in

i was looking for and joyfully to discuss
hum
some teachings about our practice with you
but something has come up and urgently that i think i'll talk about instead
and down
i want to talk about this and
give back i can't say a little bit about their
the background of this is that hum some people have been working on gathering teachings together on the training of bodhisattvas on the training of heroes of enlightenment
from talks i've given over many years and as i contemplated the
large field of these teachings
hi it
i was seeking a what structure was that
who would hold all these teachings because otherwise they might look like
it might be hard to see understand the the field because
there's quite a variety of teachings being offered a it
about training in the zen tradition training and bodhisattvas in this and tradition
and so i was contemplate that and and yesterday not here yesterday or day before yesterday know yesterday
this wonderful insight came
other i'm a structure
which could hold all these all these teachings and and which they could be placed in some appropriate spot and the structure that came to my mind was a story which i have enjoyed thinking about for many years
it's a story approximately two thousand year old story i guess from a scripture a great vehicle scripture
a bodhisattva vehicle scripture
call the lotus sutra
and as from the chapter called faith and understanding
it's a story about the bodhisattva path
and so i wanna tell you this story which i think it's gonna serve as a
as a structure for this these teachings that term were gonna try to make him to a book i can tell you more about the details later if you want
so here's the story
and again this is
yeah this is a story and and contains a story for starters the story is
i'm told
by students
on the buddha money
does the buddhist shockey mooney has taught his students something
and they're very happy with what they've been taught
and to explain to the buddha how they feel about this teaching which they have received now they're teaching which is something they never heard before
they tell him they tell the buddhist parable it's actually a pair of will they say
so it's like this this child and in the skin the scripture says a son
who has a father
paulson's have fathers
but ah
i don't know maybe i'll say son maybe i'll say daughter maybe i'll say parents
i don't know which i should say but he went to book in the scripture it says there was a son who lived with his father
but he also live with his mother i think so
i think it was a son who live with his mother and father
or a daughter who lived with her mother and father
okay that's the basic situation
a child is living with her parents
that's the basic situation of this story
henan this child
from
her home with her parents
with her she wanders off from her daddy
and she wanders in wanders and wanders
when she went from land to land
and the older she became the poorer and more needy she began
she wandered around in every direction looking for clothing and food
on tell
finally buy shares she started heading to her homeland
meanwhile
this daughter by the way this son has been what has wandered for about fifty years
wander long time and the longer she wandered the poorer and more needy she became
and by can't she wandered back towards her own homeland meanwhile
back at home
her father and mother were searching for their child unsuccessfully
and now lived in another city from where they originally lived
oh
their household had become very wealthy
very very wealthy
inconceivably incalculably wealthy
at this time this the child is now wandering back towards home
the poor child wandering through village after village and passing through various lands and cities at last reached the city where his father was living
although this child had been away
for more than fifty years
the father always thought about him
but had never spoken of it to anyone only pondering to himself
his heart full of remorse and regret
he thought
hold and worn out
i have great wealth gold silver and rare treasures overflowing my storehouse's
and yet
i have a child
me i have no child
someday my end will come
and my wealth will be scattered and last for there is no one to whom i can leave it

this is why he always earnestly thought of his child
if i could only get him back
an interest my wealth to him he thought
how contented how happy i would be
with no more anxiety
and then they go on a meanwhile world honored one meanwhile lord buddha they're talking to the buddha
this poor child
drifting from one job to another accidentally arrived had his father's house
standing by the gate he saw his father from a distant seated on a lion throne
his father's feet
we're resting upon jul pedestals
and he was wearing fine clothing
with strings of pearls worth tens of millions adorning his body

to make a long story short
with such trappings he looked majestic and distinguished
the poor child
seeing his own father
seeing his own mother
with such great power was seized by fear
and regretted that he had come to this place
he secretly thought to himself
that person must be a key
or something like a king this is no place for me to tries to make a landing
i met her go to some poor town where i can be paid for my luck labor and where our food and clothing will be easier to get
if i stay here i may be captured and forced to work as a slave
having these thoughts of this kind he ran away quickly
meanwhile
the elderly gentlemen
on the lion throne
recognized his son at first sight
filled with joy he thought at last i have the one whom my stories of wealth or to be interested i've always been thinking of my son but had no
way to see him now suddenly he has come by himself
my hope is completely fulfilled
old and worn out high yearned for him
i yearned for an air
then he sent messengers
after his son
to bring him back and they took hold of him

