I was going to ask your opinion about chanting in other languages. Yeah, we do chant a lot of times in Japanese. Actually, in large part, I think it's fine, especially for the short, like four vowels or the triple refuge. I wonder sometimes about the Heart Sutra. It's a wisdom sutra that has such subtle ideas. And to do it in Japanese, I just wonder about it. I wonder if I'm going to have an insight in Kanji Zaibo. So do you have an opinion? One thing is that some of the Asian languages, when you chant them, one of the things about them, even if you don't understand what they're saying, is that they're beautiful.

[01:06]

So sometimes people just enjoy the sound. Another thing is that you're doing it maybe not even for the sound, but you're doing it just as a ritual. And sometimes it's good to do a ritual that you don't get anything out of. Because the Buddhas understand all languages, and they like to hear Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, Pali, Korean, Sanskrit. So the main reason, in some ways, that you're chanting these scriptures is for the merit that it generated. And the merit that's generated is not so dependent on whether you understand anything or not, but just that you devote your energy to doing a ritual. And then you dedicate the merit of this to the Buddhas, who do not need the merit. you give the merit to the Buddhas who don't need it, and that giving the Buddhas who don't need anything these gifts generates even more merit, and then you give that merit to all beings. So in some sense doing services is not for you and me to develop wisdom.

[02:13]

It's actually a service for the planet. And so Buddhist monasteries and also Christian monasteries are places where people are like cranking these teachings out for the sake of the planet. And people support people to have monasteries. A lot of people support Catholic monasteries just because those guys in the monasteries and those girls in the monasteries are doing these recitations and devoting the merit of the recitation to the peace of the world. So part of what you can do in your community is recite scriptures not just recite wisdom scriptures, which the Buddhas love to hear, just to please the Buddhas. And it's more of a devotional aspect. And in that way, it's better to do it in a foreign language, because you're not trying to get anything out of it for yourself. This is a total service on your part for the Buddhas and all sentient beings. That's the advantage of doing it in a foreign language, besides the fact that it's kind of pretty.

[03:16]

However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't also chant it in English and be able to hear it in English and say, I understand these words, but I don't know what they mean. And then suddenly, someday, you do know what they mean. So you should also do it in your own language. Whether you should do it just in your own or just in the form, I don't know. I think doing it in both is good, and doing it in either is good. But the advantage of doing it in your own language is you do hear the language and you think, well, what are these, what are skandhas? And what does it mean when it says there's no suffering and no origin and no path and no system? What does that mean there? And what are these Four Noble Truths anyway? So I'd encourage you to go back and understand the terms and get insight into the text, which may not happen while you're chanting, but it may happen in classes and discussions. So I would just say it's good to chant in foreign languages.

[04:22]

We probably will not continue for much longer in America. It's probably something that's not gonna happen much longer, and I would say maybe you can enjoy it while it's still happening. Probably, I don't know, not much longer. You go to China, they're not chanting in Sanskrit. There's probably no place in China. Maybe in some of the tantric temples, they're maybe still chanting in Sanskrit. But in Japan, almost no place, except, again, some tantric rituals, they don't basically chant in Sanskrit. But we could also do Sanskrit. In addition to Japanese, we could do Sanskrit, do the Heart Sutra in Sanskrit. That'd be lovely, too. Right? All this stuff is potentially... beneficial. And at Zen Center, we now do some of our things we do in both and some of the things we don't do in Japanese anymore.

[05:28]

And actually recently, I went to Japan and some people went with me to do a ceremony at Eiji, a memorial service for Dogen. And The scripture that was going to be recited during this memorial service was one we used to do in Japanese, but we haven't been doing for a long time. So we practiced it so that our group could actually chant the thing in the monastery with the Heiji monks. But we used to do that in Japanese, and we don't do it anymore. That's right. So a lot of stuff we used to do in Japanese we don't do anymore. We used to do the Fukan Zazengi in Japanese at Zen Center. We don't do that anymore. So anyway, pretty soon we won't do any Japanese and Chinese. And when we phase it out, I'm not sure when's the best time.

[06:31]

They probably aren't going to be going much longer. But as long as you're doing it in Japanese, be sure to dedicate the merit after you're done. Because for you to do something like that, that you're getting nothing out of, is really very beneficial. When you say, like, the Buddhists, they enjoy hearing this. Yeah, they love it. So I don't get that. You don't get it. You don't have to get it. I don't understand that concept of like... Well, do you see the Buddhas that are standing around you right now? Do you see them? Do you see the Buddhas that are like looking at you right now and loving you right now? You don't see them, do you? No. Well, I don't either. But I'm telling you that the Buddhas, if there's any Buddhas anyplace, they're with you right now.

