In the first three meetings, I have been discussing, offering to you the, in some sense, a way to look at what we have been calling for many years Zazen, through the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, to suggest to you all that zazen is what the Lotus Sutra calls only a Buddha together with Buddha. The Lotus Sutra describes only a Buddha together with Buddha as the, you could say, womb, womb, the matrix,

[01:02]

of the authentic understanding of the reality of all things. So zazen is the understanding of the reality of all things. And this teaching, only a Buddha together with a Buddha, I feel helps us understand dimensional aspect, the multidimensional nature of this simple word Zazen, the multidimensional nature of so-called Zen meditation. And mostly I feel that in the first three classes I've been emphasizing the only a Buddha side of Zazen.

[02:13]

Tonight I'd like to turn to the togetherness of Zazen. The Buddha side could be seen as, again, a solitary Buddha, as a subjective experience, a subject. And another subject, And the relationship between the two subjects is intersubject. So within the subjective meditation, we can call that intra, as in intramural, within the subjective type of meditation.

[03:27]

And I think many people, that's what they think meditation is, is a subjective experience. And I would say that's part of it. Part of meditation is subjective. But another part is intersubjective. So Buddha's meditation is the meditation of all subjects. And it's not just all the subjects. the relationship between all the subjects, the active, ongoing interrelationship, the active, ongoing, authentic conversation between subjects. So part of the real Buddha is only a Buddha and another part a Buddha is together with Buddha.

[04:31]

All the subjects, all the only Buddhas, all the solitary Buddhas who are doing personal, subjective study, body-based study of their subjects, the relationship between them is, I'm suggesting, the real Buddha. But for this conversation to be full, each subject has a job to do of being the subject. And so the prayer that I've been saying over and over is, I pray that each of you and all of us receive silence and stillness.

[05:34]

In receiving silence and stillness, remembering silence and stillness, we settle into being a subject. Finally settling completely into the subject being the subject. Settle the self onto the self. There are many, many other instructions for helping the self settle on the self. For example, sort of instructions about how to take care of your breath, how to take care of your breathing, how to be mindful of your breathing and your posture. These practices offer the opportunity of being only at that moment and giving up any kind of distraction or rather by being very aware of the distraction and letting it be, settle into only a Buddha.

[06:54]

Another instruction is let go of thinking. Not push it away, not deny it, just let it go. Be with it completely, and in being with it completely and compassionately, it's released. And in that way of being with our thinking, we become only a Buddha. We need to do this in order to have our face before we settle into our face, we don't really realize our face. But once we completely use as an opportunity to be still, to let ourselves be still and silent with our face, now we have a face and this face can be given to other faces. And this giving of the face to other faces and other faces giving themselves to us, this is face-to-face transfer.

[07:59]

which is another word for zazen, which is another word for only a Buddha face together with a Buddha face. So this is like a personal practice, the Buddha practice, and it's part of the meditation practice. Now, and also, we have these bodhisattva practices of, for example, the first five paramitas of the six paramitas. Ethical discipline, patience, diligence, enthusiasm, and concentration. By doing these practices, our face becomes concentrated on our face. Buddha becomes Buddha. Now we're ready to move on to social meditation, interpersonal meditation.

[09:14]

So again, the practice of the Buddha's meditation is personal, interpersonal. It's individual and it's social. So now I'm moving on to consider the social meditation side of Buddha's meditation, which is together with Buddha, you Buddha together with me Buddha. This is social meditation. And again, many people don't think of social interaction as meditation. They think of meditation as individual, a psychic. Now I'm bringing up, it is personal, intra-psychic dimension, but it's also social, interpersonal. It's the two together. And we must do both parts thoroughly.

[10:15]

in order to realize the true . And again, when we start to contemplate other subjects, when we, a subject, turn our subjectivity towards other subjects, in order for that contemplation and that meeting to be complete, We have various practices to suggest, to help us be really intersubjective, be really social. Meditating or meditating socially. So meditating personally and meditating socially. And again, the six perfections of the bodhisattva are ways to relate to other subjects in such a way as to the conversation between only a Buddha and only a Buddha together with Buddha.

[11:28]

So to have conversations, between this subject and that subject, between my subject and... I need to practice generosity. In order to have the real Buddha living, in order to have the full understanding of the nature of the reality of all things, I need to be thoroughly devoted to ethical discipline in relationship to other subjects. In order to have this intersubjective conversation of this subject and other subjects, I need to practice patience. In order to have real genuine conversation between this subject and other subjects, I need to be diligent and enthusiastic.