firmly
and he thought they were coming to capture him either to put him into slavery or kill him
and he fainted
the father seeing this realized that what was going on and called his messengers back
or maybe they didn't major topic
the father saw that
what was going on and
the and it there was no need for the who and he told the messengers there's no need for this man let him go don't force him to come sprinkle some water on his face and wake him up and say nothing more about this so they did the
son woke up and was very happy to escape capture
and then the father got an idea
of
sending some people to him
you know not big power for messengers
like angels probably
but this humble old gentleman wearing rags dirty rags he sent them to his son they caught up with him and they offered him a job
a humble job of shoveling done
probably elephant dung
and the sun was happy at this offer and asked for an advance on his pig and went to work
and so he worked in this way for quite a long time and after a while
his father actually put on
dirty ragged clothes and went to see him

and praised his work and encourage him to continue to work
an actor he did this for some time
the father actually went to him and told him
now probably and his normal clothing that he wanted him to come up to the house and learn the business of the house to comings and goings of the house he wanted him to become
familiar and knowledgeable about
this realm of great wealth
and the sonics the sun could accept this position his confidence had gradually grown by
shoveling the done and receiving food and clothing for it
he now had the confidence that it can go up to the house that previously he was afraid to be near and he came to the house and he learned the ways of the house
and he became close to his father but didn't know that it was his father still finally
the time came for his father to say
my passing will be soon
you are like a son to me
and i entrust all the workings of this vast digital realm of wealth to you
and then he gathered together kings and
leaders of the country and all his acquaintances to come and he made an announcement and said this man is actually my son
and i entrust everything to him
hmm
so i would comment on that story widely the comment is that the people who told the buddha this story said that this parable was kick was the way they were
his students who had received decision is that this is the way we are and i would say that this parable is the way we are
women we may not be a realize it but this is the way we are
we are basically living in a house
with our
paris
our parents that that were the the hot in the house were living in her the buddha's
but we don't realize that we're living in the house of the buddha's and that we are the buddha's
successors
or we haven't
patel know maybe this
and because we did not realize that we're in this house we have wandered away
we have become distracted from our basic situation
and the longer we've wandered the more poor and needy we have become
or the longer we wandered the longer we were distracted from our basic situation
which is that we are living with the buddhas and the buddhas are living with us to longer we've been distracted from that the poor and needy here we have we had been we had become
but we will or have by chance wandered back to our
original situation we have by chance
wandered back
into our original home
but when we saw it we didn't necessarily know that it was our original home
and at the regional situation was our original situation
but then our original situation offered us some chance to train
offer is a job
which sometimes is called zen training
our body sought for training
and by doing this practice by doing this training
we have or will realize
our basic situation
which we never left really
we just got distracted
we went into a dream of wandering away from our basic home
but in this story and in our lives we have to train for quite a while we have to
shovel done for quite a while and then we have to graduate from shoveling done to learning the business of the house
and we will do that and we are doing that we are shoveling dong we have shoveled done and we will shovel done we are learning the business of the house
right now i am showing you the business of the house
right now i am showing you dumb shoveling
but i'm also telling you
that
this is all just to develop confidence
that you always in this house and you never really leave
you only get distracted
so with this confidence this faith there will be understanding at the end his son understands oh i'm not just like a son i am your actual son
and i have always been your son
i am your actual daughter and i've always been your daughter
but i was distracted there for bus seventy years
fifty years of wandering and fifty years of training
when i was wandering my confidence that i was that this was my fundamental situation went down and down and down so when i saw my original situation i i was deeply frightened that it would kill me
now by training in with you i now see that i am
where the
of living in this family with all buddhas
most of the zen stories we have
our about the time of dung shoveling and learning the business of the house we don't usually tell the story of the
of all the monks all the t all the students who came to then we don't if you tell the story that they will started out in buddha's house and got distracted from it and then went on a long
which actually was a pilgrimage
back home
we leave home
and we go on a pilgrimage
back home
when we're at home we are supported by everything
that's our basic situation we are supported by everything we include everything
and we support everything
and we are included in everything
but being children we do not understand this
and we have no faith in it because we're too young to understand
so we don't have understanding and we don't have faith even though in reality we are always including everything and supporting everything
supported by and supporting
as some point
by wandering long enough
by being strapped a long enough from this basic situation we come to a situation where we're told
that this is our situation like today you are being told us
and now
you've been told us we had we need to train
in order to have confidence that this is our basic situation we are buddha's life
now we are the life of buddha now
and we always have been
and the buddhists have been longing for us to come home and train and have the confidence to understand that we are and always have been on this path
a buddha away
that's the urgent business or the story
the right
that's the story i felt persians
to tell you
hazing situation intimate community communion
next situation intimate communion
which we do not understand
which we do not perceive
but it's but it's our basic reality
at the beginning in a way or the basis and at the end we will understand it again
oh arrest we will understand it a new so a part of this her one of the a card from
he reiterated statements is we now have something we never had before
but really we now we have something and we have is we're being told that we've always had it
now we have the information that we've always been on the path of buddhahood and we never had this information we never had this understanding before the joy of hearing that we're always been on this path and we always will be on this path

