His yoga class series starts, he asked me for a title and a description, and I usually give it to him. And this time I think the title was something like, The Perfection of Wisdom, The Mother of All Buddhas, something like that. I'm looking for it to see what it says. What? Now, would you pass that up here, please? If you would come without me giving a cross-description, I wouldn't give one. However, I'm happy with this one. I feel... that it's fair to say that this is, it also says, Zen meditation.

[01:03]

So I think Zen meditation, Zen meditation is the perfection of wisdom. Did you know that? Now you do. Zen meditation is the perfection of wisdom. Of course, when people first start practicing Zen meditation, they don't necessarily yet realize the perfection of wisdom. So the beginner's meditation isn't necessarily the fully realized scope of Zen meditation. But to realize perfect wisdom is sort of the point of Zen meditation. So this course is called Zen Meditation, the Perfection of Perfect Wisdom.

[02:03]

So actually that is totally appropriate. And it is also taught that in many places in the great vehicle teachings, it is taught that the Perfection of Wisdom is the mother of all Buddhas. It's also, by the way, called the father of all Buddhas. you know, depending on what you're emphasizing. It also says, this class will be devoted to the practice and realization of perfect wisdom. In the Zen tradition, the perfection of wisdom is often envisioned as in a female form. In the Zen tradition, yes. But in Mahayana Buddhism in general, sometimes imagine the perfection of wisdom as a female deity. And the perfection of wisdom of the Buddhas is what sets the wheel of the Buddha's teaching rolling.

[03:12]

And there are many scriptures devoted to the teachings of the perfection of wisdom. And in the beginning of many of them, there's a kind of like a praise to the perfection of wisdom at the beginning. And many of you know that at Zen centers in the United States and in Europe and Japan and China and Korea and Southeast Asia and Tibet too, they study and recite the heart of great perfect wisdom. And there's two basic versions of it. The one we usually chant in the Zen centers in the West and also in Japan is the short version. And the short version starts out with Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.

[04:16]

In other words, the Bodhisattva who listens to, who's regarding, who's meditating on the cries of all living beings in the universe, that Bodhisattva is the bodhisattva who is practicing the perfection of wisdom in that scripture. But it doesn't say, in that version, it doesn't say before the scripture starts. It doesn't say, homage to the perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy. It doesn't say that. But in the slightly longer version of the Heart Sutra, it does start off by praising the perfection of wisdom. And many Many perfect wisdom scriptures start by praising the perfection of wisdom. And then in one of the scriptures it says, she brings light so that all fear and distress may be forsaken.

[05:17]

She disperses the gloom and darkness of delusion and shows us the path of ease and safety. Please come and join in this excellent work of perfect wisdom. So I would say that the Zen tradition is to realize and then to share and transmit perfect wisdom. So encouraging Zen meditation is encouraging the practice of perfect wisdom. Perfect wisdom brings light so that all fear and distress may be forsaken. It's the mother of Buddhas. It liberates beings from delusion and therefore liberates them from suffering.

[06:21]

However, again, this teaching of perfect wisdom, which has this amazing power to liberate beings from suffering, this teaching is not intended for everybody. So I hope all of you are appropriate recipients for such a teaching since you're here. I don't want to scare you away, but just thought I might mention that these teachings are for those who wish to realize wisdom in order to benefit all beings. This teaching isn't so much for people who want to realize wisdom just for themselves. So you might just take a moment to see if you would like to realize perfect wisdom so that you can help all living beings.

[08:00]

One of our members seems to be pregnant. When is your baby due? Ah, so it won't be coming during his class probably. So when this baby comes, you know, I imagine that she would like to free this baby of all suffering. But the baby has to grow up and be able to receive instructions and perfect wisdom first. But you want, if possible, you would like to help her grow up or help him grow up so that he can receive these teachings and be free of suffering. Since it's going to be, is it a he or she? Since she's going to be living with us until she has the perfection of wisdom, she's going to need to learn it. And you and Jeff would like to teach her, so you'd like to learn it yourselves, right? As soon as possible.

