The Light of Buddha's Wisdom - Precepts of Compassion
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Buddha sheds the light of wisdom on the true nature of suffering, liberation, and the human mind, on the teachings of compassion, moral causation, and the whole phenomenal universe. This retreat offered an opportunity to receive, study, and contemplate Buddha's teachings on mind, precepts of compassion, and moral cause and effect. The discussions and contemplations were framed in the light of wisdom which is far beyond all discussion. Wonderful teachings were offered together with ways of not clinging to those teachings. There were periods of quiet sitting, walking meditation, oral teachings, and group discussions, with opportunities for individual interviews as time allowed.
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meditation year thank you i think i mentioned earlier that i
i propose that damn spiritual light and physical light are not separate
hand
meditating on fear it a spirit on physical light
i'm might help us realize spiritual light and vice versa
and i i
mine to begin by mentioning so again mentioning the mind and nature
are interrelated
but mine isn't the same as spirit
as not separate from it
but the relationship meditating on the relationship between mind and nature
is one of them opportunities curve realizing
wisdom
and i drew on the border
a circle with a lion going on it which represents
a
a light beam
passing near the sun
and it's path been for the bent around the sun
so there's this
for for some time people thought light travel in straight lines
and also there is a
i kind of geometry call euclidean geometry
founded by a great person named euclid
in euclidean geometry the shortest distance between two points is a straight line
but in but then they developed another kind of geometry not too long but and i think in the late nineteenth century that did developed another kind of geometry called non euclidean geometry
in which the shortest distance between two lines between two points there's no longer a straight line
not necessarily
and
and einstein predicted that a lightwave passing near a massive object
what bend around the object
because when light travels there were light propagates it needs time to do so
in other words light travels through not just space but it's pet travel through space time
but space time gets bent
by massive objects
so
if light tried to
pass by a massive object and keep going to the same direction straight
he would have a very hard time because it would be going against space-time
you began pink in be going against the shape of space time
and slight cannot have a hard time
light having a hard time isn't light anymore
or i should say light can have a hard time but it has to have but it but it it has to have equal hard time that the difficulty it has his constant
how is most had a certain speed never slows down so it
yeah yeah so it has to find a path by which it can keep moving had its normal constant
high speed
so when a when it comes around a massive object the only place it can have had a top speed is to go with space-time which has been bent
the word space
yeah
us light moves
in the packages that takes the least time not the least distance
so we have that situation our life should we go from i should go from green gulch
the shortest distance which will take a really long time or should you go to us on a road
where you can go much faster
and another another story about this is that there was her
like to twenty five hundred three thousand years ago there is a taoist
perhaps semi mythical dollars for your name to answer so to founders the to historic or legendary founders of the of the taoist tradition are loud son who wrote the dao de jing and jong suk who wrote i wrote but
his words and been recorded as the drawings or
so one of the stories is a bot i think it's
i think
ha that the title of the section is called the art of life
our the art of happiness or something like that
and it's about day
i think some aristocrat talking to a butcher or somebody to or drugs are talking about summer some butcher who worked for some lord and this this butcher said you know most people's or nice last for
whatever
two months or something but i've had this this knife
for nineteen years or something and it's still sharp
and the reason why still sharp is because when i slaughter animals
i don't cut through the flesh
i cut through the space between the bones
i was go through the emptiness
in some and therefore down which is falls apart
because i passed through the emptiness and my life camera never gets dull
so wisdom
the wisdom that can come to a living being
it actually the place it goes through is it goes through the space because of the easiest
the easiest path
like light wood goes through the space
our car goes with with the shape
that you can move to more quickly and that's that shape
is kind of the place in our experience that offers the least resistance
where the forces of art of our
of the way were made
come together in such a way that there's a passageway
like light would go through and wisdom the light of wisdom as meditating on this space
in particular in meditate on the space
the
tween the elements of our story
it finds a way looking at our story to move through the story
without sticking to it
wisdom is on that
in that light beam of meditating on the space the spaciousness
so it moves right through and so then it looks like things earth
flying by and looks so it doesn't attached to things and things don't attach to it
huh
so the light of buddhist wisdoms like going through us and through our stories all day long
it's flying into us and through us
all day long
and so are opportunity and challenges to tune into that wisdom which doesn't belong to us are born to buddha it's just a type of wisdom
realized but their wisdom is just flowing all the time through all formations and it flows through the emptiness of the formations and all foreign nations have this quality of being empty
