But some people are quite advanced and even maybe enlightened still feel funny about confessing. But it's strange, isn't it, that if you're enlightened you'd be confessing? But our human nature is mixed together with our enlightened nature. They're part of the same structure of enlightenment, that we have this limited thinking aspect that's mixed with our enlightened nature. So that's why At Zen Center, we confess every morning. We also have monthly and bimonthly sometimes confession ceremonies. We confess every morning together. We confess. Okay? And it's part of the practice of Buddha. And again, it sometimes feels funny that we're doing it, but also it feels good to do it. And we don't confess particular things usually, we just confess, you know, generally, we have a general formula.

[01:06]

And I know that, what do you call it, Pittsburgh's a very Catholic city. I think perhaps the most Catholic city, Roman Catholic city, perhaps the most Roman Catholic city in the country, maybe more than Boston, I don't know. But there's lots of Polish Catholics and German Catholics and Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics in the city, right? I never heard, there's almost no city in the country that I visited that has so many church bells ringing. It's Pittsburgh. It's Pittsburgh. So it's a very Catholic city, so I think there's a lot of mixed feelings about the practice of confession. But I suggest that you consider revisiting the practice of confession, that the Sangha consider that. It's easy for me because I didn't grow up with the practice of confession. I don't have any bad associations with it.

[02:10]

So for me it's like, It wasn't part of practice. I didn't expect it. And I just gradually started to see that confession is a big part of Zen practice, especially for the Soto Zen that comes through Dogen. Confession is very important to him. Confession and repentance. And again, as I mentioned to Therese, repentance doesn't mean to punish yourself. Repentance means... So confession is just to say what you did. or just to confess that you're human, to confess that you interpret everything through your conceptual activity. That's confession. Repentance is a feeling of regret or sorrow which you then turn into a reiteration of your intention to do what you didn't do that you feel bad about not doing. So you can either feel sorrow at doing something inappropriate And in that sorrow you can say, now I vow to do what is appropriate.

[03:16]

Or you can miss doing the appropriate thing and feel sorrow at that. And again, the repentance is not just to feel the sorrow, but to recommit, reenlist to do the practice that you'd like to do. So confession is, I didn't do the practice properly. and repentance is, I feel bad about it. It isn't really the way I want to be. I don't feel good about not being who I want to be. It doesn't feel good to not be who you are. That doesn't feel good. What feels good is to be who you are. And when you're who you are, you feel good. And it's not just a superficial pleasant feeling. You feel really, really good You're not afraid. It's not a kind of good where you feel like you're still kind of scared of losing it. You know this is a trustworthy, good feeling.

[04:22]

And when you're not doing what is true to yourself, you don't feel good. And then you can repent, means you can say, I would like to now return to the practice of being true to myself. And then go back to work being who you are. And being who you are is being somebody who interprets what's happening through her concepts but also is actually something oceanic beyond the concepts. And I wish to become the ocean that I am. But I confess that I keep getting caught up in this little narrow view of myself, and I would like to have oceanic relationships with beings, but I confess that I get caught by these little tiny versions of my relationship with people. Like they like me, I get caught up in that, or they don't like me, I get caught up in that. But this liking and not liking, or confusion of which it is, this is just a little tiny sliver of your relationship with people.

[05:33]

So I confess this narrowness that as a human I'm heir to this limited way of seeing things. It's instinctive to see things in this limited way. But I know it now, so I can confess it, and now I can say I want to open to this unlimited horizon of my relationships. of the dependent core rising. This will be your entrance into wisdom meditation. Yes? What are the words that you say in Kriyayoga Sangha when you confess? We say, all my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech and mind, I now fully evolve. And we say it three times. Okay, so when the Buddha taught, you know, how suffering arises.

[06:42]

Suffering arises. How does suffering arise? Ignorance. How does suffering arise? She said ignorance. How does suffering arise? What? He said craving. How does suffering arise? Delusion. What? Grasping. So you're saying all these things, but you're missing a key word. Huh? What? Dependently. You're missing the word dependently. Suffering arises depending on ignorance. Suffering arises depending on clinging. Suffering arises depending on craving. Right? It's the depending part. Don't forget that part. It arises dependently. Before you say anything further, whatever you're talking about, if I say, How does suffering arise? Dependently. On what? Well, you can say ignorance, karmic formations, consciousness, thirst, craving, clinging, birth.

[07:47]

That's how it arises. You're not born, there's no craving. I mean, there's no suffering. But also I just want to point out from that chart, where does, how does ignorance arise? Huh? What? No, not really. Well, actually, you're right. You're right, from depending on suffering, right. So, that's right. Depending on old age, sickness, lamentation, and suffering. Then you start to circle again. Ignorance, karmic formations, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, suffering. So ignorance also arises from, so karmic formations come from, depend on suffering, but also more immediately. Huh? Ignorance.