[07:37]

Buddhas are into you. They love you, they're practicing with you, they're with you. Okay? They're with you in dependent-core rising. They understand that you don't. And they send you a message saying that they're practicing with you. And they enjoy you reciting their teachings. And you can't see that and neither can I. My wisdom eye does see that and loves that world where all the Buddhas are practicing together with us. That's the world I love the best. And I want to be part of that world, and I want to be part of the Buddhas loving all beings. And don't you? But I can't see that. But anyway, the message is I have not heard any messages to the contrary. I have not heard any messages that the Buddhists do not like to hear Homo sapiens reciting Buddhist teachings. I have not heard anybody all through the whole ocean of Buddhists that I've met, nobody says Buddhists don't like us to recite their teachings.

[08:44]

Matter of fact, I've heard a lot of people say they love it. And it's very meritorious then to give them. Also, I haven't heard anybody say Buddhas do not like to receive gifts that they don't need. As a matter of fact, Buddha said, giving a gift to a Buddha is more meritorious than giving a gift to a poor person. Of course you should give to poor people, but there's more merit in giving a gift to a Buddha than to a poor person. And then, With the extreme merit of giving a gift to somebody who doesn't need it, that merit, then you dedicate to all the poor people. So it's a merit-multiplying activity to do things for Buddhists and then give the merit of doing things for Buddhists to all beings. That's sort of the strange logic of the Buddhist teaching. And it's the same in Christianity. They make offerings to God for the welfare of the people.

[09:48]

And if you get something out of the practice, that's fine. I'm just saying, but when you do something for other people that you don't think you get anything out of, but you do it anyway, in a way it's better. But I don't think you should do it if you feel terrible about it. But if you get nothing out of it, and you do it anyway for their welfare, that's what we need more of. We have plenty of people doing stuff where they get something out of it. That's fine. But to do something that you don't get anything out of, but other people get something out of, or Buddha gets something out of, this is like opening up another dimension of our life, which then you'll get something out of that. Namely, you'll become free of doing things that you get stuff out of. And so you'll be able to do a sesshin. And afterwards, people say, did you get anything out of it? And you say, nope. Except I feel very happy, I guess. I'm beyond getting stuff out of life. So I'm really happy that I got over that.

[10:56]

It's a major thing to get over. But you don't try to get over it to get benefit. But in fact, when you do get over it, it is extremely beneficial. Is that enough for today, or do you have some other questions? Yes? Just wondering, the little I know about Sanskrit, it's kind of a magical language. If you were going to do chanting in a foreign language, one should probably be cautious to make sure you're pronouncing it correctly. Let me get some instruction. Is that rather just read it from a book and... I think that's a really good idea. Sanskrit is kind of magical. Definitely. You know, English is too. Have you ever heard of Shakespeare? That's total magic, that guy. We got magic, too. And even the King Jane Bible, that's magical language. It's extremely beautiful. And it's good to learn to pronounce it correctly.

[12:01]

And any language, it's wonderful to learn how to pronounce it correctly. It's great. Even Pittsburgh language is good. So, yeah, definitely that's part of the wonder of learning language is to learn what the words mean, to learn their etymologies. This is part of Dharmadors, okay? Dharmadors are endless. That means every language you look at is full of Dharmadors. Every word in English, every word in Sanskrit, Dharmadors are all over the place. It's wonderful. It is a magical world. The pentacle rising means it's kind of magical how this all happens. It's magical that anything happens. The question is how not to be caught by the appearances, because we tend to be caught by them, and that blocks our energy, you know, and then we get greedy and stuff. So yeah, please, if you're going to learn Sanskrit, that's another whole study.

[13:03]

One of my students has, like, recently stopped being interested in Zen practice and now is studying Sanskrit. Was there any? Yes. I have just a quick one. It's regarding the session. Because we have many people from different backgrounds, I was curious, is it wise to have, as we all right people listening at the beginning of retreats to this retreat, to just review maybe kid walking and just some general common things that might be going on and just ask them if they understand what it means to attend a Soto Zen session? Because I know in Kenyan there's different walks there. And it's just, is that okay with you? I wouldn't even say Soto Zen, I would just say still point. Oh, still point. Yeah, because the way we do things at Zen Center is not the same way that, like when, like Shohako Okamura does things a little differently than we do at Zen Center. Okay. Okay? We're both, we're all Soto Zen, but different Soto Zen centers are different. Like I said before, it's really just your teacher, the lineage of your teacher, who your teacher is.

[14:09]

Because even in Zen Center we have different teachers, And the way I teach things is different than the way some of the other teachers teach things. The physical, like a physical practice? Yeah, physical practice, like I try to emphasize doing gassho like this, you know. But even a lot of my students do gassho like this. And I keep saying, make some space between your forearms and your chest. They don't like to, this is easier. So now I'm on this... How would you walk in in it? I do kinin like this. Well, first of all, I do it like this. And I think Shohaku's style is more like this, isn't it? No. It's the same. It's like this? Yeah. But some of Sawaki Kodo Roshi's books, they do it like this. So there's different styles. This is the way I actually do it. But anyway, I'm just saying. And the way I do ki indoors in the zendo is I start with my feet like this, about shoulders width apart, with my back foot, even with the instep of the front foot, and I take a step the size of a foot.

