Enlightenment is living in stillness. And when it interacts with living beings, it sometimes appears as a process in time. It's not really moving, but it is a great activity and the activity can seem to be evolutionary. So we've been looking at these pictures and verses about processes which go on within enlightenment.

[01:05]

And last time we reached the fourth set of verses and fourth picture and The fourth picture is called often Catching the Cow. Catching the Cow. Yeah. So in this picture, does it look like, the picture I gave you, does it look like he's kind of catching the cow? The cow's still kind of like, Prancing around. He's got it by the tail. But somehow the cow is prancing anyway. Maybe he's prancing with the cow.

[02:11]

Or maybe the cow is prancing in place. I don't know anyway. Okay. so anyway last week we talked about at a certain stage in the process of being of practicing stillness you you see some traces of something that you've lost that you've gotten out of touch with and And then you actually see, kind of like you see or you get a perception of this thing which you've gotten kind of out of touch with, which is symbolized by an animal. So a lot of people would say, well, we humans have lost touch, a lot of us have lost touch with our animal nature.

[03:16]

And I would not necessarily say that our animal nature is our Buddha nature or not our Buddha nature. I would say our Buddha nature, if you want to know what I would say, I would say our Buddha nature is our ability to become intimate with our animal nature. we human animals part of our human animal nature is we get out of touch with our animal nature often yeah would I say it represents our animal nature symbolizes yeah symbolizes or it also could say it symbolizes our unconscious unconscious

[04:20]

our wild, undomesticated unconsciousness, which is supporting our conscious life, but most people, most humans are quite out of touch with their unconscious. Even though they're being touched by it all day long, and even though their consciousness touches it, in consciousness a lot of people are like not attending to the unconscious. not attending to, again, something kind of animal-like or wild, something wild and untamed. The unconscious doesn't really get tamed. That's a virtue of it. It's wild. It's alive. So the taming, I don't think, is really like to... in any way crush the vitality of the ox, of the cow, of the unconscious.

[05:25]

It's to tame it And taming it means develop a relationship with it so that it will be up for being intimate with consciousness. And consciousness will dare to be intimate with it. And daring to be intimate with it means daring to be with it without controlling it. So a lot of people, a lot of consciousnesses I know are like, don't want to have anything to do with the wild. dimensions of our life, of the wild part of our animal life. We have a domesticated, conscious part of our animal life, and we have an unconscious part. And a lot of people don't want to have much to do with their unconscious. If they do, they will, but only on the terms of the consciousness being in control of it. Well, that's how we lose touch with it. That's one of the main ways we lose touch with it is by disrespecting it in the form of trying to control it.

[06:35]

And we... It's hard for us not to try to control it because if we're not familiar with it, which we're often not, we can be afraid of it because it's powerful. The root of the word virile is... Bull. But cows are virile too. They're very powerful. Horses are powerful. Our unconscious is powerful. And in this picture, at a certain point in the process, if you practice stillness, which you may, maybe you have done, maybe you practice stillness actually, and so you wound up in this class. And now that you got in this class, you continue to practice stillness. And then now this wild animal nature is kind of like coming to visit you.

[07:38]

It's showing itself to you. Have you seen it lately? Yeah, it's coming. It's here. And now that, but you're just about ready to touch it, you know, in an appropriate way. Not trying to control it, not being mean to it, but as a gesture of intimacy, because it always was close. But we need to reiterate that closeness by practicing intimacy with this big animal wildness. which is present all the time, and it supports our sort of not-so-wild consciousness. And our not-so-wild consciousness is always touching it and modifying it, but it's not always realizing intimacy with it. So last week we brought up that now we're touching, maybe we're just about touching this thing now.

[08:45]

And then the issue of the whip comes up, and I think Cynthia might have said that the whip is stillness. Did you say that? He said the whip is generosity. Okay. The whip is generosity. That's right. The whip is ethics. The whip is patience. The whip is enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. The whip is stillness too, though. We touch this thing with stillness. And because we touched it with stillness, it showed itself to us. Because we touched it with stillness, we got to hear songs about it. And we listened to the songs about it. And then we heard songs about we're going to see it and then touch it.

