Is there anything you'd like to discuss? Pardon? Well, I was happy that I was able to hold the pole up without it falling on anything or anybody. Please accept my risk-taking. Anything you want to discuss? Please just come up. What is your name? Chris. Chris. Would you hold that still? Please sit down. Sure. Chris. So, you mentioned suchness in your talk.

[01:07]

Yes. And... I had a question about what suchness meant in the context of what you were talking about. Well, let's see. Suchness is the way things is our actual real life, the way it is as such. And the way it is is that it's intimate. So suchness is the actual intimacy of all life. the way there's no life separate from other life except by imagination. And part of suchness is that there is, I mean, an aspect or suchness allows an imagination of things that don't actually exist.

[02:16]

We living beings support each other to imagine the things that don't exist. do you mean there are some physical actions and physical thoughts that do exist and some constructs of the mind and such actions that I'm sitting in a chair. I think I'm sitting, I'm calling it sitting in a chair, but my legs are bent and kind of folded over. No, I'm not actually saying that there are some things that do exist exactly. I'm not saying that, but I'm also not saying that things don't exist. I'm just saying that the way things exist is interdependently. So you appear to exist, but the way that happens is by a process of interdependence. And my idea of that process does not comprehend that process.

[03:21]

And yet you exist for me by the interdependence of you and me and everybody. But only by that interdependence do you exist. You don't really exist. You only exist by depending on things that are not your existence. May I follow up with a question? So if I am if walking is a relationship between my feet and The ground I Guess my question is as an example Yeah, I got tripped up on the paradox I Heard a story that your walking is your relationship with the earth.

[04:29]

Yes. But that's a story about your relationship, which you call walking. Yes. But your actual relationship is not reduced just to your walking. Right? It's one aspect. You can also lie on the earth, sit on the earth, jump up and down on the earth, and so on. You support the earth, the earth supports you. We can go on like this. The relationship you have with the earth is boundless. It's infinite. But we have stories like, right now my relationship is the narrative of walking. And I'm going to be kind to this narrative and intimate with this narrative so I'm not stuck in this limited version of my relationship. So if somebody says, Chris, would you just stand still for a second? You say, fine. I can have a standing still relationship.

[05:31]

I can always have a relationship with it. And I'm not attached to any story of it. And I always will have a relationship with it. But I have also, being a human being, I'm constantly making up, in my consciousness there's always stories about my relationship to the earth. Some people think, you know, have other kind of unwholesome stories about, you know, unappreciative story of their relationship to the earth. But still, If they don't attach to those stories, they too will realize the true intimacy. So whatever stories we have, if we're kind to them and kind to the stories, I mean to the teachings about our stories, we can become free of the cognitive constructions that are appearing in consciousness without getting rid of them. just by realizing the intimacy of everything.

[06:41]

Thank you. You're so welcome. Thanks for your questions. Anything else you'd like to discuss? Please tell us the stories you're going to mention. Foreshadow stories. So we had one of the nice things about our school here is we have lots of school stories coming over centuries. Stories of friends who are practicing intimately, who are intimately communicating about cognition, about intimacy.

[07:52]

So one story that comes to mind is there was a Chinese teacher We say he's a Chinese teacher, and he allows me to say that he was a Chinese teacher, but he was not attached to that, being a teacher. And so because he wasn't attached to being a teacher, people say he was a great teacher. So he was a great teacher. His name was Guishan. because he lived on a mountain called Guishan. Shan is the Chinese word for mountain. He lived on Mount Gui. So they called him Senor Guishan. And he had a student. He had many students, but one of his students was named Yangshan.

[08:58]

which his nickname was Little Shakyamuni, Shakyamuni Buddha. People called him Little Shakyamuni Buddha. And Yangshan is also the mountain he lived on when he became a teacher. So they were talking one day, and the teacher said to the student, I think the teacher said to the student, if someone comes to you and says, all living beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless, unclear, giddy.

[10:00]

You know what the word giddy means? What does it mean? What? Frivolous? It means happy. It means to be excited to the point of being disoriented. So it's not a dull disorientation. It's like an excited disorientation. So active consciousness, the consciousness where I'm talking to you, that consciousness is very giddy and unclear and it's boundless and there's no fundamental to rely on. All sentient beings have that kind of consciousness. So the teacher says, if someone comes and says that to you, how will you test that in experience? How will you see their understanding of this situation of having consciousness?