[08:48]

OK. It's not just ego, it's believing the ego as real. Ego's OK if you don't believe it's real. Believing it's real means you ignore dependent co-arising. So karmic formations arise in dependence on ignorance, right? And then go around the chart, OK? And the chart culminates at suffering. And then, depending on suffering, Ignorance arises. However, ignorance also goes back and depends on karma formations. So when there's ignorance, then karma arises, okay? And then that karma also leads to ignorance. So the whole process starts with ignorance, But ignorance also depends on the whole process too. So because of karmic formations and because of craving and because of clinging and becoming and birth and suffering, you have ignorance.

[09:52]

That's how the chart goes. That's why it's beginningless. It just goes round and round. So all these things depend on ignorance, but then once these things arise from ignorance, then you have the conditions for ignorance to continue, which is the condition for them to continue. So everybody's helping everybody out. You know? Ignorance produces all these nice things, and all these nice things produce ignorance. This is what the Buddha saw. This is dependent core rising. This is what we meditate on at the beginning. But you don't have to get into the twelve chains, the twelve links of the chain. That's not necessary. You might want to do that, but you can be creative about how you do this. Choose among the various possibilities the one that you want to work on, but please work on it. Find some way that you find interesting to apply this to.

[10:54]

And I think whatever way you try probably will be fine, although it's good to express it just so you get some confirmation. So if you tell me how you want to work on it, then I can say, sure. Because it's possible I might say, no, that's off. You're missing something. Like you're missing the word dependent or something. So it's not quite right to say, if I say, how does ignorance arise, for you to say, karma formations. It's depending on karmic formations. Because karmic formations don't exactly make it happen. It's just that they have this dependency. Because if you make... You see, if you leave out the dependency, it's as though there really is a thing called ignorance, or really a thing called karmic formation, which makes this real thing called ignorance. So all these things, because they're dependent, is also why they're empty. See? And because they're empty, anything's possible.

[11:58]

We can be free because all these ingredients in this process are empty. And the reason why they're empty is because they're dependently co-arise. So none of the elements in the process are actually inherently existing. They don't have selves either. They don't have egos. So this is the story of dependent co-arising, but all the elements in them also are dependent co-arising, see? The whole process of dependent co-arising, but every element in it depends on other things, too. Ignorance depends on other things, and all those other things depend on ignorance. So you see there are multiple ways to work it, backwards, forwards, one-to-one, back and forth between two. Ignorance arises from dependent co-arising, from common formations. Common formations arise from ignorance. So we confess our karma, and then we confess that our karma arises from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. So if you want to, we can practice that the next two days of the retreat, if you're up for that practice, to do it here, just to get a feeling for it.

[13:11]

Yes. Pardon? Yeah. Yes. Your comments about loving our spouse or our children even when they're not who we want them to be or who we expect them to be brought me back to something I wanted to clarify from this morning. And it has to do with sort of speaking up for the non-arbitrariness of lobbying specific people or things. And it seems like even though if you start to get some sense of dependent co-arising, what seemed to be real starts to become unreal in a certain way. It still doesn't seem arbitrary at all that we're lobbying particular people. Because it seems like, in fact, the Pentecostal Rising helps us realize that we're always already involved in this whole network of relationships. And we're involved in relationships

[14:18]

with particular people and things and circumstances and communities and so forth because of this network of conditions that misled us. And as we mature, some of those conditions are partly influenced by conscious choices that we make. And so if we leave a retreat, it's not arbitrary that we go become re-engaged with the people and things that matter to us. And sometimes you might leave retreat and decide to do something else. Right. And that's not arbitrary either. What's that? And that's not arbitrary either. But if we acted like it was arbitrary and just went and left the people and things that we were loving to begin with, because we had some sense that everything is on some absolute level equal and the same, then we'd be hurting the people we were involved with.

[15:20]

Well, that last part I don't know about, but just hold that in parentheses for a second. But I agree with everything you said up to that point. So arbitrary may not be the best word for it, but I think maybe what... Amy was referring to and what I kind of understand is that it's arbitrary in the sense that there's nothing about that person that makes you be married to them. It's just the conditions of your life such that you met that person rather than somebody else, and they met you rather than somebody else. And the conditions were such that you were at a certain age and they were at a certain age and neither of you were married, maybe. Or maybe you were, but anyway, all those conditions came together such that you wound up getting married. And then marriage also became another condition for you staying together. So the arbitrariness is in a sense of addressing that there's nothing specifically inherently about you and inherently about her that makes you be married to that person.