[12:34]

I need to be full of enthusiasm. Etymologically means full of God. I need to be full of joy at the prospect of this conversation with other subjects. And then I need to be collected, undistracted, and open and flexible in my conversation, which is the fifth perfection of concentration. This kind of conversation then naturally gives rise to the sixth perfection, which is perfect wisdom, prajnaparamita. But perfect wisdom is this intersubjective conversation. Wisdom is a conversation.

[13:37]

It's not something I have by myself or you have by yourself. It's our conversation. When our conversation becomes fully in live and fully interpenetrating and mutually inclusive of the other and the self. These five practices make possible realizing the sixth perfect wisdom, which is the mature, genuine wisdom. The mature, genuine wisdom Only a Buddha together with Buddha. And then four other practices which are, well, yeah, four other practices which are also social practices are called, one name of them is the Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance.

[14:50]

but also can be called the bodhisattva's four methods of being guided. It's the four methods of guiding others. And it's the four methods of letting other subjects guide me. In wholehearted conversation, my interlocutor is guiding me to the wholeheartedness of the exchange. wholehearted conversation by myself. So, there's four methods for how to guide the conversation to its fulfillment. Another way to translate this word is to embrace and sustain, which relates to the third of the three pure bodhisattva precepts. The third of the three pure bodhisattva precepts is embrace and sustain all beings.

[16:00]

So these four are four methods for embracing and sustaining all beings, but also that word embrace and sustain can be active or passive. So again, it's for embracing and sustaining other beings in conversation, but there are also four methods for other beings to embrace and sustain you or me. And what are the four methods? Well, they start out very similar to the six perfections. The first method for embracing others in conversation and having others embrace me in conversation is giving, generosity.

[17:05]

The second practice is kind speech. But actually, I'm not sure how it is in Sanskrit. I don't remember exactly, but These four, the first six and these four, all are in Indian Sanskrit texts, Mahayana texts. But I don't remember what this kind speech is in Sanskrit. But the Chinese character that she used doesn't just mean kind. It means loving. Loving. And then the third one, is beneficial action. And the fourth one, which in a way is the tough one, and really is the creme de la creme of these four, the fourth one is identity action, or action which is the same action as all beings.

[18:16]

or another kind of loss of this is in the same boat, the practice of being in the same boat with others. So just to get things started on these four methods, what are they? The four social meditations. for those who wish to practice what all Buddhas practice, which is all Buddhas practice only a Buddha with Buddhas. This is what they practice. This is what they realize. This is what they transmit. On the social side, they practice generosity. So when we practice generosity, Towards others, we give them gifts.

[19:25]

For example, we give them ourselves. We give them our body and mind. We offer it to them. They may not do anything with it, but we give it to them. Bodhisattva, every moment, gives her body to others. She may not say so, but she feels like, here, I'm here. I'm a gift to you. And in that practice of giving myself to others, get deeper into that practice, I discover that they're giving themselves to me. So this practice of giving, this intersubjective practice of giving, is one where I... just i want to give and i'm trying to give but i discover that others are giving themselves to me whether they want to or not they do if they think they don't want to give themselves that's what they give me they give me a person who thinks she does not want to give herself to me and i am quite attractive somebody not giving themselves to me as their gift

[20:45]

I give you somebody who does not want to give herself. I give you somebody who does not want to give himself. This mutual giving is the reality of all things. The mutual practice of Buddhas together with Buddhas, that is reality. That's where we realize reality, and that is what we're doing. We are giving ourselves to each other, all day long. We cannot prevent it. We are actually in a process of intense, thoroughgoing, unceasing mutual generosity. And if we don't realize it, the way to realize it is just generosity in some way or other. And as you get into practicing generosity towards others, you will discover that they're practicing generosity towards you.

[21:51]

Now, somebody might say, well, I'd rather start with other people being generous with me. Okay, fine. The more you realize you give gifts, the closer you are to realizing you're giving them a gift. For example, a student, the more the student realizes the teacher is giving her gifts, the closer she is to realizing that she's giving the teacher. Teachers want students to give themselves to the teacher so the teacher can give them teachings. When you receive a teaching, you're giving a Buddha, a teacher, a bodhisattva, a life. Without you to give to, they have no life. You want to give to the teacher, and you only want the teacher to give to you? Fine. And the more you get into the teacher giving to you, the closer you are to waking up. Oh, all along I've been giving to the teacher.