[09:03]

That's one theory is that everybody already has the perfection of wisdom but when we come into consciousness we forget it. That the perfection of wisdom completely penetrates us like gamma rays. But most people do not know that gamma rays are penetrating them. But if you study physics deeply you will understand that they are. So maybe we knew in the past and we forgot or maybe We haven't ever realized it yet, but it is really the way we are. But if we live in a space where illusions are appearing and the illusions say, this is reality, sometimes it's hard for us to see the perfection of wisdom. Now, what I said earlier when you were sitting was suggesting that you give as much attention as you can to your inhalation and exhalation.

[10:17]

This is a teaching for people of various aspirations. If you wish to attain Buddhahood, If you wish to attain perfect wisdom for the welfare of all beings, giving as much attention as you can to your breathing is appropriate. If you wish to realize wisdom in order to help yourself and a few people and not some others, giving your full attention to your breathing is also appropriate. If you wish only to help yourself, or maybe not even yourself but one other person, this meditating on your breathing would be appropriate. It would help you. So the teaching I gave you during sitting

[11:22]

is appropriate to almost everybody except somebody who wants to hurt themselves and doesn't want to benefit anybody, then that teaching wouldn't be appropriate because it wouldn't go along with that program. Because it does benefit you to give attention to your breathing. It does bring benefit. It does bring ease. It does bring relaxation. It does bring clarity. And there's a next step of that instruction, which is, after saying, trust everything to attention to your breathing, the next part of the instruction is, and then leap into the light of wisdom. The second part I didn't say because I want to say the second part of the instruction also brings benefit, but it brings a kind of wisdom

[12:24]

which is intended for those who wish to attain not just ease and freedom for themselves, but freedom for all beings. The leaping into the light part is the perfect wisdom instruction. But the perfect wisdom instruction is based on instruction of just paying attention to the conventional phenomena of breathing in and breathing out. So a basic practice principle for making Buddhas is, first of all, give as much attention as you can to conventional truth, like a body. breathing in, breathing out. Language. Give attention to language, like inhalation and exhalation, and how those words go with some physical thing.

[13:38]

Pay, give a lot of attention, become very familiar with the conventional phenomena of consciousness. That's the basis. for stepping into wisdom. Before we are devotedly, kindly, mindfully paying attention to our actions, to our posture, to our breathing, before we're taking care of those things, the teaching of perfect wisdom is not appropriate. We're not ready for it. So this class is something to pay attention to and take care of in order to be and to give as much attention as you can to what you hear and see and feel and your posture and breathing here. To do all that to set the stage for leaping into the light of wisdom

[14:48]

for leaping into the perfection of wisdom, for leaping into the mind which doesn't abide in anything. So to pay, to give, to donate all your attention to your breathing in and breathing out, sets the stage for breathing in and breathing out without abiding in breathing in and breathing out. And again, the second part of the instruction is for bodhisattvas, for beings who are on the path to Buddhahood for the welfare of all. The first part is for bodhisattvas too. First of all, take care of conventional things and when that's done thoroughly you're ready to not abide

[16:12]

in anything in any conventional thing but if you don't if we don't take care of conventional things it's not yet quite the right time to try to not abide in them and not abiding in them is the mind which opens to perfect wisdom so again we have consciousness which is this world, is consciousness. But this world, which is consciousness, is a reduction of our actual life. Even though the world seems big, even though the universe that appears seems big, it's actually, you could say almost, it's an, I wouldn't say extreme, it's a It's an immense reduction. It's an immense, it's a huge reduction.

[17:17]

In other words, it's taking something and making it much smaller. That's our consciousness, wherein the universe appears. And everything in there, we're encouraged to be very careful of and be very kind to. so that we can be free of believing that this truncated, impoverished, reduced version of our life is our actual life. It's part of our life. Part of our life is that we have a reduced and a non-reduced life. And part of language is a tool of reduction and a tool of instruction to become free of the reduction. That's almost a bumper sticker. I'm setting the stage.

[18:21]

Another thing which I want to say is that in order to give ourselves completely to caring for our consciousness and all the worlds that appear there and all the beings that appear there thoroughly enough so that we can enter perfect wisdom, part of the ability to do that is that we practice together with other beings, that we practice friendliness towards other beings and we appreciate how they're practicing friendship with us. And we also practice friendship to everything. Well, that's the same as saying we practice friendship or friendliness towards everything in our consciousness.