[15:19]

And I shift the weight under the lead foot, lift the heel of the back foot on the inhale, and exhale, I step. So... Dogen's teacher, Ru Jing, what he said to Dogen was, one breath, one step. So with the breath, you take one step. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. So that's the way Ru Jing recommended, Dogen's teacher recommended to do walking meditation indoors. you know, and we're all packed into the zendo, because that's taking little steps. But outdoors, sometimes we walk bigger steps. And like in Rinzai, they kind of run, right? So it's a different style. And so it's... Right. Yeah, different Rinzai places. So I think it'd be good to... I think it's good... to realize that there's no set way for Buddhists to do walking meditation.

[16:30]

Even within Zen, even within Soto Zen, there's no set way of doing walking meditation or any of the forms, really. But at your own place, it's probably good that you kind of settle on what the form is. And then if you have a sitting, when people come, you can say, while you're here, would you do it this way? So at Zen Center, when they call it a Zen Center, this way. When I go to Clouds and Water, they do things a little different there. I do it their way. So generally speaking, you do it the way of the place you're visiting. And it's good for the place to have a way, generally. And so some places are very into forms. Some places are less into forms. But when you go to a place that's not so much into forms, then you're not so much into forms. That's what you should do. You should harmonize with the group and you should decide among yourselves how much emphasis you're going to put on form. And then when you have retreats, ask people to do it that way. I think that's the usual kind of Buddhist thing to do. You know, when we're all do as the Romans do, if you go to a Tibetan place or a Vipassana place, do their way.

[17:35]

Be flexible. They don't have to be flexible except to let you in. Then you do their way. It's interesting to try a new way to see if you can relax and move with it, try something different. Of course, inside you're going, this is really stupid. You know, my home temple is the best, but anyway. Once in a while you think, this is really cool, you know. Like I remember when I went to Rocky Mountain Dharma Center one time, they used a big drum. Instead of a wooden drum, they had a big timpani for the Heart Sutra. And when I got back, I suggested we try a drum instead of that kind of drum, rather than a little wooden drum, because the drum sort of was more penetrating. We tried that for a while. So sometimes you like things you do at other places better than what you do at your own place. That's good. That's interesting, too. Then you go back and try to get your group to change, and they won't. But it's good to circulate a little bit and learn that your way is not the only way, but it's a way.

[18:44]

It's good that each place has its own way. So you can just try to clarify that and tell people when they come, ask them if they want to do these forms. Most people are willing to give it a try for a while. And particularly, you don't have that many forms, so it's not that difficult for people. You're not shoving a lot of stuff down their throat. But if you've got more forms, I would think you still ask them to do your forms while they're doing your group's retreats. That make sense? That's my suggestion. Anything else? Yes. When we have confession. You missed it this morning? How many times did you do it? How'd it go? Yeah, you missed it. You were talking to me when they were confessing in the other room. Anything else you want to talk about?

[19:55]

I don't want to open up a new subject here, but I want to throw something out that maybe could be addressed more whenever there's time. Getting really back to the basic basics, when I sit, even to try to do the calm Meditation? Yes. I feel like I forget how to do it. I want to have something running in my head, some instruction. Can you recommend something in print that I can sort of memorize? Something in print? Yeah. That's a tranquillion, sir.

[21:11]

Okay? Good point. Another one? Sure. It's very like a book of memory. I'm telling you, I don't know. It was a book. It was a book. I think I missed. There are many books in... Like I said, I'll send you a reading list of many texts on tranquility and insight. But anyway, another instruction is give up discursive thought. Another instruction is give up the movements of mind among different objects. But this one doesn't. So whatever comes, you know. If this comes. If this comes. Whatever comes, meet it. Don't close your eyes. Meet it. Get relaxation. Don't tense up. Don't grab.

[22:13]

Don't push it away. Okay? Don't grasp it. Don't discard it. Just meet it. Get relaxation. Be upright. in whatever happens. If you don't like those, that's a simple instruction. Now, again, some people follow their breathing. And then, you know, say the same thing. You're following your breathing. Relax with the inhale. Relax with the exhale. Relax with the inhale. Relax with the exhale. Or let go of your discursive thought on inhaling, let go of your discursive thought on exhaling. Or just inhale and exhale, period. But that means let go of thinking about anything else.