[09:47]

And now we're in the fifth stage. We're going to get really intimate with it. The fifth stage called the training or the taming of the ox or the cow. But again, taming means we're going to get really close. We are going to dare to be close to it without manipulating. And And I would say that this is an ongoing process. It's not like, yeah, it's an ongoing process. And in the picture of the fifth picture, which is called, the one you have is called Herding the Ox, often called Taming the Ox.

[10:51]

In this picture, this picture looks kind of like a success story. It already looks like pretty intimate already in this picture. But the verse is more conveying the struggles going on. And it's not the struggle of trying to control the ox because that is not really a struggle. We're good at trying to control the ox. And because we're so good at it, we're alienated or we've exiled ourselves from the ox. This is the difficulty of being close to this animal without, with great respect, with great generosity.

[11:53]

Really letting it be, but letting yourself be too, letting the ox herd be too. And letting yourself be and letting it be up close. And also let it have the distance it wants from you. Let it be unknown to you to the extent it wishes to be unknown. Don't try to see more than it's showing you. That's generosity and that's also stillness. But this is a struggle because intellectually we sometimes want things to go a certain rate or we want intimacy to look a certain way. So the thing that's alienating us, that's separated us in the first place, is still going on. We still have some idea about how things should go. And it's not that we should have no ideas because those ideas are supported by the ox.

[13:08]

The ox is giving us those ideas. We should practice stillness with our ideas of how this process should go. And again, these ideas of how it should go are going to probably keep coming up And ideas about how other processes should go too, like ideas of how non-enlightenment processes should go, like how political campaigns should go. Ideas about that are also appearing and they are also sponsored by this ox. The process of enlightenment is not these ideas. The process of enlightenment is to train with these ideas with stillness.

[14:10]

So here's a verse. Oh, you know, here's the commentary. Once caught... you know, once in contact. No, I don't want to do that one. When thought, when a thought moves, another follows and then another. Waves of thoughts. an endless train of thoughts is thus awakened. Through enlightenment, all these thoughts turn into truth. through enlightenment, which is living in stillness, all these waves of thought turn into truth.

[15:31]

So first of all we have this situation, kind of difficult situation, thought after thought, endless trains of waves of thought coming upon us, coming up in us. But then there's this kind of happy news that with enlightenment which living in stillness or with stillness which brings enlightenment to these thoughts, all these thoughts will turn into truth. But falsehood asserts itself when confusion prevails. That make sense? Confusion like getting distracted from being still with the thoughts. Should I actually be still with this one too? Oh, I don't know. Well, then when you get distracted from being with the thoughts in the proper way, the thoughts become false.

[16:33]

Not because they really are false, but because you're not relating to them properly. events oppose, oppress us, not because of an objective world, not because they're objectively oppressive. Does that make sense? Thoughts do oppress us, but they oppress us not because they are of the nature of being oppressive. They oppress us because of the way we relate to them. In other words, our subjectivity, our consciousness. The way we relate to them is how they become, whereby they become oppressive. And the way we relate to them, although it's not objective, there's an objective background to the way we relate to them.

[17:42]

But still, it's the way we relate to them that makes them oppressive. And then the last line of the commentary is, don't let the nose string loose. Hold it tight, allowing no wavering. What's the nose string? Hmm? Hmm? What? Yeah, stillness. Don't let the stillness loose. And again, when things start churning around in these waves, sometimes you let go of the stillness string, and then you start coming at the waves not with stillness, because you let go of the stillness. You got confused, and now the waves are like false, false, false, false. But they're not really that way. It's just you let go of the string.