[16:29]

It's just conditions. So maybe arbitrary isn't the word. Maybe it's more like ironic or something, that you're with this person but not for the reasons that you think. You're with this person not because of them, but because all the conditions that make them, because there really isn't like an inherently existing person there. And yet these conditions are really what make a relationship. So it's not arbitrary, but it's more like empty. But again, empty can turn into arbitrary, and we don't want that to turn into arbitrary in the sense of it doesn't matter whether I go back home or don't go back home. Matter of fact, maybe you should not go back home. That may be the right thing to do sometimes. And that's not arbitrary, but it's a question of what is really going to be liberating.

[17:32]

And so to appreciate the dependent core arising makes it so that somehow, again, in a way it seems, I don't know what, it's just astounding in a way, again, that anything happens. So that word arbitrary is a dangerous word, but there's something, it touches something in that it kind of picks away at the sense that there's really something there aside from just the conditions that make your relationship. Because as we know, the conditions could be such that you could have a relationship with someone where you feel blessed by being able to be devoted to them and you feel joy at your devotion to them and they also are devoted to you and you really feel grateful for this whole relationship. And then it just changes into something new where the devotion goes on

[18:38]

but the person dies, or something like that. Or the person goes crazy. Or the person gets really sick. And you keep being devoted, but maybe they can't be devoted to you anymore because of the sickness they get. But somehow still, you can still be devoted. So the dependent core rising should help you, actually, to be devoted to everybody you're already devoted to, and be devoted to more people, but not in a way that makes you hurt the people you're already devoted to. And as our wisdom develops, we actually find a way to care about more people without hurting the people we already are devoted to and the people who already feel we're devoted to them, to even have the skill through our wisdom to get them to, like, not be so possessive of us even though we still spend more time with them than we do with most people, because that seems right, in our hearts we also don't feel just only caring about them.

[19:48]

And partly because we understand that it just causes the conditions that we're mostly with them. So I think I appreciate what you said. But the last part The last little thing is it doesn't necessarily lead to this conclusion like nothing matters. But we don't want that to happen. So meditating on dependent core rising should actually make us feel like everything matters. And that should help us appropriately relate to everything. and be devoted to everybody, and each devotion will be different, will manifest differently. Just like the way you express devotion to your children is not the same way you express devotion to your spouse. And it wouldn't be appropriate to do so, right? The children don't sleep in the same bed at the same time that certain things are happening.

[20:56]

It's not appropriate. I would say, at least most of the time it's not. Yeah, the last piece about devoting ourselves to each person or each thing differently seems really important because I have pretty clear sense that as our wisdom deepens, that sort of circles of compassion, the circles of love start to expand, expand, expand. In the Bodhisattva vows, it is enumerable, I vow to say that we're a system. And yet, human beings are limited in a certain way, and so each person or thing that you choose to devote yourself to concretely every day, In a certain way, you're choosing not to devote yourself, at least consciously, explicitly, to something or someone else.

[22:00]

I have faith that I do my best with this person in this community or whatever. I would tweak that a little bit. If I'm spending time with you, I don't say that that means I'm not devoted to my wife who's in San Francisco. I don't. I don't have to not be devoted to her while I'm talking to you here in Pittsburgh. I'm not choosing not to be devoted to her. I do not want to do that. And I don't want you to be paying attention to me and losing your devotion to your wife who's not here now. I don't think it has to go that way. Like Suzuki Roshi said one time, you know, in the early days of Zen Center, you know, he was not world famous. You know, if Suzuki Roshi was alive now, he'd be, like, more famous than the Dalai Lama. He'd be the senior Buddhist teacher on the planet. But he died when he was 67. But just before he died, he started to become famous, you know. A couple years before he died, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind was published.

[23:05]

A few years before he died, Tassajara started. So in the early days of Zen Center, you could go see Suzuki Roshi anytime you wanted to. He wasn't overwhelmed by tons of students. But as Zen Center started to grow, he started to have to make appointments with people. He said, now Zen Center's growing, so now people have to make appointments to see me. It wasn't always that way. I'm busier than he was during most of his time at Zen Center, in terms of students. I have more students to take care of than he did, because Zen Center's gotten so big. So anyway, he says, so now I have to make appointments with people. But he said, but you should understand that when I'm talking to somebody, in other words, and you're waiting to see me, or maybe you can't see me, you should understand I'm meeting with this person for you. So don't be jealous, because I'm talking to this person for you. So I, when I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you

[24:07]

for you and for your wife and your children, and I'm talking to you for my wife and my children and my grandchildren and all the students in the universe, that's why I'm talking to you. When I'm talking to somebody about their marriage, I'm thinking about my marriage. And the advice I'm giving them about their marriage, I'm thinking, am I practicing this in my marriage? In the meditation I'm talking about you to do, that you're doing or I'm doing with you, that's a meditation which I'm going to do hopefully when I get home. So I don't cut out anybody. But still my limited mind might do that. But then I confess my limited mind cuts out. But I don't want to do that. I want to enter into a way of relating to you that doesn't erode my devotion to somebody else. But it is possible to say, I'm devoted to this person and I don't want to see that person. I confess that. It doesn't have to be that way. But sometimes it is that way.