[23:14]

But then some people say, well, what happens when you drift off? And I'm thinking of your breath. But I say, well, then just relax with that. If you drift off and you relax with it, you're going to calm down. But some people like to drift off and then they rip themselves away from that and slap themselves back into meditating on the breath. And that doesn't calm you down. Focusing on something hard doesn't calm you down. That doesn't calm you down. You can do it, but you don't relax. But when you do catch yourself drifting away... Yes. What's... Relax. Relax, but relaxing doesn't in that case mean continuing to drift, does it? It might. Relaxing doesn't mean continuing to drift. What means continuing to drift is continuing to drift. Okay, so if I'm here, you know, and I start drifting away, I'm relaxing with this. If I keep drifting, I keep relaxing.

[24:20]

If I continue to drift, I keep relaxing. If I continue to drift, I keep relaxing. If I'm drifting more, I'm relaxing. I'm drifting and relaxing. I'm continuing to drift. I am drifting in a circle though, so I'm like my original sea image. I'm relaxing. Why not relax? Why start pounding myself? You're drifting, you're drifting, pop, pop, pop. That doesn't relax you. On the other hand, you might start drifting and stop. But so what if you don't relax? Transcluding meditation is not really supposed to be kind of like obsessive, compulsive, repressive. That doesn't count. As far as I can tell. You look like you don't understand. It sounds so different from what the concept that I have held.

[25:26]

I guess what little instruction I had had to do with seeing when pictures come into your mind, let them pass as if a movie goes through. Let them pass as they're going through, right. That's picture it? Okay? Letting it pass is the same as relaxing with it. When you relax with it, you don't hold it, and it doesn't stay. Now, what if it doesn't pass? What if it starts circling around? There's a big... Yeah. Then what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to, like, make it go away? You said the practice was to let it go by. What if it doesn't go by? They weren't supposed to get it out of there. How did you teach your work then? How does letting it go by work when it doesn't go by? Relax with it not going by.

[26:28]

Yes, right. Exactly. If it doesn't go by, let it not go by. If it goes by, let it go by. If it goes by and takes you with it, go with it, because you are going with it. But the way it's often interpreted is if you're concentrating your breath, and if you go off with your breath, come back. Bring yourself back. But this bringing yourself back is kind of fascist. Bring yourself back. You know, somebody says, what if I find myself way away from my meditation topic? I say, well, be there. You're there. Why don't you be there? Why wait until you get back before you start meditating? Like you're supposed to, here, I'm meditating here. Get way over here. I'll go back there. Why don't you meditate here? This is your life, Barbara LeBeau.

[27:29]

This is where you are. I'm not going to meditate here. I'm going to wait until I get back. Okay, now I'm going to meditate. Why don't you meditate over there? You may never get back. One of my favorite poems is by Wong Wei. It goes, in my middle years, I've become rather fond of the way. I've retired to the Jungnan foothills. When the spirit moves me, I go off by myself. to see things which only I can see. I follow the stream to the source and sit and watch the time when the clouds come up. Or I may meet a woodsman and sit and talk and laugh and forget about going home.

[28:39]

So it's nice to follow the stream to the source, you know, the quiet place, and then sit there and watch the clouds come up and have insights and all that. But sometimes you meet somebody and you forget about meditation and you just have a life. You know? You can meditate wherever you are. You don't have to meditate where you're supposed to meditate. If you're where you're supposed to meditate, Meditate there. If you're not where you're supposed to be, meditate there. If you're on your way back to your meditation place, meditate on your way back. Don't wait till later to relax. Relax now. How do you feel, Barbara? Are you, like, really happy or really what? I'm laughing and crying. I know you're laughing and crying. I can see that. But how do you feel? My head feels really tight.

[29:44]

Tight? Are you trying to figure this out? Kind of, yes. You're on the verge of understanding, probably. But anyway, you heard that what you're supposed to do, what the practice is to let the thoughts go, right? But sometimes they don't go. So then the practice of letting the thoughts go when they don't go is to let them not go. That's called letting them go when they don't go. Letting them be. If they're going, let them go. If they're staying, let them stay. That's called relaxing whatever comes. If pain comes, relax with it. If pleasure comes, relax with it. If Reb comes, relax with him. If Barbara comes, relax with her. No matter what happens. If death comes, relax with it. If life comes, relax with it. This is tranquility practice. Believe me, it is. This is how your mind calms down. It does not calm by trying to engineer where you are, to try to bring yourself back to something.

[30:49]

That does not calm you. To keep yourself focused on things is nice, but doesn't calm you. That's not tranquility practice. That is fascism. And you can be successful at it, but you don't want that, unless you want to be cruel. I did that practice. I got myself under control. That wasn't what I came to do Zen for. It's just control, successful control of a person. That's not tranquility. Tranquility is flexible and relaxed and buoyant. And so you can be wherever you want. And you're cool. And your mind can be flipping this way or flipping that way, and you're kind of like, okay. That's tranquility. Tranquility is not focused on this thing and not moving. That's not tranquility. But some people teach it that way, kind of as a joke. And they get all these monks to go, and then finally they just give up.

