And when I ask that question, what is your ultimate intention, as I mentioned also yesterday, a lot of times people say they don't know. It takes them quite a while to find it. But one thing that people often say, a rather common answer is, I want to make some contribution before I die, some contribution to this world." And I think they usually mean they want to make a positive contribution. And also sometimes people say their ultimate intention or their ultimate concern is to attain freedom.

[01:05]

And other people say to attain, to realize unconditional love. Some people say to help others be fruit. Some other people say my ultimate concern is to realize the Buddha's truth. Many answers. And so then, when I hear that, then I often, as I said yesterday also, I often ask, what kind of practice would facilitate this ultimate concern or this intention? And then we talk about what kind of practice would be that way, and then I ask them, do you want to do that practice? And then they often say, yeah, and sit. And then, would you like me to help you, remind you that you want to do that practice? And then you often say yes. So then, once they say what they want, what their ultimate concern, their ultimate basic intention, at least for the practice period is, if not for their whole life, and we find some practices that would be in accord with that, then I work with them to do those practices.

[02:09]

I don't tell them what their ultimate concern should be, although they often ask me to tell them. I usually don't. I want them to tell me to find it in their own heart. And I was thinking about this just a few minutes ago, partly because we're out here in the woods, and that to make a contribution, if you want to make a contribution, you plant a tree. I think almost everybody would like you to plant a tree, unless you plant it in a living room. You know, to plant a tree in a good place, a place where almost everybody would like it. And there's a lot of places that everybody would like a tree. It's not that controversial, usually.

[03:10]

And I think it's a good thing to plant a tree, and then you take care of it until it's going on its own. And there's this book which some of you may have read. I think it's called The Man Who Planted Trees and Spread Happiness or something like that by John Giorno. Did you write that? Anyway, it's about a guy, a French guy, that went around this area. I guess it was someplace that didn't have many trees that had been, for whatever reason, deforested. And he had some kind of way of livelihood. But all in his spare time, he just went around and planted trees. And he planted many trees. And at night, and mostly oak trees, I think, at night, He would go through his acorns and pick the good ones. In the daytime, we'd go out and plant them. And he planted many trees, and he made great happiness by planting the trees.

[04:13]

He had lots of wonderful things happen to the people, changed the climate in that part of France, and made lots of good things happen for many people. I don't know how many. It just had this very happy effect and very pleasant, encouraging thing to do. But planting one is also good. You don't have to plant 10,000. But if, you know, just to make sure that before you go you did something, made some positive contribution, just go plant a tree and you're set. Now, of course, after you plant one, if you live long, you say, that was fun, maybe I'll do another. Maybe I'll Yeah, maybe I'll do something else. Maybe I'll think of something else that you'd like to do. But if you find out what your intention is, then you can think about what practices go with it, and then commit to those practices, because also committing to the practices which go with your intention helps realize your intention.

[05:23]

So you can have an intention, Think of practices which fulfill it. But if you don't commit to them, you might not be as successful as you commit to them. And also if you commit to them in the presence of somebody else who wants to support you, fulfill this intention, that often helps too. So that's part of the reason for having ceremonies of expressing commitment to practices which fulfill, which promote compassion, to say it in front of other people so that they know that you want to do that, and then they can help you. Like the marriage ceremony, people say, in front of people, they say, make these vows to each other, and other people hear it, and then these other people can help them remember those vows through all the changes that happen in life when things change.

[06:29]

And then, again, another use of finding your ultimate intention and then checking your current intention. So currently you have an intention, you look inside, you intend to do something, you see inside you have a thought of doing something, and then you check your current intention. Not only is it wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral, Not only is it skillful, unskillful, or neutral. I'm kind of unsure which it is. But the other thing is, does it accord with your ultimate intention? So something might be fairly skillful, but it could maybe not be directly related to your ultimate intention. And if it's something else, it's also skillful that more lines up with your main point. So anyway, already keeping, being mindful of your ultimate intention and looking in to see what your current intention is.