[19:25]

If I close my eyes, I want to practice friendliness towards what appears with my eyes shut. When I open my eyes and I see people, I want to practice friendship with the people I see. So part of what's necessary and which Zen emphasizes is the friendship in which we can take really good care of conventional things so that wisdom can be received and transmitted. And in the Zen tradition, there are many stories about the good friendship that has been practiced in the Zen school for about 1500 years. These are stories about the kind of friendship in which perfect wisdom is realized. These are stories about how to take care of language in such a way has to become free of language.

[20:29]

So we have many stories like that. So part of what I would probably do during this class is tell you stories of good friendship that demonstrate how people can help each other, pay attention to what's going on, and also open to freedom from what seems to be going on. So I recently got the image of the baby in the bathwater. The baby is the Buddha or the perfection of wisdom. The bathwater is our friendship and our friendship also avails itself and is encouraged by stories of friendship.

[21:30]

So we can try to be friends with each other, but sometimes we might, I don't know what, get discouraged or fed up or think that this is not a good opportunity for friendship. This is not the time for friendship. But then if we remember some stories that we've heard, we maybe remember, oh yeah, but in those stories they were tempted to make exceptions and they didn't. Or in some of those stories, I would have made an exception and they didn't. Or in some of the stories, they did not think it was friendship. because it didn't look like friendship, and then they found out it was, and that was when perfect wisdom opened. So I'm sort of telling you that I might bring some stories, and I also might tell you that sometimes people try to throw the bathwater out because they think it's, I don't know, they think they don't need it anymore.

[22:38]

problem is that you know the thing about you might throw the baby out with the bath water and the bath water is used to you know for the health of the baby the baby does need a bath occasionally for various reasons a couple of weeks ago I was taking care of a little girl who calls me granddaddy and uh she said her legs hurt. And I said, do you want me to massage your leg? Because sometimes she does want me to massage her legs. And she even like pulls up her leggings so that I can massage her legs. She's only two. And then other times she puts her hands out for me to massage and then offers me her foot and offers me her feet. So she definitely like sometimes wants massages. But she said, no, I don't want a massage. And she said, I want a bath.

[23:42]

I said, OK. I made the bath a little warmer than usual. And she got in the bathtub, and everything was OK. That was one of the stories of taking care of the conventional world to set the stage for perfect wisdom. Do you see? It's just a conventional world. Right? That's all it was. And I would like to unstintingly, unreservedly, unresistingly, wholeheartedly take care of such things because it's beneficial to do so.

[25:00]

But not only is it beneficial, it can lead to liberation from the problems that those conventional things offer if you abide in them. So it is possible to hear the cries of a little girl and to give her a bath and abide in that transaction. And that is not the good friendship. It's a friendship. The good friendship is a friendship that doesn't abide in the friendship. So that's what I'd like to practice with you is the kind of friendship where we're so kind to each other that we don't abide in each other or our kindness. And of course we don't abide in unkindness.

[26:03]

But if unkindness arrives, we welcome it and don't abide in it. And then not abiding unkindness is a door to perfect wisdom. If unkindness comes, we want to practice the kind of friendship towards that that doesn't like the unkindness, doesn't dislike the unkindness, but does not abide in it. that totally takes care of the unkindness. Totally takes care of it. Takes care of the unkindness as well as kindness. And in that caregiving, we can leap into non-abiding, into the light of wisdom. Any questions about this so far?

[27:06]

This is kind of like setting the stage for the rest of my life with you. Yeah, right, the rest of yours too. I hope that we give the rest of our life to the practice of perfect wisdom and the practice of taking thorough care of conventional things like this class and Lois. I was thinking before you said you made these friendships, and I recognize that I do, although I'm telling you that that was before you. And before that, I was thinking, have you laid out the paradigm of you have to do, continue the practice, and then you'll be ready for, in my case, like a week later, So right before that, I was thinking that, of course, there's that.

[28:16]

But before that, there's something a little bit. And so you may not recognize it, of course, because you don't have the person who's like a friend. But the purpose of you is to and then you can't translate it, or you're not comfortable with that, or because you hear it, oh, you couldn't possibly have that, because you're not in practice. So I was starting to feel stuck there, because at a certain point, I feel like I would need to accept Do you want my what? Okay. Do you want my okay? Here's my okay. Well, during when you're sitting, I wanted to give the first instruction, which before I tell you what the section instruction is for, the first instruction is good for everybody.