[25:09]

It doesn't have to be that way. Devotion to one does not have to cut out anybody else. And on the level of dependent core rising, it doesn't. In that level, when you're touching one, you touch this one and it touches everybody. You pull this one, everybody comes with it. You push this one, everybody goes backward. That's the technical horizon. In this level, it looks different. It looks like I'm talking to this person, not talking to that person. But I also remember there's a way that I'm with this person that's beyond this. So is my heart open to relating to these other people who aren't here? We can open to that. Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yes. There's a matter of prioritizing, I think, which is what came up on me as I listened to this, where I have 15 different tasks that need to be done over the week.

[26:19]

Right, right. I confess that I frequently choose the least important one and thus avoid the ones that I should be tackling first. Thank you for your confession. And in that process, I'm stealing from the important things. Yeah, in a sense I can see that. That's why I suggested to you at the beginning of the retreat that you think about what is the highest priority of your life. Find that. Because when you find that highest priority or that thing that's... There's one thing that's highest. What is that? When you find that highest priority, then you can line everything else up.

[27:19]

Everything else will fall into place behind that. And if you do something that doesn't accord with this highest priority, then you've got a problem. But if you're doing something that winds up with this highest priority, even though you are taking care of that highest priority, as I was just talking to Will about, the highest priority is devotion to all beings. You know, your wife or husband right now is going to be your wife and husband for a little longer. And it's going to be wonderful if you're a good husband or wife, but it's going to be all over soon. And you're going to be somebody else's husband or wife, if you're lucky. Eventually we're going to marry everybody. So, the highest priority for me is devotion to all beings. So then if you're devoted to one being,

[28:21]

or doing something for somebody or yourself, is that lining, are you doing it in a way that lines up with devotion to all beings? If not, it's not appropriate because you said what was most important. So if you're... I don't think you do something for this person and it hurts another person. That's not my highest priority. It seems that way sometimes, that you're helping this person and not helping that person. That doesn't line up with my highest priority. So figure out what really your highest priority is, and I think that will help you organize all the other priorities. Namely, they all have to line up with that. If they contradict that, it's not going to work for you. You're going to feel bad. But you have to remember that highest one. The highest. Not fairly high, but the highest.

[29:26]

And it may take you a while to find the highest. You find some highs, but until you find the highest, there's still some confusion about what you should be lining everything else up with. And what it is that if you don't line up with it, you don't feel right. You know, you can call it many names, like your true self, who you really are. Who you really are. This behavior doesn't go with who you really are. You know that. But if you don't remember that your highest priority is to be really true to who you really are, then you can do these things that kind of, I don't know, maybe it doesn't... But you can develop a sense of what's really true to yourself. And who you are is a dependently co-arising person. Therefore, that person, it wouldn't make sense to cut anybody out because of who you are.

[30:30]

So keep working on it. But I don't mean to talk you into that you really want to be a Buddha. But I think that probably if you find your highest priority, it will evolve into that. Because wanting to be who you really are is really wanting to be Buddha. Because that's who you really are. But we need to realize that. And in order to realize that, we have to be clear of that, and then check out everything we do to that criterion. And what's that criterion? It's a criterion of who you really are, is who it is that's born in the advent of all things in a given moment. That's who you really are. That's your enlightened self. And then what goes with that person? It would be devotion to everything that gives you... It's to be devotion to all things, no exception. And so if you don't take care of one being, it doesn't go with that.

[31:36]

And you know it, and you feel a little bit bad if you kill a mosquito. You feel a little bad. I'm not saying you can avoid killing a mosquito. I'm just saying it doesn't go with who you really are. Buddha does not like killing mosquitoes. Even though... Buddha might do it. But at that moment, Buddha's unhappy. Buddha says, no, that wasn't quite right. I don't like that. And then Buddha confesses, and the next morning, all my ancient twisted karma, I was, you know. So anyway, what do you say? Huh? Say it three times. from right down the little front. Dot, dot, dot. That's the Pali word for suchness. That's the way things are.

[32:37]

So if you do not want to do... There's two ways to deal with this confession thing as an experiment anyway. One way would be if you don't want to do it, just drop me a note. And the other way to do it would be if you don't want to do it, just leave the room when it's happening, which is the best way. There's other ways, too, but I don't want to force you into doing this, but I just thought you might want to just incorporate that into this, because it's kind of in the spirit of this. But what do you think, what you're feeling? Anybody have problems with this? Don't be afraid. Yes? Well, it isn't that I have problems with it. I mean, I was raised Catholic, and I needed compassion. And I'm very appreciative of the way you've explained this. And I can see that It's a way of continually starting over. Yeah.

