I am deeply encouraged that we're all here again tonight for our final meeting in this series. So here's an assertion. Every act is a display, is a calling to another consciousness to assert the reversibility

[01:01]

of our consciousness and other consciousnesses. Every act is a call to other consciousnesses, and that call is a call which is an assertion that who we're calling to is reversible with us. and we're also calling for the other to assert this too. So I was called to come to Berkeley and I called you to come here to meet me. You called me and I listened and I came. I called you and you listened and you came.

[02:04]

I called some other people too, but they didn't come. So this has been an interesting, kind of a unique series of meetings because we've gone through some changes. Recently someone said, I hope this time hasn't been too challenging for you. And I thought, yeah, it has not been too challenging, but it has been very challenging. Very challenging is, for me, not too challenging. Very challenging is normal. And I can forget that, and so can you. But really, you don't forget it because really you're on the path of becoming the one who listens all the time and is being called all the time and is calling all the time.

[03:23]

This is our true nature. And so I just wanted to say that we can have another... If I'm called, I can come again, and I can call you again. This room might be offered to us. Somehow the world offers us this room to get together. So we'll see if it's offered again, and if so, I'll consider that an invitation. It is an invitation. And then we'll all invite each other to come again. Last week, Alan asked about effort a number of times. And, yes, I would say, I guess I'm saying

[04:28]

Yeah, everything you do is an effort. Everything you think is an effort. Everything you say is an effort. Every posture you make is an effort. We are effortful living beings. And we're... Yeah. And so, speaking for myself, I say my effort... My effort is our practice, which includes so-called my practice. My effort is our practice. My effort is to be upright and to remember our nature, which is that we are being called to meet each other face to face, and we are calling to be met face to face.

[05:53]

So in this class, in Ten Temples, we come together and we sit upright and we take care of... Welcome, Anne. We sit upright and we take care of our fragile body and mind. And we have the opportunity to remember, while we're sitting, the way everybody's included in our being, and the way we are included in everybody, and everybody else is the same. We have an opportunity to take care of our situation here, to be present here, to sit upright and remember the situation, which is our nature. Our nature is that each of us is the center of everything.

[07:25]

Each of us includes everything and everybody, and each of us is included in everybody. That's our nature. It's not something we have to do. in order to be that way. We are that way. But we have to practice that way to realize that we're that way. So we are that way and we don't make ourselves that way. Other beings make us the way we are. We do not make ourselves the way we are. We are other-powered. We are other-dependent. That's our nature. And others are that way too. And we are part of their... We make them. So we are... Thank you. We are included in them. We pervade them. That's our nature. That's their nature. It's your nature that I pervade you and that you pervade me.

[08:28]

We don't have to make things that way. That's the way things are. But we have to practice in order to realize it. And if we don't realize it, it's like we're out of tune with our nature. And being out of tune with our nature, you know, it's not really what we want. Because that is suffering in the full range. And also the way we are is that all suffering is the same as all compassion for suffering. So all our fragile body that's calling for care and that's in pain, that painful body is the same as the compassion which comes to meet it. That's our nature.

[09:31]

But we have to practice that. Otherwise it's like my suffering is one thing and compassion is another. But it's not so. And so we have to practice the reality of compassion being there for all suffering. And it can be very challenging to be compassionate to certain kinds of suffering which you did not sign up for, which you don't think you signed up for. And some suffering you might say, I did sign up for it. That person needed my help and I volunteered to hang out with that person. Well, that's okay. You can sometimes realize that you do want to be compassionate. That's fine. But sometimes you don't. You get off a beat. And you think, no, thank you. And then you remember that everybody needs you to take care of this.

[10:34]

So then you can do it. So I want to sit and remember that I am a pivot, that my nature is being pivotal. What I really am is a pivot between me and you. I'm me, but I'm also not me. But really, most essentially, I'm the pivot between me and you. And you're the pivot between me and you, or you and me. We can remember that and sit upright there. Could you repeat that? Do you like repeating that? No, I don't mind repeating it. Do you mind me repeating it? I would appreciate it very much. So I'm me and I'm not me. So I'm equally me and not me.