[07:37]

And your current intention could be like make a cup of tea, go to the toilet, take a nap, go for a walk, have lunch, prepare lunch, sit meditation, read a book, go shopping. All these things could be current intentions. And all those ones I just mentioned might be relatively neutral to wholesome, but do they line up with your ultimate intention? And if you think about it, somehow that can help them line up. But if you don't think about it, it's different. So if you have a cup of tea, And you think, well, I think having a cup of tea would be good. It's got antioxidants in it, good for my health, also supporting the tea industry, hydrating myself, kind of perk myself up a little bit so I can, like, go do some kind of a treat.

[08:40]

I think it's a pretty skillful thing to have a cup of tea. Matter of fact, it would also be good to sit down and have a cup of tea. And actually a taste of it probably would be good. So this is pretty skillful. But then if you also know what your ultimate intention in life is, you say, now how does this relate to my ultimate intention? So when you bring it in line with your ultimate intention, then having a cup of tea might help you do more. You say, well, probably my ultimate intention is to make a positive concoction and to facilitate peace and harmony. So now I won't just have a cup of tea. Again, I'll sit down and I'll make, I'll really be present when I have a cup of tea. And I'll think about how this cup of tea could be helpful to other... having drinking this tea could be helpful to other people. And somehow remembering what your ultimate point is while you're doing some simple thing like having a cup of tea, that would perhaps modify or reform the way you drink tea. So as you may... some of you know, at Green Gulch we have a tea house where we actually practice tea ceremony, where they drink tea in a way that's

[09:51]

you know, tea is good and all that, but also they drink the tea as an expression or as a training in being present and flexible in developing a certain state of mind that would be extended out of the tea room into daily life. So anyway, this business about getting in touch with what your ultimate intention is or your basic intention in life, or your greatest intention or your deepest intention, and then remembering that And then checking that with your current intentions, your current things you intend to do. And bringing it together. Don't just have your ultimate intention floating in mid-air out there somewhere. Bring it right in front of you and then put it together with your current intention. Now, if your ultimate intention is to make a positive contribution, of course it does not go with unskillful, unwholesome intentions. So those actually... not only should they be given up anyway, but they particularly don't go with your great intention.

[10:59]

So then you say, well, they don't go together very well. This is a problem. Something's got to give me. I'll give up my great intention and just do this bad thing. Funny, isn't it? We're just poor little animals, you know? We need a little assistance here to realize our Buddhahood. We need a little bit of guidance here. We're animals and we're into surviving this moment and getting oxygen and stuff like that. And we're built to really be concerned about that and feel real uncomfortable if we don't get air, right? Just hold your breath and realize there's an imperium here. But we can become really wonderful contributions to this universe. But we kind of need to remember certain teachings in order to do that, otherwise we just slip into animal habit patterns.

[12:08]

But if we do remember what's really most important and get help from other people to remember what's important and bring that to bear on the current activity and check and be mindful of what's going on inside, you know, Just like the acrobat, you know, that I mentioned yesterday, they want to do this big fancy thing, but first of all they have to check in what's going on with themselves. Okay? Actually today I feel kind of dizzy. Well, maybe we shouldn't do this stunt today, if you're feeling dizzy. Okay. Maybe today we won't do this stunt, we'll just sit down on the ground. I can do that. And then while sitting on the ground, I can remember what this thing I want to do. Okay. I still can't do it, but I can remember it. And now I'm feeling not so busy, so now I can go back to work. So intention, motivation, it's the basis of our actions all the time.

[13:24]

And it's our basic form of action. It's a basic way that our mind and body are in a given moment. So it's good to be aware of it. And it's also good to be aware of what it is that you want, most of all, to accomplish in this lifetime. ultimate, the number one. And then everything else lines up with that one. There's only one ultimate, final, highest thing. What is it? It's there, just that you didn't find it. I'd like to bring up something which is a teaching from the Ehe Kosho.

[14:28]

Ehe Kosho is the high priest of Ehe. His name is Ehe Dogen. he wrote that verse we chanted, but he also wrote a lot of other things. He was quite a writer. And one of the things he wrote, which Lynn told me should be liked, is instructions to the cook. So he lived in temples for most of his life. By the time he was about thirteen, you know, until he was 53, 40 years he lived in monasteries and temples. And when he was about 37 years old, he wrote, he was living in a temple, he was the abbot, and he wrote instructions to the cook, actually instructions to the head cook.

