I don't know what to say. I guess the sheriff's office of Marin County and other sheriffs around the Bay Area have been in consultation with the mayors and so on of the cities. So now there's this kind of like an order called something like basically, stay in your house all over the Bay Area. So not only are schools closed, and I think a lot of shops are closed, and all the bars are closed, and the restaurants are closed, but they're also telling people to stay in their house except for necessary. If you run out of food, I guess you can go to the grocery store. Basically, that's what's going on around us. And I don't know how often people at Gringotts need to go out.

[01:11]

I think somebody goes out and buys food, right? Is that...? Who? True. That's true? So people are going out to get food. Aside from that, I don't know if... I thought you said, that's food. Aside from that, I don't know if anybody needs to go out. I had to go out today to mail something. I didn't get near anybody. During this series of classes, some of you have been invited to join because it just seemed like we're kind of pulling this together, so you've been invited to join the class, even though I originally said people couldn't join after it started. But I have introduced to you some of the topics in the class which

[02:17]

basically is the topic of the vows of the bodhisattva. The vows, basically, of doing various kinds of service and of making your practice, for example, your sitting practice, offering your sitting practice as a as an act of paying respects to the Buddha, as an act of homage and appreciation of the Buddhas, offering your sitting as an offering, offering your sitting as praise of the Buddhas. And as I said on Sunday, I went through all the ten vows, each one you can have when you're sitting meditation, can be offered in these ten ways. And part of the reason this struck me is that I think very much these vows are, if you have these vows and then you actually apply them and make your sitting and all your daily life paying homage to the Buddhas, I think there's a good chance that this will create in you

[03:42]

a great enthusiasm. And it's a way to tap into the enthusiastic mind of the bodhisattvas. Now, as we move on, I'm ready to address the topic, the headline topic of this series of classes, which was and is flowers or a flower blooms in the withered tree. Another image that comes to my mind today is spring blooms in the withered or at the end of winter. spring does not bloom usually at the beginning of winter or in the middle of winter.

[04:49]

It blooms at the end of winter. And, of course, we know that flowers sometimes bloom in trees that aren't withered, but the spiritual message is that the spiritual flower blooms sort of at the end of the life of the tree, or it blooms in the withered tree. So what is the withered tree? The withered tree, I could say is, well maybe before I go on to that I would just say, There's a couple things at the end of our two classes ago. Julian asked a question and also Shin brought something up.

[05:50]

She told a story about her own practice. What Julian brought up was Question like, does the Buddha want us to change, he asked. And I think I said, I don't know if what I said, but I might have said, no, I don't think the Buddha wants us to change. I think the Buddha wants us to open to Buddha's wisdom. And witness Buddhist wisdom being demonstrated. And awaken to Buddhist wisdom. And enter Buddhist wisdom. That's what I believe Buddha wants. And I've also heard that this is what Buddha wants. This is not wanting us to change. It's wanting us to wake up.

[06:51]

And when we wake up, we realize that awakening isn't a change. It's our actual life. And someone might say, well, it's a change from unenlightened to enlightened. But the enlightened view is that enlightenment's not a change from unenlightenment. Enlightenment's waking up to what unenlightenment is. So as part of opening to Buddha's wisdom, we have to open to what's going on with us. And right now, there's some things going on that's maybe going on for us or with us, like this world of change, this impermanent world. opening to it and fully settling with it.

[08:00]

And again, my perception of you in this community is that you have been quite accepting of this situation. But I can't read your mind, so maybe inside you're kind of going, I wish things weren't the way they are. I want things to change. But again, even when you have that thought, maybe you're kind of accepting that you have that thought. What do you think? How are you doing? Are you accepting with your life now in this valley surrounded by all this change in the world? All the fear, the ocean of fear that surrounds us, the ocean of precaution that's going on around us. How are you doing with it?