[18:45]

So now this stuff's bumping everything all over the place. Don't let go of the string. Don't allow any wavering. You could say of what? Of your faith in stillness. You know. If the waves aren't too big and you're not letting go of the stillness string, great. If things get rougher and you don't let go, I wouldn't say exactly greater, but also great. If you don't get distracted as the waves get bigger, great. The funny thing that happens is sometimes when they get bigger, people think, well, now I really should let go. I mean, it was okay holding on when the waves were little, but now I actually have to let go and grab something besides stillness.

[19:48]

It's not going to work anymore. It's not exactly more important to not forget it then. It's just that it's equally important, but it's harder to sometimes remember when the waves get really big. So that's why we're training for the big waves, right? so that when they do come we won't say, well actually, I'm too old to do this anymore. This is for young people. Young people have a hard time too. But they don't say, I'm too old for this. They say, I'm too young for this. Or I'm too middle-aged for this. Or I'm too masculine for this. I'm too feminine for this. Anyway, people can think of a lot of excuses sponsored by the wild one.

[20:55]

To not be intimate with this stuff, right? And it says, don't do that. Don't get distracted. Don't lose your faith in practicing with the whole process. But now you got the... It's right here now. Now you really... So we're trying to develop, to bring the stillness into our gut. So we have the stomach for it. The stomach for continuing to practice even when things get really rough. And so when you're on a boat, on a ship that's out in the middle of the ocean, you develop what's called sea legs. Sea legs are actually legs that have learned how to move with the deck, right? So that your gut doesn't get moved all over the place.

[22:05]

So you keep your gut stable because your legs know how to let it find its balanced place. So then you can, they absorb the shock and then you can actually have the stomach for the ocean. So we're trying to develop the hara, or the stomach, for this stuff at this point. And again, it seems like, well, you're going to get this stage down. We're going to have something really nice happening. Elena's not here, so we won't go to stage number six, Elena. Stage number six is after you have your sea legs and everything's really cool. And you can sit back and enjoy the view from the back of the wild one. Yeah? So I have an actual great question. I've noticed that it maintains stillness during hard situations.

[23:09]

It maintains stillness in the world. You're staying really calm and being in a place of not needing to have expression of it. You don't get the help you really need. You don't get the help from what? Yeah. I think the, what do you call it? If you remind me, I'll go into more detail. But right now, I'd just like to say, stillness, I recommend you don't maintain it. Don't maintain it. It doesn't need to be maintained. As we said in the last class, it's been given to you. You need to take care of it, but not maintain it. If you maintain it, then you'll tense up and you'll lose contact with the wild one.

[24:12]

So try to remember the stillness and receive it rather than maintaining it. If you hold on to it, you actually, it's antithetical to it. Yeah. Maybe you look like you don't need anything. Yeah. And one of those times where I saw something funny and now I'm going to tell you what it is. If you practice stillness in a certain way, people might think, well, she doesn't need anything. If you practice stillness in another way, they're going to say, she doesn't need anything, but I need her. They're going to come to you.

[25:16]

It's not like, well, she doesn't do anything, so I'll leave her alone. It's more like, wow, she can help me. So then they're going to come and help you by asking you to help them, which is maybe not what you had in mind. But in fact, that will help you. When people come to help, ask you to help them be still, that will help you be still. When people come to you because they think you're remembering stillness and not holding on to it. Because if you remember it and hold on to it, then some people say, well, she's kind of like stuck up in her stillness. I don't like that. She's rigid. And so she doesn't need my help. Well, you do need their help. We do need the ox. And the ox will come close and offer its help to you when you remember stillness and are not holding on to it. So the ox doesn't feel like, well, I don't want to bother her.

