How many people were not at the talk last night? Just three? Vic and Jim and Dave. Last night I talked about some things I'd like to continue and I hope to integrate you into I'll do a little review. So I just proposed that With a little poem which goes, it's a Chinese poem, which goes, in the subtle round mouth of the pivot, spiritual work turns.

[01:14]

So, the place where life turns And at that place where life is turning, that's where spiritual life functions. That's one proposal. And another way to say it is that the way of enlightenment, the way of awakening, is basically leaping. And the place you leap is at the leaping place. Place you turn is a turning place. And again, I'm trying to make a good name for the word crisis. So now we have spiritual crises. We have climate crises. www.climatecrisis.net.

[02:19]

That's Al Gore's address. We have religious crisis, which are manifesting as ways, a lot of violence around religion these days. And I also pointed out that one of the Chinese expressions for crisis or turning point is made from two characters. One character means And the other one means opportunity. So at a turning point, usually there's dangers and opportunities. Like in an illness, a crisis means a sudden shift for better or worse. We're all basically in a health crisis in the sense of any moment our health may get much better or worse.

[03:29]

The danger will get worse and the opportunity will get better. And in spiritual life too, and climatic, our climate may get suddenly worse or it could get better. And we're worried that it's going to get worse. There's some reasons to think it might get worse. Although today is a pretty nice day here. And we're grateful for that. And I also talked last night about dogma and dogmatism.

[04:34]

So dogma, the basic definition of dogma is a doctrine, a teaching. And there can be religious dogma and dogma of other types too. And dogmatism means to hold a dogma and to be overly positive about it. often without any evidence, to be positive about some opinion or belief without any evidence. In some sense, or to have something positive given the amount of evidence. And particularly in religious life, this happens that people believe things like For example, I heard that 22% of Americans believe that in the next 50 years, is going to come down in the world, and we're going to have this whole new situation at that time.

[05:47]

22% are sure of that. And another 22% think probably. 44% of Americans have that dogma. And the ones who are, I would say the ones who are, if there are 22, the ones who are certain without evidence, I would say that maybe qualifies as dogmatic. And some of us may have belief that Jesus is going to come down, but we may have some other beliefs about something, and we may be holding some of them very strongly. I don't know. But if we are holding them strongly, that can be a big problem. Because it can create conflict which tends towards violence with those who don't agree with us.

[06:51]

And of course, even there are teachings which you Fight people who have different opinions from you. You should fight people who don't believe in your God. There are teachings like that coming through some traditions. But although there's a teaching like that, one could just receive that teaching, but not be dogmatic about it. Like someone could say, you know what that means? You know what it means that you should fight people who don't agree with you? You know what that means? It means you should not fight people who don't agree with you. That's what it means. Fight people who don't agree with you. That's what fight, what it means. And the person says, well, literally, it doesn't mean that. Right. It doesn't mean that literally. It's just there for you to let go of. That's what it's there for. It's a sample of an outrageous thing for you to receive and then let go of.

[08:03]

Like the other outrageous things that you hold on to that you should let go of. It's a spiritual tool. It's a spiritual gift. And this is how you use it. And the person says, no. And you can say, well, if I give you some money, would you be willing to change your position? Or if I'm really nice to you and take you on a lovely trip to heaven, would you consider changing your mind? No, but then I would be corrupted. Could you consider being corrupted, please? No, no, I can't. Well, even though you're not considering being corrupted and you don't want to change your mind, at least you're talking to me. And I'm talking to you. Are you willing to keep talking to me? Yeah. And as we start talking, even if we have difference of opinions, there's some possibility for the turning and the leaping to occur.

[09:16]

And when there's possibility for that, there's possibility of peace. But even if we all agree, and there's no conflict in terms of our agreement, if we all agree and hold our opinions, spiritual life is dead, and peace is lost, and freedom is lost. Now, then if we meet somebody that doesn't agree with us, then we don't have peace, we don't have freedom, spiritual life is stuck. on the teaching which we all agree on and are holding to, and we're like, you know, a walking gang, if we run into anybody that doesn't agree, they better have as many members as we do. Or, you know, equal technology. Otherwise, we're just going to mow them down. Sorry, what can we do? We can't help it. We're right. However, even if we do mow them down, if they don't have equal numbers or power, they'll just terrorize us.

[10:27]

Like children terrorize their parents. They're not as powerful, but they can terrorize them. Cutting their, slicing their arms and legs. They find their ways. They're not as strong. Hey, they'll find their way. That's what's going on now, in a way. I tell that story. But I just tell that story. I don't hold on to it. I don't want to hold on to it. Just offer it to you. You could throw it out the window now. The key point is, I would suggest, leaping. But leaping isn't a soggy thing. There's strength in it. If you ever watch Fred Astaire dance with... Do you know who Fred Astaire is? Do you know who Ginger Roger is? Well, Fred's dead now, and so is Ginger, I believe.