[11:08]

The teacher and student are having this intimate conversation. And the teacher is asking the student how to test the intimacy of his conversation with somebody else around a teaching. And so the student says, if someone comes, I say, hey you. If they turn their head, I say, what is it? If they hesitate, I say, all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and giddy, with no fundamental to rely on." And the teacher said, good. In other words, that's a good way to test. So, if someone says, good morning to you, and you turn your head, so far, fine.

[12:18]

if someone says good morning to you and you think, well, how should I turn my head? No. Would it be good if I move my head? Before you think, you just come in consciousness. Hello? Yes? And then you say, what is it? And then the person says, wait a minute. This is a question I'm being asked by the teacher. And then if you hesitate, then you're trapped in karmic consciousness. Karmic consciousness, somebody says, hey you, the head turns, you're intimate. Okay, let's test again. What is it? You hesitate, you're not intimate. So we're actually in, the intimacy with karmic consciousness is there, and that is freedom. When we try to control karmic consciousness or get out of karmic consciousness, we're trapped in karmic consciousness.

[13:30]

When we hesitate, then we're lost in it. That's not the end of the story. We have another moment to try again. I have this thought. that some of you did not understand that story. But I'm not going to touch that. And I'm not going to turn away from it. Here's another version of the same technique. Another teacher was talking to a monk and the monk said to the teacher, in a certain scripture it says that the fundamental affliction of ignorance is itself the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas. The fundamental affliction of ignorance lives in karmic consciousness, where things appear to be separate from us, and it looks like that's really true.

[14:51]

That's an ignoring of that separation is an illusion, a construction of cognitive illusion. Ignoring that we believe the illusions. That's our fundamental affliction. That's where affliction comes from. The teaching is that affliction itself is the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas. That affliction itself is what all Buddhas know, or what all Buddhas are. What is that? Affliction itself, intimacy with affliction, is all Buddhas. But of course we have trouble being intimate with affliction. We tend to try to get rid of it, get away from it, or control it. We need to train to say, affliction, welcome.

[15:58]

I've been waiting for you to come, my dear friend. I don't like you or dislike you. I just want to be your friend. Whether I like you or not, I am devoted to be your friend. Great affliction, little affliction, no affliction. This is affliction itself. The intimacy of affliction is Buddha's knowledge, and Buddha's knowledge is Buddha's. That's the teaching. So again, the monk quotes that teaching, which I just give a little talk about, and he says, this seems very obscure and difficult to understand. What's difficult to understand? The immutable knowledge of Buddha is the fundamental affliction of ignorance.

[17:00]

That seems hard to understand, the monk said. The teacher said, oh really? It seems easy to me. There was a monk nearby, a boy nearby, sweeping the ground. And the teacher said to the boy, hey you! And the boy turned his head. The teacher said, is that not the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas?" And then he said to the boy, what is Buddha? And the boy hesitated. And the teacher said, is that not the fundamental affliction of ignorance? Testing for the intimacy. In the first case, hey you, he was intimate with it. No big deal. Hey, you. What would a Buddha do if he said, hey, you? Call, response. Not like, call, hey, I did what a Buddha did.

[18:03]

No, just call, response. That is what Buddhas know how to do. That's what Buddhas are. Call, response. Not call, I'm a Buddha, so what should I do? Let's see, what would be cool? Now that could be the response too. Then he says, what is Buddha? And boy hesitates and wanders off in confusion. And that's the fundamental affliction of ignorance right there. Hairs-breadth difference between liberation and not. Liberation and not liberation are intimate. Liberation is practicing intimacy. Bondage is not practicing intimacy.

[19:04]

And part of realizing intimacy is to admit the moments where we miss the chance where we turn away or try to control. Oh, there I did it again. I missed my chance. Let's try again. So that's two stories about the intimate conversation wherein the Buddha ancestors live. Yes? Do you want to come up here or do you want to ask Can you hear her? It's about intimacy. If you can describe what's intimacy. Can I describe it? Oh sure, I can describe it. Yeah, I can describe it. However, my description will not be it. And that was the description. A description of intimacy is no matter what anybody says about it, that's just talk.