huh

huh
huh
huh
huh
huh
what

huh

huh
huh
are you afraid
are you feeling afraid
you are

it's scary to step into faith
that this is your true home
it's scary to step into face that boot longing
for his children to come home

so use your feelings some fear

talk about training

what part of part of what the stories about is that
when we when we're being supported
by all things and supporting all things
and we don't necessarily know or understand that
so in order to understand that are to realize that we have to train
so the first part of the path that i just that this parable describes
it's training it's also training
but his training in the form of us not understanding that were training
and not understand it's it's training by us not understanding what we're being trained in
so we're being supported but we don't understand that were being that we're in a process of on of of understanding that were being supported and we're supporting
not understanding that we're supporting but that are actually part of the training is to not understand
and to not understand that we're in training to understand the next phase is we had enough of that we had enough of what
on this wonderful situation of being supported and supporting
and we we will go away from it
we walk away or run away from home
but that is also part of the training however it's a training in the form of having nobody training us
nobody's training us we're not we didn't hide a sign up for any training
i'm i'm a teenager
i'm wandering around looking for
employment of my life energy i'm not in training i have no agreements with anyone
i'm not trying to understand what my home is i'm leaving my home i don't want my home
and also if anybody asks me maybe i would tell him that i do understand what my home is are there i don't
and what i do understand my home is is my home is a place i don't want to be that's how i understand my home or i do understand my home as a place where everybody everybody was supportive of me but i don't want to be there or i'd do understand my home and people didn't did not support me and i don't want
be there anyway i'm leaving home and i'm on my own
and the longer we wander about in that form of training where we have nobody
who's agreeing on the training with us the more we forget our home but it's part of the training so this picture is a whole thing's a training then at a certain point we get so poor
that when someone offers as a training opportunity we say yes thank you and also would you give me an advance
so finally we get back to actually coming home now by chance we find our way home but we first come home we're not ready to actually like jumped back into
everything supporting me
when not ready for that
that's like
we pass out or i'm supporting everyone here's this a rich person and i'm supporting him and he's supporting me know i shouldn't be around here but this is another step in the training is that we
we give a message to the buddha's that we're not ready for the buddha's to give us everything so the buddhist say well how about a job shoveling for hubbard hubbard a one day sitting at new abode
who is it okay can i have an advance
so did you get your advance
and then you didn't and you do it can you do it and gradually
the place which was too much like would you like to come into the house into the house where everything support you
and learn how that goes with you lead to come into the house where you can see how you support everything are you ready to come into the house and you say yeah
that's training to
and what you need we like to come in the house
of receiving these precepts
of how you respect everybody
and how everybody respects you you want to come and receive those precepts
i'm not ready for the precepts of i respect everybody know
and i and also not everybody respects me so i'm not ready for that precept okay well let's just if this other were first were some people respect you and some people don't and will you respect some things in some things you don't like you respect the food you get but you don't respect the dung
and you support the food and clothing but you don't support that whatever anyway he worked with that long enough and finally you're ready to go into the real treasure house where everything is supporting you and your supporting everybody everything
and then when you practice that way for a while you realize that the everything you went through up to their point was actually the same practice you're doing now
everybody's everybody's doing the same practice and everybody's enjoying the same enlightenment that our basic situation according to the lotus sutra
but it also tells the story that we do not understand that and have no confidence in that at the beginning of the story and in order to have finally full faith and full confidence we have to wander away from reality and experience the consequences of it
and then we will start the training in another way
but that's the wandering away and getting poorer and poorer is part of the training
the child is not going to sign up
for full appreciation of her parents until she's been away from her parents and experiencing the consequences that that were a while and the child is not going to accept
how she supports her parents until she's been away from supporting feeling like i'm not supported him they're not around i'm not taking care of him
so that's part of the training
but
that part of the training we have already done pretty on i think enough to wind up now this is more nowhere at least for stuck back shoveling down here
and getting and getting ready to take care of the temple so we're both shoveling dong here and taking care of the temple
we're both shoveling done here and supporting the other people here and we're also seeing how they're supporting us this is the wealth
of our family
and we keep doing this we will eventually understand that we are actually in this basic situation of being in a actually the buddha's successor
and we and this whole thing we've gone through is the normal process of making a buddha
so the material that i was referring to is mostly stories about the dung shoveling and the
and learning the what the ways as a house stories does it most those are the ones are usually recorded
but i feel like this some
the store and this parable gives a structured
that makes the makes the stories
coherent
and also the stories are coherent because of a background
an inconceivable incoherent background
yes