[31:58]

And then they have tranquility. But young men often, you know, They can't understand relaxing. So you get into pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing until they collapse. And then they understand tranquility. But when the teachings which are offered to young macho men get transmitted to America, American women hear it and think they're supposed to practice that way. But you're not supposed to. That was just a trick for those young Japanese monks. Not for you. You're supposed to relax with whatever comes. If you want to be tranquil, if you want to be uptight, then get yourself under control. I mean, try to get yourself under control. Then you'll be up. That'll fix you. Did you ever read those Don Juan books? So I think in the first one, Don Juan sends Carlos to find his spot. He said, go find your spot.

[33:03]

And what does he do? He tries to find his spot. Goes here to find his spot, goes there to find his spot, goes there to find his spot. Remember how he tried to find his spot? Yeah. Well, you sort of remember. I'm refreshing your memory now. He looked and he looked and he looked all night long. He was like one uptight prospector. Remember that? Anybody remember that story? He was like Mr. Uptight trying to get this place. Find your place. Find your place is kind of like find tranquility. Yeah, right. Next morning, he goes to see Don Juan, and Don Juan says, did you find your place? He said, no. He said, where did you sleep? He said, over there. That's your place. Where he collapsed after... moronically running around looking for his place, where he finally collapsed was his place. Actually, if he had collapsed some other place before, that would have been his place.

[34:07]

Wherever you stop running around is your place. It's not where you drag yourself to. That's not your place. Your place is where you just stop. It's your place. That's where you're tranquil, where you just stop running around. And if you're running around, your place is where you are at a given moment. But if you're running and you don't realize where you are, then you miss your place. Then you go to some other place. But each place you are is your place. That's what a tranquil person is like. Tranquil. Tranquil. How can you be tranquil? Because I'm here. That's all. Tranquil. Tranquil. Wherever you are, why not? Why not be tranquil? Some law against being relaxed and happy? No, there isn't.

[35:08]

Except that you've maybe heard you're not supposed to be happy until you get over there. So sorry that this misinformation has been circulating for the last 30 or 40 years in America. It's been in Japan even longer. It's not really the way to become tranquil. It's the way to be uptight. It's misinformation about tranquility meditation. We don't accept that. Like I said, if you push this fascist approach far enough, finally you collapse. And then you finally discover tranquility. And for some people, maybe that's the way to go. Because they're so macho that they won't relax anyway. So you get them to do something really macho until they just collapse. And then it's, well, now you got it. There, you got it. Total wreck. Can't do anything more. I'm a total failure. This is tranquility. I can't do this. How do you feel? Kind of relaxed, actually.

[36:09]

Kind of honest, you know. Relax with whatever comes. If you're in Pittsburgh, if Pittsburgh comes, relax in Pittsburgh. If Cleveland comes, relax in Cleveland. If Minnesota comes, relax in Minnesota. Whatever location arrives, wherever you are, relax. And the more you do that, the more calm you'll become and flexible and awake and so on. I'm not kidding. I've talked to quite a few Zen students who try to get themselves to be calm. They don't succeed. But when they give up and relax and just accept what's happening and not try to drag themselves someplace that they're not, when they give that up, they're fine. And as long as they try to do that, they're just basically stressed.

[37:13]

Even if they get themselves, you know, under control, they're not, they're still stressed. So you got some instruction? That simple enough? There it is. Gracias. Gracias, right. She looks relaxed. When you catch yourself Yes. The very act of having, of watching yourself wandering. Yes. In a sense, you've stopped wandering. Well, yes. Again, watching yourself wander or being aware that you're wandering is meeting the wandering. Okay. Okay? So first of all, you meet the wandering. I didn't say just relax. I said meet. So if you meet wandering, now you've got the meeting.

[38:20]

Now if you relax with that, now if you wander and then you punch yourself in the nose for wandering, that's not relaxing. Yeah. That's what some people do. They meet the wandering, but then they say, get out of here, come back. That doesn't calm you. That just disturbs you more. But if you meet the wandering and say, I know I'm wandering, but I'm here and I'm fine, then you're not wandering anymore. Wandering is wandering. Meeting wandering is not wandering. Meeting wandering is mindfulness. And then to relax with that, that relaxation isn't immediately tranquility. But if you do that over and over, you start to actually, your body starts to soften, your mind starts to soften, starts to become lighter, and you actually enter into a state of tranquility. Then once you're in the state, you can actually if you want to play with discursive thought again for a little while. But you'll be doing it much more flexibly and much more buoyantly, much more joyfully.