[33:40]

Without the guilt. I mean, I think the thing that's missing in this approach is the guilt. And I can't blame that. That was my reaction. I can't blame that on the Catholic Church. That was my sense of it. Well, guilt, I mean, we are guilty. You know, we're guilty of being limited. Right? But the question is how to let go of that. Say, okay, what do you say? What is it? Is it mea culpa? Mea culpa mea maxima culpa. Yeah. Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa. What does maxima culpa mean? It's through my fault, through my fault, through my grievous fault. Yeah. The grievous part. Okay. But anyway, I am guilty of narrow-mindedness. I'm guilty of greed, hate, and delusion. I have been greedy and deluded and hateful, right? I confess it. Maybe I haven't done it in the last ten minutes or last day or so, but in the ancient past, I have been greedy.

[34:44]

I confess it, and I confess it to let go of it. So I am guilty, but I don't want this guilt to, like, weigh me down. So I confess it and let go of it. I'm forgiven by doing this. So there is guilt. The question is how to let go of our guilt so we can be fresh and new again and move on to make new mistakes. And the Bodhisattva way is not so much about not making mistakes It's not about not making mistakes, because people make mistakes. It's not about making mistakes either, because you don't need a special path for people to make mistakes, right? Everybody's making enough mistakes, don't you think? We don't need to make more. I don't even think we need to make less. The thing is, the bodhisattva path is to be able to learn from your mistakes.

[35:47]

That's the point, to learn from your mistakes. And of course, the learning can evolve to such a point that you're a Buddha. And if Buddhas make mistakes, you might say, that's too bad. But still, you've got a Buddha, which is pretty good. You become good through learning from your mistakes. You become Buddha by learning from your mistakes. So we do make mistakes. We are guilty of making mistakes. And that's part of enlightenment, is making mistakes and confessing them. And it's part of delusion to make mistakes Right? Deluded people make mistakes too, not just enlightened people, right? But delusion is to make mistakes and not confess them, and not learn from them.

[36:50]

That's delusion. Enlightenment is a process of confessing, repenting, and learning. Delusion is to make mistakes and not confess and not repent and not learn and just continue to make mistakes in an unproductive way. Does that make sense? So I don't know if we should... So the question is whether we should do that practice here during the next couple of days or not. I would like to experience it. Yeah. Like we chanted the refuges, you know, and so you just experienced it. You're not really making a formal commitment by chanting them, but you just experienced what it's like. So if anybody does not want to experience it, please give me guidance about what to do, because I'd just like those of you who have not experienced it to experience it, and those who have experienced it and wish to experience it again to do it.

[37:52]

I just think you should know that it's part of Zen practice. which is not highly advertised. All those Zen stories, there's not much, all my ancient twisted karma from the beginning. You don't hear that very often, right? But those monks who are in these stories, they did that practice. They just didn't mention it because they didn't want to freak the Catholics out. I just wanted to say that just all of us with ruckus, we did it at the ceremony. So that takes at least half the room here. It's okay. Yeah, this room has a third of the people here have already received the precepts. You know, we don't do it at Tassajara in the summertime. It feels really wrong every morning. Yeah, the reason why. Just not to take, not to do a concussion verse. I really miss it. Yeah, it's difficult. It's really hard. I guess the reason why they did it is because they don't want to freak the guests out. Somebody said service was just getting too long and they had to cut something down.

[38:53]

Well, that's another way to talk about freaking the guests up. They don't want to freak the guests up by having service too long because then breakfast might be late. Exactly. So Tathāsara practice gets kind of reshaped during guest season so that the guest season works for the guests. But you could practice, you know, how do we get the formal practice in and also do all the work of taking care of the guests? That's kind of a balancing act for the summer in Tassajara. So shortening the service is one thing. And yes. Yes. I wasn't raised Catholic, but I seem to have come up with a fair load of guilt anyway. But I found... Jewish people are guilty too. Chinese people are guilty. The way it's said at Clouds and Water is that greed, anger, and ignorance arise endlessly.

[39:57]

vowing to cut off the mind road. And I felt that really comforting, you know, to really accept that, that it arises endlessly. It's not peculiar to me. It's not special to me. It's just the human condition. It arises endlessly. And I found that really peculiar. That is nice. Your understanding is good, too. We live in a human condition where this stuff arises. It doesn't really matter who owns it. It's our neighborhood, right? This is where we live. And we recognize this. It's our river. Yeah, right. Yes? One handful thing a teacher once said to me. in the retreats, the point was that repentance is really coming back to your posture, that each time you commit to coming back to your posture in zazen, this is a continuous act of repentance.

