during the first period of sitting this morning I almost said out loud how blessed I felt to be able to sit somewhat upright close with all you on a beautiful Saturday morning in such a quiet place, to sit quiet in a quiet place, to sit still in a quiet place with you, it just seemed like a great blessing for me and for you. In this world of suffering and change, still we have a the blessing of being able to have a seat, to sit in the middle of it, calmly, and to be grateful to have a seat, to sit calmly, closely, with each other.

[01:19]

Can you hear me, Neenan? It doesn't look like you can. I'm sorry, I didn't do it. Nina, maybe it'd be good for you to bring your cushion up here, because I was talking quite a bit there, and then I asked you if you could hear me. Could you hear that? You can't hear me. About the what? How about the breath? People hear all kinds of good stuff. Also, I want to apologize to Lynn. and Gordon who came to the one-day sitting last weekend that we didn't have here.

[02:30]

So I'm very sorry about that and I'm very happy that you came back after that frustration. Thank you for coming back. I apologize to the people who are in the class at the yoga room. I'd like to repeat a little bit what I talked about on Thursday night. Thank you. Repeat part of it anyway. So we just recited this vow to hear the true Dharma.

[03:38]

So it has been proposed, and it seems that it's being proposed again right now, that we live in the midst of the true Dharma. That's where we live. We also live in the midst of what you might call untruths, anti-Dharmas or something. And we vow to hear the true Dharma. However, there is some karmic obstruction to hearing the true dharma, and we want to work with that. So we'll be able to hear the true dharma. And when we hear the true dharma, we'll be able to work to help everybody hear the true dharma much more effectively and more completely.

[04:48]

Another way to say it is that we live in enlightenment. Or we live in the pure mind of Buddha like a lotus in muddy water. Like a cloud in an endless sky, we live in enlightenment. Like a lotus in muddy water. We actually are lotuses, but because of the muddy water we sometimes are so busy drinking muddy water to be lotuses that we sometimes don't notice the clear sky. So I've also said to you a number of times

[05:56]

that enlightenment is the silent bond among all beings. And that's it. I was also moved during the first period not just to be sitting with you, but to be sitting with you, some of you who I haven't sat with for quite a while, to see people coming together after being apart for a while is, well, multiple prodigal sons and daughters, multiple prodigal sisters and brothers coming back. It's so nice to see that you were lost and now you're found. It's very nice.

[07:00]

It's deeply touching. And some of you made a big effort to get here. Probably most of you did. I'm sorry you have to drive cars to get here. I wish you could walk. I wish I could walk. That would be lovely. But Anyway, it's great that you all came here today to ritually enact the silent bond among all beings. And last night I went to the center of spiritual enlightenment and I talked to the people there, the humans and the non-humans, about enlightenment.

[08:05]

I'd like to just mention a little bit about enlightenment because I thought it might be good to do so. So I looked up the English word enlightenment and actually I was I was very happy to find what I found in the English word enlightenment. I also looked up, because it was in the same neighborhood, enlighten and enlightened. So in the dictionary I looked in, the definition of enlightenment was the act. or means of enlightening. Under that same definition was the state of being enlightened.

[09:17]

The act of being enlightened, the act of enlightening is a bond, a silent bond. It's a bond that is enlightening. And the bond is an act. It's an act. A bond, this bond is an act. It's not just a chain. It's not just a link in a chain. It's an act. And it's an act which enlightens or which is enlightening. It is also a means of enlightening. The way we are bonded to each other the way we depend on each other the way we support each other is an act and the way we support each other this act gives light and the light it gives is also called consciousness it's a clear light

[11:15]

The consciousness itself is actually not the enlightenment. In this case, consciousness is the light which comes from our relationship. And our relationship is not just the way I relate to you, it's also the way you relate to me. And the way we relate to each other and support each other That is enlightenment. And that gives light. And that's an action. The way I support you is an action. The way you support me is an action. And the way we do that together gives light. And the light is my consciousness and your consciousness. Also, this way that we support each other is the means of this enlightening and it is the act of the enlightening.

[12:27]

It's the enlightening act. The dictionary doesn't say what the enlightenment is except it speaks of what it makes possible. Enlightenment makes enlightening possible. And also I think very nicely points out that it's an activity. So I was very happy because that definition I think is very much in accord with this more kind of like esoteric definition of enlightenment. That it's the silent bond. And again, part of the silence is that I'm talking about it now, but my words do not reach its actual function. My words about how we support each other do not reach the actual way we're supporting each other.