[26:19]

She's sort of like holding on to her stillness. No, she's remembering stillness and her stillness will help her accept me coming to visit. And so I'm going to. And we'll see if she can remember when I come with my big, whatever kind of body I got. Well, I'll just say it now. And maybe I'll say it again. In the Lotus Sutra, chapter 16, it teaches about how the Buddha is actually always standing right next to you or sitting right next to you or sitting... all around you. All the Buddhas are right with you all the time. But if we're not practicing stillness, we don't see it. So it says, those who practice all virtues, which mean those who are like relating to the animal, which is all the way people are, not under our control,

[27:28]

the way they're happy and suffering, not under our control, but we still engage with them, and then we're relaxed and harmonious and upright and honest, then we will see. We'll see reality. We'll see the Buddha right now. But so the stillness we're talking about is you already have it. It's been given to you already in the last class. And the new people it's given to you too. It's been given to you. And you're to take care of it by practicing stillness with it. Stillness is given to you and you take care of it by being generous and remembering it and receiving it because it's been given to you. And receiving it and receiving it is practicing it. And practicing it you transmit it. And you transmit it then people will come and help you help them.

[28:34]

They'll you know If we don't do the practice this way, we will not see the Buddha right in front of us, which is where the Buddha is. It's in our face. It's everybody you meet. But if you don't take care of your subjectivity, then it's going to look like only some people are Buddha, or maybe almost no one. So here's the verse for number five for taming the bull. The boy is not, this translation is the boy is not separate, excuse me, the boy is not to separate himself. The boy is not to separate himself. And the translation, the first translation I found is to separate himself with the whip and the tether. He's not to separate himself from what?

[29:36]

From the bull. with the whip. So you shouldn't use the stillness. You shouldn't use generosity. But most people wouldn't use generosity to separate themselves. But you could. You could say, okay, I'm giving to you. Don't have gift giving separate yourself from the person you're giving to. Right? So you've got the whip. You've got stillness. Don't use this stillness to separate yourself from what you're being still with. So that preposition was the one in the translation, but I would like to try some other prepositions. Don't separate yourself by stillness, which is kind of like maybe what we can do. We can sit still in a way that people feel like, oh, I should leave her alone. She doesn't want to be bothered. She's on a meditation trip. She thinks she's better than us hysterical people.

[30:42]

Whatever. Don't separate yourself by stillness from your great animal nature. Next preposition. Don't separate yourself The boy is not to separate himself from the whip. So also don't separate yourself from the stillness. And that takes training, to remember the stillness and receive it without separating yourself from it. So don't separate yourself from it and don't use it to separate yourself from others. And a common example of what we separate ourselves from with stillness is the people who are not still. Maybe not the children, but

[31:47]

Certain adults, for example, especially like Zen students, are supposed to be still. If they're not still, we might use stillness to separate ourselves from them. But they have lower quality stillness than me. And then I use the stillness to separate myself from the below average stillness people. Not to mention prancing oxes. No. That's the first instruction. The boy is not to separate himself with, by, or from this practice. The tool you're using to develop intimacy don't use that to separate yourself. By the way, was it clear what I was laughing at before?

[32:50]

No. What I thought is funny is that we practice stillness in order to be intimate. Right? And then we get rewarded for that by people coming and bothering us. Which we've been begging them to do and now they're here. Are they bothering me? No, they're bothering you, not me. No, they're not. Of course they're not bothering. Right, especially certain people. who are, you know, really working on intimacy with you. Okay, next line.

[33:55]

Lest the animal should wander away. If we separate ourself from this practice, if we separate ourself from it or by it, then the animal will wander away. And one translation is he wanders away into... another person's field. You want them to wander into your field. Not go somebody else's. So wander into somebody else's. Another translation is wander into the world of defilements. So I think defilements means wander away from, wander into the realm of non-intimacy. Another translation would be wander into worldly realms or wander into the dust. In Chinese they use the term for dust means the world.

[35:00]

Wander into I don't know what. Wander away from you if you don't take care of this practice properly. The next one is Now, when the cow is properly tended to, she will grow pure and docile. Or, when the cow is properly tended to, she will become naturally harmonious or naturally intimate. So when you're still in a relaxed, not holding on to stillness way, if you're generous but not in a separating generous way like I'm helping you, you're not helping me, or whatever, when you're practicing patience, when you're doing these practices properly, then you're tending to the ox properly. Then the ox will tend to you properly.