[11:38]

But what I always am is a pivot between me and not me. I'm changing all the time. You're changing all the time. But the pivot between us is always our nature. And in order to realize that pivot, I have to fully exert being me. So I am trying to do that. And I'm being called to do that. And you're being called to be you. And it's challenging, but it's not too challenging. Or maybe I'll just say, I don't think it's too challenging. Maybe you do. And that also is challenging. Yes? I'm confused. Well, let's see if we can fully exert the confusion. So, when you say you're trying to be, or you are fully you, or I'm fully me, is that...?

[12:50]

I mean, I don't know. You know, I mean, it seems like you're fully... you aren't different than me. Is that what you mean? When you're fully you, you become fully me. But when you say you exert yourself to be fully you, you say you exert yourself to be fully you? Yeah, but I have to work at being me. I know, I understand that. But that means me too, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. But actually, I don't actually work at being you. I'm not working at being you. I'm working at being me, and with the awareness that to the extent that I'm fully me, I'm fully you. And when I'm fully me and I realize that I'm fully not me, then I realize my true nature.

[13:53]

My true nature is that I am not stuck in being me because I'm actually not me. And I'm not stuck in being not me either because I'm me. So our nature is that we're free of whatever of whatever. But we have to work at it because we do work at it. We are working at reality. We're reality working. Like, again, my name. My name is, you know, Reality Working. And reality works by me being me. And reality works by you being you. And it's not that I don't believe you about this. I'm not trying to show off. But I'm just going to press this button here. Maybe it was showing off a little. It's hard to separate not showing off and showing off.

[14:56]

But really, I just wanted to turn the lights up. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes, however... You once asserted that you can never be you. That I can never be me. You can try... To be you, but you can never be you. You asserted that. Well, I don't know if I did or not, but anyway, I'm willing to assert that. I can never be me because I'm not me. And the more fully I assert, the more fully I exert being me, the more I realize it's impossible. However... Another however? Here we go again. So again, it is impossible to be you because if you're half-heartedly you, it's kind of like you can be you. But if you're fully you, you realize it's impossible to be you.

[16:02]

In other words, you're not you. That's part of our nature is that it's impossible to be... for things to exist. It's impossible. But they do exist in this impossible way of being not themselves. And we do exist in a way of being willing to fully participate with this impossibility of being me and you. And there's all these practices which we talk about of how to do that. Like, listen to people and call to people and do all that as generosity and justice and patience and so on. So we're doing this, we're working on this thing which is impossible and it's also possible that it's impossible and impossible that it's impossible. Did you want to say something more at this time?

[17:02]

Yes, I did want to say that It is impossible to be me. However, I should always be working at being me. That's what you just said. Yeah, I agree. Although it's impossible to be me, I could always be working at being me. Well, no, sure. You explained that. I recommend it. Yeah, it's kind of... So I'm... So part of what I'm talking about is I want, I desire, I long for something that's completely other. And reality is, in some sense, my nature is that I'm completely other.

[18:16]

And I long for that. And I can never satisfy that, but I still long for it, because I long for the reality that I and you are completely other. Are completely other. Or otherwise, from the way I think. And when I say that I often wonder, do you really want that? Do you really long for that? But I don't expect ever to get that because that would be impossible. But it's my nature that I'm other and I want my nature. I want to realize my nature. And part of the way I realize it is by wanting it or in any way checking to see if I want it, if I desire it.

[19:19]

And someone sent me some feedback recently about, you know, some spirit of revolution. And again I would say that I think there can be this wish for revolution, for change. But some people want some change, they don't want complete change. And I'm talking about complete change. Change beyond human agency. Because that's the way we are. Steve? It might be possible to say that what we really want is to be completely other being, as opposed to be completely other, because other, in English, might imply a limit.

[20:25]

Other being might be a limit. Did you say other being might be limit? Other being. Other being. Yeah, not now. Yeah, so, of the ring? Yeah, that's what we want to do. We want it to be an act. We want it to be the final form. So, this is the process. This is the activity. I'm okay with that. And... Yeah, and I think the othering can cope with desiring the other. The other which is, you know, other than the regular other. Absolutely, completely other.