[20:14]

And I just said something about intimacy. that whatever you say about it is not it. However, whatever you say about it is intimate with it. To the extent that intimacy is just a word, Just the word intimacy. To the extent that that's just a word, that's intimacy. But to hesitate or to turn away from the word to try to get hold of something about it, that's a distraction. And I'm telling these stories, but these stories are not the intimacy. These are stories about people practicing it.

[21:16]

But we cannot, these stories do not reach the intimacy. And yet in the stories the teacher says, that practice realized it, and you missed a chance. And the student office says, you're right, I got distracted. I could have done the exact same thing that I did, but I could have been there. And I wasn't. I got distracted from being me. Thank you for your question. Just a quick follow-up. So if I say I really don't know how to be intimate, that's being intimate with me. And not knowing intimacy is intimacy in that sense. Yeah, and also you say, I really do know what intimacy is.

[22:17]

That's also intimate. But in the former case, I think you have a better chance of realizing that it was. If you say, I do know what intimacy is, that might kind of, I would call it, darken the vitality of it. Right, I agree. And the vulnerability of I don't know what it is, it's the most important thing in my life. It's the thing I'm most devoted to. and I don't really know what it is. But I also don't really completely not know what it is. I know enough about what it is to think that this is what I want to devote my life to, and I don't know what it is.

[23:23]

And that makes me feel kind of vulnerable and insecure. So in order to realize intimacy, we have to practice being open to uncertainty, insecurity, and vulnerability. We don't have to be any of those things. We can also be a lot of other things, but we have to open to all this diversity. We have to open to all diversity. And that, if we close to some diversity, we close to some intimacy. And a little bit of closing is sufficient to kind of, again, contribute to this illusion of separation from, in this case, what we most want, this intimacy, which is this freedom. Yes, yes?

[24:27]

You want to come up? No? Could you speak up? And that was intimacy. I was thinking of distracting as also as instinct. And how does instinct, because instinct to me implies something that's, it's not, you know, think about it. It's very, the vulnerability is there in the instinctual reaction. What does instinct point to? How you're describing the consumption of intimacy. I think you could, sometimes instincts are, what do you call it, biased or erroneous. Like there's this instinct called the halo effect, where you have a healthy, young, handsome man that's up to speak, and people assume that he knows what he's talking about.

[25:45]

this kind of halo effect, is a kind of instinct which serves various purposes, like I don't know what you want to say, reproduction or whatever, that you give more credibility to this handsome, healthy-looking young man than you give to an old, drooling, confused man. But they may be equally trustworthy people. But by instinct, you may think that this person is more worth paying attention to. So instincts are not always correct. But they might serve some function so that they're well installed in our cognitive processes. So it's how you handle the instinct. And are you intimate with the response when the instinct comes up? So in the case of these two stories, the person says, hey, you.

[26:48]

In both stories, it starts out with, hey, you. In both cases, the first test, they both turn kind of like by instinct. And they both sort of pass the first test. Then they get another test. And the second test, they both fail. But that doesn't mean they failed the first test. We don't always fail. we sometimes are, we're not always non-stop in misery. We have moments, we have breathers, you know, where we actually are like with our life and we're kind of alive, you know. Like we look out the window and we see, we see some trees moving in the wind and we're like, we're great, you know. And like, this makes the day worthwhile, that one moment. Now, if I could be that way for a few more, that would be great, but that was great.

[27:52]

And then somebody can say, what was that? And you hesitate. Then you missed. Somehow you didn't, nobody asked you, the trees actually asked you. They said, hello. And you said, thank you. And you were right there. And you were free. And the next moment the teacher says, what is it? Or what's Buddha? And you You're right there too, but you miss it. You actually were right there and you missed it. You hesitated, you turned away from this intimacy which we call, it's like a massive fire. So we try to train ourselves to not turn away or touch. And our instincts are in that fire. flaring up, saying, can you relate to me and be upright? Can you embrace me without attaching to me?