[13:30]

However, the way we're supporting each other is not without speech. It can talk. It can send a message about itself to us, and we have the potential to hear it. And by hearing the message, also hear instruction about how to get to the realization of where the message is coming from. to get to the realization of this inconceivable, imperceptible realm of where our enlightened activity is happening, where our enlightened activity together is actually what is the way things are. So enlightenment, I guess, is a noun, is that right?

[14:37]

And enlighten, it's a verb, right? Enlighten is a verb. And there was three meanings in the dictionary I looked in, and the first one was archaic, for enlighten. The first one was archaic. And the archaic definition of the verb enlighten is to supply with light. And then there's an obsolete meaning of enlighten, which is to cause to shine or give light. And I just found it interesting that the archaic and the obsolete are, again, are actually like esoteric, very esoteric meanings of what enlightened is.

[15:51]

It's hard for people to understand, in other words. And they become old-fashioned or not used anymore. And I would like us to use the ancient and obsolete meanings because they actually will enlarge our understanding of the process. For example, to cause to shine or give light. Enlightenment causes you to shine. Enlightenment causes you, causes all of you, to give light. All of you are giving light. because of enlightenment. Because you yourself do not give the light. It's because of enlightenment. It's because everybody is contributing to you. It's the way you're being contributed to and the way you contribute, the way you're being supported and the way you support, that's enlightenment.

[16:57]

And that causes you to shine. it causes you to give light. And everybody is involved in this activity of being caused to shine and giving off light. This is an ancient, archaic meaning of this wonderful word, this wonderful English word, which is perfectly in accord with the teaching of Zen about what enlightened activity is like. Buddha's light causes all beings to shine. to give off light, which causes all beings to shine and give off light.

[17:59]

And the slightly different, obsolete meaning is to cause... Oh, I read it wrong. I read the obsolete meaning. The archaic one is to supply with light. So the archaic meaning is to supply with light. The obsolete one is to make the person shine. And then the more modern one, the more modern meaning is to furnish with useful information, to instruct. And people who are not familiar with Buddhadharma, sometimes, like some of my old friends who know I'm into Buddhism, and I know Buddhism has something to do with enlightenment, sometimes we're talking and I tell them something about something and say, That was very enlightening, they sometimes say, and they realize, oh, yeah, that's an interesting way to... They're talking about this third definition, and they realize that when they say that, that they're referring to some other definitions, which they don't usually talk about, but must be referred to since they're talking to me.

[19:11]

They feel the resonance between this receiving useful information about the address of Zen Center. Like somebody said, I'd come to visit you. What's the address? I say the address. I say, that was very enlightening. And the second of the standard meanings is to supply with spiritual insight. Now that's, you know, no problem, right? That's like why Vipassana is so popular. It supplies spiritual insight. But then it says, or light. That's not so popular. Like when I say, Jerry, when we're talking about this light, it talks about how last fall it just kind of says, this kind of has airy-fairy 60s kind of stuff. This is kind of where people talk in head shops. But it's in the dictionary that enlightened means to supply with light, but in the sense of wisdom.

[20:14]

So we feel okay about being supplied with wisdom, but that it's actually light. That's a little bit spiritual light. This is spiritual light. It's not electromagnetic radiation. Okay. And then the wonderful word enlighten. Enlightened. Enlighten and enlightened. Enlightened. Enlightened. What kind of grammar is that? Is it a verb? Is it a verb? Is it an adjective? It's a past participle, correct. It's a past participle. Are past participle sometimes adjectives? Okay, it's a past participle of enlighten.

[21:15]

And as you may know, the word Buddha is the past participle of, I think, of Bodhi. Past participle of Bodhi. It's a past participle of enlighten. or past participle of bud, which means to awake. The definition of this past participle is freed from ignorance and misinformation. And you could elaborate on that like freed from delusion, freed from deception, freed from deceptive, misleading appearances, which is somewhat different than being freed from ignorance. So it's good to have both. And then it's had some scribbles and then a dash and says, often based on a full comprehension of the problems involved.

[22:28]

The problems involved in what? Huh? Ignorance, the problems involved in misinformation, the problems involved in delusion, the problems involved in enlightenment. The difficulties with enlightenment are also, it's good to know about them so that you can stand to be free. It's good to know about the problems. It says often, I thought that was open-minded. In other words, not absolutely necessary to be based on full comprehension. In other words, it's possible that some conditions would lead one to become free of ignorance without fully comprehending the problems involved in ignorance. However, once you're enlightened, you would then go back, I think, and study the problems involved to help other people who are involved in these problems. So whether you do it before or after, it's a normal part of the course.