[29:50]

So, and yeah. It's almost good for, well, it's almost, there may be some situations where if you're paying attention to your breathing, it would be good to give it up. And it turns out that if you pay attention to your breathing, it helps you let go of being attached to paying attention to your breathing. That's one of the benefits of it. and it helps you let go of your attachment to other things too. So basically it's a practice that's good for almost everybody. And the second part I wanted to wait and say in the context of the teaching. You've raised several points but one of them I'd like to relate to is that in the history of, or you know, the mythology the story of Zen is that there was a person who brought Zen from India to China, and that was the first person who brought— no, he didn't bring Zen from India to China.

[31:04]

He brought the Buddha mind from India to China, and then he transmitted that to Chinese people. And after a few generations, this Buddha mind became the Zen Buddha mind. It transformed into something Chinese. The person who came from India was not Chinese. But after about five generations, a real kind of Chinese person realized this Buddha mind that was brought from India. And this one person was the sixth generation. And almost all the schools of Zen, except for a few that were offshoots from those earlier five generations, come from this one person, and he's called the sixth ancestor. And this person was an uneducated firewood salesman.

[32:12]

And he was walking through a marketplace in Guangzhou, the southern part of China, where far from the center of Chinese culture. And as he's walking through the marketplace, a fortune teller was chanting the diamond scripture of perfect wisdom. And he's walking by. And it doesn't say how long he was listening to this chanting, while he was also maybe simultaneously, firewood for sale, firewood. But anyway, when he heard the person say section 10c of the Diamond Sutra, where it says that a bodhisattva should give life to a mind that doesn't abide in anything. It doesn't abide in sights, in sounds, in smells, in tastes, in tangibles, or any kind of mental phenomena like feelings, opinions, judgments.

[33:25]

It doesn't abide in anything. When he heard that, he had a sudden realization And some people say, I'm so jealous. This young man, without practicing at all, had this great sudden realization. But I'm guessing that he really knew how to totally give himself to selling firewood. Yeah, of all things. And after he sold them, he didn't see them anymore. And the money he came, he received wholeheartedly. I imagine he was a really wholehearted dude. I don't know if they had dudes in those days, but anyway. I imagine he was very wholehearted, so when he heard the teaching, he could enter it and

[34:26]

He didn't say to anybody, hey, I got a great realization. And people say, didn't argue with him about it. He didn't say anything. He just... I think he was liberated from suffering. And he was happy. He was very happy about what he heard. And he was interested in what it was that he heard. And he wanted to learn more about it. He wasn't like... That was great, and now I don't have to listen to that stuff anymore. Listening to the perfection of wisdom, it isn't that one says, I want to keep listening to this teaching forever. It isn't necessarily that. And yet, even though it's not necessarily that, it's pretty likely that it will be that. Even though you don't have to keep listening to it, you probably would like to. And you don't have to do what you like, and you might not.

[35:30]

And if you couldn't, if you had to listen to something else, like if somebody had to come over, say somebody came over to you and said, may I talk to you about imperfect wisdom for a long time? You might be able to say, well, how long? And they might say, incalculable eons. And you might say, Fine, let's do it." And then in the process the person might say, I was just kidding. I really want to talk about perfect wisdom. You say, okay. In other words, he was free, but he was still interested in what it was. He understood the mind of no abode, he understood the mind of no abode, and the mind of no abode was him. He was it, it was him. And he was interested in it and he was interested in himself. He wanted to continue to study and learn more about the mind that doesn't abide.

[36:34]

And the fortune teller told him about a place he could learn more and he traveled and learned more and became the successor of the tradition of taking care of this perfect wisdom. And then from him comes offspring who take care of the perfect wisdom and who take care of perfect wisdom with other offspring, to make other offspring. They practice friendship with each other to protect and care for and transmit this mind which doesn't abide in anything and the mind which is very careful about firewood and speech and rice and so on. And so I

[37:35]

I live in a bathwater which surrounds perfect wisdom and so do you. We all live in the bathwater. We need to find the type of friendship in the bathwater which leads us to realize the baby. Yes? Is there a synonym for abide? Dwell? Cling? Attach? Inhabit? How about inhabit? Suffer is the definition of suffering is clinging. So like that, but I wouldn't say exactly that suffering is a synonym for grasping, but rather grasping is the cause of suffering and the definition of suffering.