[11:31]

But when he was younger, he used to dance with Ginger, and Fred both turned and spinned and leapt. But particularly if you watch when Ginger was flying through the air, Fred's feet were on the ground. They were turning, but they were planted so that she could fly. You've got to put your feet in the ground, which is very easy, actually. Put your feet or your butt on the ground and then turn and leap. It's an energetic thing to do. And if you're not balanced, you've got to be planted and balanced, which is possible, but requires you to be here. Actually, I also said last night,

[12:35]

your spiritual life is actually available to you all the time. It's just a question of realizing it. You are, we are, spinning and turning all the time. But if you're not planted and balanced, it's hard to notice it. So part of the way, part of the initiation into the spiritual realm, the source of spiritual life, is to be still. And you can be still when you're running. Some of you may know that. You can be still when you're dancing. You can be still when you're spinning. Matter of fact, again, a lot of people miss stillness while they're spinning. If you sit still in a usual, literal way, you can also find stillness, of course. And you can find spinning. And when you're spinning, you can find spinning and stillness too.

[13:39]

Both cases. I saw a picture of the face of an Olympic distance runner as he was winning the gold medal. Just his face, you know. And his legs were doing this amazing running. It was like this. Very calm, just . And they used to like to take pictures of this quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers back in the 80s. His name was Joe Montana. And they used to like him with these giants coming in at him. And his face looked like this. Just very calm and happy. looking for his receivers. You know, with death coming at him in 340-pound packages, just very happy and present.

[14:48]

He found his place, you know, and he was turning, he was leaping, and he was there. So we sit to find this place, this turning place, but it can be found in other situations too. And this is just one way to look for it. And it's a form, a form of sitting. And then we also have the form of sitting together to promote the form, because as some of you know, if you try to sit hard, somehow it's hard to sit a lot. by yourself. But if you have the form of a group, in the form of a retreat, they all help to build the form of each of us looking for this turning point where spiritual life is constantly living.

[16:04]

And from this turning point where spiritual life is living, I also mentioned that turning, the way things are constantly turning, is wisdom. A lot of times you might think, oh, wisdom is seeing how everything's turning. But wisdom is actually realizing that's the way things are. It's the actual realization. Understanding and being that way are the same. So this leaping beyond any situation or leaping beyond any situation and leaping forth from any situation is spiritual life, is spiritual experience, is spiritual insight. Wisdom is leaping. If you're deluded, leaping in delusion is wisdom.

[17:15]

If you're enlightened, leaping from enlightenment. You don't get into enlightenment and then stop. I mean, people do, but then that's not wisdom. That's being enlightened. which seems to be possible. So I'm bringing up now this turning point, and another turning point, and the turning at the point. And there's a turning there, see? There's a turning point, and there's a turning at the point. Somehow we need both.

[18:16]

And we've got both. Yes? I keep wanting to keep in my head thinking of the word pulsation. Pulsation. Pulsation. Rhythm. Mm-hmm. There's some aspects to this. One is, this last night, this woman brought up, she said that Suzuki Roshi, I think she said, Shunryo Suzuki said, everything's mind. And I answered her one way, which didn't work very well, but I thought a better way to answer her would be to relate her statement to the experience talking about that I had with this work of art in the mattress factory in downtown Pittsburgh.

[19:27]

I was in this dark room. You go in the dark room and then you do... At a certain point, you start to see something, but it's not very clear that you're seeing something. And I mentioned to people last night that at a certain point I noticed that what I was seeing with my eyes open, it was almost like I wasn't seeing something, but I was seeing something. What I was seeing was the same as what I saw when I had my eyes shut. So when I had my eyes shut, I'm seeing, what am I seeing? I'm seeing my own nervous system. But the way it worked is that when I opened my eyes, I saw the same thing. And then again, I closed my eyes, I saw the same thing. So the person who owns the museum said, or used to own the museum, or founded the museum, become one with it.

[20:41]

But again, you say one with it. One with it doesn't make sense in a way, but there it is. And the person who brought me there said, she couldn't... I think she said, the last time I went there, I couldn't see it. But it isn't exactly like seeing it. It's more like, you know, because when you have your eyes shut, you don't really see it. You sort of see yourself. But you don't really see it. You're seeing yourself. Who's seeing? And when you open your eyes, you do see it. So, we have this expression, you are not it, it actually is you. Close your eyes, you're experiencing yourself, right?

[21:43]

Experiencing yourself, and there's something like up here, and you can feel, you can experience yourself around your eyes, with your eyes shut. You open your eyes and you experience yourself too. But when the light's on and you see other people, you maybe lose the fact that you're experiencing yourself when you see the other people. So I was experiencing the turning point from It was a turning point from not understanding what the artist was up to, not understanding what I was seeing, to understanding what I was seeing, and then turning from understanding what I was seeing to going beyond understanding what I was seeing. I was looking for and finding the turning point in the dark room. And in relating to the woman's question about everything is mind, I thought, yeah, like everything you see, but also turning is, everything is your mind.

[23:06]

So the way people would first think of saying is that when you see people, that's just your mind. The other way is though, people are just your mind. What your mind is, is just people. So people are just your mind. The world is just your mind. That's called idealism. But the other way around is your mind is just the world. Your mind is nothing in addition to the people you meet. Usually we think we've got a mind in people. So it's both who you see is really you, but who you are, who you see is really you. You really are who you see. Turning there. Everything is your mind. Everything. And nothing in addition to everything. And to keep turning there and don't get stuck on either side.