[23:35]

other things said about enlightenment is that it's the ultimate goal of Taoism and Buddhist Taoist and Buddhist religious life. Oh, so we have this thing we chant often in Soto Zen called the self-fulfilling, it's a section of bendowa, and the section is sometimes called the self-fulfilling samadhi section. And in bendowa, the Buddha starts out by saying, you know,

[24:45]

Buddhas actually live in this realm of enlightenment, this realm of inconceivable mutual assistance. They live in the truth of that, and they're illuminated by that. They live in the illumination of this imperceptible mutual assistance. But there's no trace of consciousness in their illumination. there's no trace of consciousness in the light. There's no trace of consciousness in consciousness. Lots of frowning faces at that point. They're living in it, but their consciousness actually doesn't reach the light.

[25:55]

In other words, I think no conventional conceptual or verbal consciousness reaches it because it's, it's, what do you call it? It is unconstructedness in stillness and silence. And then it says, all living beings live in the same place and are moving around in the same place, but the illumination doesn't reach their consciousness. The Buddha's consciousness does not reach the illumination, but it's illuminated by it. The Buddha's consciousness is the illumination. But Buddhists can also have consciousnesses like we do, like consciousness of each other, consciousness of the day of the week, consciousness of pain and pleasure.

[27:11]

Buddhists can have consciousnesses like that too. But those consciousnesses don't reach this realm. This realm is actually how our consciousnesses are supporting each other. That's the realm. It's the realm of support between phenomena. It's not the phenomena. It's the light of all phenomena, not the phenomena. But of course the light is inseparable from the phenomena. The light, the enlightenment, what is enlightening is not phenomena because phenomena can never be found. And the fact that they can't be found is their light. The fact that you can't be found is your light.

[28:14]

And you can't be found because you are nothing in addition to our support of you. It's not like we support you and then there's something, one more thing called you. You are just our support of you. But that's not the whole story. The rest of the story is you are nothing in addition to your support of us. So like your mother, right? There's no mother in addition to you being a mother to your support of your children. It's not like your support of your children plus a mother. But people think that. That's a misconception, which enlightenment will free you of. But that enlightenment often is based on you dealing with the difficulties of thinking that there's a mother in addition to mothering. There's mother and mothering. No. There's just... And also there's not... A mother is what is possible when you have children and when you have mothering.

[29:20]

Children create the mother. The mother supports the children and creates the children. That's the light. But you can't find that. You can't find it in the child. You can't find it in the mother. You can't find it anywhere. That's the light. It's an ungraspable mutual beneficence. ungraspable. It's a radiance, an ungraspable radiance. And that makes possible becoming free of ignorance. That radiance is subtly illuminating us all day long, and it even can knock on us a little bit.

[30:28]

Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. And we kind of want to let it in, but we're having problems with that. Understanding those problems well and comprehending them fully will often make it more possible to realize this freedom from ignorance by letting the enlightenment, by letting the light, letting it flow, letting it circulate. And again, this realm does not appear within perception. It's not the content of perception. It is the way perception is supported by all beings and the way perception supports all beings. It's not the object of perception. It's all the relationships involved in the phenomena of perception.

[31:40]

When you have a perception, that's the way you're being supported by the universe and the way the universe is supporting you at the moment. And that's light, but the light doesn't appear in the perception. The light is the way the perception is involved in Buddha activity. It's the Buddha activity of the perception. The perception can't get its Buddha activity. But it is Buddha activity. And it's brilliant. And since you're a perception machine, a perception tissue, you are brilliant. We are brilliant. But our perception does not get the light just like our teeth are also brilliantly shining but our teeth cannot get their light because it's unconstructedness and stillness

[32:47]

It is actually a process of mutual construction. It's actually a construction process, your perception is. It's the way you're in this mutual creation process, but there's no construction about it in that realm. There's no mental constructions about it that reach it. Once it occurs, for the moment it's still and its immediate realization of enlightenment. And this immediate realization can make possible being enlightened. In other words, being free of ignorance. Because of this, we can become free of misinformation and ignorance. But its immediate realization, again, means that it doesn't really make any sense.

[33:51]

We're totally in it, but it doesn't make sense. It just gives us light. It just sets us free. But we like things to make sense, but when we make sense of it, and if we grasp, and we can make sense of it, in the sense I might be making sense of it right now, But if I grasp making sense of it, that grasping will hinder the realization of it. So we have to, in the midst of making sense of it, not grasp our making sense of it. And if we can learn to do that and understand the problems in grasping and the problems of letting go of grasping, then the hindrances to this true Dharma will drop away. So this text says all, it actually doesn't say it, it says grass, trees, walls, tiles,

[35:10]

tires, asphalt, television sets, eyeballs, fingernails, old people and children, all things are engaged in Buddha activity. And that is what causes or is the source of us being enlightened But enlightenment, by this way of talking about it, is already the situation. The true dharma is already the situation. It's just a question of how to cultivate an openness to it. And how to cultivate an openness, of course, for most of us, often involves cultivating an awareness of not being open to it. So although you may not see a multitude of opportunities to open to it, and although you may not have today many moments of feeling open to this and feeling it stream through and around you, you probably could quite easily notice some moments of resisting this or being closed to this airy-fairy kind of talk.