[41:04]

Zazen is coming through the wall, upright position, each time. And we each part do that as a form of repentance. I found that really very meaningful for sitting. Yeah. And when you notice that you're not sitting upright, then you confess it. You don't feel so good, so then you say, I'd like to sit up straight, and you do. Then you're back on track. Then you slip again. Say, whoops, I slipped. I don't feel so good here. I think I'd like to sit up. I want to get up there. Yeah. Right? It's very hard sometimes. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to get this thing up there. And then it slips again. Practice is not necessarily easy.

[42:10]

We didn't say it was easy. It's just a question of what do you want, really, and what goes with it. And if it's hard, you are going to do it even if it's hard because it's in the service of what's most important. And the answer is sometimes, yes! And sometimes the answer is, yeah. I do want to. It's so hard, but I do want to. Yes, I want to get up. Yes, I get up. There you go. I'm going to go to meditate now. All right, good. And then you sit there, and then after it's all over, you say, that was good. I'm glad I did it. And the next morning, uh... A lot of good things are hard to... Get started at, right? And then after you finish, you say, that was good. How come I keep forgetting how good it is?

[43:11]

That's why we have to have a discipline so that even when it's like the body kind of wants to stay all curled up under the covers, you get up anyway. Like I also swim in the San Francisco Bay, you know? And it's never very warm in the bay water. I shouldn't say never, but usually it's pretty cold. It doesn't freeze like up in the northern part of the country, but it's cold, you know. And a lot of times you go in there and it's like it's hard to get in there. But then you get in the flow of it and it's not so hard. And when you get out, you feel good. He said that was good. You get over that. For a lot of people that do that, they say that's their religion. It's just to get over that, that resistance to that change, you know, that other world there. And it's also meditation on the pinnacle horizon is kind of like that, too. It's kind of hard, like, to get out there beyond what you think about this person.

[44:15]

Over. Oh, yeah. Ah, there we go. Okay, yeah, that feels better. It's sometimes hard, you know. It's easy to stay on this side in the habit. But anyway, as far as I can tell, you all passed the midterm exam with flying colors. Congratulations. So we have just a little while before dinner. So I'll tell you what, those who this is like, I would declare this as time to go sit if you want to. Or do something else. It's up to you. Whatever you want. Until dinner. Shall I write the verse on the board here? Yeah, why don't you write it on the board, please. Or on this thing.

[45:17]

The confession verse. The repentance verse. She steered the person. Oh, okay. Yeah. Bye-bye. I'm trying to read it again. I'm trying to read it again. This morning I heard the sound of a train whistle.

[47:03]

And Pittsburgh is a city where you still hear train whistles. Most other cities I've lived in, you don't hear them anymore. very often. In San Francisco, they have a train that comes into downtown, and in the early morning you can hear it, but once the street noise comes up, you can't hear it anymore. So sometimes when I'm sitting, even if you sit in the zendo in the city center of San Francisco Zen Center, you usually can't hear the train, but up in the room where I do interviews, I can hear it. It's a little higher. And also in the middle of the night sometimes you hear the trains. But when I hear these trains, especially in the early morning or at night, I get this feeling.

[48:12]

It's really kind of a poignant feeling in the sense of poignant kind of penetrating. Poignant is related to the word needle. It means needle, right, in French. It strikes me, and I think part of the reason it strikes me is because when I was a child, I used to hear trains more often. even then somehow the sound of trains was poignant to me. There's something about hearing those sounds that I could feel my whole life going by. And there's a little bit of, I think part of the poignantness is that the the needle, the sound, it doesn't go completely smoothly through.

[49:17]

It sticks a tiny bit. There's a little bit of stickiness in this life having gone by. I haven't completely let go of it. I haven't completely let go of that five-year-old boy visiting his aunt in the suburbs with the train right up behind the house going by, you know? That lovely time of being a little boy is gone. Of course it wasn't all pleasant, being five years old, but still even though it's not all business, still it was something happening. And just to let it go is sometimes not that easy to really, really let go what's gone. This morning I heard the sound of a train whistle.

[52:09]

And Pittsburgh is a city where you still hear train whistles. Most other cities I've lived in, you don't hear them anymore. very often. In San Francisco, they have a train that comes into downtown, and in the early morning you can hear it, but once the street noise comes up, you can't hear it anymore. So sometimes when I'm sitting, even if you sit in the zendo in the city center of San Francisco Zen Center, you usually can't hear the train, but up in the room where I do interviews, I can hear it. It's a little higher. And also in the middle of the night sometimes you hear the trains. But when I hear these trains, especially in the early morning or at night, I get this feeling.

[53:18]

It's really kind of a poignant feeling in the sense of poignant kind of penetrating. Poignant is related to the word needle. It means needle, right, in French. It strikes me, and I think part of the reason it strikes me is because when I was a child, I used to hear trains more often. even then somehow the sound of trains was poignant to me. There's something about hearing those sounds that I could feel my whole life going by. And there's a little bit of, I think part of the poignantness is that the the needle, the sound, it doesn't go completely smoothly through.