[15:31]

And... And then he needs a very, you know, some people consider it one of his masterpieces, and he just gives all this wonderful instruction to how to care for the community, the Buddhist community, in the position of being the cook. And towards the end of the of the essay, he says something like, whatever position you're in, where you're caring for people, not just the cook, but any position in the temple, but also any position anywhere in life, actually, I would extend it, since most of you don't live in monastery,

[16:35]

But whenever you're in a position where you're caring for people, there's three kind of attitudes or three minds, in a sense, that would be good to remember. And because one is, I think, called joyful mind, kishin, Another one's called the magnanimous or great mind, daishin. And the other one's called, I like to say grandmother mind, but in this fascicle it's really just roshin, which means old mind. So old could mean old woman, grandmother, or old man, grandfather, or it could just mean, often translated as parental mind, And sometimes translated as nurturing mind.

[17:37]

So grandmother mind, grandfather mind, old lady mind, old mind, elder mind, elder mind, parental mind. So those are the three minds that he recommends that you cultivate whenever you're in a situation where you're trying to care for beings. So you're living in this world with lots of problems. All of us are here. If you wish to care for beings in this world, I've been suggesting to you a basic... If your motivation is to care for beings in the most beneficial way in this world, then that's the basic motivation of Zen. And I've been talking about the basic method. And here's three minds, which are another way to talk about the basic method of caring for beings.

[18:43]

And the first one, in some ways, for me, is the one I feel kind of funniest or most kind of uncomfortable talking about because it sounds like the ancestors and now me are telling you, you know, be happy about helping people. That's basically what it is. Think about how lucky you are to be able to care for the community of living beings. So I feel a little uncomfortable telling people, be happy about how lucky you are. But now that I've got over that, I'm going to say, think about how lucky you are, how wonderful it is that you're alive, that you're a human being, and you can care for other human beings, and you can also care for dogs and cats and fish and trees and flowers.

[19:54]

Squirrels. Squirrels, cockroaches. You can care for... And another thing that's sort of a little bit uncomfortable about the way Dogen talks is that he He kind of thinks that the most wonderful thing to take care of is Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So there's a little bit of hierarchy here. But anyway, that's why he thinks it's most wonderful to take care of not just the community of living beings, but also take care of particularly the people who are practicing who are devoted to developing peace and harmony. Of course we want to help the terrorists and care for them too, but you may not know any terrorists, but you do know people who are trying to develop peace and harmony. This is the Buddhist community, or whatever community is trying to do that.

[21:00]

And the teaching, care for the teaching and care for the Buddha. to make food and offer it to the care of the triple treasure. But you don't have to make that sectarian, but that's the way Dogen talks about it. So we have a kitchen staff here during this retreat, so particularly this instruction is to say to Matt and everybody that's helping him, think about how lucky you are to prepare me as for this group of practitioners. Think about that. Think about that and also think, you know, in quotes, I'm so fortunate to be able to do this.

[22:06]

And again, that's kind of something to say, I don't want to tell myself how fortunate I am to do this, but you might try it. You say, I'm so fortunate to be able to make meals for this group of people. That's what the Ancestry Dogon suggests with the Hanzo thing. And if you're making meals in your house, I'm so fortunate to make meals for myself. I'm so fortunate to make meals for my friends and my family. I'm so fortunate to be able to do this, to offer them meals, and particularly to offer them meals in the spirit of that actually by offering them meals, I'm actually making an offering to the Buddha. I'm offering meals to this person, to this messy little kid, or to this wife or husband.