yes it's wondering what was the a precipitated the sense of urgency at all destroyed sir
because yesterday i had the insight that's another story yesterday i had this insight of this
structure of the path and i saw
i thought before but i saw how that that gives a coherence to an incoherent but to it an ocean of my teachings
which is incoherent
there's so much material that that there's been accumulated to make this this book that are a just like all it it just like incoherent
and like i
hard to see how you can do anything with it
but this when i saw this as a or here's a way that we can make a coherent picture of this ocean is incoherent ocean which is included in the story
and which includes the story
and that was yesterday and this is today
if i if i was scheduled to give a talk last night i would have done it last night
if i was scheduled to give a talk not today but next week than i would have been the urgency would have lasted a whole week
and we've been waiting but just turns out the today's the day so this this
coherent picture of the path
a empted another coherent picture of the path
but the other the other ah
the other the other the other the other picture of the path was again more a picture of the fundamental situation
the the fundamental situation is our is our practice
is our enlightenment and that's what i was planning to talk about is the actual
dynamic function of our practice enlightenment
but this this this structure district this structure appeared as a context in which to understand this fundamental

what would you give me a budget document up there called the i think the lancet of zazen or the point of zazen yum
just a second john
yes digit hundred we want wanna say something guess
it strikes me as an interesting twist on traditional architectural heroes
zero returns with the bones of their wanderings in their problems in a sense of competence
in this case the wandering results in increasing poverty and impoverishment says
sort of hitting rock bottom come combat
how to build back up with the shovel
interesting twist heard about the purpose of the wall
you should find
well here's another hero's journey
it's the here journey of you know in the story of of a more and psyche
so psyche is kind of a hero or she is it it's a female right snorts a heroin and she in she isn't this basic situation this is a a greek
hero's journey
of psyche
she's this basic situation where she she's supporting her lover
and her lover supporting her for having a very nice time
and she but she doesn't trust it
so he wanders away from that too
you know she doesn't trust it such so she brings a light she wants to bring a light to her her lover to see who he really is but that's that's going away from her relationship with him he told her do not do that
so you know the story of a more and psyche know
so psyche is or what psyche the human mind
a more his love or cupid
anyway they've got together that's the basic situation you can't find it
zazen shoe
that's the basic situation love in the mind are living together
you can't find it
hi i found it there just a couple days ago
so this is a hero's journey john's referring to their together and he says and there in the dark there in the dark she does not understand this love
he doesn't understand it she's enjoying it but you don't understand it
and not understanding it she thinks he wants to put some light on it but he tells her don't do that so she puts light on it and then she loses it now she's sort of knows it but he loses it and then she's like be raft of her home her really nice home and
so then she goes on a journey where she has to do certain work her own her kind of dung shoveling to get back together and everyone will see she tries to do she tries to do on her own and she collapses so this story however does not require the hero in this store
he's not trying to do it on his own
here he didn't try to do in our zone and he collapsed and that pretty collapsed so yeah that's a similarity he tried to do and as on in basically collapsed and then he was given help she tried to do it on her own and she collapsed and got help so she did these labors and he did these labors
after collapsing
then then she succeeded in labour's to do i'm on our own we will not succeed
we need but we need to try to do it on your own that's part of leaving home where at home we're not doing things by ourself were doing things together at i at home our basic situation is were doing this together this is our happiness this is but we don't know it
so we have to go away and do it on our own strike out as we say on our own
and we will cut we will that will be we will fail at that and at some point we will receive help
and the help will be hard work but we want and if we try to do it on her own were striking out again from her home
if we get to see forget a prion and people do that as part of zen practices you come you're given some work and if you try to do it on your own you haven't even you're going away from home again see this part of the practices to come and receive the work and learn that you're not doing it alone which takes you back to realize you never were alone
but now you gradually have confidence in that sounds like to and the story of psyche and a little
brothers a parable game on to
that plays into not just do
the wandering sets the game
yeah there's there's there's a gaining mind and a in our basic situation
we are supported to have a gaining mind
children are supported to have a gaining mind and the getting mind it could be one of the kitchen kit conditions which hinders us from understanding that we already have everything and we already give everything
everything we have is given to us and we give everything we have that are basic situation
and we wrote and we turn away from that into like i'm gonna get something
i'm gonna get something i had enough of this situation
his part of our evolution
we understand maybe a tiny bit that we are giving ourselves which we have received that we receive ourselves which we get a voucher basic situation we want to understand it more or use a little bit so in order to understand it we have to go away from it and get something
and we take keep trying to get something on our own and we get more and more poor and needy and finally collapse and then we go to a place that says we have a practice which you can do
and then in parentheses and you'll probably think you're doing it by yourself cause effort you've been thinking for a long time but you do this practice and you'll find out as you do it that you're really doing it together with everybody so when you first start doing you're thinking you doing it by yourself but actually in the story lotus sutra he didn't get that job by yourself
he got a job because his father gave it to him
he didn't know his his father they gave it to
and all that can i that but his father who gives them everything or his mother who gives him everything had to kind of like downplay how generous they really are i wanna give you everything but you don't want everything so i'm gonna give you a little job of shoveling dung
maybe you can accept a and then when you first take the job you may think you're doing this shoveling on your own power but the more you do it the more you realize that you're doing it because we're all supporting you to do it

