself on the back or perhaps help some other people notice what I just did once I finally reached wholeheartedness. Did anybody see that? If I saw it, it's not wholehearted. If I'm looking to see if you saw it, it's not wholehearted. Unless it was, and I wasn't really looking to see if I did it. And it really was a new world where all that was going on was checking to see how I'm doing. Back to what Justin said before, aren't we always wholehearted?

[52:37]

Yes. Are you enjoying that each moment? Well, I did miss a few moments. Speaking of again, would you start over and say it again? Yes. Well, you know, The teaching is not to do it just by yourself, Justin.

[53:41]

The teaching is to do it in the presence of the Buddhas. If you can't get any Buddhas to be present, well then do it without the Buddhas. And then here the teaching is to do it in the presence of Buddhas. Because the problem is that you have not yet realized your intimacy with Buddhas. That's the whole problem. So now bring your lack of realization and say, okay, I got distracted. And by the way, this was a habitual distraction. The teaching is, here's the teaching, folks. If you confess and say you're sorry for your habits, unless your habits are... There's not even a habit to be enlightened. Enlightenment is free of the habit of enlightenment. So habits are pretty much the stuff to confess. If you confess your habits in the presence of Buddhas, and habits are distractions, any habit is a distraction from the unhabitual reality that we're living in.

[54:49]

Reality is not habitual. Our intimacy is not habitual. We have trouble facing the non-habitual intimacy. I confess my habits before the Buddhas. That confession, and I'm sorry, and that repentance, I'm sorry, that melts away the root of these habits. That's the teaching. So if you're worried about getting discouraged about the power of confession and repentance, Have you been confessing and imprinting in the presence of Buddhists? If not, do it in the presence of Buddhists. Because that's part of the technique, of the psychological technique, is that you psychologically, as psychological beings, you invoke the presence of the perfectly enlightened ones who are happy to hear your confession. They're not looking down on you. They're rooting for you to be wholehearted. and enter the Buddha way.

[55:50]

But if you don't confess any shrinking back from the Buddha way, if you don't confess any shrinking back from wholehearted listening to the war, then your habits are going to come into play and there's going to be some holding back. This habit, even the habit of like fully engaging, is not fully engaging. Like, that was good, I fully engaged, I'll do it again. No, that's not it. Full engagement is not habitual. It comes from listening to the cries and training your listening and noticing that you're not listening wholeheartedly and confessing that you're not listening wholeheartedly in the presence of the Buddhas and saying you're sorry. The teaching is that that will melt away your half-heartedness and then you'll hear the true Dharma and then you and the great earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way and then again like my granddaughter, push me again, again, again, again.

[56:57]

Not like, well, I confessed and repented 53 million times to the Buddhas, and now no more. When we do initiations, bodhisattva initiation ceremonies, before we receive the bodhisattva precepts, before we receive the bodhisattva precepts, we receive the pure practice of confession and repentance. Confession and repentance. I did it and I'm sorry. We do that practice before the precepts. And then after we do it, we say, from now on and even after realizing the Buddha body, will you continue this truthful practice? Well, if I was Buddha, why would I have to do it? Will you continue this practice even if you're a Buddha? Yes, I will. Well, that doesn't make sense. Yes, I will. So that's the story from the Zen school. That's the story from the Bodhisattva path.

[57:59]

His confession and repentance has the power to melt away habits. But you do it in the presence of the Buddhas. Because, in fact, what you're repenting is the half-heartedness that comes from not realizing the presence of the Buddhas, that the Buddhas are present right now. They're not separate from us. And because of that, we make this vow. But we're not completely trained in this vow yet, so we have to do it over and over. And as we do it, we start to notice, that was not really that wholehearted yet. The story's come up twice now to my mind tonight, so I'm going to tell it, okay? Sure, I'm not in a hurry to tell this story. I got permission, right? Yeah. Literal, like in Doksan, and literal, like, sit down on the ground, you know, in the middle of the night, and say, Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, please concentrate your hearts on me.

[59:18]

I, Justin, what's your Buddhist name? Kote Kudo. I confess that I was really half-hearted in the way I listened to my wife a few minutes ago. And I'm sorry. And you could do it without a statue or you could do it in front of a statue or a picture. Invite the Buddhas to come. Just... We do that. We did it tonight. We invited them. We invited Avalokiteshvara to come to class. But also to do it to a human is good too because the Buddhas don't... Well, the Buddhist might not talk back and say, well, that wasn't really a wholehearted confession. You abbreviated it. You said actually that you weren't listening to your wife, but actually forgot about mentioning that you also didn't pay attention to your kid. Like sometimes people do a confession and the confessor says, well, what's so bad about that?

[60:25]

And then they tell the rest of the story. oh I get it because sometimes when you say it to yourself you know what you mean so you abbreviate it you know you do a shorthand version of it because you know what it means but if you say it out loud another person doesn't understand the abbreviated thing so then you say it the whole thing and then they get it but also you say the whole thing I don't need to say the whole thing because I know what it is but if you say the whole thing it has a different impact on you I think so too. I agree with you. Vida, go ahead. Vida means life, right? Words don't have anything to do with it. Words don't have what? Anything to do with it. Anything what? It didn't work. It worked really well. I just want to hear it clearly. Okay. Isn't there a fine line between confessing and self?