now there was everything has as quality of that you can't find it can't find it
and ah
can grasp it it's everything's bottomless
and vast
but of course everything is also chunky
but it has this vast quality that offers lots of space to move through it and of course we also in our bodies actually are mostly space
and
there's a a way that certain things can go through it and other things cat of things got to go around it
huh
i feel that are
a number of you have
many of you here and other many other people have to have been become aware
that there's they get stuck on their stories they get stuck on their intention they going to they get hung up on their will
but being aware of the sticking point
he's very useful
because
if you can be generous with that sticking point
you can discover
the emptiness right in the sticking point there's a there's a way through it
it can be revealed that will reveal itself actually if you can
sit quietly
with the story that seems to not have any passage way through it
and the story will eventually adjust
part and say here's the way through
and then the vision ha
move through it or the vision sees the light which moves zero it
wisdom the highest wisdom is contemplating this his way through everything
the most efficient and freest way to be with formations
and as we are we have been
this morning for example blessed with the opportunity to sit quietly
and
enjoy
being quite close to this possibility
being a nice right it's right nearby just a simple place moving over a little bit to the place where there's a amped for the emptiness is it's it's right next to have it's right there close to every form
every feeling
every emotion there's there's a there's an emptiness right there too
let the light through and
happy caught
huh
what we have strong and develop discriminating com
justice which wants to grasp things
even though it's heard the teaching
ah
about the game about about what grasping can't accomplish
graphic discriminating mine to grasp the mind cannot reach
the light of wisdom
but wisdom can eliminate it
it is but it can't grasp wisdom
huh
one time i i
i
one time i i left minnesota to come to sent to california to practice zen
the first time i i went
i tried to come on a motorcycle
but the motorcycle i had was it was called a dirt bike
to buy a bite has got off scramblers called a honda scrambler nurse is bill for like riding and hills and stuff like that wasn't really built to be on the highway wasn't a road bike
i'm so anyway i'd tried to drive it to california
maybe i should tell off some moral baptist by i bought this bike
yeah it was fairly new and i bought it and i parked it outside i staying in the next morning i came on and it wasn't there
and i hadn't had time to ensure it and i was a poor college student
so for about two years i would go to the bank once a month and give them money for the motorcycle i didn't have
one of my wonderful opportunities
and then after two years i've got a message that the that they found it
and turns out it had been storage the whole time you know the police found it right away abandoned
it had been started but they're ready to see a number wrong
and then they try to charge me for two my two years of
of storage
i know somehow i just said who and they accepted that
so i have my motorcycle back and i fixed it up it had become you know i hadn't been driven for two years so i got it running again and i tried to flatten them that coincided with the time that i wanted to go to the zen center in san francisco to to learn about zen and to practice where the community
but it was a springtime of of nineteen sixty eight and i already been designed center to visit in practice but then i went back to minnesota decide to move there
so
i was driving west in the spring winds through the prairies
and the motorcycle just couldn't do it just and i couldn't hear the motorcycle
in the wind
so i couldn't run it at the right rpm's and if you run if you run a vehicle the wrong route rpm long enough it just puts out
it kept happening so i just i drive and he would poop out i drive in poop out
so i turn around with the wind and flew back to minneapolis
yes
what
the
i took the roads
strike could have gone straight
probably would work better because i would have been going much slower over the mountains system
i didn't think of that
but then again i wasn't enlightened so you know
i did not actually no i didn't i had i had a long mustache
i'm bald head and mustache
and so i went back then i got out nine bought a volkswagen bus
same problem that if his credit
he was a nineteen fifty eight volkswagen van and i just didn't have the strength to go against the spring winds
and i turned and said the same problem of not being able to hear the engine
i turned around and flew back to minneapolis
i sold and i sold the
the van captain motorcycle and bot and nineteen fifty four cadillac hearse
from the small town in north dakota
and it was you know basically and quite good condition and the body was in perfect condition because i know they just drive them out you know and back you know they don't they're easy on these hearse vs friend of mine gave me the idea and
he said you can drive it to california sell in california because lot of rock groups launched hearses
there are popular vehicles for rock and roll people vs and ambulances and course buses anyway so
i put my motorcycle on the back of the hearse
and my dog and went off and it had not a big powerful cadillac have no problem with the wind
and i had but still i did have three major
ah car problems on the way one in the middle of the night in wyoming car stopped
and then mean my dog walking through the landscape in the dark find the founder
restaurant and a tow truck and by the time i was polite and
took the car tour