[23:09]

I'm offering them meals. But I'm also offering this meal to Buddha and to the Buddha's teaching. somebody might think, well, if you offer food to your family in your house, that's different from somebody who offers food to their family in a temple. Because in a temple you can offer the food to those people and also offer it to Buddha. But that seems silly to me. Where is Buddha? Buddha is not just in the temple. Buddha is with all beings. So when you offer food to some person, you can simultaneously offer it to the Buddha and the Dharma at the same time. Whether you're outdoors in a single-family dwelling or in a monastery, when you offer food to human beings,

[24:17]

you can also offer food to Buddha. And it might help you, actually, which some people do, in your house, to have a little altar and to put a little food on the altar to remind yourself that this dinner you made for the group, your family and friends, that the food you made, you made also for Buddha and Buddha's teachings. Now, if you can feel that way without putting it on an altar, fine. Some people can. Some people can serve food to somebody and say, this is a person, I'm offering food to this person, and I'm also at the same time saying, dear Shakyamuni Buddha, this is for you. My heart is like totally focused on you right now at the same time that I'm focused on this person. nice little friend of mine who's not really fully enlightened.

[25:28]

They've got some work to do. But I'm still offering them food and I'm very happy to offer them food and I made this food for them and I did my best and I'm also offering it to me. I'm going to eat with them. But I'm also offering it to the Buddha. We can do that And then, are you full of joy of offering this food to Buddha? And when you plant a tree, do you plant the tree for the tree, of course, so the tree can grow and for the environment? We have some nice oxygen coming out of the tree someday, and so people can enjoy the shade of the tree and the beauty of the tree, and the birds can make their nests in the tree, and the apes can eat the tree. and the mice can milk the aphids. I mean, mice, ants. And ants can eat the mice.

[26:32]

I don't know. Anyway, you plant the tree for the trees to nurture the trees' growth, but you also plant the tree for Buddha. You want to do something in your lifetime. You want to make some contribution to the welfare of this wonderful planet. And you also want to plant this tree for Buddha. And Buddha, I think, generally speaking, would say, thank you very much for planting that tree for me. I really appreciate that. But I was enlightened under a tree. So I hope this tree provides a place for other people to be enlightened. Part of the practice then is, in some sense, meditating on the joy of being of service, of making the activities of your life into service activities.

[27:44]

So as I said before, when you have a cup of tea, learn to see that as a service, a service to maintaining your body. And, of course, you can also say, I've made this tea for myself, but would you like it? And sometimes people would say, no, you haven't. No, really, would you like it? And they say, yeah, thanks. And they drink your tea. And then you make another cup for yourself. Or some people make a cup of tea, and they make a little one and put it on their altar at home. Every time they have a cup of tea, and they give him a picture of their teacher or a picture of the Buddha or something. But sometimes they just think of it. In Japan, when they receive food, they often hold it up and they say, Itadakimasu, which means, I humbly receive this. I humbly receive it?

[28:50]

From where? Yeah. from the great causal nexus which supports my life, but also I humbly receive it and I also say thank you, and I also lift it up and offer it back to all beings and the Buddha. Just a little thing to realign yourself with your devotion to the Buddha. And you think about that in such a way Dogen says, think, I'm so grateful, but that may not work for you. But there is some way that you can think about what you're doing if you want to. There's a way you can think about what you're doing and meditate on what you're doing that makes you feel full of joy at doing something making a positive contribution in this world. That you want to and you're devoting this action of drinking tea or offering a meal or changing attire offering for the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, and you feel joy.

[30:01]

You learn how to feel joyful about this. Feeling joyful about the practice is not only, of course, joyful, which is pretty good, But one of the advantages of feeling joyful about the practice is that it protects you from getting distracted by gaining loss. When you're full of joy, you're not scouting around for some pleasure to get. And you're also not too much afraid of pain. When you're full of joy, you can actually be in pain. You can be sick, for example, or disabled, crippled, and full of joy, and you're not afraid of being crippled, or you're not afraid of getting crippled.

[31:03]

And if you're feeling good, that's fine. But if you're just feeling neutral, when you're full of joy, you're not so like, where can I get some pleasure? Again, your nervous system is kind of like saying, you know, if you did that, you'd get some pleasure. Your nervous system's all the time telling you stuff that you might get pleasure from. And your nervous system is misleading you, generally speaking. Generally speaking, your nervous system is misleading you. Generally speaking, your nervous system says, if you have that ice cream cone over there, it will be pleasurable. And it might be. But the way your nervous system represents the pleasure is much greater almost always than the pleasure will be. And also... when your nervous system represents the pleasure, it kind of gives you the feeling that the pleasure will last for a while. It says it'll be pleasant, and it doesn't say it'll be pleasant for just a second.