[36:02]

When you're harmonious with it, it will be harmonious with you. Tamed. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Well, there is a side to it. That wild animal will actually someday be tamed, but not by being suppressed, but by being converted into wisdom. You will accept it into being converted to wisdom. Just accepting it transforms it.

[37:03]

So this wild animal nature, part of our nature, will, through this process, through the process, will be converted into wisdom. The later pictures are going to get into that, right? The later pictures, which like, hey, there's no ox anymore. Oh, there's no Oxford. And, you know, we're going to get into, like, that this whole... But it won't be converted into being like a little whipped-down, skinny little thing. It's going to be converted into like a big open space. It's going to be converted into, you know, winter storms and fields of grain and redwood forests and oceans and... mobs of people dancing it's going to be converted in that way but not squelched or crushed in any way not that kind of taming so there is there will be a kind of conversion going on in later pictures right now it's more like we're getting close we're getting intimate in this picture

[38:18]

And then the last line of the poem is, without a chain, without binding, she will herself follow along with the cowherd. Hmm? The cow will follow with the cow herd without using anything anymore. The thing we're really pulling on is the thing we're being tight to in a way, in a relaxed way. The thing we're not forgetting in a relaxed way is the stillness. We're not trying to control the cow. We're working with the way of relating to the cow. See the difference? We're not trying to control the cow. We're trying to not forget the way of relating to it. And the real connection with the cow is not that we've got it under control.

[39:23]

The real connection with it is generosity and so on. That's the way to connect to it. We're not forgetting that. And when we don't forget that, the cow will remember us, and the cow will want to hang out with us, and the cow will go with us to school someday, even though it's against the rules. I'm trying to apply that to Donald Trump. Yes, right. That's the current example. yeah try to be generous with your own what yeah be still with your well you can also and part of your and you also be generous and still with the perceptions of him

[40:26]

And also, and part of your reactions is to imagine various things might happen in this world. Some people are seeing horrible specters arising in their minds. Okay? Those are tracks. Those are tracks of the ox appearing in your consciousness. And this is where, again, don't allow wavering. Like, okay, at the yoga room, fine, but not now. Enough people are not practicing compassion towards the specters that they're seeing. I think that job's been taken care of. A lot of people are being very reactive to what's appearing in their consciousness. Right?

[41:31]

And some people who are being reactive to that are pressing voting for Trump and some people are voting against Trump and some other people are not even voting for that side of the political system. They're voting for the other side. And some other people are just, you know, it hasn't come to their neighbor, the election has not come to their neighborhood yet. And when it comes, then they will vote too, maybe. But how will they take care of the specters in their minds? And how do we, like I heard the example of somebody, some person, some news person has presented images of this candidate to show how this candidate seems to be encouraging violence. Can you show somebody a picture of somebody doing something?

[42:37]

and show it from stillness? And I would say, yes, you can. Can you show it not from stillness? Of course. Can you forget stillness and say, see what this person's doing? Can you forget respecting this person and show people pictures of this person? Can you explain respecting this person? Respecting this person means... respecting this person as an opportunity for intimacy? Can you respect this person as an opportunity not to try to control this person into not getting any more votes? Can you approach the whole situation and this person and this person, can you approach this voter respecting this voter rather than approach this voter to control her? Can you approach this candidate respecting this candidate rather than trying to control this candidate?

[43:51]

And the answer might be, no, I cannot. But then you might say, and I'm sorry, I can't. I want to. It is possible to show people somebody's behavior which you may feel that they should know, and you want them to know, but when people see that, some of the people, like for example you, see that person, see the picture of that person doing something which looks harmful or dangerous, and you do not respect this person less. The person has showed you the picture and they've shown you that they respect this person. And they're not trying to control this person. What are they trying to do? They're trying to promote your intimacy with this person.

[44:53]

Because if you can be intimate with this person, you will be in a position to make your best contribution. Yes and yes? Yes? Yes? yes someone who you see that way yeah yes well also start with your own fear and anger and then usually it's hard to do it to the other person before you take care of your own so you see a conflict did you say I agree.