[21:28]

That would include this encounter with, this intimate encounter, the other with involved in the encountering the others. Yeah. So another way I've been talking to you about is that my job is to bring my face. And also my nature comes to meet me or appears to me as a face. a face that's beyond, a face which is the appearance of something completely beyond all my ideas. And I can welcome that face. Are you saying it's impossible to even glimpse it?

[22:39]

Am I saying it's impossible to glimpse it? Yeah. Impossible to glimpse it. It's not like a glimpsing thing. It's not like a thing that glimpsing can encompass. Glimpsing can't encompass it. You can glimpse, but basically you're glimpsing. That's not really the other. Are you saying it's impossible for me because if I, not I, something, there becomes a realization of other, then I is gone? Well, I don't know about gone, but maybe I is liberated. I as overpowered. You're not into your own power anymore.

[23:42]

But it doesn't really disturb you. It doesn't disturb you, this huge, infinite other. you can have a relationship with it, and it overwhelms you, and you can learn from it. You can learn in relationship to it. And we can learn to overcome our allergy to others. So the possibility part of it really is the entity that we usually think of as ourselves is not I don't even know how to say it. Participating. It's not... The mind, the egoistic mind cannot encompass it. However, the egoistic mind can welcome it. And the egoistic mind can work at being fully responsible in meeting everything.

[24:45]

And the meeting is possible. The meeting is reality. This actual way that we're calling and responding to each other. That's reality and the way that's going is completely otherwise, just like everything else is. But we need this relationship in order to realize it. So again, I'm talking about fully exerting your position, yes, and you do that in meeting face to face. I can't do it by myself. I can't get out of my self-consciousness by myself. And nobody else is going to do it for me. But in fully being my self-conscious self, I have a face to offer to meet another face. And that which is entirely beyond my, entirely overwhelms my little karmic consciousness, it does come to meet me.

[25:51]

and does, you know, humble me and throw me into question. And so I work at being with me in this relationship. So I can work at being me without being responsible for this kind of communication but I won't be successful. However, I will realize that. because eventually I'll start to hear that I'm being called and I'm calling to meet something which is going to tell me that I have to meet something, that I cannot free myself by myself. And again, nobody else is going to do it for me, but I have this opportunity all day long to meet the other through the way the other appears as a face. And parenthetically, I've done some research on how we develop as neurological humans and how we develop self as part of that neurological development, how we develop it.

[27:02]

And a key ingredient is how our little baby face meets the caregiver's face. that face gives rise to our... we can't have this egoistic consciousness without another face that's really interested in us. And then once we have a self we need to keep using the face to become free of this great accomplishment of a self-centered consciousness. So the self-centered consciousness is born through the most intense neurological and emotional relationship is between the baby's face and the caregiver's face. And that gives rise to the consciousness which then it turns into a nice little prism and then we can hear teachings about how to do the same thing in a more thorough way than we could when we were a baby and even in a more thorough way than our caregiver could convey to us at that time even though our caregiver might have been somebody who was ready to do this practice but first of all they had to help us become self-centered before they could meet with us and free us from self-centeredness

[28:25]

So this amazing thing about face-to-face in Zen and in neurological development. We have to meet the Buddha face-to-face. And the Buddha is entirely otherwise from what anybody thinks Buddha is. And Buddha knows that Buddha is otherwise from what anybody's idea of Buddha. And we need to meet that Buddha. And that Buddha is looking at us all the time. And we've got to get it together to meet the Buddha who is looking at us all the time. The Buddha is ready for us, but the Buddha sort of at the same time has to wait for us. So we have this big job of being ourself and being fully responsible for all of our stuff, all of our fragile stuff, and bringing our wholeheartedness with our fragile stuff to meet other fragile stuff, and in that way open to meeting the Buddha.

[29:31]

Yes? You said you've done some research into this. Is there a particular book? Yeah, I have this huge book which I was going to bring, but you know, under my present circumstances, I can't carry a lot of books. But I'll bring it to know a book. What's it called? It's called, I think, Affect Modulation and the Birth of the Self, or something like that. Do you remember the movement spot? I don't, but anyway, if you remind me, I'll bring it to Noah Boyd and show it to you. It's a big, fat book, and I can't believe how much of it I've read, and I've only read a tiny bit. I mean, I've read a lot. It's a huge book. It's like this thick, about all these studies about the neurological development of the child and the development of the self. And a big section is the section about the face.