[36:40]

light circulation, you know, what mishmash, what mush-mush, mush-mush. May I say this in front of you? So anyway, it's nice to be in no abode because when we're really packed together like this, it's kind of like, yeah, we're kind of close, right? You kind of feel close. It's like, yeah, we are kind of close. And then you can kind of see, is there anybody that you, when we're squished together like this, that you don't want to be close to of these people that are squished near you? There's some people, you know, like, well, they can be in the same room, but I'd rather not have them be right next to me because actually they're not my best friend.

[37:50]

They're not, I should take it back, no best friends, close friends. They're not my close friend. In a way, the realm of enlightenment the realm of the bond between all beings, there's no best friends. Please allow me to say that. There's no best friends. However, there is a feeling in that realm of somebody being your best friend, but it's just a feeling. It's not the true Dharma. And if you hold to the feeling of, this is my best friend, or this is my most favorite friend, if you hold to that discrimination, that will block you from realizing the realm which you're not interested in anyway, called enlightenment.

[38:55]

Because if enlightenment is a place where you're not my favorite friend, I don't want to go there. I want to stay in a place where you're my favorite best friend. This is called, by me today, being a child. You know? Being a child. You're my best friend. You're my best friend and I'm never going to like have you not be my best friend. I'm very close to everybody who talks like that. But those people who say that are not my best friends, they're my close friends. and their children. And a couple days later, as you know, they will say that this person who they said was their best friend forever is now, they don't want to have anything to do with this person. And we don't be mean and remind them, but just the other day you said it was your best friend, you silly kid.

[39:59]

we sympathize with them wanting to be far away from the person they said was their best friend a couple days ago. I love you, but I won't love you this way tomorrow. I love you, I super love you today, but I won't be like this tomorrow. Some people do not want to hear that or say that or think that. But I propose that's the realm of enlightenment. That the way we love each other now will never happen again. The way we're supporting each other now is not repeatable, really. It's wonderful. It's radiant. but it's just for now. And now we're doing it again and it's wonderful but it's not like it was a moment ago because the universe made us into a different type of a lover.

[41:06]

We can't do it like we used to because that person's gone. And a little bit we don't like that. But if you comprehend the problems involved if you fully comprehend the problems involved in not having best friends, but having unlimited close friends, innumerable close friends, if you comprehend the problems involved in the transition from a few best friends or a hierarchy of friends to a infinite network of close friends, if you look at the problems, you realize, hey, the transition is going to actually not... it's going to be wonderful. It's not a problem. I mean, it is a problem, but it's a good problem. It's a problem of unhindered fearlessness. Unhindered fearlessness. Somebody told me about somebody who loves him, and he said something like, he's speaking of someone who loved him,

[42:20]

He said, he cleaned up my vomit. And I thought, I clean up your vomit. If you vomit, I'll clean it up. If you vomit on my okesa, I'll clean it up. If you vomit on the floor, I'll clean it up. Or anyway, unless you beat me to it. I'm happy to be able to clean up people's vomit. I like to be able to clean up people's vomit. I like to be not afraid to clean up people's vomit. I feel good that being that way. I don't feel good being afraid to clean up people's vomit or being afraid that people will vomit on me. I don't like feeling that way. I want to get over that. When my daughter was first born, After just a few minutes, she had a meal. And a few minutes later, she had a projectile vomiting of that meal.

[43:26]

This beautiful rainbow trajectory just went, shoo. Like it was, you know, like about, I would say about three feet long and had an arc of about a foot and a half. And it went right into my face. And I thought, wow. That smells good. I was really surprised how lovely it was. As she grew older and her vomiting became less fragrant, she usually, you know, didn't do it in an arc anymore, more shot down to the toilet so I couldn't get my face in there. So I don't know if I would have some of the other bruises that might have come out. I don't know if I would have thought they were so lovely. But anyway, I don't want to be afraid of people and what people offer to me.