[46:10]

Where'd you learn that? Yeah, that's what it means. Pretty much. I thought you already did accept your anger. Didn't you just say you did? If you do that, yeah. Which is hard. That's hard. But let's say you succeeded that. So he got intimate with that part of the bull. Now we're moving on to another section of the bull. And you think you have a conflict? Let's hear about it. I recognize that it's okay for me to be angry, but now if I'm going to be generous to this person... It's not exactly okay. Okay is actually a little bit distancing. Okay? Subtlety. Don't go around telling that it's okay. Get intimate with it. Getting intimate is not really commenting on it.

[47:12]

It's like really accepting it as it is and be still with it. Saying it's okay is a little bit of a jiggle. So now you're still with it and you're doing your job and you're doing the practice of enlightenment now. Now let's see what the problem is now. Let's hear a problem. What? The problem disappears, but another opportunity has arisen, which is another section of the bull is appearing. Now you get to look at this person and see if you can do the same practice that you did on this person to this person, which means to the perception you have of this person. I have this perception of this person that I've got some stuff here to work on. I work on my stuff. Now I can turn and do the same practice with my perception of this person. The reward for practicing generosity and so on with my own stuff is now maybe I can do it with somebody else.

[48:22]

My reward for doing it with somebody else is that now the action of the Buddha will come out. And it could be a shout. But the Buddhist shout is a shout that everybody agrees with. There's no disagreement. Being active and not being correct. Or it's more like you've dealt with your reactivity and now having become intimate with reactivity, now action arises from there. Like we said in the last class, in the samadhi, the samadhi acts as a guide for beings. The samadhi, when you're in the samadhi, the samadhi will do the talking.

[49:27]

And the samadhi sometimes is quiet and the samadhi sometimes says, May I say something?" And the answer might be, yes. And then a great shout might come. But it will be a shout. It won't be your shout. It won't be my shout. It will be the shout of all beings, which is the Buddha shout. It's the shout coming from respect. And when people feel that you respect them, they have a little bit of a tendency to listen to you. Because they think you're intelligent, which you are. And you're not letting your intelligence derail you from skillful action, which is coming from the stillness, not from my figuring it out.

[50:30]

My figuring out is this is a dangerous person. This is a dangerous situation. I'm not as stupid as that person. I'm smarter than that person. I'm not as contemptuous as that person. There seems to be some contemptuousness there. I see contemptuous on a face. I see contempt. Do I think I'm better than that person? If so, I do my homework. I remember stillness. And from stillness, I can talk to somebody who looks like they feel contempt for me or somebody else. And I can talk, not I can, but the talk can come forth. And the question is, do you have faith that that's where it comes from? Or do you think it comes from human intellect? And I don't think it comes from human intellect. I think the stillness uses human intellect to deliver the most skillful comment of the moment.

[51:38]

Yes? Both. Well, you're practicing generosity towards your own thoughts and your own feelings. And what some of your thoughts are, that person has a contemptuous look on her face. That's one of your thoughts. Again, it says thought after thought. The thoughts are coming. Practice with all these thoughts. How do you practice with them? by tending them properly. But when you see Donald Trump, you're seeing your thought of him. That's what you see. You don't see Donald Trump. And the people who... Some other people see quite a different Donald Trump than you see.

[52:42]

But they don't see Donald Trump. They see their idea of Donald Trump. What? What? Oh, oh, oh. And that's how you're generous to Donald Trump, is by being generous to your thought about him. Yeah. It's a what? Byproduct. Okay. Okay. You can really go to work on it. That's true. You can go to work on it and it sometimes is quite a struggle. To be respectful and generous towards my ideas about

[53:47]

me and my ideas about her. That sometimes is hard. However, if I am generous with my ideas about her, I'm also generous with her. But my generosity with her I can't actually see. I can only see my perception of them and I can see my perception of being generous. But my perception of my generosity is not my generosity. However, I'm trying to be generous and I'm trying to be still with my perception of my attempt to be generous. If I'm not generous with my thoughts about people, that doesn't really stop my generosity. It just... I just wander away into another field from where my generosity is. But if I'm generous to my thoughts about the person, and generous to my emotional responses, to my thoughts about the person, to both of those, then I stay in the field and I develop intimacy with the actual person who's beyond my ideas.