so the good that the disease of gaining mind is part of what will facilitate his understanding our original situation somehow we have to go away
to understand it
in spite of the ironic nature of human existence
and we're on this path
can we are and we're in a way where in the fundamental situation all the way through
but most of us have also can remember some time when we've wandered away from that
and now some of his concert realize we've wandered away from that have enough so we can train
at
being compassionate with the wandering away which is how we will return
we must wander away according to the story but we can practice compassion towards the wandering
and that's our job which at first is really messy and then it gets more subtle
after we develop confidence
and dealing with the messiness together
and then we can deal with the majesty
together we cannot deal with the majesty on our own to second our region situation we could not deal with service supporting our universe on our own the whole universe supports us to support it
but how can we will get understand that while they can't
and so then i have to actually go against it in order to finally understand
and they have to go against it
until they realize that they should that they had to give up they don't exactly know what they're going against because it you know they're going against their fundamental situation they understand it but they do know that what they're doing is not working and something else maybe would be good
but industry also you can't show them the fundamental situation flat out right away
he had to give him something
that they will originally even though they've had enough of this mistake and path they are going to use their mistaken ways at the beginning of the path the new step they're gonna probably approach it
dualistic way and self centered lee and gaining ungainly at the beginning but the aren't they have given up to some extent their their attempt to make this work but they still have the habits
then there's a sense of surrender his confidence is building toward zealand
yeah
so he ran away from home and then when it got back home he ran away from home right
and but when he came back the second time he could see what a fabulous home he had
when he first ran away didn't realize wow what a home i am he just
he didn't know he had to get away because he knew it because he cause his deep wisdom now is that he has to go away in order to understand but then when he came home after getting the consequences of leaving home than you realize how good your home was
what something a pass in my mind was
and i've heard this from other people do but anyway
once upon a time
i was the father of a daughter
and i still am
for once upon time is now but a while ago when it was also the case my daughter became pregnant and she had a baby a baby boy
and after she had the baby boy he called her parents and said
now i realize how much you loved me
and i didn't know it until i was a mother
children love their parents as much as their parents love the children but the children don't know it and the parents say to their children i love you and the children say
yeah right i love you to mommy
but they don't want the mothers talking about really
and then they become a mother and they got all my god
now i know what she was what she meant and they call their parents may they say
wow
i didn't realize how much you loved me
but they have to go away from their parents and get together with somebody to become apparent and then
they realize their home and and it's it's a it's it's definitely becoming a parent is dung shoveling at least
it's it's labor is a labor of love
which makes you understand where you came from which you couldn't see when you're a little kid
and you couldn't see when you're a teenager say had to go away on your own do your thing my thing and have your own room to before he left first of all you need your own room in in whose house
three you're living in your parents' house and you're being supported by the whole universe and easy i want my own room and you put a sign on stay out
and then you've been in finally break out of the room and your parents are sorry to say you go and i keep waiting for you to come back to be their inherent their love and transmitted
but they know you have to go
and find out that you don't know what how to practice

so i thought this parable would make an ocean of teachings about this training coherent
otherwise you might think that the training just starts when you start shoveling done but it doesn't start just then he start suddenly dung because when you come home again which is part of your training thing training thing go away and come back part of the training is when you first come back here
not ready for dharma transmission you're not ready to become a guru the moment you come back to me the the border
so you don't have so they don't make you a guru at the beginning they make you you know a beginning student
and then if you think it can be a beginning student by yourself they say
lumineux in more or less skillfully way giveaways you cannot do this beginning student thing by yourself that's incorrect understanding a beginning student beginning student means beginning to understand that you're not living alone
that everybody supporting you to be a student and you're being a student supports the entire universe you're beginning to understand that
but we're not going actually show you how that is that you will run away from
so i am effect
yeah so we don't use so usually the story is not the lotus you just do i usually when a student comes to the teachers teachers not say
usually a teaches i say i've been waiting for you
for one hundred years
you are actually my flesh and blood
they don't use you do that there's a few stories where they do and say well those people are get there were a special pre pre training to be able to tolerate that information