[44:29]

And when you know somebody is your close friend, you're not afraid of this stuff anymore. And if you are afraid of this stuff, dash, you don't think they're your close friend, then that's where you can work. That's where you work. Oh, I don't think you're my close friend. I confess that. I confess it. And I don't feel good about that. And I want to get over that. And it's a problem getting over it. But that's... I'm up for it because I want to realize close friendhood enlightenment. And there are moments when I think probably all of you have had moments like this where you're actually up for who you're meeting and you're up for whatever they are.

[45:32]

And you feel like, wow, this is good. This is good. And they're up for whatever you are. And this is good. This is generosity. This is enlightenment. This is like we are mutually supporting each other. How wonderful. Welcome, Ellen. Welcome, Ellen. Well, oh yes, Lynn. You were saying that enlightenment is inconceivable. Enlightenment is inconceivable? Right. You began speaking about friends. Friends. You began speaking about that. Yes. Speaking about the inconceivable to the conceivable. Is that how? No, no. I didn't switch.

[46:34]

Enlightenment is how everybody is your close friend and how you're everybody's close friend. And the way you're everybody's close friend and the way everybody's your close friend is inconceivable. In other words, you can conceive of it, but that's not it. And so, for example, an example of inconceivable enlightenment is when I tell you everybody's your close friend and you just can't quite get that with your conceptual mind. You might say, okay, fine. I have that idea, and I go, okay, fine. But how you're my close friend, how you're not my best friend but my close friend, and not my worst friend but my close friend, and not my medium friend but my close friend, how you're my close friend transcending any ideas I have about it, or you have ideas, that is enlightenment. And that's what sets us free from ignorance. So you spoke about being thumbed

[47:38]

meeting you and you offer each other, is that the same as what you just said? What you just said? It sounds like different language, but it sounds like to me in harmony with that. And when you said I switched, actually when I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you in the conceivable realm. I'm interacting with you conceptually here. So I'm talking conceptually about enlightenment and Then I talk conceptually about everybody being your close friends, and conceptually I'm talking about the same thing. And in both cases, what I'm talking about is beyond the way I'm talking about it. The way I'm talking about it doesn't reach it. When you get there, you won't hear me anymore. You get a break. That's why it's nice to start the day out quietly, because that's what it's like in enlightenment. It's quiet. So this meeting that you're speaking about, this meeting that you're speaking about, that is, even though we have our senses and we perceive we have a person, we may be speaking to the other person.

[48:49]

Slow down, slow down. Start over. This meeting you spoke of, which is inconceivable, where you're up for each other, these different ways you spoke about it. Even though there were bodies, there were minds. Excuse me, stop. Could you stop there? She said, even though there's bodies. It's not exactly even though there's bodies. The bodies meeting, it's not even though. That's what it's about. It's about our bodies meeting. When our bodies meet, in that meeting, we're born. And that's the light. It's the meeting of the bodies. How about the meeting of the pebbles? And the meeting of the pebbles, yes. So it's not exactly even though we have bodies, it's because we have bodies that we have consciousness.

[49:54]

And then the difficult issue of speaking about where something else happens The difficulties are the problems. There's problems involved here, and that's the problems is that when our bodies interact and this radiant thing called consciousness arises through this interaction, it comes with thought construction, with stories and ideas and discriminations about this relationship we have with the world. And if we don't understand, which we often don't, then there's problems involving in our not understanding the relationship which has given rise to this thinking. So, for example, we have the discrimination that we're separate from things which we depend on.

[51:07]

Like some people feel separate from their mother. So then that's ignorance, to feel separate from somebody that you don't exist separately from. And then there's problems involved in that ignorance. Understanding the problems and understanding the ignorance, generally speaking, will contribute to being free of that. But ignorance kind of basically comes with being born as a human at this time in the evolution of the universe. Being a human on this planet, you're sort of born with some level of ignorance. And then from the ignorance, you take in lots of misinformation. And there's problems involved in that. But if you thoroughly understand and comprehend these problems, that is, again, Buddha. Would you suggest as a practice in a meeting to be aware of the difference between meeting the other person or the meeting between the two as being close but not liking or not liking what's coming up, but just being close?

[52:24]

Are you asking me if I would recommend when you meet someone to cultivate a mindfulness of your closeness to them? I think that would be good, yeah. You can do the first part alone. You can just be mindful of, this is my close friend. This [...] is my close friend. I am this person's close friend. I am this person's close friend. You can meditate on that. I think that's a good meditation. But don't do that in a kind of repressive way, like when the thought comes, was that true? I don't think so. I don't want to be. Don't push that away. But it might be that you actually can do that without much hindrance for a while. he's my close friend, he's my close friend, she's my close friend, he's my close friend, she's my close friend, you might be able to do that actually the rest of the day with no wisecracks.