[55:06]

Again, this is like... There's what you call it... conceptual specters that we have to deal with or we have the opportunity to deal with. And then there's the specter of the inconceivable, that this is an inconceivable process of benefit that comes from the stillness, that's living in the stillness. So I feel that this is, again, an ongoing process, even though the next picture will look different. So in all these pictures, it's not like bye-bye last picture.

[56:11]

We're still working on the left. We're still engaging with this and now we're engaging with it more intimately, and the next picture, the words and the pictures are not going to look like a struggle anymore. And that may be not difficult for you to understand, but it may be difficult for us to see the next picture next week and not abandon the last picture. And this is one of the great controversies in the bodhisattva path is how do you, and here too, how do you advance and return at the same time? We're returning to what we've abandoned

[57:13]

in order to move forward. The Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas have abandoned delusion. They're free of it, but they don't abandon beings. They're free of the world, but they don't leave the world. So you get the face of the moment. Yes? You get the frown of the moment. Huh? You're going kind of like this. With glasses on. You were thinking real hard? Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about that, and then I was thinking about evolution in the world, and our history, and our scientific evolution.

[58:32]

And I was just thinking about this kind of thing that you're saying. What do I think of? What particular aspect here are you questioning about? I would say there are many types of evolution going on, and they will continue. And the other joke is, there are eight million stories in the Naked City. I'm just telling you one tonight. So there's many stories of evolution. We're talking about the story of evolution in this particular scenario.

[59:33]

But there's other kinds of evolution that are going on too, some of which are part of the wildness which we're trying to be intimate with. But some of those evolutionary processes, we're going to be intimate with them and we're going to be kind to them, but they are actually moving in a direction of destruction and harm. There are such evolutionary processes. The bodhisattva path as pictured here is about becoming intimate with all evolutionary processes. But that's not the same as those evolutionary processes. It's what shows that those evolutionary processes are really the same as the bodhisattva process. but they don't look like it. They look like rejecting it and they look like heading south.

[60:34]

Only by being intimate with them can we verify and save them. Verify that they are on the same path and that even though they seem to be opposite of or rejecting the path. and evolving sadly because of that in certain ways. But this is the bodhisattva path in that form. This is suddenly the one practice teaching has now come into the room. Can you hear her?

[61:56]

Could you say it considerably louder? Could you stand up and say it? Yeah, these pictures are kind of like a little planet For us to play on. Yes and yes? Ron and Tali? Yeah, yeah.

[63:03]

No. It's a relationship that occurs without moving. It's a relationship that lives in stillness. It's not a relationship that somebody's operating. It's like our relationship. Nobody's operating it. We don't have to move to have it. But we can move But our movement isn't the relationship. Every time you nod your head, it affects me. But it's not that nodding your head is controlling me. And it's not that nodding the head is a movement. That's the relationship. The relationship is when you move, I'm related to your movement. That's enlightenment. And that's occurring in stillness.

[64:06]

And if you stop moving, we still have a relationship. And that's occurring in stillness. Stillness is a tool in the sense of enlightenment is a tool in that it's something you can remember. It's something you can practice. It's a way of living. Ron? In searching for the bull, the ox, is inherent in the idea of grasping something? I think that in the first picture, which is called Searching for the Bull, I think. Is that what the first one was called, Searching for the Bull? Okay, so the ordinary situation, I mean, a common situation is people, they think they've lost their nature.

[65:08]

They feel bereft and longing and confusion. And they're in the grips of greed, hate and delusion and gain and loss. They're burning in them. That's the first picture. So they probably think that the way to find their true nature is to go find it someplace else other than here. So when you think that, you're in the first picture. Or thinking like that is the first picture. Mm-hmm. And were you in the first class? The first picture is the last picture as the first picture. In the last picture is the first picture as the last picture. In the last picture you understand that there's no separation between the last picture and the first picture.