[32:04]

It says it'll be pleasant, but it kind of gives the impression that this unpleasant has a real long duration. But the nervous system doesn't work that way. It gives you just enough pleasure so that the next time it says that it will be pleasurable, you won't say, no, wait, that was painful last time. So, of course, if you go have an ice cream cone and for some reason or other the ice cream One nice thing about ice cream cones is that oftentimes they haven't become spoiled. They're not sour because they keep them cold. But if somehow, I don't know if it ever happens, but if the ice cream had melted and gotten sour and then they froze it again and kind of messed it up so you couldn't tell that it had been... It doesn't happen very often. Maybe a better example to use a glass of milk was a nice, cool glass of milk, you know, and you pick it up and drink it, and it's sour, you know. So then the next time somebody says, you want a glass of milk?

[33:07]

You say, well, I don't know if it's going to be sour again, or rotten. But anyway, sometimes you think, this will be pleasurable. But generally, as I say, your nervous system is trying to basically get you moving, keep you moving. And it's saying, this will be pleasure. And overestimates, almost always, the pleasure. Overestimates in the height of the pleasure and the duration of the pleasure. As soon as it's got you moving and it's got you rewarded enough to keep the process going, it takes it away from you and it tells you another thing to get you going. When you're full of joy and these little pleasures arise in your mind, right? ice cream cone, and blah, blah, blah, blah. You kind of go... Yeah. Right. It's like small potatoes compared to how you feel. When you're full of joy, like, you know, it's not that these pleasure impulses aren't there.

[34:11]

It's just that, like, just imagine, you know, if you actually had an opportunity to, like, there was just a short visit here, Shakyamuni Buddha was going to come to Northwest Ohio on Sunday, June... fifth, sixth, and just happens to be over there, and you get to go just say hi and shake hands with Shakyamuni Buddha and have a little talk with him, that you might feel kind of happy about that. And you also might go, oh, geez, I don't know if I'm permitting the Buddha. No, he's really nice. It's not that bad. and you go there and you meet the Buddha and you meet this really nice, great, compassionate being, and you feel joy at the meeting, and then somebody says, Yoo-hoo, one ice cream cone, and you say, well, maybe later. Say, yeah, I think I would, but not right now. Not like, see you later, Buddha. You might just, you know,

[35:14]

So we actually need joy because we need pleasure, you know. We need it. We don't function well without sweetness in our life. We also don't function without bitterness. We don't function very well without bitterness. And actually we do have both, in that both short-lived and we tend to run around like rats between the two. But if you feel joy about what you're doing, you're more stable and not so easily pushed around by pain and pleasure. Plus also, you do the thing that you think is really joyful, namely, in this case, being in service, making meals, sitting zazen, you know, practicing together, studying the teaching, for the welfare of this whole world. So that's a little bit about this joyful mind.

[36:17]

And Yeah. This is a life to rejoice and a body to rejoice. It is a wholesome cause of limitless eons. I hope that you will do your work in this way every day.

[37:19]

I hope that you will do your work in this very day at this very moment, with this very body, the fruit of myriad births and thousands of lifetimes, this body you have. Thus you will create merit for myriad births to penetrate this joyful mind. To penetrate this is joyful mind. Even if you become a benevolent king or queen, there will be no merit in comparison to this joyful mind. So, anything you want to say about this joyful mind before I move on to other minds? Yes? The contrast between bitter and sweet, when you said joy, my mind immediately went to balancing that with something else, sadness of some kind. Is that there as well? Oh, I think more it's like depression, I would say.