[54:24]

It sticks a tiny bit. There's a little bit of stickiness in this life having gone by. I haven't completely let go of it. I haven't completely let go of that five-year-old boy visiting his aunt in the suburbs with the train right up behind the house going by, you know? That lovely time of being a little boy is gone. Of course, it wasn't all pleasant, being five years old, but still. even though it's not all business, still it was something happening. And just to let it go is sometimes not that easy to really, really let go what's gone. My feeling about the Buddha mind is that the Buddha mind is receiving what's given, receiving the arrival of all things in the moment, and living from this

[56:23]

this gift. And that's it. And then that gift ceases and another gift comes. And you receive that and witness the gift. Almost have time to say thank you very much. And then Actually, you said thank you. That was your act. So you could just sit there all day long saying thank you, thank you, thank you. But just for the moment because now the gift is gone. Because it can't maintain itself. And the conditions which support it have changed. So it ceases. It comes and it ceases. And to receive it, completely is similar to, is the same as receiving it with no attachment.

[57:36]

So then when it ceases, there's no sadness. And I don't know if I would go so far as to say, but I think maybe there's not even any poignance because it's so big that it's not like it's penetrating something. Like you're already there and it's penetrating you. You're so accepting of it, it's all of you. And when it ceases, there's none of you left over to hold on to it. But if there is something of you left over to hold on to it, then you're not ready for the next gift. And your life doesn't like that, so your life gives you a chance to be sad. When the sadness comes, you can consider that, now do I really want to keep holding on to that five-year-old boy

[58:49]

Do I really want to hold on to the last 60 years, or am I ready to let go and receive the next moment of life? And the answer might be, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll be sad a few more moments, or maybe many more moments. So I was talking to someone about how, you know, if you picture a child and you give them something like a pet or a toy or an ice cream cone or a new dress, and then the ice cream cone falls on the sidewalk, or some naughty boys kick mud on the dress, So they receive the gift, that's fine, but then they lose the gift.

[59:57]

And sometimes what they do is they just tense up, you know, in horror at the ice cream on the sidewalk. So they're really like not letting go. And they're not sad. They're paralyzed. They're not ready for the gift of being the person who's looking at the ice cream cone on the sidewalk. They're not ready. They don't want to be that person. They're not willing to let go of the happy little kid that had the ice cream cone. They're not ready to let go of that, and they don't want to be this new person, and they're not even sad.

[61:01]

They're stuck. They're still alive, but they're deadening themselves. In other words, sometimes what other kids do is when the ice cream cone drops, They cry or they feel, you know, they even can say, I'm sad, I'm sad. This child is more, is getting closer to being able to let go. And if you can let them be sad and not say don't cry, and don't say cry either, but just support them or support yourself in that sadness, Then it's kind of like, oh, sad, and then like, okay. Now I have this new life. As a matter of fact, this wonderful new life of, you know, all that, all those saturated fats being on the ground. I want to eat them.

[62:07]

Or actually I can go down and eat them with, I can actually eat it off the ground if I want to. I can roll in it. And of course the more, so the sadness if it's received helps you move on to your new life of having your ice cream cone on the ground or having your whole life up till now is, it's gone. Then the next moment comes and maybe this moment now you can receive and when it goes You don't stick to it at all. And you don't need any sadness, and there's no tensing, there's no sticking, and you don't need sadness to help you let go. You actually are grateful for the coming, and not so much grateful for the going, but grateful that you didn't stick.

[63:08]

And so the Buddha is not sad. doesn't need the sadness to help her move forward into the next coming forth of all things to realize this life of this person. So this instruction by Dogen of To carry yourself forward and experience all things is delusion. When that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. to live your life, to practice Zen or whatever, while carrying the burden of a self, is, I would add now, it says actually in the original, is, quotes, delusion, unquote.

[64:22]

And for all things but to live and witness delusion, yourself in the coming of all things and act from that place is enlightenment. And I say, I mention it as quotes because it actually does say, in Japanese it does say, it has a little word which says to, which means quotes. This next thing is in quotes. Delusion is in quotes. This is called delusion, carrying the self and affirming all things or living your life is called delusion. There really isn't any such thing going on. It's just that this is what we call delusion. It's when we dream that that's what's happening. So this is his instruction about how to train ourselves into being more and more convinced that it's okay to live in the actual dependent core rising of our life.