[22:53]

I've been giving myself here for the teacher to give teachings to. Generous student. What comes to my mind is many years ago, about 40 years ago, maybe 37 or something like that, between about 35, 40 years ago, a woman was at San Francisco General. And she had come to America from, I think Singapore, I'm not sure, but I think she came from Singapore. She was an ethnic Chinese and she met a Buddhist teacher, this teacher who was visiting Singapore and met her. And this teacher lived in California. And she asked if she could become ordained as a nun. And he said, okay.

[23:55]

And so she came to America as a monk with this Chinese Buddhist monk. Get the picture? Is that clear? But in the process of leaving Singapore, or maybe Singapore is an independent state. It's right near Malaysia. So coming from that part of the world, Southeast Asia, in the process of coming here, she discovered that she had cancer. So she came to America, but then pretty much right away, she went into the hospital to get cancer treatment. She still wanted to be a nun, but the Chinese Buddhist abbot would not ordain her in her cancerous condition. And so she went into hospice at San Francisco General.

[25:07]

They had a hospice there. And one of the people who worked in the hospice was a member of San Francisco Zen Center. He invited me to go visit this this woman from Southeast Asia of Chinese ethnicity. And I went to visit her and she was a very nice person. And she told me her situation. And I don't know if I said right away, but Either I said it right away or maybe I went back to Zen Center and I told people at Zen Center about this very sincere woman who came to America to get ordained as a Buddhist nun, but now she was suffering in the hospice at San Francisco General. And I asked the San Francisco Zen Center people, what do you think of inviting her to come here and be in hospice at Zen Center?

[26:14]

And people... Yeah. So I went back and I said, would you like to come to Zen Center to live now for however much longer you live? And she said, yes. So she moved into Zen Center. And... Yeah. And... And she was sick and she was in a wheelchair. And... One time she was in the dining room having a meal and my wife said to me, she's letting everybody love her. This sick woman gave herself to the Sangha so that the Sangha could feel this love for her. this appreciation of her.

[27:19]

It wasn't there, I don't think, to get all that love, but she gave herself so we could give her that love. That just came to my mind. We are giving ourselves to others so that they can love us. If we don't realize it, then... We should start practicing generosity, and we will realize it. And they're doing the same with us. That's the first social practice of the four. So consider the possibility that in every conversation, you try to remember that your presence in the conversation, whether you're talking or not, whether you're speaking or being silent with the other person or listening to them, you're giving a gift. You're giving a gift of your silence, you're giving a gift of your listening.

[28:26]

Consider that possibility. I suggest that that social practice of giving with others in conversation is part of realizing a true conversation. It's part of realizing the true nature of all things. Now, being generous like this is great, of course. It's wonderful. And not only is it wonderful, but it's the understanding of reality. Again, it's a good thing I say It's a wonderful thing. It's a joyful thing to practice generosity, but it's not just wonderful. It's also adding reality and becoming a Buddha. That's the first of the four social practices of bodhisattvas, the first four methods of embracing and sustaining other beings.

[29:36]

I'm feeling like maybe I don't have time for the other three, but I'm going to just quickly mention them and then go into more detail in the future. The second one is kind speech or loving speech. And the ancestor Dogen says to talk to people as you would talk to a baby. Which again, you can say, well, I can't talk to everybody like I talk to a baby. They'll punch me in the face. Hello, sweetheart. Hello. But kind of talk to them like you're talking to a baby. Like really sweet and precious and you cherish them and kind of like, good morning. Good morning, Lisa. Good morning, Gail. Good morning, Jeff. Hello. The next practice is beneficial action, which again means you're in conversation.

[31:01]

You're in the conversation with other beings. That's the practice. That's the social practice of conversing with Buddha to Buddha and try to meditate on benefit to and for the conversation. And then moving to the fourth, just because I want to open up for conversation. The fourth is identity action. Learn that your practice is other people's practice and their practice is your practice. That we are in the same boat. And try that on. as a thought experience. And these days, in these very difficult times we're in, a lot of people just would be really challenged to open up to being in the same boat with some people.

[32:19]

a lot of people will be challenged to really be in the same boat with everybody. Not that you like them, not that they're, they may even say that they're not a good person. They may say, you know, I'm really evil. I'm a bad, whatever, whoever they are, this fourth practice is, the fourth of these bodhisattva social practices is to meditate on everybody being in the same boat with you and you being in the same boat with them. And that's what I, you know, I imagine that we may have a lot of difficulty discussing that fourth practice. And so now the conversation, okay? For your responses, your gifts.