[09:12]

Anybody care to say anything about that? Pardon? Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of things that I wish that were different, but I accept it and I love it. There's good parts about it that are happening, and it was all very lovely. Thanks. It pushed me and the people, those around us, to be in a good type of way. We did a lot of things, I think a lot of things along with that. Even though it's terrible, definitely very disturbing. I'm probably freaked out. I don't know what to say here.

[10:14]

But, you know, you don't know that you can be much better than what you were once. Because we're in the valley, the public view, right? So, it's a little bit. And we're all apart. Thank you. So you don't necessarily like all these changes, but you want to love them. And if you don't love them, you don't necessarily like that you don't love them, but you want to love that you don't love them. Right? Yeah. Very good. So yeah, we may not like this situation, and certainly we don't like these people dying, And we don't like the fear. We don't like impermanence. But we may want to love impermanence. Because impermanence is Buddha nature.

[11:17]

You also don't have to like Buddha nature. But we could love Buddha nature. Thank you for loving Thank you for loving these difficult situations. So again, I think Buddha wants us to enter Buddha's wisdom. And in order to enter Buddha's wisdom, we have to do things. So those things we have to do, Buddha wants us to do those things. In order to open to Buddha's wisdom, we have to open to impermanence. And we've got impermanence, right? Does everybody have some impermanence on you? So we've got impermanence. got that, and now our job is to love it. And love it will create this withered tree.

[12:23]

Coming to the end of, yeah, like somebody said, it's like almost abandoning all hope, somebody said. In a situation where we almost abandon hope, somebody thought that's the withered tree. But I thought a little differently. Yeah, another way to put it is the word hope has the feeling of expectation in it. Abandoning not our wish to love, but abandoning our expectations. Not almost abandoning, but come right up to the point, all the way to the end of our expectations. Don't push our expectations away. Exhaust them. Go to the end of them. And at the end of the expectations, the flower blooms.

[13:32]

at the end of the expectations, we have this withered tree where the flower blooms. Another example that I wanted to bring up was, if I may say, Shin said in the class before last, I think it was, she said, maybe it was last class, she said that when she was paying homage to the Buddhas, she said, thought maybe she wasn't being wholehearted. And I mentioned at that time that even the person who is paying homage to the Buddhas, even the person who's serving the Buddhas, even the person who's serving sentient beings, half-heartedly, not to mention somebody who's serving sentient beings almost not at all.

[14:45]

People who are serving sentient beings in a very stingy way, and the people who are serving living beings in a half-hearted way, no matter how you're serving sentient beings, no matter how we're serving the Buddhas, two percent, ten percent, hundred percent, no matter how we're doing it, we are never the least bit different from the Buddhas. Realizing that we're not the least bit different from Buddhas is the flower. and the confession that you're half-hearted, or 2% hearted, or 8% hearted, the confession of how you are, and the feeling somewhat embarrassed that you're half-hearted, that doesn't make you into a Buddha.

[15:56]

That makes you enter Buddha's wisdom. As you accept that you're half-hearted, over and over that melts away the root of transgression, the root of thinking that you're separate from the Buddhas. The tree that thinks we're separate from Buddhas needs withering. So Buddha wants us to wither the tree that discriminates between self and Buddhas, between delusion and enlightenment. Wither that tree. How do you wither it? By accepting the kind of tree you are, a half-hearted tree, a wholehearted tree. So admitting how we are and accepting it and practicing

[17:02]

generosity, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiasm, making our practice into service so it can be wholehearted. These practices make us more and more wholehearted, but it's not that we get more and more wholehearted and then finally we're okay. It's that we get more and more wholehearted and we realize that we are never separate from okay. We are never separate from enlightenment. I don't usually do this, but I brought a poem about... This is a poem about the withered tree.

[18:38]

Or how to realize the withered tree. It's called The Snowman. Written by an American poet named Wallace Stevens. 1921, I think, he wrote this. one must have the mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers sagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun, and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind

[20:02]

in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place. For the listener who listens in the snow and nothing himself beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. One must have the mind of winter in order to regard the frost. One must have the mind of the withered tree So again, Buddha wants us to be ourselves to the end of ourself.