[38:47]

Yes, yes, who else? Oh, yes? I wanted to offer some feedback on where you started today. Okay. In the past I have felt intimidated by this teaching that initially, follow your breath and then leap. And that this The second part is just for close-up, but it's just for people. I want to do this for everybody. And I felt a little bit sometimes we passed pressure to be that way, that person that way. And something about the way you expressed it today, did you feel that way at all? And I don't know if it was what you said or if it was me or if it was... Thank you. Here's a rather elaborate story. which I have a rather elaborate story to tell you if you ever want to hear one.

[40:11]

But before I tell that, any other questions? Just wanted to tell you that if you ever want to hear an elaborate story, I've got one. Any questions? Yes? No? What it sounds like? A bodhisattva should give life, I like to, should enliven. Another way to say it is a bodhisattva should produce. Another translation is a bodhisattva should give rise to. Another translation is a bodhisattva should generate a mind that doesn't dwell or abide And colors, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles are mind objects, a mind that doesn't abide in anything. That's Section 10C of the Diamond Sutra. Yeah.

[41:13]

Yeah. They're not subject and they're not object to the mind. But there's a subject and object there, but there's no dwelling in it. Well, again, I would like to distinguish between mind and consciousness. I would like to use, develop the vocabulary that consciousness is a subset of mind. That cognition is of an unconscious variety, which is much more ancient in terms of the life on this planet, much more worked out by trial and error of evolution.

[42:16]

And at some point in the history on this planet, cognition gave rise to consciousness. And in consciousness, there are all kinds of wonderful resources and also design flaws like the appearance of things which seem to exist on their own. So consciousness is where we suffer because consciousness, things appear that look like they could be grasped. And if they look that way, it's almost impossible for us to not grasp them unless we're highly trained. And that consciousness is given to us. And within consciousness we can hear teachings about generating a mind which is not dwelling in the consciousness. So in consciousness we can hear, teachings can come to us which we can hear and study and discuss with our friends so we can understand those teachings and become free of consciousness, which in particular we can become free of abiding in consciousness without getting rid of consciousness.

[43:32]

For example, in consciousness there's inhale and exhale. There's those words and there's the appearance of the breath going in and out in consciousness. And we can hear teachings about how to not abide in that, which relates to this elaborate story. Welcome. Was that relevant at all to what you asked? Yes. Yes. In particular, it was about the fact that people would have to leave the roads, the roads left for town, and try to stay there.

[44:46]

Or, they would never go off until all the people in that town were free to come back home. Well, it reminds you of good parenthood. Oh, in the story, it reminded him of parenthood? He's a school teacher, actually, and he said, this is how you parent. Okay. And so I've been thinking about what would it really mean to be able to be in that realm as a young one who are positive, positive,

[45:50]

Well, You said, what does it mean? And I would say, the meanings of that story, I would say, are innumerable. So I can say 15 or 20 if you want to hear. The bodhisattvas, sometimes they have the ability to stay in places like that for a long time. But even though, in addition to having the ability to do so, they are up for it, even if they don't have to. It's like, would you please come and stay here for a long time?

[46:57]

And they could. that they might get there and then when they arrive, people might say, would you please leave now? And they could leave too. So they could stay a long time and before they arrive, they have the ability to wish to stay and then they could stay because they have the wish to stay. So part of the path is this amazing ability to be up for suffering for a long time in order to help people, in order to help beings. And that kind of thing is part of what is involved in good friendship or good parenthood. But also in order to be able to be that kind of friend, you need good friendship to you too. You cannot become that way by yourself. You have to have a lot of good friendship to do that. So it's not just I have the ability to do that, because I have good friends I have the ability to do that.

[48:03]

And that ability is what leads to perfect wisdom. The ability to hang in there with an exhale and an inhale, to hang in there with discomfort, to hang in there with discomfort, and to be willing to continue as long as necessary. And to be happy about it. Not so much happy about suffering, but happy about the willingness to do that. I told this story to you maybe before. This also happened not too long ago, just a few weeks ago. So I go pick the little girl up from daycare. And usually when I pick her up, she doesn't want to go with me because she wants to stay at daycare. So she cries a little bit. And sometimes she's crying right up to the time I get her in her stroller. And I bring the stroller out onto the street, and she's still kind of crying. And we get in the street, and she said, what's that?