[39:24]

So yeah, if you're wandering, that's why I say, if you find yourself wandering off, well then meet that. Be there in that particular phase of wandering. Be there, meet that, and relax. And then you're practicing tranquility in the midst of wandering. Because again, Remember, discursive means wandering. So your mind, your discursive mind is going on, but you can be calm in the middle of a discursive mind as long as you just keep letting go of it. And if the discursive mind is like going way out in big arcs, then you relax with that one. If it's like making tight little circles around your head, you relax with that one. Whatever it is, whatever comes. Whatever. Whatever. And of course, patience supports that, too. Because sometimes what comes is pain, insult. So patience also helps you relax with whatever comes. So if what comes is pain, it's good if you take it in these tiny little pellets.

[40:33]

It's easier to relax with little pellets of pain rather than big chunks of pain. if you're dealing with a painful situation, it's good to, like, deal with the present moment of it. And then, okay, now I'm with the present moment of pain, then relax with that. It's hard to relax with five minutes of pain or an hour of pain. But actually pain doesn't come in that form, just you imagine it that way. So give up the past and future, deal with the present of the pain, and then relax with it. I know this is surprising people, but I have confidence that this is the way to calm down.

[41:41]

I've seen people try this other way. And they aren't successful. Tranquility is a compassion practice. Fascism is not compassionate. Pushing yourself around and trying to get yourself to be some way you're not is not compassion. It is coercion. It is disrespectful. Respecting and appreciating the way you are and relaxing with that is kind, and calming. Right? And we can hardly believe it, because doesn't it sound wonderful if it was that way? However, one more detail. Diligence. If you're not diligent about this, it also doesn't work as well. So you have to be diligent about relaxing. But again, not fascistly diligent. Joyfully diligent. Again, diligent has the root of love. It has to do with what you love to do.

[42:46]

Diligence is not what you're forcing yourself to do. It's like doing something you love. You should do the compassionate practice of tranquility diligently as though you loved to do it. Do it in a way you like. So this should be enjoyable. And again, if you're practicing tranquility, Sometimes you should take a rest from it. Even though you love it and even though it comes to fruit as tranquility, this training should sometimes take a break from. So you can experience pain again and want to go back to it. That's possible, yeah, exactly. But also sometimes you just need to actually just go take a walk or take a nap because you've been sitting for many hours maybe. So you take a nap and you say, OK, now I want to go back and actually practice relaxing with whatever comes. So all these different aspects work together.

[43:48]

I recently heard of a meditation teacher that gave instructions to his students that every morning they had to practice looking in the mirror and laughing at themselves. They were so tired. It's actually kind of hard to do. It's hard, yeah. I'm supposed to laugh now? That is kind of funny, actually. Look in the mirror and say, you must now laugh. You must laugh in the next 10 seconds. It works better with two people. You look at each other. We don't have to actually go up to the meditation hall in order to meditate.

[45:02]

We don't have to leave the place we are in order to relax with whatever happens. We can actually practice tranquility right where we are right now. And we don't have to practice tranquility if we don't want to. You don't have to. It's not mandatory. But if you want to, you could practice it right now, as far as I'm concerned. Is that all right with the rest of you, if the other people practice tranquility? OK? So if the people in the room feel OK about it, you can all just sit here and practice tranquility. You can even practice tranquility while I'm talking.

[46:06]

And you can also practice tranquility when I'm not talking. And I can too. I can let go of discursive thought while I'm talking. So can you. And one surpassed penetrating and perfect dharma is created with even a hundred thousand million tablets I need to see and listen to, to remember and accept.

[47:29]

I vow to taste the truth of the Atatakus words. During this retreat we discussed wisdom, the practice of wisdom, and the practice of compassion, or rather we discussed the practices of compassion and moved on into looking at teachings and practices of wisdom.

[48:46]

And the central teaching of the Buddha's wisdom is the teaching of dependent co-arising. And the teaching of dependent co-arising is based on the actual experience of things that have dependently co-arisen. So the Buddha actually experienced, just like we do, dependently co-arisen phenomena, and then made this theory, based on dependently co-arisen things, made the theory or the principle of dependent co-arising. So no phenomena lacks the quality of being a dependently co-arisen event.

[50:02]

I'll put positively, all phenomena have the character of being a dependently co-arisen event. All phenomena have the character of being a dependent co-arising. I use the acronym, when I use the blackboard, I use the acronym DCA, Dependent Core Rising, rather than writing a big long word across the board. I think the word Dependent Core Rising is, a lot of people have trouble with the word, it's so big, you know. It's not like Zen. Z-E-N. It's kind of nice, huh? That's why they say the art of the Zen of this and the Zen of that.

[51:06]

They don't say the Dependicore Rising of this and the Dependicore Rising of that. Or the Pratica Samutpada of that and the Pratica Samutpada of this. But really Zen is based on compassion and meditation on Dependicore Rising. We've been trying to learn how to meditate on dependent co-arising and hopefully we'll continue to study and contemplate and be mindful of this teaching and be mindful of how things are dependent co-arising.