[21:31]

To be ourselves all the way to the end of ourselves. Not to get rid of ourself, but at the end of being ourselves, completely, at the completion of being ourselves, at the end of the winter of ourselves. Springtime comes. So we're here together and we are and can support each other To be ourselves to the end of ourselves. To give up expecting anything other than ourself.

[22:47]

occurs at the end of being ourself, at the fullness of being ourselves. We give up being other than ourself, and vice versa. Giving up being other than ourselves, giving up being anything but what we are in the moment, is the end of ourself. Giving up being anything other than what we are right now is wholehearted practice. But it's kind of cold to get, the funny thing is, it's kind of cold to be wholehearted. And it's kind of hot to try to be somebody other than who we are. But the spring flowers do not bloom in the summer.

[24:01]

They bloom at the end of winter, is the message here. We don't know what's going to happen next around this place. We don't know if we're going to get sick. But if I do get sick, then my job, if I want to realize the blooming of the Dharma flower, my job is to be sick. take care of my sickness. At the same time, I take care of the one who isn't sick. I take care of my sickness and I have the opportunity to take care of the Dharma flower.

[25:10]

If I try to get the Dharma flower, that's not taking care of me and my place and me being me. It's looking for something else. Completely giving up looking for something else, I get something which is not something else, but which is the blooming of my life. Dharma flower blooming through my life because I'm not trying to get something other than my life. But again, giving up trying to get something other than my life is kind of cold. It's the mind of winter. It's the withered tree. It's the mind like a wall of Bodhidharma. So I'm going to stop. giving you that information, I think that's a lot for you and a lot for me.

[26:16]

But there's more, but I'm not going to give it to you tonight. And if there's something you'd like to say in response to, in response, Oh, the word is despondent. You ever heard that word despondent? I was going to look it up to see if despondent was like dis-spondent or dis-, you know, respond and despond. I wonder if respond is like, you know, respond, right? So despond means you're not responding. Do you have any respawn or any dispawn? You have a question?

[27:48]

Yeah, well, that's what I, that sounds good to me. Hmm? Well, she said something like, to be what we are in the moment, completely, we enter the way of Buddha. Is that close? Okay. So yeah. And you want to use the example of the opportunity for resting comes up for you and you think, okay, I could rest now.

[29:45]

But I also want to be making an effort. Right? So, can you, is it or can one, rest as a service? Can you rest as an act of, what's the word, as a service, as an effort? Make the effort to rest as a service to all beings, resting to promote your being in accord with beings. Can you rest that way? And I would say, Yeah, that seems like a really good way to rest. But also, to me, it's an effort. It's an effort to remember that what I want to do is serve Buddhas. So if I rest, I want to rest as a service to Buddha.

[30:48]

I want to rest as an offering to Buddha. I want to rest in praise of Buddhas. I want to rest to accord with beings. Why not rest that way? It's still resting. But why rest without those things? Why not add wholeheartedness to your resting and make your resting wholehearted effort? Why not? Have any problem with that? Yeah, resting might be hard work, but it's still resting, like the Buddha. The historical Buddha did rest. Now, the way the Buddha rested may be a little different from the way we rest, but the Buddha did rest, and the Buddha often rested I don't know if the Buddha rested after lunch.

[31:51]

Usually in India and other hot countries, they rest after lunch. And so I haven't heard that the Buddha rested after lunch, but maybe the Buddha did. One of the Buddha's main disciples named Subuddhi was called best of after lunch resting. He was the best. And he was one of the great disciples. He was best at the afternoon resting time. Now there might have been a best, you know, for midnight resting too. But the Buddha rested at night, and while the Buddha was resting, the Buddha actually had, while resting, sometimes would have conversations with visitors. while resting. Have you ever been resting and had a conversation with anybody?