[29:01]

I'm here for you. Are you here for me? Can you be here for me without trying to own me? So in both those cases, the first offering, the person was pretty alive. They acted pretty much like a Buddha probably would. Second, they both tripped and fell. They couldn't maintain, they couldn't practice again being with their life in that moment of, like, what is Buddha? The boy could have said, you tell me. Or, good question, teacher. Or they could have raised his broom. Or he could have put his broom up there and said, pitch again. You know, but he, you know, he could have done anything. He even could have, I don't know what, gone, oh, I'm totally confused. Hey, I'm confused. You tell me. But he wasn't. He was like checked out. But, you know, it's understandable.

[30:03]

Big Zen master said, what is Buddha? So... And this is how we naturally, in intimate conversation, we're not necessarily testing each other, but we are testing each other. We're not trying to test each other, and yet we do. And the closer we get, the more vital the test. So again, hey you, that was pretty good. Then they get one step closer. What is it? Who are you? And then if they do well again, then ask again. What do you mean by that? At the end, we had a sitting yesterday. And at the end of the sitting, one of the senior students said to me, his name is Simon.

[31:09]

He said to me, I think he said, if anybody was there and heard it differently, tell me. He said, I think he said, could you say something, could you, oh, I think he said, oh yeah. He said, could you describe your teaching? It's a traditional trick in Zen, is to ask a teacher if they could describe their teaching. Oftentimes the student asks the teacher that question. The student asks the teacher. They ask the teacher to say how the teacher would describe his teaching as the teacher is dying. And may I go on? You were there, you tell me. And so anyway, in this case, this senior student said to me, who was head monk here last fall, he said, could you describe your teaching?

[32:19]

And I said, I'm really tired. Would you please ask Simon? And I thought, now that's a good question. His was good too, but it was kind of like a setup. That's, you know, you want to know my teaching? Ask yourself what my teaching is. And that's just one more step in the process of intimate conversation. And one more thing I want to say is in this song, I told you the beginning of the song, the Samadhi song, Do you remember how it started? Do you remember how it started? The teaching of suchness is intimately communicating Buddhas and ancestors. Okay? And later in the song it says, it is bright just at midnight.

[33:25]

This relates to what you brought up. What's bright at midnight? The moon's bright, and what's the moon? The moon is the teaching of suchness. The teaching of suchness is bright at midnight. The teaching of suchness is bright in the middle of the night. The intimate communication is bright midnight. Buddhas and ancestors are bright at midnight. And then I also thought, remember this cartoon from my childhood which shows two men standing under a street light and a policeman comes over to them and says, what are you guys doing? And they said, we're looking for were looking for a watch we dropped.

[34:28]

And the policeman said, did you drop it here? And they said, no, we dropped it up the street, but the light's better here. So we human beings tend to look for this wonderful thing, this intimate communication, we tend to look for it in the light. And you can kind of find it in the light. But the light's where you can tell stories about it. Like, it's like this. It's like that. You kind of find it, but it's really kind of not bright there. The place that's bright is in the midnight, is in the not being so sure what it is. You can still kind of, oh, I think it's here. Maybe this is it. Could this be it? And in these conversations, nobody, you know, these conversations are in the dark.

[35:32]

They're feeling each other out. We're feeling out Buddhas and Buddhas are feeling us out. We're feeling out the intimacy, the intimacy is feeling us out. We're feeling out the earth, we're feeling out the trees. We're groping for the intimacy. You're next. Into me see. Yeah, into me see. Or into you see me. Into we see. Into we see. Into we see, into me see, into you see. That's a definition. Thank you, Lois. Yeah, it is.

[36:36]

You can't get away from it. However, when you turn away, you think you did. You think you got away from the fire. You think you got away. You didn't get away. You're wrong. But when you turn away you think, when you turn away oftentimes you think you turned away. You didn't really, but you kind of think you did. And when you touch you think you touched. But you didn't touch. You were already touching. So that's why you touched, because you didn't think you were. So these turning away and touching distract us from being ourselves. We don't really, however we do not actually ever get out of being ourself. We just get distracted. Because it's, you know, it's kind of scary to the way we are, the way our life is. And then we turn away, but then we're sorry.