[24:12]

So, you are my mind but also My mind is you. My mind arises from you, and you arise from my mind. My mind arises with you, and you arise with my mind. And not take either side. And Mark's wife Rose took me to the YMCA. When I was in the lobby, I saw this little insignia, the YMCA insignia, and it said,

[25:19]

Around the YMCA it says, Spirit, Body, and Mind. And I think it says, is it John? John 17, 12? Is that right? Would you get me a New Testament, please? Not right now. There's probably one around here someplace. I don't know what it says there about body, mind, and spirit, but here too you have body and mind, And the body and mind turning and spinning and leaping, that's spiritual life. The body and mind not turning and so on is a body and mind that's not being used fully. Zen meditation is sometimes defined as body and mind dropping off.

[26:31]

Body and mind dropping off, body and mind dropped off, or also dropped off. That's a body and mind that's dropped off. That's Zen meditation. Dropping off is body and mind leaping, body and mind turning. And you can't, I can't make my body and mind turn. You know, I can't get outside and start turning. But the body and mind that's turning right here, that's the meditation. And you right now are turning this body and mind. You're turning my body and mind. You are supporting and contributing to the leaping of my body and mind. You are making my body and mind drop off. The way you're doing that is Zen meditation. Zen meditation is not something this body and mind does. It's what this body and mind is doing with the support of all beings.

[27:36]

That's the meditation. That's the... And we're trying to discover that. Trying to wake up to that. And this one woman last night raised her hand and she said, I want to let go. And she had some problem or something. She said, how can I just face it? She said, I want to let go, but I'm not, I can't, I'm not letting go. I said, well, just face that you're not letting go. And later I thought of this early Zen book, which is a German man who went to Japan. Zen in the art of. It's, I think, the first Zen in the art of. Zen in the art of archery. And the exercise I remember him talking about is the exercise of taking the bow, pulling the string back, I guess with an arrow, and just holding it.

[28:45]

He said, just hold it. until the bowstring is released. He says it will be like the string going through your fingers. You don't release it. It will be released. You just hold it until that happens. I don't know how long they could, you know, whether they did that as long as they could and then they took a break or whatever, whether they did it for ten minutes, a half an hour, because those bows are really big and it's not that easy to pull them. It's harder to pull the string. Some bows, almost no one can string, but even those bows you can still pull a little bit. Anyway, that's the exercise. And that the image of a person pulling a bowstring back and now the bowstring is pulled, that situation is the place, that's the place for the turning.

[29:59]

That image is used to describe the place where the turning happens. My Buddhist name is Zenki. Zen means complete, and ki means turning or functioning. It also means opportunity. In the Chinese character for crisis, here the next character is opportunity. That also means energy or function. And that's part of my name. And that same character, which means energy, function, and so on, Like, for example, in Chinese, it's pronounced ji. In Chinese, it's called feiji. Does fe mean wing? Fly. So it's a fly machine, or a fly function, that same character. You can put it together with lots of things. When you pull the bow, there's this opportunity.

[31:06]

So part of your job, her job is she feels blocked. Feel that being blocked. Just feel it. Pull the bow of being blocked. And just be there. And you're kind of waiting, but also you're making an effort to pull the bow string. And there's a tension there. That's the first tension. That's where you live. And you're just there until you realize the string's gone, right through your fingers. But you are it. You don't do it, but it sort of does you. That's the practice. And there's a text, which there's a number of texts, a number of texts in the Zen tradition, which are called, in Japanese, in Chinese it would be, and then the character, it means acupuncture needle.

[32:50]

So, Acupuncture Needle of Zazen. Acupuncture Needle of Sitting Meditation. And one of the texts is a poem. Two of these texts are poems. And both of them start out with the functioning... The functioning essential, the working essential of every Buddha. The working essential of every Buddha. And the next line is, the essential working of every Buddha. The working essential, the essential. Okay? There's a working essential, and there's an essential working of every Buddha and every ancestor. See the turning from working essential to essential working to working essential?

[33:58]

It's also transforming the hub of every Buddha. Like Lynn was saying last night, the wheel of the Dharma, the hub of the Dharma wheel, the essential working, the working essential of every Buddha, the turning point of every Buddha. That's the acupuncture needle of sitting meditation, this essential working. Where is the essential working? It's body-mind-spirit. That's the word. It's at the body-mind. It's at the body-mind that's turning. That's the essential working of every Buddha. It's where you are born together with the whole world. It's where you are born together with the whole world. It's where the whole world is born with you.

[35:01]

That's the essential working. Every person is at that place. You're born together with the whole world. The whole world is born together with you. And That young woman wanted to realize that place and that way. So we say, when you find your place right where you are, when you find your place right where you are, the practice occurs, realizing the fundamental point. When you find your way right where you are, the practice occurs, realizing the fundamental point. So wherever we are, if we find our place right there, the practice occurs.

[36:13]

It isn't that when you find your place right where you are, you can do the practice. And it isn't like if you don't find your place right where you are, you can do the practice. It's that when you find your place, the practice occurs, the leaping occurs, the spinning occurs, and the fundamental point of all Buddhas, the way they're actually working And another thing about watching that picture, which the founder of the museum said, is that pulse, you realize that the thing out there that you're seeing is pulsing with your pulse.