[30:38]

Yeah? So last week you were talking about the flowers. You were talking about them a lot this week, and about flowers. And so we were talking about the face, and wondering whether the face is something you're standing neurologically for us to develop on. ego-self, the actual ego-self. Zen. No, but that's a good book, too. The acronym for this book starts out with AO, and I don't remember the rest, but the A is, you know, affect, affect, the O is the origin, and then something about the self. Self. I'm wondering whether face can also be the flower or whatever else in reality, because you were saying face and I... The face can be... This face is the face that we're using right now, which is the appearance of which is beyond all our ideas, so it can be anything.

[31:57]

But as you know, human faces are a big deal to us. People do not usually go up to a tree and go, you know. Almost nobody hates trees and doesn't want to deal with them. I don't know, maybe there are some people. But anyway, a lot of people go out in the forest and they have no problem being with the trees. But we have a lot of problems looking at humans because it's so intense. it is that the human face will be a key ingredient in us opening to what's entirely other than anything we can think of or feel. And we can sense our reservations in meeting a human face and listening to a human face and speaking to a human face. We can work with that. We can notice when we can be more wholehearted and we can work at being aware of that and making an effort to be more wholehearted and more responsible in our meetings with human faces.

[33:06]

And in this way we open to other which is always right there, because human face is always otherwise from what you think it is, just like everything else is. But it's a place where we grow up experiencing how powerful the meeting with the human face can be. And that power is necessary to become self-conscious. that power is also there in becoming free of being enclosed in self-consciousness. And there's nobody whose face is not an opportunity to work at this. Everybody's face is otherwise. Everybody's face is actually beyond what you think it is. But what you think it is, is already in many cases very challenging.

[34:06]

So I'm trying to encourage us to meet every face that we can see and practice in every way we can see and notice whether we're being ethical and just and we may notice some limitations and we work on that. So again, I often think, you know, why do we have meetings like this? We can just read books. But the thing about books is that unless you're really wholeheartedly being yourself, most people don't see a human face in a book. But human faces naturally have a lot of potential for us, so when we hear a teaching or meet someone to discuss practice with another face, somehow it's different than reading a book about the same conversation you just had.

[35:14]

So that's why we do get together and meet face to face. I shouldn't say that's why, but that's a great opportunity. Because we do have a lot, we feel so much when we look at a face. And it's so hard, we're so challenged by that. We're getting so much information. And all of this is just a door. All these are just doors. Yes? Well, I'm gathering that in order to meet a face of any sort, even Barry's face. I have lots of judgments, right? Even Barry's face, yeah. Even Barry's face, I know. But I make judgments about his face. You make judgments about his face, yeah. How he looks at me, I know whether... So part of the intensity of meeting someone is judgments are going on towards the face and feeling judged by the face. That's part of the intensity of face-to-face meetings for humans.

[36:22]

That's part of the opportunity to realize that you're calling for this. You're calling for this meeting and you're being called to this meeting. And if you feel like someone's judging you, you might feel like, I'm not calling for this meeting. But you meet it anyway. You meet it anyway. You meet it anyway, and it's good to practice that so you realize you do meet it anyway. In fact, you do meet everybody anyway. In fact, you do include everybody anyway. But if you don't practice that and notice the limits of your practice in that way, you're not generous enough, you don't get started. But does it really have, like, I'm just trying to imagine, like, in that encounter, it really has nothing to do even with how I react to what I'm perceiving in somebody else's face.

[37:31]

I mean, I'm not trying to manipulate it somehow by being... So you're meeting someone, and you just said something like, you're meeting someone and you said it doesn't matter how you respond, how you react? Well, you know, I mean, I could be smiley and charming and try and make this situation palatable to my own sense of judgment, but that's manipulating. That's the situation. You could be meeting someone and you could be really trying to manipulate the quality of the meeting. A lot of meetings are like that, where people are meeting and they're making a big effort to manipulate or influence the quality of the meeting, which is delusion. So, what we're trying to do is to be wholehearted, be fully responsible in the meeting, but that doesn't mean we eliminate the delusion of trying to manipulate the quality of the meeting.