[49:08]

And what's that? It just completely instantly changes. So then she says, I want to go park. She wants to go, oh, I want to go playground. There's one playground called the Blue Playground because it has kind of like a blue surface. She wants to go to the Blue Playground. So we go home, and in this particular case, we go home, and I drop off the stroller, and we start walking to the playground. And it's not very far away. One, two, it's about three blocks away. Three and a half blocks up and over three. Down, up a hill. So we're walking there and she said, I don't want to go playground. So I said, okay. We start going back the other way. Various things happening and then she said, I want to go playground. So we go back to playground. I don't want to go playground. And her grandfather is so happy because he feels like, you know, she can do this forever.

[50:13]

This isn't exactly suffering. But some people might find it, I don't know, they might not find it irritating or something. But I wasn't really irritated, but I just, I was just so happy that I could just be whatever she wanted me to be within this realm. And she's also happy to have somebody that she can tell. No, no, no. She knows she can't do that with everybody in the world. So it's a special thing that she can do this with me and it's a special thing for me that I can be that way for her. And I don't know how long I can keep it up. But if I could, I think that that would be perfect wisdom. If I could keep being in that place and never back away from And it wasn't like she's saying, can I walk in the street without holding your hand? She wasn't doing it. I say, no, we can go in the street, but you have to hold my hand if you go in the street.

[51:16]

So we do go in the street, but does she hold my hand? Or she's in the stroller. And she doesn't want to do bad things very much, but if she did, I would say, well, I'll do this with you, but I won't do that with you. But there, too, I feel it's kind of like going back and forth. Yeah, I think it means freedom when you are willing to stay with people. You're free. You will become free. You will not abide. So it isn't that I'm going to go there and stay in hell. And like they say, Sarah, we don't need you anymore. You can leave now. Wait a minute, I'm here to stay. No, no, you can leave, Sarah. You can leave now, please. Go back to heaven, Sarah. No, no, I made a vow to stay here and that's it. I'm not going to listen to anybody. It's the willingness to stay forever that allows you to leave whenever they need you to leave. And if everybody's all right, there's no hell left to say, well, I can't stay anymore. The hell's gone. So it's that kind of thing. I'll go to heaven with people, too.

[52:17]

If she wants to go to heaven, I'll go to heaven. If she wants to go to hell, I'll go to hell. And halfway to hell, if she changes her mind, I'll find it. And then when she wants to go back to hell, I'll go with her. I'll go with her to hell if she wants to go. I'm not going to stop her. Because going to hell doesn't necessarily hurt people. What hurts people is to do the things that send you to hell. But those aren't the things of being good friends. And sometimes she does not want to be my friend. Sometimes she does not want me, she wants somebody else. And that's where, guess what comes into handy at that point, is this practice. I do not take it personally that she's got things really worked out nicely with her mom, and that she'd rather have her mom than anybody at this point. And she will accept me as a substitute under certain circumstances. And then once she's got the substitute, there are certain advantages to the substitute.

[53:22]

Because I will do things with her that her mother will not. I will hold her in the air for a long time. So I keep exercising and I'll be able to do that for more years. Anything else tonight? I'll tell you something else just to give you a sense of Part of the reason I tell you stories is so you can see that in some of these stories of our ancestors, and even in the stories of taking care of grandchildren, they're actually working on these teachings of perfect wisdom. And then I'd like to some point start looking at the teachings in their Indian form, which don't look so much like stories, but look like profound and subtle philosophical analysis.

[54:23]

And part of what's involved in the Bodhisattva way is the willingness to go into a realm of profound and detailed subtle philosophical analysis, which for some people is kind of like hell. You know, some people will go into certain types of hell, but not the profound philosophical analysis hell. But bodhisattvas are willing to go into that realm. But I want to, I don't want to force you in. I want you to, you know, voluntarily enter those realms. So I want to prepare you for these realms because actually Elena just left and she told me she's studying a text with Laurie by a Tibetan guru named Tsongkhapa. the way he tried to get people to take care of the conventional world was to do minute and very subtle philosophical analysis as a way to prepare the mind to enter emptiness.