yes
his return
is the return the working of the vow is the return to working of the vow
the return is the working of the vow yes
but what this story is saying is that the leaving home the going away from your home is the working of the vow
the vow is to realize the truth that you are living together with all the buddhas the vow isn't just the reality that you live in buddhist house day and night does not allow the bow is what makes you leave
home
so you can understand it so the vow of rises in the fundamental situation and the vow send you on this pilgrimage to go away from home so you can come back that's the vow and then when you first go away your your vows driving you away from reality
he so you can realize it not so you can not realize it so you can really you already don't realize it
so sentient beings are born together with all buddhas
and in that in that womb
relationship arises but it looks like going away
and then they find out that is now i should look like coming back and then they come back and then when they come back then they actually stumble upon actually sang them all in their conscious mind
so i would say that going away is your unconscious the bow is unconscious and when you come back you you discovered of our consciously and a new practice consciously
in in the dung shoveling you'll probably find the vow consciously
the bow to save all beings will arise either in the in the dumb phone in the dung shoveling phase i would say i don't think that that i don't think the vow to save all beings happens just at the collapse of the earth egocentric trip
i don't think the end of the go there in a boom the vow to save all beings and become buddha in order to do so i think you collapse and then you call out for helping the buddha comes and you don't know you asked and they say
they don't come you know with the regular robes on they come with dirty robes on they say you want a job shoveling done when you say yes
and in that relationship not in this relationship
after the after the time of poverty
now in a relationship either devour the conscious bow arise of thought the thinking arises
and accurate and that that together with the unconscious wow they both carry you forward
yes
how long
i don't know how long i don't know what determines how long
if you've been traveling for ah a forty nine years than what determines forty nine years as you could say forty eight years mixed forty nine years but when you when you run into your home again
i don't know how that all works it says in the sutra by accident i don't think it's by accident i think it's by an incoherent comic causation process i don't know how it happens though
but
and i but but i just had this thought that it is it has happened for all of us we have now all basically come back home and we're dealing with our home in a way that we can stand to deal with it we opening enough to the meant to the majesty of our of our basic home
in the way we can open up to it
like i often say you know
like twenty years ago
for thirty years ago i said to myself
i would not be when i first came to so thirty years ago was like about com
hi cages are almost i kinda zen center forty nine years ago
so after being a zen center for like ten years or fifteen years i thought to myself
i would not be able to stand the place i'm in right now when i first came to make sense
it's after being in the i taught myself after being center for one year if i'd been moved from that position into my position at fifteen years i would not be able to tolerate it
and then i could say now if i would move from my position at fifteen years into this position i'm in now i would not be able to tolerate it
so i'm not forcing you into my position right now i'm not saying okay this is for will come on in
so we are all dealing with our with our situation and hopefully just about the right place but you know a little bit a little bit of a challenge rate but not too much otherwise worse what did you but even if reduce c
kind what's the word run away or veer off that will be part of the practice every part of the path there's no way we're gonna get off