[33:28]

Please, please give me your gifts. Please give this assembly your gifts. Okay? Okay? Hello Ram. Rana. Yes. I don't even know how, but listening to you, My heart is so deeply touched. And there is nothing that I can say that I've heard that that was the reason. But somehow you did. And when we were meditating, something very funny happened.

[34:33]

I heard my stomach making noises. I didn't hear them. But it's yours. And then I couldn't distinguish. Is it me or you? So where the sounds is coming from, I couldn't tell. So that was the conversation was happening. Yeah. And my heart is pushing to your student because of all the years that you have been sharing with us your heart. And that beautiful heart I received.

[35:39]

And I've been sharing my stomach with you too. Yes, you did. Tonight you share your stomach with me. Thank you for the gift. Thank you. You're welcome. Rannigan. Well, I have to say, Rob, that this teaching and giving generosity helped me understand something that I've been puzzled about. And I have to confess that I haven't been generous. In my family, we've been doing Zoom. for our different birthdays.

[36:43]

And... May I say something? Sure. When you told me that you haven't been generous, that was the gift. That I learned from you. Yeah. Please continue. In my family... We've been doing Zoom meetings for our birthdays. And I set up the Zoom, so it came time for mine. And we were having difficulty coming to an agreement on the date. And it just... irritated me because people kept wanting to change it. And finally, I just said, let's just forget this one. And I felt sort of self-righteous about it. And we didn't do it for my birthday. And I thought in a way, well, I'm being selfless, but no, I, I was really being selfish. And I wasn't, as you put it, and I wrote it down, um,

[37:48]

we are giving ourselves to others so they can love us. And I didn't let them love me. So I, I, about that. You gave, uh, you gave the person that you were to them. You did. Yeah. You gave a person who, what were you, did you say selfish? You can, You can give people a selfish person. Okay. So if I'm selfish, I can still give myself. You know, I don't have much to give. Matter of fact, what I have to give is a selfish guy. But that's what I have to give you today. Here. Here's my selfish person. And I don't want to have a birthday party. And that's what I have to give to you. And you can really sincerely be that person. That's like only a Buddha. I'm a selfish person and I remember silence and stillness.

[38:55]

So then I'm just a selfish person. But I now give that person. So now I'm only a Buddha together with Buddha. And part of me wishes I had something better to give than the selfish person I am. But in fact, that's what I have to give is this kind of below average or sub-quality person But I have to give to you, dear family, and here I am. And I don't want to talk to you anymore. But that's a gift. And I really feel joyful to give you that gift. And now that I've given it to you, you know, I guess that was a birthday party. We had it after all. And so I gave you the gift of me not wanting the party. I gave you the gift of me being irritated, and you all gave me the gift of being my precious, wonderful family, receiving my gift of selfishness.

[39:59]

Thank you. And you can really mean that. That's a reality. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for the gift. Tracy. I'd like to give you my below average gift. Oh, you got a below average one. Great. And I have to say, it's not that I'm judging, but Rana, I thought yours was really above average and I was very, I'm coming in with a different order of gift. You have a different gift. You have, you have your unique gift. Yeah. Yeah. So my unique gift is to, uh, For the millionth time, I wrote down the six paramitas. I'm getting quite familiar with that.

[41:00]

And it's like, okay, now there's this new list of four. And my first thing is, why can't Buddhism just have one? There are too many different. I wish it were simpler. I wish there could be, just give me one less and I'll work my life on it. But now I have to try to figure it out. and how they fit with the other six. Yeah, I did give you just one. I gave you one at the beginning of the class. It's called Zen Meditation. That's one. That's it. And then I'm unpacking it a little bit for you. But really, I gave you just one thing, which is only a Buddha together with Buddha. So the Lotus Sutra only gives you one thing. All it gives you is the Lotus, you know, is the true Dharma. That's it. But then it unfolds it. And it says, now your job is to work with that, including all this complexity, and including that you wish it was simple.

[42:07]

That's part of it. And that's a gift. You telling me you wished it was simple, that's a gift to me. And I'm not telling you, you know, give me that gift. You give me all these other gifts. You do. You give me all these gifts. And giving basically is another, you could say giving is the whole thing too. I keep thinking, are you This is the whole thing. No, no, this is the whole thing. And they keep... Well, that's true. That's also, that's like same practice. We're all doing the same practice. And it has all these different names, like Tracy and Green and Jeff. But it's the same practice. We need to learn that we're always talking about the practice we're doing together. And the way we learn it is by giving all these different names and seeing if we cannot be fooled by them.