garage on the middle of nowhere and they what happened was the arm though the rod which held the generator
to the
to the band to the recall but his bandura belt that turns that you know keeps a battery going to become looser the the generator wasn't charging the batteries and battery died and
so they fix that
and then i don't know exactly what happened but
then something went wrong with the carburetor like in utah and i again found some place to fix it are spending some post my money on this repairs on a car to fix it i mean a truck place to fix it but the process of fixing the carburetor them
they got a little bit of tiny little of metal fire for fragments kinda carburetor so then the carburetor of still wasn't working properly and so i've gotten the situation where if i stop the car to me a really long time to get started again
so i try not to stop the car
and i drove that were a long time not stopping the car and i'm and particularly i was trying to get to salt lake city and i went into salt lake city and i knew that if i stopped a car like stop at a stop sign that there would be the end of the
and i'd have to get wouldn't be able to get to a garage
so i drove into salt lake city without stopping
so i didn't go in a straight line i went in a line where i wouldn't have to stop
i just getting do not disturb you know
amazing what happened
so i'd be driving you know and if there was a stop sign nice up sign us up a semaphore stop light
i would either have to turn right or left
so because i was not about to stop
it's as a car if there's cars up there at at this at the sign i wouldn't be able to turn right and left because they've been my way so then i have true someplace else which i did
i didn't make a u-turn are going to a driveway
and i drove around like that
and survived
like i you drive into drive into you know him to drive ins drive around and round until i saw a way to get out
try to gas stations drive into drive into parking lots for grocery stores drive and drive around and go out
and and i just kept driving until i saw a garage
and then i drove into the garage stop the car and died
and
they fixed the car and it costs more to fix it than the money i had
but there are kind and and just accepted all money i had
and then this a place where they found these the metal filings which happened when they were fixing a carburetor hood in utah they found these metal filings and took them a long time to find them and below them out of the carburetor
but then i had no money and
so i undergo wire back to minnesota to get some money and then i went the rest of the way to california
so this is like
when i was i said that because i went to path not the straightest path i went to pass where there was no traffic congestion
and that's the lead that's where wisdom goes it goes where there's no congestion
it's a and the with the light
have the space between things and there's a flow there
and the light circulates the wisdom circulates in an in in through and everything is flowing all the time
and this wisdom is what is the main point of what the buddha's or bodies to is to show people this wisdom and help people awaken to it and enter it
this wisdom light that's all the time flowing everywhere through all of us
and but we have habits of
the the discriminate my grasp things like grass good and grasped evil rather than
the not discriminating wisdom
which passes right between the two
which passes between the interdependent and their ungraspable it passes in the space where you can grasp good and evil
which is right in the relationship between good and evil there's a space they're in good and is a space and evil in the space and good and evil due to their relationship
if things existed on their own there would be no space but they don't so there is
so looking at good and evil is one of it
is an important topic because good enables a place where we grasp tightly
so you can you can tell when you're not grasping anymore because you're usually grasping so tight that if you give a little listening that you can join all wow
i like you know i wasn't totally freaked out about that evil
i so again generosity with these phenomena get us ready to open to the spaciousness of them
and then we don't deny good and evil we just find this the way to flow through them
through them and beyond them and then back into them to test again to see if we can see the light flowing through so he flow into and out of constantly and this has actually
when the things that lindsay said
benji you know that guy
the guy you're like
he said there is a true person of no rank
and all day long this person is moving
ah into and out of your five or six cent stores
moving into you and how to few through your eyes for your ears
this true person is moving there
and you know albert einstein somebody who meditated on physical life
the physical light
and
and i think he developed wisdom by meditating on this physical light he mostly to set their you know by himself
kimberly meditating on physical light
and he had some experiences where he found
the spiritual light i think he found the space between the the what the stories which physicists were telling about light
stuck on that and he found some space there where he he could mine could pass through into other other realities
and when he found those places he was very happy
he was very happy to see the truth
but even albert einstein after that
period of happiness where he he found the space the spaciousness of light and found how how light and nature are actually free of all the stories he grew up with and all the stories of all the other brilliant physicist around him
even he after some years
had trouble continuing in the practice
and he can have got blue bogged down in history
so even
even a person who are rich or cheese wisdom has to keep practicing
we have to keep practicing even if you have wisdom otherwise you lose it