so you may go away today in there i'll never see you for a long time i won't see you for my ten years
or fifteen years or twenty years
you may go away a long time but you will come back
two i could say me or i could say us you will come back to us because us as you and you is us and you will come back to use us and us as you you will come back but you may go away for quite awhile and us will be here when you come back
as an isn't are moving at a at all
yes us

yes you can

excuse me you that when this when the sun was wandering he didn't realize he needed his father

do you mean that this story as it doesn't mention what you just said yeah that's why i told this story is because if i in the story doesn't go into the details the story is a structure for understanding all that that you just said
even it's even as it was i stopped going into the details of the story because i i wanted you to have see the structure but the structure is all the details the infinite details of all this other subs stories of training fit into this basic pattern
so there's lot of things missing
and so which what are the key points i think he got the key points and then you can see if there's any stories that don't get included within this i bet
i think they all fit
cause every story you have every story of your life every story of my life
they're all stories of this of this path of realizing our to on our true nature
respected the story thing

hmm

yes
the way service
emphasizes the loving
family
yeah my mom
one one listed spiritual
go
what what holds you down and he tried to make it come out
it's like you're saying embrace com
not all families are happy
give you
a good start

i'm struggling
your stuff you hear you're talking about you're referring to some families that are not happy families guess so i would say the unhappy families
are the situations where the family members are in the process of having wandered away from their true home
the unhappy families are families where it one well the unhappy families are i guess families were some people are unhappy
the unhappy people are people who have wandered away from their home
where they're happy
but their happiness is not completely fulfilled because they don't understand their happiness
they don't understand their happiness is because of the wealth of support of the entire universe for their life and they don't understand that they are jewel in the crown of the universe that they are supporting the whole universe people who do not understand this
the
happily existing in this place
but at some point they had to go away from it because there's something in their nature that wants to understand their true home and when they go away they feel like they're not in that place so they're starting to learn that going away from this place
it
is suffering
and so when someone does that than they have her unhappy
but sickness what
sickness yeah
sickness sickness sickness is like
ah a situation
there are living being can be and they can understand or not that their sickness is supported by the entire universe and their sickness supports the whole universe they can understand that
or not if they understand it the proposal of the story is
they will be at peace there will be joyful if they don't understand it
the the the longer they don't understand it the more unhappy they will become
but eventually they may find their way back to their home and when they get home they'll get instruction about how to realize that their sickness is supported by the whole universe
and the universe is supported by their sickness understanding that is or is if understanding our true home
and we have examples
a people who train so that when they're sick they actually have realized they understood to have faith and understanding that their sickness is supported by the whole universe and the whole universe supports their sickness is not let you take their sickness away and then they're happy
it's like
they're sick but their understanding is
that they're in this house of majestic resource for enlightenment
the sickness doesn't have to change at all
for them to be full of fearlessness and compassion and wisdom