[32:56]

Have you? Any of you? For your information, I have this nice little room over there and I rest in there while I'm having conversations with people. I rest. Now, I do not go to sleep. I used to sometimes go to sleep, which didn't work very well for people. Some of them took it personally. And it really hurt their feelings that they came in there and came to tell me something really important and I went to sleep. But the reason I went to sleep was because I wasn't resting enough. I pushed myself so hard that I fell asleep in Doksan, which wasn't so good for some of those people. Some of the people maybe thought it was really cool.

[33:57]

I don't know. I didn't hear about that. But I did hear that the ones who, some of them, it really hurt their feelings. They felt like I didn't care about them. was actually I was tired and relaxed enough with them that I just went to sleep. However, the Buddha, while resting, could have conversations with and teach while resting. Other times the Buddha taught in different ways when he wasn't really resting. You know, maybe more energetic type of teaching. So resting is, for some people, hard work. For example, I know this woman. She lives at Green Gulch now. Her name is Shin. And for her, resting is hard work. However, I told her, you know, it's actually some work you should do.

[35:00]

You should do the work of resting. for us, do it for us. And then she said, that makes it even harder. Well, yeah, that's okay. Resting can be hard and it's still rest. Well, yeah, it might be like that. You could do it—oh, that's another difficult thing. You can do things that you want for the community. Like, you could, like, come to Zazen and sit for the community and want to. It's okay if you're being of service and you want to. That's right. It's okay.

[36:00]

It's not that you only should do things of service that you don't want to do. And sometimes you can do things of service that you don't want to do, too. Like, for example, you could actually say, I don't really want to miss lunch. I really want to have lunch, but I'm going to give my lunch to this person. And I don't really want to. But more than what I want to in terms of lunch right now, I do want lunch, but even more than wanting lunch, I want to be of service. So I don't really want to give my lunch away, but I really want to be of service, so I'm going to give it away. But sometimes I want lunch, and I want to be of service, and I think that being of service is to have lunch. Nobody else in the neighborhood wants my lunch. I got lunch.

[37:03]

Anybody else got lunch? No. Does anybody want my lunch? No. Would you please eat it, Shin? Well, I'd be willing to. Would you do it for us, Shin? Well, I'd be doing it. I'm happy to do it for you, but the problem is I want to have lunch. Can I have lunch even though I want to? Yes, you can. Sometimes it's lunchtime and Buddha wants to have lunch. and has it. Sometimes it's lunchtime and Buddha wants to have lunch and doesn't have it. Sometimes it's lunchtime and Buddha doesn't want to have lunch and does have lunch. A lot of possibilities, but the point is what? That you're being completely yourself. And you can't be completely yourself unless you do the service of being completely yourself.

[38:10]

You can't be completely yourself to seek to be yourself. But you can be completely yourself if you're doing it to serve all beings. And being yourself Part of being yourself is resting. Being yourself is the hardest thing that we can do. The flower, the Dharma flower blooming is not hard work. It's spontaneous. But the conditions of being completely yourself, that's hard work. And it involves, part of it is resting. And part of it is making a huge work effort. And then resting. And then effort and resting. If that's what I said tonight.

[39:14]

How you doing? Anything you want to tell us? Put my glasses back on. Yeah? Can I learn to trust myself right now? Can you teach me something about that? Well, let's see. So it's not so much that you trust yourself. I don't trust myself. I trust being myself. That's what I trust.

[40:21]

I think you said something like, can this conversation help me trust myself? That's what I thought you said. Did you? Maybe? Yeah. Did you hear that? Can this come? And I said, well, let's see. And as we start the conversation, right away I said, well, it's not about trusting yourself. So maybe this conversation won't help you trust yourself, which is OK with me. I don't mind if you don't trust yourself. And I don't mind if you don't trust me. But I do want you to trust being yourself. That's what I'd like you to trust. Because if you can be yourself, you'll give up trying to be somebody else. and then the Dharma flower will bloom. That's what I want. I want the Dharma flower to bloom as you. But for the Dharma flower to bloom as you, you've got to trust being you.