[43:11]

And it's hard because some of the names really are tricky. And they think, well, that's something different. It's the same practice. That person is not practicing like me. Yes, look more deeply. Okay, I will continue. Be with everything you just said. And I have a comment on this before. When you say, or when it is said, speak to them like a baby, can I assume we mean with the tenderness and love you feel to a baby rather than the limited intelligence that a baby might have? Well, it's not so much that the... Don't say, oh, my sweetheart, because the baby's not smart. We say it because we feel that way. But we don't tell the baby this is, you know, the theory of economics. No, we don't. We don't talk to babies like that. It's true. But if we do say here's the theory of economics, then we should say it like.

[44:18]

precious gift to give to you, darling. It's a theory of economics. You've had that feeling like you're giving this person, this living being, who you think is really sweet and you want to give them something. You want to be gentle and tender with them. And it might be a really complex intellectual truth. And you wouldn't give that to a baby. Yeah. You wouldn't talk to a baby like that. But the tone... Home voice would be just that you really appreciate and you don't want to hurt this thing and you just really think it's a and you just feel that way and so you talk to them that way and you probably won't say certain things to them but you might it's possible but it's just a feeling so it's a feeling practice which is you're feeling how you're speaking and you're taking into account or you're referencing how you're talking to the other person and whether the way you're talking is kind and loving.

[45:39]

If I could just ask on number three, when I read Beneficial Action or when you said it and I wrote Beneficial Action, What came to mind was, isn't it that we can't ever know what's beneficial? Well, that's part of beneficial action, is that you're beneficial even though you're not completely sure what it is. But you've heard about these four, and now you're on number three. So here we go, one, two, three. I'm going to try to offer something beneficial to this conversation. I want to do this practice, but I don't really understand what it is. But I still want to do it. And also, if I thought I knew everything about what beneficial action is, maybe that would not be beneficial. Maybe that would close some information because it isn't just beneficial for me. It's beneficial for you, too, that I want.

[46:43]

So you have some say in it. So I might try to do something beneficial, but if I'm fixed on knowing that that was beneficial, then that would leave no room for you to say, you know, I have a question about what you just said or what you just offered. I'm not so sure that that was beneficial. And if I have a fixed idea of what it is, then I might not be able to listen to your feedback, which doesn't seem beneficial to me. So, Being open to have the intention. Have the intention and then being open. Yeah, that's right. Have the intention and part of beneficial action is to be open. So you could also, again, to make things simple, in place of beneficial action, you can just put all six paramitas. You put them all in there because they're all part of it. And they include being generous means you're open. You know, you give something, but you're not really sure what you gave because it depends on how the person receives it.

[47:50]

So, yeah, so openness is part of generosity. It's part of talking to babies. And it's part of benefit. You're welcome. Thank you for your gift. Hello, Red. Hello. First, I want to thank you for the gift of conversation, both the gift, this conversation right now and the teaching, but also to let you know that I've been thinking all week about tonight and asking you about conversation. So you sort of preempted my question about what conversation is and taught us about it. So thank you for hearing my conversation.

[48:54]

So there were two pieces, questions about in the four methods, questions that I can formulate. One is when you said the generosity, I have some I don't know, take issue is the right word, but concerned about the, uh, the description of I give my body and you give your body. And I think that that concern is coming up particularly right now in this era of danger for people's bodies. And, um, So I guess I wonder in the concept of generosity, how boundaries play a role. Well, you just gave me a gift, Barbara Joan. Did you feel like you're giving me a gift?

[49:59]

I'm glad that you feel it as a gift. So, yes. While you were talking, I was wondering. What? I was wondering. She's talking to me now. I wonder if she's aware that she's giving me a gift. I was wondering that while you were talking. You didn't look like you're giving me a gift. Should I try again? Rev, I have a gift. Try again, try again, try again. Okay, ready? Yeah. You ready? I have a gift for you, Rev. I have a question about... Exactly. ...demorosity. Yeah, Rev. whether i'm wondering i'm wondering if boundaries could be part of the generosity yeah right and the answer is yes uh people say set boundaries and i've been trying to say i've been making case for years boundaries give them It's very important to give boundaries for people to know what your boundaries are.

[51:09]

If you tell me your boundaries, that's a gift to me. It shows me how to be close to you. I can be right up to that place if you don't give me boundaries. Well, you do have boundaries, so you should give them to me. Okay. And also, when I say we are giving our bodies to other people, but the body you can give can be a boundary body. You can say, one, two, three, this is my boundary. That's a, you know, one, two, three, I want you to give to me. That can be a gift. It could also be a rhyme. Say it. What? It could also be a rhyme. One, two. Exactly. Don't get closer to me. Yes. So, yeah, giving, you know, you've heard the story about my putting their hands in my mouth. So I gave them a boundary so they could be close to me. I joyfully told them to wash their hands.