he just dig deeper
it seems it seems it's part of the path of realizing
your true home where you are going where you are happy
you are happy and you sure home again we are happy natural home we are happy and or to home we have this story is saying we have been in our true home and we were happy there
but we left we wandered away part of the path is that we leave our home
her happy home
because even though we're in a happy home we don't understand necessarily unless we have dreamed
and many living beings are in their happy home they that's that is our life our life is are happy home and but we need to understand it
and the way we understand it starts by leaving it and for example visiting unhappy homes going from one happy home to another
that's the path to understanding our happy home is to visit all the unhappy homes are you know as much as many as we have time for
so if you if you've got a fifty fifty years ago fifty years to visit unhappy homes if seven years whatever at some point you visited are not happy unhappy homes so you start to realize all
i'm on the path home and i need to train at returning home
and so you start training at going home to the place where we will be happy when we're sick
but will be at peace when we're old
what heading
where on that path
and it isn't that when you get old and you realize this true home that you become young
it's more like
you realize peace and freedom when you're old and sick
now if you're not old and sick
it's okay
you can really you can realize peace and freedom when you're not old and sick too
but then when you do become old is he can also realize it
so the realization of peace and freedom is simultaneous with sickness and bondage
simultaneous with that
not afterwards
yes
this is like a not unclear
inglis beginning yes you have
it's a little messy messy finally came out with the last
i loved the story and i
i
have a little better
this court with apart and that is that it's easy to
here the going home in a conventional concrete way as an family of origin
and that
that may or may not be part of the coming
and coming home is coming home to that place that needs no place in no person it's whatever the current so it may not look like that story that you quoted because it may not be going home to
any place some people it may be going to have that deeper home with whoever went to that moment yes
but whatever way it is it will have some coherent saw some coherence
the will be as very specific
what do you mean by coherence
you you will come home to all places you'll become home to a particular place
it can be any place
he doesn't have to be feeling tone to me it's like it can be a feeling tone but it doesn't have to be feeling tone
it can be iraq it could be a temple and and again in the story it wasn't as he didn't come back to the same city he came back to another city his parents moved and when of course it wasn't his same parents there was a different set of parents his father had become much wealthier while he'd been away it wasn't the same situation
but it was as he was some particular situation and he he didn't have to he couldn't do something besides shoveling elephant dung
but he added something specific so it can be anything but it has to be something coherent
in order to understand the incoherence of our fundamental situation our fundamental situation is
locally coherent and globally incoherent
i would sit the globally coherence and know
the way you're supporting the whole universe is not coherent
and the way the universe support you is not coherent but that's the background of the coherence called you
and you have to be a particular you
and as some point
you're gonna have enough are you have had enough of being you on your own
and you're gonna open up to
how
you're supported by the whole universe and where you are what you're doing when you start to remember that not remember it but
go back to it and work with it in a particular form
some will be it can be anything
and i usually it's not
you know in buddhist stories usually is not going back to your hometown it usually finding a teacher and training with and then going back home and realizing what you couldn't realize before
so the thing i wasn't talking about
starts out it's a it's a poem and it starts out the essential function of all buddhas
the functioning hesse's of all ancestors
that's how it starts that's what i was going to talk to about
but another translate translated is
the pivotal function of all buddhas
the functioning pivot of all ancestors
this is addressing the fundamental situation
where we are pivoting
our fundamental situations with pivot between you support the whole universe and the whole universe support you
that's the pivot
you include the whole universe
and whole universe includes you
that pivot all buddhas that's our fundamental home
the story gives a context for that home which is the beginning and end of the story
and the middle we have between was that the between the two
pivotal functions and functioning pivot between those those beginning and end we train at realizing that and the training is our practice

thank you very much
me our intention good the send to every being and blaze way the to marry
way