[41:28]

And that's hard. I've heard from you that it's not that easy to be Sam. At the end of the work of being yourself. Madness? It could be right before. It could be several steps back. Madness might be part of the process that we have to go through to be all that we are. And when you hit madness, it's good to get some help from somebody else who's not going to help you trust yourself, but going to help you trust being who you are at that time and support you to work with that so-called madness. But again, I'm not asking you to trust Sam or Reb. I'm asking you, I'm hoping for you. I'm asking you to, and I'm wishing that you would, trust being you.

[42:32]

Trust not trying to be somebody else. That's what I would like you to trust. And that's the withering... you know, of basically human grasping and seeking, which can take us away. It's very tricky. It can take us away from being ourselves. Okay? So this conversation has been going on for a while. Are you better at being yourself now? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. And you think you love me, but also do you want to love me? Yes? I kind of want to investigate what I'm understanding of you. winter, coldness, feeling free, and the association with going to the end of the self.

[43:48]

Yes. And for me, that's easy. understand that I don't want to assume that my bias is that by going to the end of itself, you're going to a way that can be described in that way, and it wouldn't. It's cold. It is isolated. It's kind of a stark imagery for this place at the end of itself. For me, it goes along with my personality. And I don't want to assume that that's what you're suggesting. So I'm kind of wondering if you can test my assumptions. I know that all of that sounds just like how I picture it, you know what I'm saying? But I know maybe I'm not really, you know, I see it through a filter, maybe. I think we do see through a filter.

[44:55]

And that's part of what... I don't trust that I see through a filter. I trust being a person who... I trust not trying to be somebody who doesn't have a filter. I trust being a person who sees reality falsely. I trust not that person, but I trust that that's the way I am. And I also trust the teaching that if I do see that way, I would have various kinds of difficult and uncomfortable feelings, uncomfortable experience. And I don't trust my uncomfortable experience. I trust not running away from my uncomfortable experience. And the mind of winter doesn't run away from the cold.

[46:00]

It tolerates the cold until springtime. And it's not waiting for springtime. is not really the end of winter until you stop waiting for spring. It's not the end of myself until I stop waiting to be something good. In the meantime, maybe I am waiting and that's uncomfortable. The withered tree is the end of trying to get away from my discomfort. Buddha is over that. Over what? Trying to get away from discomfort. Buddha's not looking for discomfort, not chasing discomfort. Buddha's not running away from it. So Buddha wants us to... It isn't just that Buddha wants us to stop running away from discomfort.

[47:09]

Buddha wants the Dharma flower to bloom. But for it to bloom, we got this hard job to do, which is give up trying to get something, give up running away from what's going on. And what's going on in the world today, a lot of people actually are aware of what they're trying to get away from, which is good. a lot of people trying to get away from this disease and the consequences of it, like that you have to leave the practice period early and so on, that you can't go anywhere, that my retreats that I've scheduled for this year are canceled, This offers me a chance to see, am I trying to have some life other than the one I have?

[48:18]

And if I do, I can confess and repent that and then stop trying to be somebody other than I am. And that deals with the topic of isolation. We have to open to this isolation business not because we trust isolation, but that we're usually running away from it. So we sort of have to go into the pit of isolation, if that's what's offered, the pit of despondency, the pit of whatever, or the peak, whatever. And other people will help us. For example, If it weren't for other people, I wouldn't even know about this virus. People are telling me about it.

[49:20]

And other people are telling me, you know, stay six feet away from people. And people are telling me about the situation. Thanks. So now I know I'm in this really difficult situation. So now I can check and see, am I trying to be on some other planet? Or, you know, because you've got to leave the planet to get away from this one. Or maybe if I just go where, maybe out in the middle of the ocean, I'd get away from it. Anyway, my mind can think of stuff like that. And when it does, I can say, oh, I don't have to fall for that. That's just what I'm doing right now. I can actually be here. How are you doing? Did I address your question at all? Great. Okay, we have a little more time, and there's a person here with her hand raised. Yes? What did you say?