[66:14]

And there's no separation between the first picture and realizing our true nature. There's no separation between any of these stages. They're all occurring in the same world of enlightenment. But in the first picture, we just flat out accept this person thinks they've lost something. They think they've lost their true nature. They don't even know what to call it that. They just know that they're craving for something. They're longing for something. They know that they're buffeted about by gain and loss. They know they're afraid. And they do or do not know that they're seeking help. They might not even know that they're seeking help, but they might know that. And they might think the help's someplace other than there, even though I just said the first picture is the last picture, so the help is right there. The Buddha is right there in the first picture in your face.

[67:18]

But you think the Buddha is someplace other than the person I'm looking at. And so I need to go someplace else. See you later, Ron. I'm going to go see Buddha. In the last picture, you're not going someplace else. The guy in the last picture is looking at the guy in the first picture, and he's not saying, darn. And the guy in the first picture, who's now in the last picture, is not saying, darn. They're looking at each other now, but it's the same person. It's just that the It's just that the person realizes somebody's looking at them. And who is that? It's your true nature looking at you. But if you don't think that this is your true nature, then you think, okay, it should be someplace else, and I've got to go get it. And then the trace is when you hear some teaching like, going someplace else to get it is a mistake.

[68:25]

And when you hear that, you think, hmm, that's a trace. you're considering the possibility that the problem may have something to do with your consciousness because you heard a teaching. And I have some questions. The tracks are starting to happen. But again, in each of these pictures, the guy's not jumping out of the picture into the next picture. He's in the picture. In the first picture, he's trying to get out of the first picture. But he's not successful. He's in there. And these pictures are not about how to get out of your picture. Including the first one where that's the main thing you're trying to do. Something's wrong in this picture and I want another one. And then again, the second one is you hear some teachings like, that's the problem. And you think, oh, oh.

[69:28]

And it's not something wrong with you. It's just that that's the problem. And this is the problem of you and all your friends. This is a normal human situation. Now you're starting to see the tracks. And right away you might say, well, let's get down the path. But no, no. Because you've just been told that that's not the thing to do. So you might hesitate for a moment before you head off to the next picture. Because if you're still in the second picture, then the third picture... Pops up. That's where they got the idea of those pop-up books. They got that from Buddhism. The reward for not trying to get out of whatever picture you're in is the next picture. And again, the joke is that when you're in the last picture of Buddhahood, your reward of being the last picture is to pop up the first picture. But now you're saying, yes.

[70:29]

Let's have the people back. Thank you for coming. I've been waiting for you. I've been out in great open space with a few beautiful plum blossoms. And now here you are. Great. Glad to be back. I needed you to finish the picture. So all these pictures are trying to help us not try to get out of these pictures. And when you don't try to get out of the pictures, you move into the next picture without leaving the picture behind because you weren't trying to get out of it. So now we have the situation which is we have the big T situation. And a lot of people are trying to get out of that picture. Or at least get the T out of the picture. I'll stay, just take the tea out. And there's a lot of other things we'd like or tempted to try to get out of the picture.

[71:37]

But this teaching is about be still and you will move forward. And as you move forward, that will involve you recovering what you have abandoned. you move forward into recovery by not running away from where you are. And you will recover something, wonderful things, and then when you finally have recovered it and embraced it and trained with it, then what you've lost can now be transformed into enlightenment. We can't become enlightened unless we retrieve what we've abandoned. And we've abandoned quite a bit. Right? Okay, well, time to stop. Thank you very much. Next week's going to be real happy news.

[72:38]

What? Did you say Hawaii? Hawaii? No, that's not the reason. Tonight's happy news and next week's going to be more happy news. Even if you say why, it's still going to be happy. Except maybe it won't be because you're not under my control. And I'm trying to accept that. And you aren't either.

[73:14]

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