[37:15]

It makes sense, probably, that if you close your eyes, and you see a pulse in what you see, and you check your pulse, you'll notice that what you're seeing with your eyes shut has something to do with your pulse. That makes sense, right? And then you open your eyes and you look at the thing, and the thing you're seeing out there is pulsing with your pulse. But then you still think, well, the reason why it's pulsing with my pulse is because my eyes are pulsing with my pulse. What we usually don't understand is that the thing out there is pulsing with your pulse. And your pulse is pulsing the way it is because of the light. The light is having an effect on your pulse. Your pulse is born with that light. That's the direction that people don't usually realize. The rock, the pulse of the rock, If you look at a rock carefully, you'll see the rock's pulsing.

[38:25]

And if you close your eyes and look at the image of the rock with your eyes shut, you'll see that the image of the rock with your eyes shut is pulsing. And that pulse has to do with the image pulse, the pulse of your blood. But what we don't really realize is the pulse of our blood comes from the rocks. is born with the rocks. And not just the rocks, but the lawn and the lawnmower. We're born together. And because we're born together, body and minds are dropping off all over the place. Because we're born together, we're spinning and turning. Because I'm born with you, I'm spinning and turning, and because you're born with me, you're spinning and turning. You're leaping forth and beyond yourself because you're born with my support.

[39:31]

If you think you're born without my support, then you might be able to think and feel like you're not leaping. But when you realize you're born with my support, you will realize you're leaping. And then when you realize you're leaping, then you get to leap from realizing you're leaping and come back to like the way you were before you leapt. And another thing I was trying to stress the other night was that those who have realized leaping in other words, the essential working of the Buddha's wisdom, then they feel compassion. And again, some people, before they realize this leaping, this turning, they feel compassion.

[40:39]

But most people have some limits on their compassion. Like a lot of people I know, they just do not Experience compassion for George Bush. Just do not. You just can't open to that. When body and mind drops off, you will feel compassion for George Bush. When we live at the essential working of every Buddha, when we're actually there and realizing that, we feel compassion for all beings. And then out of compassion, we teach them, we give them gifts. One of the gifts we give them is a gift of teaching. So then we go to somebody to not feel compassion for, and we give them a gift.

[41:44]

We also go to people we used to feel compassion for and give them gifts. And we give them basically the same gift. We give them the gift of helping them move towards body and mind dropping off. We help them move to the spiritual source where they will feel compassion for everybody. Even the people they think are the evil one, they will feel compassion for. I propose that. Once I propose that, then that becomes a spiritual teaching for some people, and they may hold on to that. It's a spiritual teaching about how to let go of everything, including spiritual teaching, and they hold on to the spiritual teaching about how to let go of spiritual teaching. And sometimes they stay a long time. But if they do stay stuck in it, and they face that they're stuck in it,

[42:46]

They face it. They're stuck in a spiritual teaching about getting free of all teachings, including spiritual teachings. Then they have a spiritual experience. And then they get out of the religion business. The problem we have, and we have it right here in this retreat, is, you know, I'm using these robes supposedly to help you and me get free of the religion business. using these forms to help us get over Buddhism. So, you know, people say, maybe better if you just came, especially the teacher, just came nude. But then, you know, the people and the Catholics here would say, well, you know, you have to wear this little card. You can't just be nude.

[43:48]

You have to have a card on. Otherwise, you know, it may shock the children. Wear it on your ear. Yeah, wear it on your ear, yeah. I actually put it on my hat, and it sort of hangs down. Oh, okay, I'll wear the little tag. What do you call that thing? Is that tag called? Badge. You have to wear that badge. You can't be completely nude at this place. The Buddha, the founder of this tradition, the founder of ...over the tradition. It's a tradition of getting over itself. Buddhism is a tradition of get over Buddhism. But it's not just a tradition of Buddhism getting over Buddhism, it's a tradition of all religions getting over themselves. And it's not just a tradition of all traditions getting over themselves, it's also a tradition of everybody getting over everything. It's a tradition of rocks getting over rocks. of mountains, you know, dropping off being mountains.

[44:51]

Mountains are born with us. They should understand that. And when they do, they'll get over being mountains, because mountains will realize that they're actually the parents of children, of humans. And humans should get over being humans, which we should realize that mountains are having children, and we are their godparents. We are their spiritual parents. But they are also the life of Buddha. So they're our teachers. So there's another teaching to get over. But we have people putting on nice robes. If you look at this robe, just come and look at this robe and see the stitches on this robe. They were made by human beings, not by sewing machines.

[45:56]

Human beings make these robes. Tremendous amount of compassion going into making these robes. Can you see? Look at the stitches. Some person did that for me. I don't think she even liked it. Some person made this. I have all these robes that all these people made, thousands and thousands of beautiful stitches. And then I put this on to talk about taking it off. And the founder of this tradition, as I said a minute ago but didn't finish, Before he was awakened, he spent quite a few years walking around nude without a badge on. This was before, you know, people were aware of child abuse, I guess.