he's still you know was a great guy but he wasn't any longer tuned into that real happy place and he wasn't as happy as he was during those times when he was actually able to have the concentration necessary
to to not be caught by his own stories are the stories of western physics
nobody taught him how to meditate like that in the first place it was just his i don't know his his intense interest in studying his think he was given the gift of really being interested and a lot of stuff
and that interest freed him from discriminating consciousness freedom from the consciousness which grabs dark objects
so one of the teachings of suzuki roshi which i often mention is that non-discrimination
he is not not to discriminate
so sometimes people think that
that he had that they shouldn't discriminate between good and evil
but that thought is another discriminating thought
the thought i shouldn't discriminate is a discriminating thought
non-discrimination seekers said non-discrimination doesn't mean not discriminating it means
to study everything
when you study everything
not when you think of studying everything for when you actually study everything that's non discrimination
his study man he studied women his study adults she studied children he studied black people you study yellow people who study white people his study read people
he studied trees study light he studied pain he studied pleasure he study good his daddy bad
he study war he studied peace
when you're that way that's non discrimination
and when you have not as commanding wisdom you're interested in everything or when you're interested in everything you opened a not discriminating wisdom
but discrimination people are a little bit more interested in good and evil or vice versa
they don't give equal attention to both and they also don't give equal attention to their non-duality
so again being generous with every experience is pretty much non discrimination
han through nondiscrimination by giving
you know by giving your whole hearted
attention and study of everything
that's the same as general and a generous with everything giving yourself completely to everything you will realize that everything's giving itself to you and everything's giving you life
rather than just some things are given new life
another expression is this are it's and i think it's one of those books that have my name on it it's a story of by george washington carver
and when he's a little boy he used to go out in the woods and just walk around and
see the woods and then and then had some point in devote he developed his kind of like on nursery for sick plants and i heard that all the women in his can use area would bring him they're sick plants and he would heal them and give them back to them
he loved to heal sick plants
and
and swimming would say it's still your little boy i know what age but pretty young to have this gift of healing these plants and they said well how did you where did you get this from it he said well i just go out in the forest and i love everything
and the plants town give me their secrets
so if you love your stories all your stories
to guidance of woods in the forest of your stories
and you love them all they will give you their secret they will tell you how to pass through them
how not to be caught don't do that with us to this don't try it that way hold it to this way let us help you don't try do it by yourself
if you're generous with things they will tell you do you know
don't do this by yourself let us help you
and let us help you do it away other than the way you wanted to do it
and tinctures or generous you're probably listening to that yes i am you're right
so we're gonna make you into somebody you
didn't use to think you were okay
o k
so wholeheartedly give yourself to each moment wherever you are
and with no expectation
something will happen hours
but you're not you don't know what it will be and your you have no expectation or rather you're giving away your expectations all the time
and you may have judgments but you you give your judgments away
here's my judgment of you here's my judgment of you i'm giving it away giving it to you and giving it to whole world i'm not holding my judgment
or i if i have a judgment of you i'm studying my judgment of you i'm studying and i'm standing on its studying it
and in that study
i will let go of it
i'm not trying to get it and prove it i'm trying to understand it
but in the context of trying to understand everything else to otherwise i'll get too focused my my study will get
touch too tight around it
so not discriminating wisdom
excuse me discriminating ways we cannot grasp reality
because reality is not enclosed by this by discriminating wisdom
but we do have discriminating
consciousness or choose trying to grasp things and now you can watch a try to grasp things and as you meditate on it and watch it and under see how i can't grasp reality when you understand that you will release when discriminating
consciousness are discriminating
consciousness will be released
and then you will open to
non-discriminatory wisdom which can
let reality and can't grasp reality either it just lets it in and just enters it
relationship which it is available all the time
gotta got a party got a person got the bodies far gone gone gone beyond gone completely beyond welcome
enlightenment welcome buddha's wisdom
so that's my morning introduction
to practice
which is available now for you to enjoy
studying everything
learning about everything
including learning your stories
that she superimposed on everything
he and now it's you know what breakfast this time
and
ha and then know they are a not madonna madonna staff is asking you to in the next hour and a half move your stuff how your rooms to someplace else
i guess i guess so they can clean your rooms percent next basic next gas and then and then after that please come back here on ten o'clock if you could write thank you very much
you okay leon
do you look constipated
thank you show me that