[65:53]

And you listen to this teaching, which balances this, which meets this other other thing we think of, which is that we are, you know, we are carrying the self. Listen to the teaching of all things coming forth as us and realizing themselves as this self. And that balances the teaching that we already have a self, which we carry around someplace, and then from this self we live our life. That's our instinctive attitude, and this teaching comes to as medicine for that attitude. So I wanted to read a little further in what I read to you yesterday, or what I talked to you about yesterday, and that is when he says, when the Dharma does not fill your body and mind, you think it's already sufficient.

[67:21]

When the Dharma does fill your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat in the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. And then he says, though there are many features to the dusty world, and then he says, and the world beyond conditions, you will see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of all things, you must know that although they look round and square,

[68:34]

The other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. It is not only so around you, but also directly under your feet or in a drop of water. So this sounds familiar? although things appear like they do, you should know that there are other features to this person or this feeling or this thought or this opinion. There are other features. There are whole worlds there beyond what you see. In order to learn the nature of all things, you must know this.

[69:37]

So you have to keep thinking about this in order to know the nature of all things. And I don't have the... I never noticed this before, actually, this way. And I don't have the Japanese original. But I hope I check it when I get home. And I don't think you have Japanese original here. Anybody have it on you? So it says, in the world beyond conditions. Well, there isn't a world beyond conditions. So... What I think it probably says there is an expression which can mean conditions. It's actually an expression which says causes and conditions. I think that's probably what the original says.

[70:41]

Literally it says causes and conditions, but it also can be understood as a story, like Zen stories. you know, causes and conditions, or history, or something like that. So actually, I don't know what the actual original is, but I think that it would be better to translate it myself as, though there are many features to the dusty world, and the dusty world means the world of our stories. The world of our stories is the dusty world. And it's dusty because dust particles get in your eye. The dusty world means the world where things are out there, you know, that you're here and there's things out there.

[71:43]

The dusty world is where the world is an object to you, separate from you. That's a dusty world. The dusty world is where you have stories about things being other than you. Right? Know that world? That's the dusty world. That's the ordinary, conventional world is stories about things being out there so things can get in your eye. When you're free of dust, it means that nothing can get in your eye. It means there's no objects out there separate from you. So I would understand that they're talking about the dusty world, and they say there's many features to the dusty world, right? Like there's billions of people on this planet, right? And a million times more ants. There's approximately a million times more ants than there are people.

[72:47]

And we, generally speaking, humans weigh about a million times as much as an ant. So the actual biomass of ants and humans is approximately equal. Humans and ants are very important on the planet. They both move a lot of stuff around. So anyway, this dusty world, the world of objects, there's lots going on here. But there's much more going on beyond our stories. So I would say the world beyond conditions should be changed, the world beyond stories, the world beyond our conceptions, because our conceptions, although they still leave quite a bit to talk about, like a hundred times six billion ants and six billion people and lots of beetles and redwood trees and oceans and mountains, although in this dusty world there's plenty going on,

[73:52]

There's much more going on beyond our stories. And our stories are based on this realm beyond our stories. And each thing, each individual thing is actually beyond our story about it. There's worlds of that thing. And in order to understand the nature of things, we have to know this, that beyond that although things may look this way or that way, the other features of this thing are infinite in variety. whatever you're looking at. It looks the way it looks, and we're not putting that down. Matter of fact, we honor that and take good care of that.

[74:57]

So soto zen is actually to take careful, minute care of these particular little square things and little round things. We take care of them. But at the same time, we know, if we want to understand this thing we're taking care of, that beyond the way it appears, this thing has infinite features, which is his dependacore rising. And our projected story about this thing, of it being round or square, good or bad, friend or enemy, friend or enemy, really to characterize what the thing is. I think we have to open to this in order to understand things.

[76:13]

which is hard because there's some people who really think we should stick with our story about them. Because in our story about them, they're really troublesome, and something should be done about them. Well, something is being done about them. But in order to understand, we need to take a break from that and start listening to the teaching which says that the features of this person who we have this story of, there is a person there. We're not saying there's not a person. We're just saying our story about them, the kind of person we think they are, or our story about ourself, the kind of person we think we are. We're not saying to disregard that, but just understand that that is not the way we really are. We are, we have features, infinite features beyond that. And those infinite features also are independence on many other things too.

[77:28]

So it's infinite plus also dependent So the infinite isn't really the main point. The main point is dependent. And because of that things are changing very fast and we need to open to that teaching and then gradually enter into being with the way things are. I shouldn't say that quite that way, because we already are with them. We just need to be more mindful of being with them, to appreciate that more and more. And to notice, as some of you are, that as you open to that, you might feel some sadness, partly because the person you used to be, you're letting go of.

[78:34]

you're letting go of the person who didn't meditate that way before. So you actually allow, you actually are changing when you do this meditation. Doing this meditation, you're changing in a new way. You were changing before, but now you're changing in a new way, and you're losing your old self. So there's some difficulty in this transition.

[79:04]

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