Sometimes we say that in practicing Zen you first clean the temple and then you sit and enter the way. One day, one of Yao Shan's students named Nguyen Nguyen was sweeping the ground of the temple. And his Dharma brother came up to him and said, too busy. And Nguyen Nguyen said, you should know there's one who's not busy. And Da Wu said, then are there two moons?

[01:03]

And Yun Yan raised his broom and said, which moon is this? And Da Wu walked off. So this is a story which I could understand as a story about the dharma, the non-abiding dharma, or the dharma of non-abiding, which is how the bodhisattva practices perfect wisdom. A lot of Zen students in their meditation practice like cleaning the temple. sweeping the mind, sweeping the ground. Oftentimes they are trying to clean up their mind by following their breathing, which is a good way to clean your mind, to follow your breathing.

[02:20]

Kind of cleans it up. A lot of them, however, in the process of cleaning it up, get distracted. from the cleaning and when they notice they're distracted they throw the broom at somebody or hit themselves with the broom and call themselves bad Zen students because they haven't been doing their clean-up duties. But sometimes they just sweep the ground quietly. Sometimes they just follow their breath quietly without much comment. But as I say, a lot of them, while they're following their breathing, have quite a bit of comment. So if you're able to clean the temple, fine. If you're able to follow your breathing, I say, fine. If you are trying to follow your breathing but you're not too successful and you're getting upset with yourself, fine.

[03:23]

and calling yourself a below average Zen student? I say, fine. You're just a busy person, that's all. Trying to clean the temple, trying to settle the dust, that's okay. It's part of our life. Cleaning the temple, cleaning the mind, it's normal. It's reasonable, it's wholesome. And then, when you've cleaned enough for a little bit, or even before you finish cleaning, you might consider practicing the bodhisattva way, which is to not abide in the cleaning practice. And to not abide in the comments about the cleaning practice. to remember there's somebody, no matter what you're doing, who's not busy. No matter how hysterical you get, there's somebody who's not busy.

[04:30]

There's somebody who's not abiding in your cleaning activity. There's somebody who's not abiding in your distraction from your cleaning activity. There's someone who's not abiding in your criticisms of your distraction from your cleaning activity. There's someone who's not abiding, who's not busy with your congratulations to yourself if you ever were able to follow your breathing. And So we've got the cleaning activity going on or the messing activity going on, we have plenty of that and we'll have plenty more, but there's a possibility to abide in the perfection of wisdom by way of not abiding in any of your activities. No matter how bad they are, don't abide in them.

[05:36]

No matter how bad other people's activities are, don't abide in them. No matter how good your activities or good somebody else's activities are, remember there's somebody who's not busy. And are there two moons? Yuen Yen doesn't say, yes, there are. He doesn't say, no, there aren't. He just raises his broom and asks you, which moon is this? Is this the busy one? Or is this the un-busy one? Kind of a busy question. Maybe you understand. You don't? Do you have a question, Jimmy?

[06:40]

Sure. Who's the one who's not busy? Who is it? That is the bodhisattva. The bodhisattva is the one who's not busy. So how do you fight for justice? How do you fight for justice? Without abiding. Yeah. Right. Somebody asked me that earlier. Right, Eileen? How do you fight for justice without abiding? Watch the Bodhisattvas and you'll see how they fight for justice without abiding. As a matter of fact, you'll see that they don't fight. But if it looks, occasionally, if fighting would be helpful for people to understand that, then they look like they're fighting. So when you see injustice, or, you know, in the form of injustice between humans, or injustice towards the environment, any other injustices you'd like to bring up, Eileen?

[07:50]

Yeah. So if you see the environments, the mental crisis we're in now, you see that? How do you practice... The Dharma of not abiding with an environmental crisis. How do you practice the Dharma of not non-abiding when you see people being unjust to each other? How do you practice it? By loving it. By loving the world where there's injustice. Not liking injustice and not hating injustice. We've got some people like it, some people hate it. More people need to love it. We must love the world in order to save it. We must love injustice. Not like it, but love it. And how do you love it? How do you love injustice? The same way you love justice. You don't imbibe, you don't dwell in justice.

[09:00]

That's how you free people from justice. You don't abide in injustice. That's how you free people from injustice. You might be sweeping the ground saying, you know, this looks unjust to me. That might be your ground sweeping activity. You might ask people, do you think that was just what just happened there? Was that justice? Sometimes we think we can see it. Sometimes we think we see injustice. I don't love injustice. I mean, I don't like injustice and I don't hate injustice. At least I vow not to like or hate injustice. I vow to love injustice in order to save injustice from its harmful function. You must love the world of suffering to save it.

[10:07]

That's my proposal to you. And loving things means not dwelling in them, on them, or through them, but being intimate with them, being devoted to them, giving your life to them. Eileen, any comment on that? The way you said it now, I'm not so resistant as I was this morning. Ah, well, is that okay with you? But if she keeps resisting, my practice is to love her resistance, not to like it. not to dislike it. I kind of like it because it gives my loving a little challenge.