[46:59]

I don't know. Anyway, he's walking around nude and that was like politically correct at the time. And people didn't need to feed him because he wasn't eating anything virtually. And he almost died from malnutrition. Then he decided to eat a little bit and he put on some clothes too. And then he found the turning place and he turned and he realized the essential working of every Buddha. And then his compassion was totally opened up and he started to teach people how to enter the turning point. He taught teaching people how to find the place of leaping. And they found it. And they leapt. And they were liberated. And then after a while, rich people and kids found out about him.

[48:01]

And they also heard the teaching. And they said, this is wonderful. And they said, and we want to pay our respects to you. You, the one who taught us how to be free, we want to honor you and honor your students. This is not good understanding, but they wanted to honor his students and not the students of other teachers who didn't teach the sleeping. So he said, would you please give your people, your students, a uniform, a badge? And Buddha said, okay, I'll think about it. A uniform. So he's walking along one time, And he looked at some rice paddies. He was walking with his attendant, Ananda, and he said, those rice paddies would make a nice pattern for our uniform. So here's the rice field, rice paddy design of the Buddhist robe.

[49:07]

So now we have this nice almost 2,500-year-old style of outfit. which I'm wearing, but there's a problem. How am I holding on to it? How do you take care of this and let go of it? How do you let go of it with compassion and wisdom? How do you let go of it as freedom and peace? How do you open up a conversation with other people about what we're doing here? So like this. This morning we chanted a confession verse, a fairly ancient confession verse. The Buddha didn't, in some sense, didn't have a religion when he first met people. He just met them, and he showed them how to leap.

[50:12]

And he just taught them whatever way seemed to be appropriate for that person. And at first they didn't have... And they didn't have any rules of conduct. They didn't need them. They didn't need them. And so people weren't holding on to any rules and regulations in the early days. And they had no ceremonies. He just met people and saw them spinning, and found a way to take them to the place where they could see it, and once they saw it, they were initiated, and then their eyes opened, they saw the truth that you can't hold on, and we don't hold on to anything, and everybody's working together, and then they just started to feel that way and give people gifts. And that was great.

[51:19]

Seems to me totally great. And then as he became more famous and King started asking him to put uniforms on his guys and girls, he said okay. It might have been a mistake, but anyway he said okay. And then, as he started telling people's stories about the history of the spiritual world, he told people that he, in past lives, studied with other Buddhas. He said, I studied with this Buddha and that Buddha. And that Buddha, named Dipankara, Flaming Lamp Buddha, he studied with that Buddha. I was kind of enlightened with that Buddha, but I wasn't a Buddha. I was a Buddha's disciple in that world. I was an enlightened disciple of that Buddha, and that Buddha predicted me to be a Buddha in this world, and he said my name would be Shakyamuni. That's what Shakyamuni, the founder of the tradition, said that he used to study with other Buddhas, and one of them predicted him, and the other ones didn't predict him.

[52:29]

And he knew about and he heard about other Buddhas too. And so he told his disciples, there's a little thing down to me. And we have particularly, we mentioned six. Three of them taught like, kind of like I teach. They just sort of like, when they meet somebody, they size them up. They see, you know, they see where they're at. They plant, dance with the person, and they send this person spinning into liberation. And so three of the Buddhas before me did it that way. And their teaching, and after they died, their teaching went on for, you know, not very long. But three other ones which preceded me, they taught that way, but they also had, they put out forms of practice and rules of discipline. And their teachings lasted much longer. And one of Buddha's great disciples named Shariputra says, well, then let's have some rules so you're teaching all the time.

[53:41]

And the Buddha said, the Buddha will decide when the teachings of the rules will be given. And they will be given when our group becomes so big and so rich. And so the group did get so big and so rich that they needed it. They started to get lots of temples and so on. When the people were near the Buddha, he didn't really need any rules, as you might be able to imagine. Like when Suzuki Roshi was around, when the students were around Roshi, There was almost no misconduct. But some of them, all they had to do was get 50 feet away from them. And they would start doing, you know, inappropriate things. Inappropriate to compassion. That 50 feet was enough. Not to mention like 600 or 2 miles.

[54:43]

But when they were like within you know, seeing range or hearing range, they were like perfect, devoted, well-behaved children. Lovely. And so he thought they were perfect, well-behaved children. And sometimes he recommended them for various positions of responsibility. And people said, oh, no, they can't do that. And he said, well, why not? They're perfect, well-behaved children. And people said, well, did you know that they did such and such? Oh, they do? Oh, I didn't know that. Then they can't have that job. He didn't see what people did when they were... He thought that they were acting like the way they were in front of him. He thought they continued to act that way into the distance. But some of them didn't. Some of them did. So a Buddhist group, when a Buddhist group was small, he could see what they were doing, and they could see what he was doing, and they could see what he was doing, so everything was cool.

[55:50]

When it got bigger... they needed rules. So even at a distance, you said, oh yeah, Buddha said don't do that. Okay. But then you got these rules. Still not very religious, but then, you know, then we get into like, this morning we did this ceremony of confessing our past karma. And then we also said, which is traditional, first you confess your past karma, and then we say, take refuge. Now, I'd like to mention something about that. We say, take refuge, but really, it's not so good to say that. Because literally, it doesn't say, take, it says, go. Gacchami is related to the gate, you know, like we say at the end of the Heart Sutra, gate means gone. It has that sense, it's a cognate from the word go, or going.