[61:27]

Is there a fine line? Yes. There's a fine line between. Yes. Is there a fine line between confessing and overdoing it? Yes. Is there a fine line between confessing and underdoing it? Yes. And you can way underdo it or slightly underdo it. And you can way overdo it or slightly overdo it. That's the training. The training is to learn how to call a spade a spade. If you learn how to say it that way, you are immediately liberated. That's another amazing thing about our ceremony. After we do the confession, we say, you have now been freed from greed, hate, and delusion. And people go, what? We do the ceremony, and people confess. And we say, you have now been freed of greed, hate, and delusion. You are now in the peaceful dharma realm with Buddha because you said that. And the person may think, well, I didn't really do that correctly. Anyway, we say when you do it the right way, it liberates you.

[62:31]

The name of the ceremony in which we do this is the ceremony of touching liberation. And part of it is to receive these precepts and say, yes, I will. Will you practice these from now and even after realizing Buddhahood? Yes, I will. And then the person might be thinking, well, will I really? will I really do these will I really practice these precepts from now on and even after realizing Buddhahood and they might but they say yes I will they don't say they they don't say well maybe do we have any stories about Buddha yeah yeah when after realizing well he told a lot of stories after he realized Buddha about the way he was before Right, but did he confess and repent after ? Nope.

[63:32]

I shouldn't say nope. I can't think of an example of where the Buddha made a mistake after Buddhahood. However, before he was a Buddha, he said he would continue after Buddhahood. But just because I didn't hear it doesn't mean he didn't. I think he would be perfectly happy to do so if it was appropriate. Did he make mistakes? He mostly talked about the mistakes he had made. He revealed those. But here's another story before the other one was just waiting. And this is a story which is a lot of the teachings we have about the historical Buddha were addressed to non-Bodhisattvas. He wasn't necessarily teaching them the way to be a Buddha. He was teaching them a way to be liberated in this life for yourself or to have a better rebirth.

[64:36]

So in the Mahayana Sutras, I think we can find examples of the Buddha making mistakes. So I'll look for some. I will diligently try to find examples in the Mahayana Sutras, not the historical Buddha, but the Dharmakaya Buddha. I'll try to find some. I'd be happy to look. So again, that's a very good question because we're trying to train our listening. And part of our training and our listening is to confess, I didn't really listen to her. And I'm sorry. And to learn how to say that without it being underdoing it or overdoing it. If I underdo it, it's not going to be liberating. However, it's a good training exercise even before I get the hang of it. But if I can actually confess and repent completely wholeheartedly, that's perfect wisdom. But I have to train at it. And most people overdo it or underdo it.

[65:39]

What do you call it? In terms of personality types, the hysterical people overdo it and the compulsive people underdo it. So everybody needs to train to do it Just enough. You know, the bowls we use to beg with in the Zen tradition, traditional bowls, they're called the just enough bowls. So here's the story. It's about Samuel Johnson. He lived a somewhat monastic life. And he prayed at different times during the day, like monks in monasteries did. even though he lived in a rooming house in London. And one night he got up, and while he was praying, or just before he started praying, he had this terrible neurological storm occur to him.

[66:43]

He didn't have the language of calling it a stroke, but he just felt like his mind was just, his nervous system was totally freaking out. So maybe it was a stroke. Samuel Johnson had a big physical problem. His body was very painful for him. He had a big scar inside of his face which never really healed in his lifetime. Anyway, he woke up to do his prayers and he had this big trauma occurred and he kneeled and continued his prayers and said, Heavenly Father, do what you want with my body, but please don't let my mind be destroyed. And he was an educated man, and he prayed in Latin. So these were Latin verses he prayed in while he was having a stroke.

[67:49]

And then he got finished his prayers, his Latin prayers, got in bed, and he thought, You know, those verses were not that good. So he got up and kneeled again and said, Great Heavenly Father, thank you for protecting my critical faculty. So whatever our critical faculty is, we can train it. We can train whatever faculties we have to be wholehearted. People with this intelligence can be wholehearted. With this intelligence can be wholehearted. With these gifts, we all have our wholehearted who we are. But almost everybody has habits which cut into our wholeheartedness. And we can notice that that half-heartedness, and we can confess it and repent it.

[68:58]

And we can find our way, with the help of the Buddhas who are with us, to realize that we are intimate with Buddhas in our wholeheartedness. And that's the message from the Buddhas, is that in our wholeheartedness we are intimate. In our half-heartedness there's some distance. And in that distance we have all this fear and violence and war. And the Buddha responds to the fear and violence by listening and training in wholeheartedness, hearing the Dharma, and then teaching it to other people. Until everybody learns it. And people have told me, do not say this anymore, but I'll just say it. Bodhisattva's have a lot of work to do, because a lot of people have not learned this. But it's a joyful work, so we'll just keep working on following, listening, training, hearing the Dharma, liberating beings.

[70:07]

Following, listening to beings, training our listening, hearing the Dharma, liberating beings, over and over. This is the practice of perfect wisdom. And in the training part too, there are all these teachings, perfect wisdom teachings, about how to make our confession, our listening, not abiding. The perfect wisdom teaches to train our aspiration, to train our practice so that we're not doing too much or too little. So we have two more classes to work on that this summer. I hope you can come the next two classes. Tish has to go to New York. Thank you for coming. And good night.

[70:59]

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