[53:30]

That's possible. But if you want to, you could also do the practice of, she's my close friend, but I don't believe it. She's my close friend, but I'd rather not have it be that way because I really don't believe it. I'm just saying this as an exercise, but actually, yuck-o. You might also be aware of that. Or another possibility, you could do both of those, or you could do another one called just go around and notice who you don't feel is your close friend. She's not my close friend. He's not my close friend. She's not my close friend. She's not my close friend. Do that one. However, I actually wouldn't recommend that. It would make you real sick. But more like... Actually, check out to see if there's anybody you don't feel is your close friend. Just be aware of that. Anybody here I don't feel close to? Anybody who, if they were sick, not that you're actually going around wishing everybody would vomit on you, but anybody who, if they were like oozing vomit or something like that and needed my help to clean up, is there anybody I wouldn't like say, hey, I'll do that?

[54:39]

Anybody like that? Okay, there it is. I found it. This is my ignorance of being close to somebody. There it is. Okay? Got it. Okay, now move on to the next moment. So these are all good meditations, and it reminds me of the story of the Buddha. I asked people to do some research for me, to find examples of Buddha touching people because, you know, nowadays in California, you know, like last night I gave a talk and there was some hugging going on afterwards. Which is okay. I feel okay about these public hugging sessions, you know. Fine with me. Okay? Stephen? Anytime. So it's fine, but I thought, I don't know, there's no stories I know of where Buddhists, you know, after the talk, he hugged all the monks, or even some of the monks. But I thought, maybe I just don't know the scriptures very well, so I had people do some research, and they found a couple examples of where he touched.

[55:51]

I mean, before that, I knew examples of where the Buddha would, like, take water in and then aspirate it. Is aspirate the right word? Yeah. aspirate the water onto people as medicine. What's the word? Spray. He would spray the people. He would spray the people. He would take the water and spray them as a healing gesture. And in the stories, it worked. He healed them by bringing this water into himself and spraying the person. I knew about that, but I didn't know of examples of where he might be touching people. So I found examples of him touching a sick elephant. But another example was he was walking along the road and he found this monk, one of his own students, lying in his own excrement. He covered with sores, like oozing stuff through sores, and also unable to move.

[56:53]

So he was just sitting there, you know, going through his life processes and lying in the results of them. And so then the Buddha picked the guy up. Ananda was with him, his attendant. They picked the guy up. They touched him. They touched him, you know. And maybe they were careful not to touch his sores because that would hurt him too. But anyway, they picked him up. They lifted him up and washed him off and addressed his wounds, cleaned the stuff off him, put him on a bed. I don't remember if they got him new clothes, but anyway, they cleaned him up and took care of him. And then he went and talked to his group and he said, you know, I'm sorry I didn't mention this point, but when you see one of your close friends who is lying on the street, unable to move, you should actually pick him up and take care of him.

[57:55]

Somehow the disciples of Buddha didn't understand that that would be the appropriate thing to do. But you should, you know. They were like... Now, this particular group in that area might have been not his, like, enlightened disciples who had moved on, you know. I don't know what this... He might have been in a sort of a down phase of his teaching, you know, of having lots of, like, new really bad students. I shouldn't say bad, but new really retarded people coming to him. Because, you know, before that, he had already enlightened lots of people, and they were like, they were out of there, you know. But anyways, these monks he was with were not taking care of this fellow monk. He said, you should take care of each other when you're sick and clean each other up and stuff like that. He said, and when you do that, you should understand you are taking care of me. You should take care of the person as though you were taking care of me. And in fact, you are taking care of me when you take care of them. When you take care of anybody,

[58:58]

you're taking care of Buddha, especially when you take care of anybody, rather than when you take care of your best friend or your favorite friend. That's not quite taking care of Buddha the same way. You should take away the best and favorite and just be close friend, close friend. Touch them if they need to be touched. Move their arms and legs. Wipe the wounds and the orifices. Take the drool away. Clean the earwax out. Take the sleepiness out. Brush their hair. Touch them in ways that they need as enlightenment to enact. It's a ritual to enact enlightenment. Bodies. Do it with bodies. But a lot of times the way you do it is by not touching the bodies. You can also express it that way, like don't touch somebody's body because they don't want you to.

[60:03]

And same with minds? Same with minds? What do you mean, same with minds? Instead of living very, very well? Enlightenment is airy-fairy, as she was saying. I didn't say it was. I said somebody said it was. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Somebody said when they hear talking about this light circulating among us and everybody's radiant and everybody's glowing and everybody's illuminating each other and enlightening each other and all this enlightenment bouncing around, some people say, that sounds airy-fairy. Well, okay, fine. Please allow me. Pardon me? Do you want to ask Jerry how she's doing? How does that affect you, Jerry? It wasn't one of my more insightful remarks, but it was honest. Well, also, you know, I think we all, a lot of us are sympathized with this.