[55:35]

That's part of what I'd like to take you on a trip into the adventures into the Indian teachings of how to take care of the conventional world of language in a way that can test where you start to resist and think, no, I'm not going to... No, no, not this. But, you know, I'm just telling you beforehand, I'd like to take you there when you're ready. Okay? But I... And actually, I did tell you some Indian scriptures tonight, right? The Diamond Sutra is an Indian scripture. Indian, and I told you the Heart Sutra, it's an Indian scripture. And I'd like to show you how these Indian scriptures actually have sections where they set the stage of friendship, which we might not notice. I'd like to show you the friendship in these perfect wisdom scriptures. And I want you to be able to set up the friendships of perfect wisdom yourself in your daily life.

[56:43]

So you develop good friendships with the understanding it isn't just your idea of good friendship, but the type of friendship where you help others and they help you not abide in anything. Wouldn't that be nice? Any questions? Oh, the elaborate story. You remembered, thanks. Do you want to hear it now? So this is a story about Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center. I arrived there in 67 and I moved in in 68 and I noticed that there were different kind of types of practice that people would talk about. One practice was to sit and pay attention to your breathing and count your breathing. usually counting the breath one, one, two, exhales, one, two, like that, up to 10.

[57:52]

And then when you get to 10, go back one, two. That was one practice people did. Then another practice was to follow the breathing but not count it. And it was sort of understood that to follow the breathing without counting was a little more subtle and advanced. And then there was another practice which was the most advanced, which was called just sitting. So there was some sense, you know, that people would ask each other, which one are you doing? That actually went on. I seem to go on in the Zen Center in San Francisco in the 60s. And people would actually, you know, people would say, you know, what are you doing? A person would say they're counting their breath and I'm counting my breath and another person might say, oh, hmm.

[58:54]

You know, I mastered that. I'm just following my breathing. And then somebody else would say, oh, yeah? Well, I'm just sitting. So sometimes people would try to get to the just sitting as soon as possible, because it's more advanced, right? So there was this kind of thing going on. And I don't know if Suzuki Roshi heard about this or what, but anyway, in January of 1970, for some reason or other, he said, I want everybody to just count your breath. Let's all just count our breath now. No beginning, middle, and advanced practice. Let's all just do the beginning practice together. And then I forgot when he said it, but at one point he said, just sitting, which is perfect wisdom, just sitting is a nickname in our school for perfect wisdom. He said, just sitting is counting your breath.

[59:59]

He said that at some point. But anyway, he just gave that instruction. And then in the summer of that year, I was at Tassajara and one of my comrades said to me, Roshi didn't tell us to stop all of his practice doing that same practice. He said, but I think it's okay with him if we now go back and do more advanced practice. He said, don't you think so? I said, I don't know. And I never asked him if we could go on and do something more advanced. And he never did say, OK, you guys, I'm lifting the moratorium on advanced practices. Yeah, I never heard him say it. But somebody asked me recently, what's the relationship between following your breathing and just sitting. And I would say the relationship is that just sitting means when you're following your breathing without abiding in it.

[61:03]

When you're wholeheartedly meditating on your breathing and not abiding in it. That's what we mean by just sitting or perfect wisdom. So I actually made these acronyms mob and mona. Mob is mindfulness of breathing, and mona is mind of no abode. So when you have mob plus mona, that's actual Zen sitting. When you're mindful of your breathing, but not abiding in the breathing or anything. Then your attention to the world of ordinary things is united with not abiding in them. That's the practice of just sitting.

[62:06]

Also I mentioned that the Buddha said in one place, there's a scripture which is called the One. And the Buddha says, there is one thing that when cultivated, when pursued and cultivated, brings great fruit and great benefit. What is that one thing? Mob. By cultivating mindfulness and breathing, one can be expected to develop perfect wisdom. So by practicing mindfulness of breathing, the great fruit of non-abiding can be realized. The great fruit of perfect wisdom can come from that practice. And the great benefit of that wisdom can come with that practice.

[63:11]

Anything else tonight? So please let's enjoy our body, our breathing, and see if we can really take good care of what we're doing all day long and be friendly to what we're doing all day long and be friendly to everybody else all day long. And this will help us be friendly all day long and we'll be ready to not abide in anything. And this will be the perfection of wisdom just amazing we could actually do this practice. This practice is particularly suited if you wish to be of optimal benefit to all beings. This practice is for you. Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend to every being and place.

[64:21]

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