[11:08]

So thank you, Eileen, for resisting ever so slightly. Okay, Jimmy, does that help at all? Great. Any other feedback for... Yours truly? Yes? I feel more like my inability to pain. So that's why all this stuff comes up. Your inability to what? To pain and suffering. My reaction to pain and suffering. Oh yeah, that's right. You know the word for patience has a root to mean capacity. So... We need to develop our capacity for suffering. We need to become bigger, to have a bigger capacity for it.

[12:18]

That's part of what patience is about. But patience is also connected to being gracious towards the pain and then, together with graciousness, make yourself big enough for more and more suffering. Wisdom requires this of us. The truth is really difficult to open to all the way. And pain, if we can open to the pain, it's really an excellent warm-up for opening to the truth. So we do have pain and we do have truth. But it's hard for us to see the truth, but we can see the pain, and we can see if we're closing to it. We can see if we feel smaller than the pain. So there it is right there. How can we become bigger?

[13:20]

And before we become bigger, how can we love this person who is not very patient yet? Does that work for you, what I'm talking about? So then it's just a matter of us practicing it, if we all agree. You talked about last time, which is not coming at something with a plan, not coming at something, even the pain and the suffering or the injustice with a plan, but being wholeheartedly there and seeing what emerges in the truth of the mind. Yeah, that's approximately correct.

[14:26]

But you can have a plan, just don't dwell on it. Like I could have a plan to have a picnic with you. So I come to you with my picnic plans, but I don't dwell on my picnic plans. Somebody's not busy. There's one guy who's busy with the picnic plans who come in to have a picnic with you. You love that guy. But there's another one who doesn't dwell on those plans. And that's the one that loves you and the picnic and the plans. In that love, huh? What? And the no picnic. And the no picnic and the no plans and the no you. So you can be not you with the one who's not busy and you won't get in trouble with that one. But the one who is into you needs patience because sometimes you're not you. And that can be painful for the one who has a plan on you. I'd love to hear you say that one of the real sortations is capacity.

[15:50]

Could you elaborate a little bit more? Elaborate on the... Elaborate on patience being capacity. Yeah. Elaborate on it. Well, one of the ways I would... I don't know if this elaborates on it, but another way to talk about patience is that it has to do with finding the center of the pain and that's one way to find your capacity because if you feel too small for a pain if you narrow down in time and space you can find a place where you do have the capacity if you take the pain in a very small time and space you can handle almost any pain

[16:58]

and you can find your capacity for it. And then from there, it can expand. What I saw when you said that was a space that can include, that includes, Patience is a form of love. It's one of the dimensions of love. Patience with people hurting themselves, people who you love hurting themselves. Patience with people who are trying to learn something but at the same time have karmic obstructions to their learning. Yeah, and that space... And sometimes coming to the pinpoint, you can find the space where you couldn't see the space before, where you were shrinking back from the pain.

[18:22]

And then if you get small enough, you find, oh, there's a clear area there. There's a place of freedom in the pain where you can be settled and find life in the middle of the flames of pain. And again, we don't intentionally make Zen sitting uncomfortable, but when it is uncomfortable, it offers the opportunity to find the cool spot in the middle of the heat, the cool spot in the middle of the hot flames of pain. There's a space there in the middle of those flames where, as we say, a cool breeze rises on the eyebrows in the middle of those flames. And Buddha lives there in the middle of those flames of pain.

[19:25]

That's where Buddhas live and that's where they turn the wheel of Dharma, in the middle of the flames of pain, of suffering. But there's a cool spot there. There's serenity in the middle. What if you know it, but you cannot find it yourself, like I had the experience when I was coming to you? I knew it, but I couldn't find it. I mean, I couldn't get there. And after I talked to you, then I was there again. So what if you cannot find it yourself? Well, go talk to somebody else who is into the same search. Go talk to a practitioner of patience if you can't find your patience. And then maybe if they're like really poor at patience, you'll find yours.

[20:48]

You realize, wow, you're really impatient. And say, oh my God, I'm patient. I didn't notice, but compared to you, I'm like totally cool. Wow. Wow. Yeah, so go find another practitioner of patience and that often helps you find it. Or find a practitioner of impatience. Those are also good to talk to. So, yeah, so part of the practice is go talk to somebody about the practice. Don't try to do it by yourself. That's not, we don't recommend that. That's why we have these no abode sittings. is to get together and practice together and encourage each other in the practice. So I hope you feel encouraged to practice and I hope you're clear about what it is and remember we didn't say it was easy, just wonderful.

[21:53]

Thank you all very much for taking care of this practice place and taking care of the practice. May our intention equally extend to every

[22:13]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_86.1