[56:53]

Going, gate. Gate means gone. And gacchami means I go. Pranam means I rely. So another way to translate it is I rely on and go to. Or go back to, actually. I rely on and go back to Buddha. I rely on and go back to Dharma. I rely on and go back to Sangha. Go back to I go back, which means refuge. Refuge means go back, fly back. I go back to Buddha and rely on Buddha. I rely on and go back to Dharma. I go back to the turning point. I go back to the leaping point. That's where Buddha is. I go back to Buddha. I go back to Buddha. I go back to the Dharma, the teaching, and go back to the teaching which teaches me about how to go back.

[57:54]

I go back to the Sangha, which is all the beings that are working with me to go back to the Buddha and the Dharma. But again, that's a religious form, and I wonder, you know, do any of you feel uncomfortable about that? So, we're doing it, but also I invite you to converse about this I'm inviting you to talk about this. Maybe, again, we're all in the same camp here, so we all feel okay, but I invite you to converse about this right now. What do you say? I'm fine. You're fine with it? Yes? I'm okay with it. sharing the forms that we're practicing together with them. There was some question for you?

[59:02]

As an example, respond to that question. Yes. So there's a request to go around the time. But even if the customers are in a particular situation, they might be bothered. So there's a form. There's a request. There's a form. There's a form and there's a request to practice the form. Right. And then people have a different relation to that. Yes. Even if they embrace it for a minute. Yes, people relate to the form in different ways. Right, so, and then as the person responds to the form, and, you know, the person has to stay with him, I don't know quite where to find the balance between Robin and the person.

[60:12]

Yeah, so that's a good example. She says she doesn't know how to find a place. She's looking for the balance between communicating and dropping it. I wouldn't say it's a balance between communicating and dropping it. I would say it's a balance while communicating, how to be balanced while you communicate. If you're balanced while you communicate, then you're ready to If you're not balanced while you communicate, then it's hard to drop it. It's hard to spin when you're not balanced. If you start spinning when you're not balanced, you fall over. So while communicating, you're always communicating. Whether you're communicating or not, you're communicating. And then when you're not talking, how do you be balanced so that you are dropping the form while you're not talking?

[61:12]

And when you are talking about anything, but in particular when you're talking about the form, how do you be talking about the form in such a way that right while you're talking about it, you're dropping it? And that's one of the things that attracted me about Zen too, is that some of the Zen ancestors while they're talking about the forms, are dropping. In other words, they're telling a joke while they're telling you about the forms. They're saying, you must be blah, blah, blah. And they're also simultaneously telling a joke, which most of the monks do not get. And they often don't say, that was a joke. And I just told that joke so that the Dharma would last much longer than it would if I didn't tell the joke.

[62:14]

But it was a joke. All these rules are basically a joke. But if Buddha doesn't tell any jokes, nobody's going to get them. Some people get them, but more people have a chance to get the jokes if the Buddha tells them. So one joke is, be on time. Another joke is, don't kill. It's a joke. It's a joke. Be good. That's a joke. But if you don't tell people, they don't have a chance to get it. But if you tell people and while you're telling them you're not balanced, then you don't get it either. You don't get the joke.

[63:16]

Because you think you're saying, be good. Or you think, I don't mean be good. I say be good, but I really mean be bad. That's not balanced. You're not you're letting go of both good and bad while you say, be good. And so you can say, no, I mean, be bad. You can drop it. But you can drop it while you say, be good. But you can also, somebody said, no, we should be bad. You say, okay. Like, you know, my daughter's going to make us lunch now. Thank you. Please do. That would be great. My daughter was in the back of me one time, was out of town or something, and she said, let's get all the dishes and put them in Mommy's bed and break them. And I said, okay. And she said, no.

[64:18]

She was joking, but she didn't get it until I said, okay. If I thought she was serious, you know, if I didn't realize the joke, then I would have probably said, oh, no, we shouldn't do that. And she said, you know, I'm a bad girl. No, she got to realize she was a good girl when I said, yeah, let's do that. She got to flip out of being a bad girl into being a good girl But not really a good girl, just a good girl because she was a bad girl. The turning, she found it because of the humor. You've got to have humor. But it's hard to have humor unless we say, don't kill, don't steal. Then we can have humor. But if you don't mention those things, it's hard to find. It's hard to demonstrate the turning unless you say, whatever, usually we walk behind the altar rather than in front.

[65:26]

Or, not usually even, please walk behind the altar to get to this side of the room. You can ask that. And while you say, please walk behind the altar to get to this room, you can drop it as you're saying it. And people, if they feel you dropping it, Somehow it really moves them. In other words, I have a gift to give you. It's called talk. It's called speech. It's called kind speech. Here's behind the altar, please. Please walk behind the altar. But they feel that you're not saying that to get them to walk behind the altar. You're not trying to manipulate them into walking behind altar. You're giving them a gift, which is, here I am balanced, telling you a joke. Walk behind... But if you're leaning a little bit and you're telling them to go behind the altar, to get them to go behind the altar, then it's not a gift. You're not leaning.