[52:12]

I gave that to them so they could be to do this intimate thing with me. I wasn't setting a boundary. I was showing them a way that we could be close together without me feeling really bad about their dirty hands in my mouth. So you can give a martial arts body to somebody. You say, I'm here and I'm well-trained and I can work with you. But I'm not going to necessarily let you hurt anybody, including me or anybody else. I'm just here. I'm going to give you boundaries all over the place. And it's going to be a really fun thing to do together. You're not going to get hurt because I'm well-trained at boundary giving. And I'd be happy to... Would you like some? Great. That feels like a gift. Thank you. And you gave the gift to bring that out. Thank you. And I have one more piece of a question. I know you haven't elaborated on number four, identity action.

[53:17]

But the question that came to me around it, and I would like to offer this question to you, is How does identity action relate to empathy? I think together, empathy is very useful. But you can feel you're in the same boat with people prior to being empathic. So these people, I don't know what example to use, but be worried that women are going to take over the world. You may not be afraid of that. And it may be hard for you to be empathic with men who are afraid of that. You don't get it.

[54:19]

You know, what's the problem? You know, having equal rights. Well, if you could see in the minds of some men, they think if women have equal rights, pretty soon they're going to have all the rights and men are going to be like totally obsolete. They're afraid of that. A lot of men are. They're afraid that they're going to have no power if women have equal power. And you may have trouble being empathic with them. You don't get it. But still, when you get in the same boat with them, you will gradually start to understand and feel that way. But it may take a long time. But the point is, if you're not in the same boat, you may think, well, I don't have to understand why they feel that way because they're nothing to do with me. But if you're in the same boat, we're going to have to understand each other. But we're not going to jump in the boat with everybody.

[55:19]

understand their perspective about why white people are afraid that white people are going to be eliminated and so on. But if we're in the same boat, we're going to have to work it out together with these people who really have such different views from us and fears. We don't get it yet. It's great if we do, but we don't yet. So let's get in the boat and start working on it. Also, getting in the boat is more like compassion. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to get in the boat with people even though I don't understand them. And then the empathy will help us go deeper. Thank you. You're welcome. And some people have empathy, but they still don't want to get in the boat with people. They know why they feel that way. I don't want to get in the boat with you. Thank you, Barbara Joan.

[56:22]

Thank you, Rob. You're welcome. Oh, Christiane. Hello, Rob. Good to see you. I didn't expect to be next. So here I am, though. I have an offering. And it came to mind when you were talking about talking to people as though you were a baby. And the back story is... especially during the pandemic. It's really been interesting spending a lot more time with my family. Definitely more tension than usual because we're together all the time.

[57:29]

And I've had some really interesting conversations, though, especially with my husband, about how I talk to him. One day we were having a conversation and he said, I wish you would talk to me the way you talk to Charlie, who is my dog. He's my little sweet dog. And it really... I will never forget. I hear myself talking to Charlie now and my voice is so soft. You know, like I completely transform when I see him and I want to know how he's doing and I'm so sweet. And it really, it was just such a great, it was a great gift to me to have my husband. Yeah. Yeah. It's really great. How are you, hubby? I've tried it out a few times, and it works great.

[58:32]

He doesn't mind that I sound like that. Like, oh, hi, Hengy. How are you? He thinks that's wonderful. You can't be too loving. You can't be too gushy. At least not in my house. Maybe it's possible, but still, if it is, then they give you the gift of saying, Exactly. Exactly. So that was, that was good. And, um, short offering, which is, um, I've, I've been seeing with, um, only a Buddha together with a Buddha and, and something came to me, which I thought I would share, which is, um, the breath. So breathing to me, how together, um, with the buddha because it's somebody this is actually somebody else was talking about this the breath the air the atmosphere is not us it's coming into us we're sharing it and then it's leaving it's not it kind of bursts the bubble on that i'm this ice all on my own i'm not you're breathing all day long

[59:45]

there's that exchange. I thought that was really helpful. So I thought I would share that. Yeah. And as you, as you take care of your breath and are mindful of your breath, you become only a Buddha. And then as you realize, Oh, there's to get all the other Buddhas too. They're doing the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that was my offering. Thank you. Yeah. Hello, Green.