[50:22]

What about that? I take it back. Don't go into the pit. But in the pit, in the pit, you might find that you're trying to get out of the pit. Yes? So I wouldn't say go into the pit. I'm just saying in the pit of despondency. Okay, now, what's your question? We're in the pit of despondency. Yeah, hi. How is that a service? How is what a service? How is what a service? Being myself when it's despondent. The despondency is not a service. But when you're in despondency, you have a chance to serve the Buddhas and all beings. Like show other people who are also despondent, who are trying to get away from it, show them what it's like to be in the same place that they are, or even a little bit deeper in the pit, and show them

[51:34]

To show them how to do it. How to do what? How to be the mind of the withered tree. Which is to show them how to be the place where the Dharma flower blooms. So the Buddha, guess where the Buddha's sitting? In the pit of despondency. The Buddha's sitting in the center of all despondency. doesn't go there, that's just where the Buddha is. And the Buddha does not try to get away from there. The Buddha sits upright and flexible and realizes the Dharma flower as a service for all beings. So for you to realize the Dharma flower is the Buddha, that's what the Buddha wants you to do. And if you do that, you are doing Buddha a great service. Buddha is your servant, and Buddha is coming to help you realize the Dharma flower.

[52:38]

And then if you do it, you make Buddha's day. Plus also, you're this great asset to all beings. But even if you say you haven't quite got to the full withered tree, They haven't completely settled yet in the pit of despondency. The fact that you're trying not to be in despondency, but that you're trying to be settled where you are, that encourages other people who are in other situations, and they're having trouble settling, so that they're postponing their realization too. And they say, well, Zoe hasn't completely settled in her despondency yet, but she's working at it in a really encouraging way. She's almost settled there. And if Zoe settles in her despondency, maybe I'll settle in mine, but I'm going to wait to see if she does it first. And if she's not going to do it, well, I'm not going to do it either.

[53:40]

I'm not going to be the first one to completely accept this raw deal. But if she does, Well, maybe if she does, then I'll also wait a little while and see how it is for her. And then I say, hey, Zoe, have you completely settled? And you say, say yes. Zoe, have you settled completely? And I say, well, how is it? And you say, well, when I'm, you know, When I'm taking care of my despondency like this, I don't see any despondency. Okay, maybe I'll try it too now. But, you know, I might even try it even before you tell me how wonderful it is and how peaceful it is, because it might look really beautiful to see somebody, to see somebody who is willing to be themselves. it might be the most beautiful person that you ever saw, just because they're willing to be themselves, which everybody wants to learn.

[54:48]

And that's the withered tree. It's not necessarily fun. It usually is really challenging. And it's the greatest service you can do for the blooming of the dharma flower. And of course the dharma flower blooming is another service. And that dharma flower then encourages people to be themselves. Not to trust themselves, but to be themselves. And with the energy of the dharma flower, people say, oh, maybe I'll, okay, maybe I'll a little bit put my toe in the water of being me. I'll try out being me a little bit. And then they try and say, it's no good. It stinks. I don't want to do this anymore. And the next day they say, yeah, I didn't want to.

[55:52]

Actually, I do want to do it again. It actually was good to be me. I actually don't want to die before I'm me. I do want to be me. How are you doing? Better? Better is okay. Don't trust it, though. But I hope you completely are whatever that better was. Well, that must be enough, huh? For tonight, thank you for coming in this amazing world we live in. This is a historic time for us. I never experienced anything like this in my life. Have you? This is like a real global thing we're doing here. And so, yeah, so let's really be careful, keep washing our hands, keep the distance. rest if you need to as a service keep up your immune system you keeping your immune system up will help us because if your immune system is working that will protect you and then if you can ward off this stuff you won't transmit it so everybody take care of themselves take care of your health as a service take care of yourself as a service to the rest of us does that make sense?

[57:20]

We're going to do that. We're going to take care of ourselves to help others, right? Does that make sense to you? And if it doesn't make any sense, let me know. I'm willing to talk to you about it. Thank you very much. You know, at a certain distance.

[57:42]

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