[37:39]

Or we touch and then we're sorry. But then we try again. Okay, now, not try to touch it, well, maybe we try to touch again. And again and again, pretty soon we feel like, okay, I'm done with touching for a while. I'm going to just try to be with this fire. without turning away or touching. I'm going to try to be... Being generous with the fire is not touching or turning away. But if you touch and turn away, you can be generous with touching and turning away. The turning away then is a fire too. You can recover your orientation of compassion after you get distracted. It's not eternal damnation. It's only momentary damnation. And it's not eternal success, it's only momentary success. So, hey you? Yep, momentary success. What's Buddha? Momentary distraction. And then if someone tells you, you were momentarily distracted, you say, thanks.

[38:41]

Now you're back on the ball. I'm so glad you're here with me, my friend, to remind me when I'm distracted. I'm so happy to remind you you're distracted. And I'm so distracted with you. Yes. There is time. And your name? Shema. [...] That's a Chinese. Shima means what? What is it? Shima? Beautiful topic. Very helpful for me. Someone said a quote the other day, if you find yourself in a story you don't like, leave.

[39:45]

And I went up to her and I said, there were two stories I've been in that I didn't like and I left. And And you like that story better? No. I'm still here. You're still here. And I'm still in the fire. Okay. But somehow I think I can be in the fire more without the intensity of the others that I perceived as not being willing to be intimate with it. Being with others who I perceive causing me stress and I perceive as not being willing to show up and be intimate overwhelms me to the point where I can't do the work. So there's another question of how do I be intimate with the fire when the other person is reflecting to me they're not willing to be intimate with the fire?

[41:02]

Could I change the language a little bit? How can I be intimate with the fire, did you say? When the other person appears to not be willing. Yes. When I perceive them as not being willing. Yes. Yes. Well, then I could be compassionate towards my perception that they're not willing. Which means I could be compassionate towards my perception that they're not willing. Which means I would be gracious towards the appearance that they're not willing. I would be careful of their appearance of not being willing. I wouldn't push them into this. I would be careful of them. I would respect their appearance that they're not willing. I would be patient with their apparent, the perception of them not being willing.

[42:11]

And then I would be diligent with the way they appear to not be ready or willing. And part of being diligent is to not try to be intimate with them if I find this practice too advanced at this time. So I'm with this person and I feel like they don't want to do this with me And that's their unwillingness. My perception that they don't want to do this with me is too advanced for me to be generous and ethical and patient. So I'm going to take a break from that and come back later. In other words, I'm not going to push myself into this practice. I'm willing to do it, but I'm also willing to take a rest from it.

[43:14]

and give it up for a while. Which might lead me to realize that's meant to be where they are. They might be actually wanting to be intimate with me, but they might find me and the relationship overwhelming. So they might be on recess or on a break. So I might be right in the sense that they that they aren't willing but it might be that they really want to do it but right now the situation is overwhelming for them and for them to be overwhelmed might be too much for me so maybe we should both take a nap and then okay now let's try again and I'm thinking their overwhelm and my overwhelm are the same I don't know if they're the same, but I would say that the Buddhas and ancestors are that my overwhelm and your overwhelm are intimate.

[44:21]

You might have a slightly different kind of overwhelm from me, but my overwhelm is related to your overwhelm. They're not separate. They're intimate. And if I say they're the same, it's almost like you can get the sameness. But the intimacy, I can't get the oneness or the separateness of our intimacy. And therefore, we're free of it. We're free of the intimacy and we're free of the overwhelm. Well, that sounds good. Could you do that one again? I missed it. Because, well, and also, so it's not always a reflection. One is a little bit too concrete and two is a little too concrete. So there's one and two. those things appear, one and two, right? And there's intimacy with one and two, both.

[45:24]

But we can kind of get a hold of one and two. Intimacy is ungraspable and therefore it's freedom with everything. That seems to be graspable. There's intimacy with those who appear to be up for it, and there's intimacy with those who do not appear to be up for it. But when the appearance of somebody not up for it appears, sometimes I might feel like, I don't feel up for this person who's not up for it. And I respect that in myself. And I want to be intimate with that. And one of the ways to be intimate with that is to say, let's try later. Yes. Thank you. So it's not so much that my perception of the other being overwhelmed is just a simple mirror of my unwillingness, it's... No, sometimes you might feel like, right now I feel really up for practicing intimacy with this person and they are like saying to me, I'm not up for it with you.