[60:48]

Hi, Rem. Well, a lot of the things that you were discussing with Barbara Joan were resonating for me. I'm struggling with a specific situation where at work someone raised their voice with me, and they're really mean. I am having a challenge figuring out how to respond to the situation. And I had two kind of thoughts about it. One was, I feel like as a person who has a past of maybe or that I received a lot of cruelty, I feel like it's really hard for me to just respond in a sane manner.

[61:54]

I feel like I have all this ground to regain something. So I'm struggling with thinking about it in a clear way. And I'm also like, I have been reflecting on trying to remember your words about Well, I don't want to say what your words were, but how I remember is I've heard you say about not being pushed around by praise and blame. Yes. I just want to say that when you said it's hard for you to deal with certain situations yes so right there is an opportunity to start the practice of generosity of being generous to yourself of letting yourself be this person who's having trouble for example being sane you know i'm having trouble being sane right now

[63:12]

But I can practice generosity towards this woman who's having trouble. You can practice genuine generosity towards yourself when you're having trouble being sane. You can, right there, forget about the other person who you're having trouble being sane with. Be sane with yourself by being generous And I offer also something I thought was really helpful, which is seeing sanity, not as the opposite of crazy, but as having the resources to not humiliate others or yourself. So what is this difficulty you're having of being sane, like for example, Being saying like, being generous with somebody who's talking to you in a cruel way.

[64:17]

The same thing with that person. And to treat them in a way that doesn't humiliate them. Because you could humiliate someone who's talking to you in a rude way. But that wouldn't be sanity. It wouldn't be crazy either. It would just be humiliating. And it's hard to treat somebody in a sane way when they're being cruel to you. But you can be kind to yourself right then. Well, actually, this has been progressing, and I was trying to. I have been trying to practice this, that you've done this over time. And the development is that instead of being totally shut down by that person, I like met them in the moment and it kind of gave it back to them what they were giving me, which didn't

[65:19]

good because i felt like i was standing up for myself and i wasn't like silencing myself i was kind of like this isn't right so i kind of felt good that i like met it but at the same time i still have this very uncomfortable dynamic well again try to bring into it you say stand up for your that's but you can make standing up for yourself a gift to you and to him or her It's a gift for you to be yourself. The main thing you have to give to people is yourself. So it is a gift to stand up to the situation. To stand up for as yourself is a gift. And it still might be kind of ferocious because you feel like the ferocity is meeting ferocity. But the thing is, it's not cruel. It's offered as a gift. It's not meant to hurt.

[66:22]

It's meant to stand up for yourself. That's a good thing to do. You should stand up for yourself. That's being only a Buddha. That's you honoring you. That's a gift. And that's not a cruelty to other people. However, if you lose sight of the gift quality, then you can slip into that me being me is done to strike back rather than to meet this aggressiveness with energy that's a gift. You almost got there because you did want to stand up for yourself. That is good. You should do that. And being generous does stand up for you. Because it means you are letting yourself be the person who's got something. Like, you know, I want you to speak to me more respectfully.

[67:28]

And I'm giving that to you as a gift. And I want you to speak i really do and i request that you do and you can do that with lots of energy and take care of yourself when you do it and that's gonna but it's hard it's but again be kind to yourself who's having a hard time being that and if you don't if you're not then you practice another kind of kindness which is That wasn't very kind the way I gave him that feedback. I stood up for myself, but I also, on the side, tried to hurt him. That part, I'm not sorry about standing up for myself. I'm happy about that. But I also got into some ill will. Ill will does not stand up for you.

[68:33]

Giving boundaries does, though. That's part of your responsibility to be only a Buddha, to be a solitary Buddha. We need you to do that. Okay. Thank you. Stephen? I feel a little bit bad about coming so late, because I'm going to be such a drag. Thank you for that gift. I've been reading Bill McKibben's Falter, and I think it's 2018, but it's very current. It actually reads like dystopian fiction, and what's depressing about it is it's so real and so scientific.

[69:38]

And so my take on it, and I believe Bill McKibben's take is that we're going to have to do some things that feel almost unnatural. Well, no, that feel really unnatural to make our best, our most appropriate response to Nature, right? Because nature is, you know, reality is, I think you'd agree, is giving reality. Reality is giving all of reality to all of reality. And... Giving rise to reality. Right. And we're part of that, but we're kind of a unique part of reality called human nature. And so now we, this business as usual is... seems like it's going to have to alter significantly in ways that feel unnatural if they aren't in fact unnatural.