[61:09]

That's why those first two meanings have become archaic and obsolete. It's like out of style. It's okay to talk about electromagnetic radiation, but spiritual light is like, in certain churches you can talk about it, but Zen is not supposed to be talking about that stuff. Even though Zen does talk about stuff like that, it just has not been, it's not so popular these days. Dogen wrote a fast called Light. The Avatamsaka Sutra is all about light. Dogen's disciple, Ajo, wrote a book about, a text about meditating on light, jumping into the light. It's just that these are not very popular texts. Because light doesn't, you know, okay? Yeah. This wonderful realm. Yeah. Which I don't say is airy-fairy, but I welcome you to say so. Yeah, wonderful.

[62:14]

Marvelous. Am I speaking about bringing it down to earth? I'm definitely talking about bringing it down to earth. Yes, definitely. Also bring it up into the sky. Bring it everywhere. The whole earth... and the entire sky turn into enlightenment. Sky and earth, earth and sky. In other words, in China, that's it. Heaven and earth. Make heaven and earth, everything in heaven and earth, and everything between heaven and earth, bring this marvelous dharma into realization. And again, part of it is to notice when you don't want to, don't think it's interesting to do so, You just want to have best friends and less best friends and enemies. You want to live in that world, admit it, confess it and repent it, and you'll get over it. And then you'll hear the true Dharma.

[63:17]

And then you will realize it in heaven and earth with no obstruction. That's just to tell you where you're going and where you are already. It's where you are already and what you will realize. In between is lots of comprehension of problems involved in this path. Does that make sense to you now? Would you answer my question, please? Okay, does it make sense? Everything you say makes sense. Okay, great. Thank you. Yes? In this whole conversation about the light, does it matter if we're talking about sentient beings or not? Like, is it more juicy if you think people are your close friends and all, and you're all people's close friends? And if you feel that way about the light switch or the stone? The question has to do with sentient beings in our practice.

[64:20]

Sentient beings? Yeah, what's the difference? What's the difference between what and what? Sentient beings and non-sentient beings. Oh, sentient beings... Sentient beings are the unenlightened, and then the enlightened are the enlightened. That's the difference. Enlightened are those who fully comprehend the problems involved in ignorance. Being enlightened... What? What about non-sentient beings? Yes. In the enlightenment conversation, what's the difference between sentient beings and non-sentient beings? Both sentient beings and non-sentient beings give off this light. That's why we have this story, you know. The monk says, what is the mind of the ancient Buddhas. And the national teacher says, rocks, tiles, and pebbles.

[65:23]

And he says, yes? What? Like electromagnetism of a certain wavelength, which we call light, that's not the light we're talking about. However, that light, the way that light supports us, and we support that light, the way that light is born in relationship to us, and we are born in relationship to that, the mutual imperceptible assistance between light and us, that's the light of enlightenment. That's enlightenment. Is that the relationship you're talking about between rocks, pebbles, and sentient beings? The way rocks relate and pebbles relate to each other. Do they? Yes, they do. The way that they support each other. Is through this resonance that you're talking about? Yes. and the way rocks and pebbles support us. So rocks, tiles, and pebbles expound the Buddhadharma.

[66:28]

They have Buddha activity. All things have Buddha activity. Every atom in the universe has Buddha activity. Every atom in the universe, every cell in your body, every atom in your teeth, all of them have Buddha activity. Everyone, without exception, has Buddha activity. Even though there's no consciousness there? even though they are not conscious beings. But also they have no ignorance, they have no resistance to this process. They're totally unhindered. They're only hindered in their resonance with us. When we're hindered, they are sympathetic to our hindrance and they participate in it and get pushed around by it. So when we're enlightened, we support insentient beings, non-sentient beings, we support them in a different way than we support them when we're enlightened. When our mind changes, our support of the non-living world changes. But we're in an animate, dynamic relationship with non-living beings. And our dynamic, animate, animated living relationship with non-living things is their light and our light.

[67:38]

So everything is fully equally. The only thing that makes a difference in the participation and the separation is thought construction. Otherwise, everything's working intimately. We're close friends with the rocks and the pebbles. But the way they're friends is different than the way we're friends, just like the way a dog's a friend is different than the way a human is a friend. Everything is a friend in a different way. But everyone's friendship is radiant. But everyone's realization of the friendship is not the same. Children do not understand, but they have the potential to understand. And before they understand, they are just as radiant as afterwards.