[38:23]

Joy and depression. Sadness, actually, I have a positive frame on sadness. Sadness is like a salve that helps you. I use sadness together with grief. When we live in this life, we're constantly losing what we just had. You know, like you just lost this moment. You've lost the first half, the first whatever number of hours of the day that are gone. You've lost your whole life up to this point. Some of us have lost our youth. It's gone. But some things that we've lost, we're still kind of like trying to hold on to. We really haven't let go of them, even though they're gone. You know what I mean? Do you? Yeah. But it's not good to hold on to things that are gone. It's a drag on your system. And a healthy body will cough up the opportunity to be sad.

[39:29]

And if you feel the sadness, then you let go of what's gone, which is a real good idea. And then you're, like, ready to live now. So sadness is good. Depression is more like, oh, you know, you can be sad and still be joyful about making lunch with somebody. So you're joyful and sad can be simultaneous. In other words, you're grieving while you're joyful. And you can also be depressed while you're sad, but the depression will hinder your opening to the sadness. Sadness is refreshing when you feel it. It's an offering. Depression is like when you don't feel joyful about what you're doing. It's kind of like, what's the point? Whatever it is. So I think that I would say that sweet and sour or pain and pleasure, but sadness is not really the opposite of some other feeling.

[40:44]

I wouldn't say sadness is the opposite of happiness. I would say sadness is a medicine. It's a medicine. Grief is not the opposite of happiness. Grief is like homework. It's the type of work that you have to do. And if you don't do it, then you keep getting dragged down by whatever you're holding on to. It isn't that you get dragged down by what you're holding on to. You get dragged down by holding on. What you're holding on to is gone. You get dragged by clinging. Your life gets blocked by your clinging to what you're not letting go of. So sadness is an opportunity to let go if you eat it. Whereas depression is very prevalent in this society, and I think it's actually in some ways very sophisticated.

[41:46]

Depression comes with lots of intelligence about why it's not really that cool to make lunch for somebody. It's like, what's the big deal about making lunch for somebody? Oh, boring. It's kind of childlike and almost like silly that it would be a great joy to make lunch for somebody. But that's the joyful mind of the childlike monk. And also, you're going to make this lunch and you're going to offer it to Buddha? It's kind of silly. It's kind of silly to love Shakyamuni Buddha. or love Jesus. It's kind of silly. You could look at it like that. But I think part of the practice is to work yourself up into a froth of joy.

[42:53]

to whip yourself up into joy on a regular basis. And if you're having trouble with, you know, whipping up the joy, that's part of whipping up the joy, is that sometimes you say, Hey, the joy's not coming. Hmm, that's interesting. He didn't say, you know, he didn't say, Think of how wonderful it is to be able to make food for the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and as soon as you think that, you're going to be full of joy. He said, think of this as a practice to develop this joyful mind. It doesn't necessarily come right away. And you may find that sentence doesn't work for you, so try another one. You're just giving one little hint about the way to approach what you're doing. Anything else you want to bring up about this joyful mind?

[43:58]

Yes? He has a real way with metaphors. If I'm remembering his cry play, one of the lines that really got me, he said, you take care of every grain of rice like it was your parents' eyeballs. I love that. I just love that. But that metaphor he uses for the grandmother moon, which we'll get to if we live no longer. On the same point, avoiding attachment to joy. Yes. Yes. I don't understand. You don't understand the void? You can touch me with joy? Right, I don't understand. It seems that joy is the goal. We're talking about not attaching. So this moment I wasn't joyful, this moment I wasn't joyful, and somehow I feel confused.

[45:03]

I appreciate the oil of the joy, what it does in the moment, and yet it seems contradictory to attachment. Oil of the joy? The oil I was talking about was the oil of sadness. But anyway, I guess joy could be oil, too. But anyway, what's your problem with joy? Again, I'm not getting... Seeking after it. Well, don't seek after it. That would create an outflow. Okay? Don't seek after it. That's not apropos of developing joyful mind. When you're developing it without seeking it, Generally speaking, in the practices of the Buddha way, you develop them without seeking them, without gaining idea. And that helps you not get attached to these wonderful practices.