[70:51]

And so I guess my thought is that we sort of need to accept things like risks of rising sea level to as a gift and actualities of drought, flood as gifts because they're part of this nature that we've been ignoring for basically since we began the human Now it's actually no longer ignorable. But we are part of this reality that we've been ignoring, and now we need to accept this gift.

[71:54]

I agree. And I think seeing this crisis as a gift will help us make the appropriate response to the welfare of all beings. And we have practices to deal with this crisis. Like we're going to have to like alter, like, like, I mean, like the Catholic church, it's my, you know, my humble opinion is going to have to have to alter like fundamental dogmata, you know, and papal encyclicals. And that's just the start. Yeah. Seems highly likely that that may be necessary. I did see that, you know, a tiny step. I saw that the city of Evanston, Illinois, is starting to make reparation to the injustice they've done to people who are seeking in that town, who were not allowed

[73:04]

to get houses because of racist housing policies. And they're starting to make reparations to those families that suffered because of that. It's a tiny step, but I'm, I'm up for it. And if I lived, if they want to do it in Marin County, I would support it. And it's a whole new idea, but I'm ready for it. I want to be ready for it. Thank you. Vasya. Hi, Ren. Welcome. I've been waiting.

[74:06]

Last week I've been waiting. Well, every week I'm looking forward to this meeting. Last week I just couldn't stay awake. I slept through the whole thing. So I'm looking forward. to the recording. But I just wanted to share that I really jumped into the coping of the Lotus Sutra with such a ferociousness that I really don't even understand. I'm just obsessed with doing it. It's like I spend every spare moment just copying. And I get such a ridiculous pleasure out of it. So ridiculous. So I'm almost on a big page. And as I'm doing it, I'm discovering how much of a practice it is

[75:11]

in being intimate with the movements of the mind and the body and emotions, like grasping the text and reject or rejecting like constant. And it's almost like learning to be airborne, not touching the ground here or not touching your landing pad there. It's really about just not hanging on to these words I think because you know the stories are so incredible some of them it's hard to believe them and hard to disbelieve them it's like I have no ground to reject them and I have no it's hard to accept them either it's just like So it's a fascinating exercise just to be with what I'm reading and not, you know, it's very transformative because of it, because the habit of wanting to engage with that is where it's kind of tired.

[76:25]

It's getting tired and it starts dropping away. Yeah, so it's kind of nice. And I was also thinking about the benefits. That's another one. You know, promises. Today I was, I think that the wonderful voice, Bodhisattva, oh no, the cries, about the Avalokiteshvara and the promises. And I was like reading it and I was observing how, you know, this grasping for the, and recognizing that this is yet another one that sort of observing all these movements of the ego, right? Of the false self. And some grasping, they're rejecting. Rejecting, yeah.

[77:25]

It's ridiculous. That's impossible. That can't happen. Or, I want that. Even if it's ridiculous, I want it. So that's the samadhi. Not grasping these promises or That's ridiculous. Right, yeah. Especially the jewel. Just copy the text and don't get into rejecting it or grasping it. Yeah, yeah. That's the challenge. And that's the beauty because as I noticed, like we were in this process of buying, you know, deciding to buy this expensive. And there was a lot of ambiguity and it was pretty stressful. Ambiguity, ambiguity. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I just copied. The Lotus Culture will help you tolerate the ambiguity. Exactly. Like I just in the spare moment, I would just sit down and write. I found it. It's amazing how it really brings one to that place of trying not to land on anything solid.

[78:32]

Congratulations. It's wonderful. It really is wonderful. Oh, yeah, and the language. I noticed that there's so many words that I was so turned off by in the Bible, reading the Bible, you know, the devils, the sin. And I mean, there's some very Christian words, what we know as Christian. So I'm kind of looking forward to... Or Jewish. Jewish, is that right? The Jews are also in the Bible. Right, yes, yes. So it's Judeo-Christian words. Right, okay, yeah. And there again, you not grasp those words or reject them. That's the samadhi. Yeah, and it's also like what I see it is like a humility because it's like recognizing that I just don't know.

[79:36]

Yeah. So you just become an idiot, a fool, a happy fool. Just wonderful. I don't have to know anything. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Well, we've reached the bewitching hour. May the merit of our meeting extend to every being and place. And may we, together with all beings, lead Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Afflictions are inexhaustible. I vow to cut through. Dharma gates are boundless. to enter them.

[80:41]

Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Good night, everybody. Good night, everyone. [...] Good night.

[81:10]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_89.52