[46:59]

You know, they might look like that. And you might say, I have this fantasy that you do not feel up for being intimate with me right now. And the person might say, that is correct. That would be correct. I am not up for being intimate with you, they might say. And they might say, I hear you, but actually I'm nothing but wanting to be intimate with you. And I'm scared to death of you. And I had this thought that if I could be intimate with you, I'd be free of my fear of you. And I want to be free of fear. And I think my... our intimacy would free me. And you. That's what I think. But still, the work of intimacy is tough. Sometimes, when somebody goes, boo... Was that intimacy?

[48:01]

Yes. Rather than, no, I don't want you, get away from me. Sometimes I tickle my little leader and she thinks it's funny. Sometimes, don't touch me. Sometimes somebody is just overwhelming it. Next moment you're kind of like, come on, fine. Lotus flowers, when they're in bloom, they open in the sunlight. And then they close in the dark. Then they open in the sunlight. We do that too. We open and close. And our heart does that, right? Opens and closes. opens and pumps, no, closes and pumps, opens and lets in blood, closes and pumps.

[49:09]

There's a rhythm to this. So learning the rhythm is part of like being able to keep practicing through the overwhelms here and there and realize that there is no here and there, really, or an in-between. By being intimate with here and there and in-between, we realize that there's nothing to grasp there. And therein is freedom from suffering. But it isn't like you get a hold of there is no here and there is no there. This all occurs in midnight. I mean, most brightly at midnight. And where is detachment in all of this? Where is detachment? Intimacy is detachment. Really? Well, I don't know really.

[50:12]

Buddha is to embrace all beings and not attach. It's to be devoted to all beings Of course, usually we don't think you're devoted to people and then you turn away from them. But it's being devoted without trying to control. So Buddha has no attachment to beings and lives in the intimate, shared life with all beings. Buddha lives in the middle of the night with all beings. And there's no attachment because Buddha is just all beings. All beings cannot attach to all beings or any being. We embrace them all, we embrace all diversity, and therein there's no attachment, no clinging, no abiding. And would that be the same with something other than a person, like money? Yes, it would be the same as with money.

[51:15]

and land and cars and dogs and teeth. I try to take care of them without being attached to them. It's a challenge. Because in those situations they're not informing us back as a separate being communicating to us. Nobody's informing us back as a separate being. Everybody's informing us back as a non-separate being. Our teeth are not separate from us. My teeth are teaching me. My teeth are testing my non-attachment. Forty percent of people over 85 have no teeth.

[52:19]

Teeth are your friends. Not just helping you chew food, they're also knocking on the door of the Dharma and saying, hello, are you ready to practice compassion with teeth that are on their way out? A memory. Hello, are you ready to practice compassion with a memory that's on its way out? 40% of people, I heard anyway, 40% of people over 85 have classic dementia. Dementia is not separate from people. But people who don't have dementia are smarter enough to think that it is separate. I don't know if demented people think that dementia is separate from them. I don't know. I haven't asked myself lately. But anyway, these things come to us and they're saying to us, they're calling to us to listen to them.

[53:31]

They're begging us to be intimate with them. So part of the hope of this practice is that if we're devoted to intimacy, intimacy can ride brightly through the midnight of no teeth and no memory. The intimacy is not dependent on any particular situation. In fact, no matter what the situation, if there's dementia, if there's no teeth, That no teeth is intimate with all beings. But even when you do have teeth and do have a memory, if you don't know intimacy, if you don't practice and realize it, you're stressed. On the other hand, if you have realized intimacy, there's a possibility that you can continue to realize it as things are rearranged.

[54:33]

when your memory actually is not yours anymore, but other people's. People say, Reb, it's time to go over there now. Come on. You have an appointment. Oh, I do? Oh, thank you. When I can't remember anything anymore, some young people will have my memory for me. My memory will be in other people's. Other people will be carrying my memory. And they'll tell me where to go. I don't need to have the memory over here. It's not mine. But if I'm not intimate with my current situation, when my memory gets moved over to other people's who are taking care of it for me, I may feel like, well, that's not, no, that's not my appointment. No, I don't want to be like that. You people just please guide me to my next appointment. It's beautiful. Thank you so much.

[55:36]

And I will now guide you to lunch. Thank you very much.

[55:40]

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