[46:08]

So, when you generate joy, when you think about, however you think about what you're doing in such a way that you generate joy about it, when the joy is generated, one of the wonderful things about joy is that joy actually helps you not attach to the joy. That's one of the great things about it. It actually helps you feel like, I'm so joyful, I can let go of this joy. But if you're not joyful, and you get a little tiny taste of it, you haven't really got it on yet, then you sort of maybe want more. When you're fully joyful, you're ready to give it away. So we don't want to attach to the joy.

[47:13]

No, no, no, no. What you do is when you get joy, like a cup of tea, you know, you receive a cup of tea, you say, I humbly receive this, gratefully receive this. And you drink it. And it's gone. You don't have any tea anymore. With joy, too. When joy comes, you say, thank you very much. You don't say... And you're not supposed to try to hold on to it. Thank you very much, and I'm going to keep this. That is antithetical to joy. It's like, this is great, and now I give it away. And I have a feeling that that will generate more joy. And it does. When you get joy and give it away, you get more joy. When you get a cup of tea and you give it away, you get more joy.

[48:16]

If you feel joy at receiving something, feel gratitude, and then you give that thing away, you get more joy and more gratitude. That's the way it works, I suggest to you. Any attachment that slips into the process undermines it. So you're doing things for the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and that is a great joy. But then if you try to hold the joy, wait a minute, we didn't say about holding on to the joy. And there's two more minds coming which will help you understand this, particularly the next one. So maybe I should move on to that one pretty soon. Yes. I would like to joyfully go take something out of the oven. Would that be okay with you? Yeah, totally. There he goes.

[49:19]

That's Josh. So maybe I'll move on to the next one that might help you understand how to relate to joyful moment. So the next one is called, you know, a great mind. In Chinese it's got this character which means great or large or vast or magnanimous. Like people ask me lately, people often ask me how I am. I don't know why they do that, but anyway, lately I've been saying G-R-E-A-T. G-R-E-A-T, G-R-E-A-T.

[50:23]

And then oftentimes when I say great, they say great. And they say good. But I like to say great rather than good because great doesn't exclude bad. Great's like, I'm big, and so are you. So the grateful mind, I mean the great mind, the magnanimous mind, is a mind that should be practiced in conjunction with this joyful mind. And great mind is, Dogen says, it's like a mountain and like an ocean. And it's like a mountain in the sense that it's immovable. It's stable. It's the mind which is unswayed in the midst of enticements and oppression.

[51:24]

It's like the mind of Shakyamuni as he was assailed by all kinds of terrors and seductions and enticements in his enlightenment process. Basically, it's like being a mountain in the midst of enticements and oppressions. So, for example, this mind joined with the joyful mind. When joyful mind arises, you have great mind, and great mind protects you from being pushed around by joy or pleasure or pain. Stable. We need to develop this ability to be immovable in the midst of insults and praise. And this mind actually, this is the main mind that attracted me to Zen. When I saw the story of Shakyamuni Buddha sitting under the boat tree and sitting upright and still in the midst of this tremendous temptation to go after something or run away from something.

[52:32]

And he just stopped still. And also the story of Hakuen, the Zen master who was falsely accused and vilified and insulted for something he didn't do. And he just said, is that so? And then he was, then people realized that they misaccused him, falsely accused him. And they came back and apologized and praised him for being such a great monk. And he said, is that so? I just thought, I didn't call it great mind, I just thought, that's cool. I want to be like that. And it was the great mind that I wanted to be like. So that's part of great mind, that you develop, that you cultivate this ability to like, okay, this is not me, this is this great mind. You compliment me? Oh, is that, oh, compliment, wow. Oh, you're insulting me? Oh. Wow! Of course compliment feels different than insult. It feels different to get spit on and slapped and to be stroked gently, massaged.

[53:39]

It feels different. But you are basically not moved by the stuff. And you develop that. That's something to develop. The other part of great mind is that it's like an ocean, which means it's very totally inclusive. And it doesn't take sides. So in terms of bilateral, even though you're in a bilateral thing, you can switch sides. You're not on one side. You don't take sides. You're at complete impartiality and inclusiveness about what's going on. So Dogen says, you do not regard a pound as light, excuse me, yeah, a pound as light and a ton as heavy.

[54:43]

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