[66:29]

You don't think it's a joke. And you're not leaping, you're not turning. Some people might say, well, I'm not going to ask them to walk behind the altar. Well, then you're leaning too. Unless you say, I'm not going to ask them as a gift. And also, I'm not going to ask him, but I'm not going to ask him to get him to go around behind the altar. Like some people say, I think a better way to get him to go behind the altar is to ask him to go in front of the altar. Please walk in front of the altar to get to the other side of the room, and they all go behind the altar. Yeah, I tricked him into it. So it's constantly the opportunity, every moment, to find a balanced place where you give people gifts, you make requests, Sometimes it's your turn to make requests about forms. But every one of you is making requests about forms throughout the retreat.

[67:33]

Whether you know it or not, you're making requests. When you come to the room, you're requesting the other people. Or not. You are. The question is, are you balanced? Are you ready? turn with everybody. Taking care of things and letting them go. Taking care and letting go. As much as balance, as I feel like you cannot legally take care of something if you're not letting it go. Yeah, I agree. Care of something unless you let go. And you don't think that's a balance? I don't see that as a balance. Well, it's not that you balance the two. It's that you're balanced. So when you're balanced and you're taking care of something, you let go of it.

[68:39]

That's how you take care of it. Taking care and letting go are the way you... The way you let go is by taking care. And the way you take care is by letting go. That's balance. Not balance between the two, that's just the way a balanced person is. That's the way a turning person is. You let go of something, and because you let go of it, you're taking care of it. And vice versa. That's the way, that's the turning. But if you're not balanced, if you're more on the side of taking care, a lot of people are just, you know, good at taking care of their kids, but they're not so good at letting go. Really, taking care includes letting go, but they don't quite get that. Some other people are quite good at letting go of their kid, but not so good at taking care of it. You know? But some people are really good at taking care of their kids, and they're totally committed to taking care of them.

[69:47]

You know, completely there. But a lot of people err on the side of taking care because they don't want anybody to say, you know, you're not taking care, and go. But we need both sides of the same thing. It's one thing. We need to be balanced with these two aspects of one thing. Exactly. Right. They confuse letting go and they confuse not letting go with caring. So letting go is not the same as not caring and holding on is not the same as caring. But people get busted at holding on being confused with caring. Okay.

[70:51]

Yes, I did smother the kids, but, you know, can't say it because I, but you can tell that I was, it's because I cared, right? Yeah, right. But that's not really the way to care for them. That's a confusion. Holding on is not. It's letting go and caring. It's not letting go and not caring. You don't have letting to go. It's not letting go and not caring, and holding on with caring. Okay? The holding on doesn't... The holding on is crossed off. You know, we have a circle there. Holding on, crossed off. And not caring, crossed off. It's caring. You've got the caring and the letting go. Those two go together. They go together. And the not caring... And then holding on aren't supposed to be any place. Okay? But they are. So we should have a sense of humor about this. And we should be able to say, okay, I'm letting go because I don't care.

[71:54]

And I'm holding on because I do care. And then that's stupid. Or I'm holding on because I don't care. And I'm letting go because I do care. Play with it. to demonstrate that you're really balanced. And when you're really balanced, we should prove that when you're really balanced, you will care and you will let go. And that your letting go will be going with a caring that has no bottom, no limit. That that's the way the Buddha cares, is by letting go. But it isn't just letting go, it's letting go. And it's not holding on to what you care about, and it's not holding on to what you don't care about. Of course you don't hold on to what you don't care about. I don't even know that I care about some things in a predominant pathway.

[73:05]

Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, exactly. Controlled by caring? Or holding on? I don't really care about it. I just know sometimes that I'm holding on. Yeah, the holding on pervades. It pervades. It pervades. So I want to be careful about any forms we play with during this retreat. But I really want to play with them. And when I went to Zen Center, the only form I was interested in was a sitting posture. And I wanted help practicing sitting meditation, and then I saw all these other forms, and I was interested. So I went for sitting, and when the other forms came up, like service and stuff, I just left and went home and read Zen books. But during retreats, when they had these forms, you can't leave and go home because you're at a retreat center or whatever, and also you want your meals for the service to get the meal.

[74:23]

But for daily practice they didn't have meals, they just had meditation and service So you could go leave after sitting meditation, go home, read Zen books and have breakfast. So that worked well. So I got in a situation of going to all these services, participate in the services, so then I became a world's expert on the services. Now I'm going all over the place teaching these forms. I'm Mr. Service or Mr. Form. How did I get into this? But I can tell you that My greatest gift that they've given to me is I never really held on to this stuff. I just thought, okay, let's do it. Let's do these forms. That was nice for me, that I never really held them. I've always been able to be somewhat playful and to try to do these things really carefully. So like, Again, but this is the religious part.

[75:28]

You offer people these forms, and can you offer this to the people so they don't get stuck in them? So that they... And again, if we do the forms sloppily, it's hard for them to see that we're letting go of them. And if you do them very carefully, thoroughly, it's harder to not get stuck in them. If you do them sloppily, then you can say, hey, Zen form, so what? Let's just do them. But as you start to focus and do them more and more carefully and more and more precisely, it's harder to not hold on. But if you can do them thoroughly and precisely and fully and then let go, then people see something.