[52:10]

However, even though everything is a dependent co-arising, or everything is dependently co-arisen, still we apprehend everything as though it weren't. We instinctively, what do you call it, compulsively grasp things as though they, our mind apprehends them as though that they really were existing on their own. That's the way they appear to us. That's where our mind images them. Now everybody knows that when you, that an image of a thing isn't the thing, right? That image of dawn isn't dawn. But the image of Don doesn't look like all these infinite number of little supports coming in from all over the universe to make him.

[53:25]

That's not the image of Don. Don looks like this thing all by himself there, cut off from the rest of the universe. That's to our mind. We have a mind that does that. Actually, you know, all of us are, you know, just a pattern in the midst of a huge pattern, right? Even if you look at our nervous system, the way it makes, the way it receives the information about a person or about ourself, it's this huge field, right? And then there's a foreground and background and then the foreground is pulled out and the background moves back and then this thing seems to be standing out. But really, in the nervous system, there's all this information about the whole The whole field of vision, for example. And the person in the field is not that different from the field in a lot of ways. And yet we have a way of like analyzing the field and pulling up an image.

[54:27]

And the person's not a field either. That's still just a representation. The person's out there in another way. So anyway, we can't help this. That's why we have to, in some sense, be patient with ourselves and kind of confess our humanness that we see things in a way that is anti-Buddhist. We hear the teaching of the pentacle rising, but seeing is not believing. What we see doesn't look like what we hear. So we start meditating on the pinnacle rising, and the pinnacle rising is very, almost the same thing as emptiness, but it's a little different in a way.

[55:51]

In some cases they just say the pentacle arising is emptiness, but it's actually by looking at the pentacle arising, it's by looking at emptiness that we actually stop believing the appearance of things as being inherently existing. So the introduction to wisdom work is introduction to dependent core arising. Because of dependent core arising, because of that principle, and because everything is a dependent core arising, nothing does have inherent existence. Everything does have, actually, a lack of inherent existence.

[57:05]

Each of us is a dependent core arising and each of us has a lack of independent existence. We have a lack of what we imagine about ourselves. We have a lack of a self. But a self appears and we believe it. If we can open to how we're actually made, how we're actually created and how we actually exist in dependence on things other than ourselves, this is the initiation, but it's not sufficient in order to stop believing the appearance of inherent existence. So if we look at, if we could actually, and actually we do look at all the time dependent core arising, but we project an image upon it of independent existence and we believe it.

[58:12]

Our projection obscures the dependent core arising and we If we could somehow shift and see dependent core arising at that time, that would be nice because we wouldn't be seeing independent existence. But that vision does not convince us not to believe when the image appears again upon our dependent core is in nature. Our inherent existence, our independent existence, doesn't exist and cannot be seen by an unmistakened consciousness. The only kind of consciousness that can see inherent existence is a kind of erroneous consciousness, which we have available. because inherent existence doesn't exist at all.

[59:19]

But the lack of inherent existence, emptiness of inherent existence does exist and you can see it indirectly at first. And then you can actually stop believing this superimposition. You can stop agreeing with it even while it appears. So we haven't gotten so much into that. The next step in the practice is to try to get a better sense of what inherent existence looks like, get a better sense of what a self looks like. To give you a taste of that, to give you a feel for how your mind superimposes or projects a kind of essence onto dependent co-arising, onto DCA.

[60:31]

Let me say, as I maybe said before, is that in the realm of dependent co-arising, There's no identities. There's no locations. There's no time. Identities are dependent co-arisings. But in the dependent co-arising of identities, there's no identity. in the way identities are created. If you look at that, you don't find an identity. So things don't have identities. The way things have identities, the way the mind creates identities of things in the field of causation is to project an essence upon them and then use a word, and then the thing has an identity. Same with a location. Without putting the essence on the thing over the causal process that is an event, it doesn't have an identity.

[61:45]

It's there, it just doesn't have an identity. Identity is not the same as a self, but in order to have an identity, you have to put a self on the thing. Things do exist in this dependent way. They do exist in this dependent way, and only things that exist in this dependent way exist. Things that don't exist in a dependent way do not exist. But they don't have identities until you project an essence upon them. Even though they're there and they're what they are, you can't identify them. because there's no core, there's just dependency. And yet, dependency can manifest miraculously as an event. But when you put an essence on it and use a word, then you have an identity. So one way to get in touch with the essence is to say that, for example,

[62:54]

The identity of Ranigan, maybe I shouldn't say Ranigan because that might be two different Ranigans. The identity of Nancy, okay, her identity is nothing more than a word. And that might be, to the extent that that kind of like seems not quite right, gives you a feeling for how you put an essence on Nancy. It's not that Nancy is nothing more than the word Nancy. She is infinitely more than the word Nancy.