[68:46]

But the radiance is based on a totally different being, totally different being. But totally different beings are mutually illuminating each other. And mature people have the readiness anyway to cultivate awareness of their hindrance, of their resistance, of their fear of this radiance, which takes the form of being afraid of people, for example, or afraid of inanimate things, too. It takes the form of fear and hindered love and all that. But the hindered love is still radiant. But, of course, they don't see it. Does that make sense? But you can see that you're hindered, even if you can't see that your hindrance is brilliant. But it is possible for you, if you study your hindrance and your resistance and your closeness and your tightness, if you study it, you may see, oh my God, my attention is brilliant.

[69:57]

My selfishness is brilliant. There is no selfless thing, but my belief in it is a wonderful creation in this universe. And part of what's wonderful about it is it makes me afraid and tense and, you know, unjoyful, etc. That's part of its brilliance. Yes, Jerry? It seems it goes even further. It's not just that we're radiant. It seems that the radiance creates us, that the radiance is more primary. It's not that we are radiant, it's that the radiance is, the radiance makes us. No, I disagree. We're not made by radiance, we're made by beings. Beings make us, not the radiance. But the way beings make us is the radiance. We're made by chunky stuff. Highly concentrated forms of radiance called beings.

[71:03]

That's what makes us. And we're like that too. And we make others because we're beings. It isn't our radiance that makes other people. Our radiance is how we make other people. That's our radiance. Enlightenment is not what makes us. Enlightenment is what makes us enlightened in our Being is, to some extent, dark. In some sense, it's like a black hole. It tends to suck stuff into it. But it depends on everything else, and that dependence is the radiance, and that radiance can enlighten the darkness of being. And beings that are enlightened are called enlightened ones. They're free of ignorance. Ignorance of what? Of their light, of how they're made and how they make. They're ignorant of how they receive themselves and give themselves. This is a sentient being.

[72:06]

An enlightened being is one who understands that process and is not caught by it anymore. The being, however, is not the radiance. It's the way the being helps everybody and everybody helps the being, because there's nothing to the being other than how it's being made. So the relational nature of all things is the radiance. Yeah. We say the relational nature of all things, but also remembering that there's nothing in addition to the relationships. Otherwise, you've got a chunk in the middle of the light that you can get a hold of, which we think. And we are made into beings who can imagine there's a core to the light. There's somebody who has the light. It seems that we're each nodal connections, and each of us, there's no dimension to those nodes, but it's the connections that... Well, the dimension is the dimension of the universe. That's the dimension. So lately I've been talking a lot about karma.

[73:25]

So once I'm putting a lot of energy into studying karma, today I'm talking about the way you are and how to realize that. And studying karma is to study that which hinders the realization of how everything's giving off the Buddha Dharma incandescently and incessantly. So that's the way everything's teaching us all the time, but we have karmic obstruction so we can't hear it. Studying karma is what makes it possible for us to start to hear. By confessing and repenting our lack of faith in the teaching that everybody is your close friend and when you take care of anybody you're taking care of Buddha. To notice now, yeah that sounds good but right now I do not want to take care of that person. In other words, right now I do not want to take care of Buddha. If Buddha was sick upstairs, some of you might say, I don't have time to go help the guy.

[74:41]

I got, you know, it's lunchtime. But then you say, no, I think actually I probably would postpone lunch to take care of Buddha. I'd love to take care of Buddha, at least for a little while and then have lunch later. Well, fine. But some people you think, well, I don't know if I ever would like to take care of that person. Okay, fine. There it is. Face that. Study that. What is that there that makes you not want to help somebody? Try to look at that. And if you look at it, you can become free of it. By confessing and repenting this lack of confidence that this person deserves your utmost devotion, you'll become free of that. That's the proposal. And be kind to yourself. until you get to that place. Be kind to yourself until you realize this samadhi. It won't help to not treat yourself as a close friend.

[75:42]

You should treat the one who doesn't feel like somebody's her close friend, you should treat that one as your close friend too. And if you can't do that, then you should admit that. Does that make sense? So, shall we have lunch? Soon? Okay, let's see. It's now about 12.25 approximately. So we could have lunch, and then today I thought maybe we could have a little work period. And so I'll hit the Han, and we can gather on the back deck for a work meeting. And then... I was also going to say that for lunch, would you keep this area in here, these rooms quiet? And also maybe the back deck would be for people who want to eat in silence, and the front deck for those who wish to speak during silence.

[76:49]

I mean, during lunch. Okay? Is that all right?

[76:55]

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