[76:33]

Then they see. They see the turning. And that's what they see. They don't even know what they're seeing. They think, oh, those people are doing that form really nicely. They think that's what they're seeing, but actually what they're seeing is people doing the form really nicely who get the joke. The people want to get the joke. But if the people are doing the form sloppily, people who are doing the form sloppily are not necessarily letting go of the form. Because it's hard to let go of the form if you don't engage with it fully. It's like you can't really let go of your children if you don't care for them. All the people you don't care for, it isn't really that you're letting go of them, it's just that you don't care for them. But when you start to care for it thoroughly, then you have a chance to really let go.

[77:33]

Some people say, these forms are religious forms, and they're different from other religious forms. You see, at the crisis, at the turning point, there's danger, and the danger is they're getting stuck in the forms. Some people say, why have them in the first place? And it's hard in the turning place unless you put it out there where they can see it. So like, anyway, that's the dilemma. There's another expression in Zen. If you raise a speck of dust, the nation flows. But the farmers are unhappy. If you don't raise the dust, the nation doesn't flourish and prosper, but the farmers are happy. If you start a Zen center, it's great, but the farmers are unhappy.

[78:43]

If you don't start a Zen center, well, you don't have monasteries, you don't have sesshin, you don't have retreats, but the farmers are happy. How come the farmers are happy? They're not taking their workers. And also, they don't have to support it. And also, they don't have to feel like they're left out. You know? And also, you could also say, you know, if you set up Buddhism, that's great for Buddhism, but Muslims maybe are unhappy. If you don't set it up, so it's a problem. So I shared with you this problem at the beginning. and welcome you to join the, while we're doing the forums, to join the struggle to find balance with them. And I opened this book to this chant we just did about hearing the true Dharma and then the karmic obstructions that have developed.

[79:50]

But again, that's a wonderful teaching of the Buddha, the teaching of action has consequence, a fundamental teaching. But that teaching is dangerous. It has a great opportunity in it. The Buddha studied karma and how it worked, and his enlightenment happened in that study. But that teaching can also be harmful if you hold on to it. So how do you offer the teaching of karmic obstruction and asking the Buddhas to help with all that and confessing and repenting? How do you do that in such a way that people don't get hurt There's a danger in offering that teaching, but also that teaching, at the center of that teaching is that if you can turn with it, there's a great opportunity. Should we offer it in the first place? Should we mention this karmic hindrance stuff? Should we mention there's a danger in mentioning the Buddhas are going to help you? But there's an opportunity in mentioning the Buddhas are going to help you.

[80:56]

It's crisis is between the danger of mentioning the Buddhas and the opportunity of mentioning the Buddhas. And so we need to find a balanced place between, in the midst of, hearing about Buddhas and bodhisattvas who are living in this, who we can't see, to hear about them and talk about them and realize there's danger in that. and there's opportunity. To see the dangers and open to the opportunities. To see the dangers in teachings about karma and open to the opportunities. To see the danger in going for refuge in the Buddha and open to the opportunity. Open to the dangers. Open to the dangers. So part of me says, oh, so we're going to do this forum here called Taking Refuge in the Buddha, and I wonder how that is for you.

[82:10]

But if some of you feel like, I think that's dangerous, I welcome you to express that and to feel that. For 40 years... I knew that I didn't know what to do, like even get up in the morning, write something, regretful that I'd done something wrong. Do that same 40 years. And if I went, what's that? by the time I was done, I wouldn't have an idea about what to do. Oh, all that while I was seeking refuge.

[83:16]

In the Buddha. What do you take refuge in when you're scared and you're confused? You run back to a safe place. And that's exactly what I was doing. All that time, those words didn't signify to me. Right. Yeah. Thank you. So in some sense, people say, I heard some people who, on Sunday morning, they go out in their backyard and they start digging in their backyard because they believe there's a huge diamond buried there. And then people say, you do that every Sunday? Have you ever found the diamond? Do you have any evidence or reason to think it's there? No, we just believe it's there. And you never found it? No. But we feel good just digging for it.

[84:29]

It just makes us feel really good to believe that there's a diamond back there. Some people use that example. But Jim's example was that he wasn't digging for the diamond, he was just going out and digging. And while he was digging, he calmed down. And then he realized that actually he was digging for the jewel. And then he found the jewel. It's very dynamic. Some people think it's ridiculous. Some people believe it makes sense. But somehow there's something to sitting down and being quiet. There's something which people have found all over the world about that when you slow down, you get in touch with something. Your fear, your anxiety, and so on. And when you do that, you start to find, get closer to the turning point.

[85:36]

And then we later say, oh, but it's dangerous. Now, he didn't have a problem with, like, okay, I'm going to take refuge in Buddha. It didn't make sense to him. He didn't have that problem. But some people do. They say, okay, I'll take refuge in Buddha before they actually calm down. And, yeah, so it's tricky. And the Buddha, yeah, it's tricky. Well, maybe that's enough for this morning. Okay?

[86:18]

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