[64:01]

We're not saying that. Everybody knows the word Nancy isn't her and she's not the word Nancy. But her identity as Nancy, we think, is based on something more than the word Nancy. But there's nothing more about her than the word Nancy that identifies her, that the word Nancy works to identify her, that identifies her as Nancy. Nothing more. However, in order to create the identity, we had to put an essence on her and then lay the word Nancy And then she had an identity. So the reason why when we say her identity is nothing more than a word, the reason why that kind of doesn't make sense to us is because our mind put an identity on her and put an essence on her, I should say. And when I say she's nothing more than that, you say, or she says, that's because your mind has put something on her that's not there, that you think is there, or that she thinks is there.

[65:03]

That way you can catch that thing you put on there. However, can you catch it? Doesn't that sort of jar you to say, you know, Matt, the identity of Matt is nothing more than the word Matt. You can't find anything more to the identity of him than that and that jars you. You think there is something more there and that something more you think is the essence or the self you put on him that you put the word on top of, and then that precipitated an identity. If you just take a word, mat, and you put it someplace without, don't put it on an essence, you don't get an identity. You just have a word arbitrarily, and that's part of why, you know, we got into this thing about arbitrariness, like the arbitrariness of going home to your husband, when really your husband's identity is nothing more than the word husband. But it doesn't mean that your husbands know nothing more than the word husband. Your husband is this person you have this causal relationship with.

[66:07]

He actually is such a person that you have this relationship with, that the world has put you together with, and lots of things are supporting that. But the identity of your marriage and the identity of your spouse is nothing more than the word marriage and the word spouse or the word whatever. But we can't have an identity in the conventional world without overlaying things that don't have, without overlaying things that don't have essences with essences and then using words. So if you can get a feeling for that thing that you think is there more than the word, that's this essence that you think is there. Then the next thing is, As you become more and more familiar with the teaching of dependent core arising, see if you can ever find that essence. So you continue to practice with dependent core arising and be a virtuous practitioner, and you gradually start to get more and more familiar with this fantasy that you project on everything.

[67:22]

and see if you can ever find it. And you keep looking in various ways to look for it and become more and more convinced that it ain't there until you finally can actually like cognize, actually know that it isn't there. And then you will stop believing that it is there. And this next phase of the practice is that part and that's a big another step. However, I also want to emphasize that you don't stop doing the previous step when you do the next step. You always keep meditating on dependent core arising and then you take on this next practice because the imposition of self pertains to dependent core arising and the absence of that actual imposition on dependent core arising which is the emptiness that also pertains to dependent core horizon. So that's always the center of studying these other two aspects of all phenomena.

[68:27]

So all phenomena actually have these three aspects. They have a fantasy aspect by which we can convert them into conventional realities with identities in conjunction with words. They have this ultimate purifying aspect which we call emptiness or the thoroughly established character. And they have the basic character of dependent core arising, DCA. So you're always meditating on the basic teaching of dependent core arising, and then you gradually move over and start studying what this thing is that your mind is putting on things in order to apprehend them as independent phenomena. autonomous things that don't depend on anything. Which you know, of course, now that you've heard this teaching, you know it's ridiculous, but your mind goes right ahead and does it. What you've got to do now is start to gradually meditate on how to identify how your mind does this.

[69:32]

And then after that, when you become clear on that, You can see if anybody can ever find such a thing. And nobody so far has found one. I have a standing, you know, what do you call it, reward for anybody who can show me a self. People have tried, actually. And I don't have a big reward, just like a dollar. Because I don't want anybody to, like, you know, be tempted to lie just to get the reward. But I don't think anybody's going to. lie and tell me they got a self just for a dollar. Pretend they might. So a couple people have tried, you know, but nobody's got paid yet. Yes, Barbara? And then Jenna? Can you please define a little bit more what you mean by essence? Essence means that or means that there's something about the thing that doesn't depend on conditions.

[70:37]

There's something about you that isn't dependent. That's what I mean by essence. Another way to put it is that everything you know is an object of knowledge. But all objects lack objectness or objectivity. So it's like blue or a person. The word blue does refer to the phenomena of blue. But there's no actual thing in the blue That's the referent. I mean, that supports it being the referent. In that sense, again, that's why the word blue is arbitrary. Although it works in order to say, give me the blue shirt, it works in the world, but there's nothing actually in the blue.

[71:48]

There's no referentiality to the blue. phenomena to the word blue. But we think there is, but there isn't. And that idea that there's something about you that the word barber refers to, in some sense, of course we know there's no barber-ness to you, right? We know that, but we think there is. And you do too, probably. What is that? That's something that doesn't exist at all. There's no more barbarness in you than there is in me. Actually, there's more in me than there is in you. Because for me, barbarness, I don't think I'm barbarous. Barbarous is just an idea I have. But you think it's in you. I mean, somebody thinks it's in you, maybe your husband. But there isn't.

[72:47]

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