[38:33]

Did you get that? So we're trying to have a nice meeting or a successful meeting or a beneficial meeting. Or we're trying to teach this person a lesson or something. Or then there's other kinds of meetings which are really horrible. We're trying to have a meeting which is going to be revenge. All these kinds of meetings. So whatever is up in the meeting, I'm talking about being fully responsible in that situation. If you can be fully responsible, then you can realize that this meeting where there's this you trying to manipulate, you can realize that you're not you. And the manipulation is not manipulation. The manipulation includes everything that's not it. And it's already that way. Manipulation already includes not manipulation.

[39:37]

You don't have to make it that way, it already is that way. But if I'm upright with trying to manipulate you right now, then I have a chance to realize that all the manipulation I'm trying to do is not manipulating. and I am not me, in other words, I'm you. But I have to be upright for what's going on. And what can be going on is that I notice I'm manipulating and then I could go from there and say, we're going to stop all manipulation now, get rid of the manipulation, that's the next manipulation. And you can be upright with all these appearances of manipulation. You can be generous and welcoming to all the manipulation that you're trying to exercise and that you think other people are trying to exercise.

[40:41]

You can be upright with that and wholehearted with that. And in fact you are. And the way you're wholehearted with manipulation is pivoting with not manipulation. But to try to get rid of manipulation is not necessarily the path to being wholeheartedly manipulating when you're manipulating. Enrika? And Vivian? And before that, you used to do it with your mother. I finally did all of this stuff.

[41:47]

Right. That thing. Because I was so uncomfortable. And I started to cry. And for such a wealth of tears and value of tears, that I cried for life advice. You know? Couldn't stop. Essentially, I didn't know what to do with myself. And it was... I realized I was never actually present with anybody, really, after Dr. Mike. Truly. I was only seeing them, what I thought about them, not really the person. That's the usual situation. is that we're usually not doing justice to the people we're meeting. But to try to skip over that and say, I've had enough of not doing justice to people. From now on, I'm going to do justice to people. You might be just tricking yourself even more deeply than you were before. So one way I trick myself is I trick myself into thinking that what I think of you is who you are, so I'm not doing justice to you, plus I'm fooling myself into thinking that I am doing justice, that does even less justice to you and more also injustice to me.

[42:56]

When the insight you had is good, you're starting to open up, I don't do justice to people. I also don't do justice to myself. Exactly. I'm fooling myself. Yeah, it's the same. That's why I start crying in the kitchen. So I think that was kind of like congratulations. And you said you didn't know what to do with yourself. Well, again, thinking that I know what to do with myself is doing an injustice to me. I'm not something that I know what to do. I don't know what to do with me any more than you do. And I know you're having some problem figuring out what to do with me. But I'm the same as you. I don't know what to do with me. But I am responding to me and I'm responding to you. And I can be aware, I can listen to the teaching that egoistic consciousness, which is normal, and there's a lot of work to make it up. Our mommy and daddy had to work hard to help us have an egoistic consciousness. It's biased and prejudiced.

[43:59]

and enclosing. And the way to get out of it, or not to get out, the way to be free of it is basically by face-to-face conversations in which you realize that you're not being very just and fair to other people. You're not giving them a chance because you're... And when you realize that, this is like the beginning of liberation from this injustice you're doing to yourself and others. So I think that was a, I would say, congratulations that you had such an experience and I hope you have many more. You know, and that you can, and that you can, this time you laughed. That you can realize it's all so funny. This is all so funny. All these tears are set up for seeing how funny it is that we, that we think other people are what we think they are. It's really quite funny. And the joke never gets old.

[45:01]

I'll be right back. After Enrico was Vivian, and then Cynthia, and then Tracy. Do you have basically privileges vision? Yeah. Yeah. It does. This semester, one of my students Lying. Lying from birth. And my father is very experiential and he is living fully. But it's not... So he has to do touch and hearing. But it is for a blind child to develop the same neurological intensity that happens for children who can see, you know, you have to find some other way.

[46:04]

It's difficult to find another mode because when you look in somebody's eyes, all these kinds of amazing stuff happens, especially if the person thinks you're like the cat's meow, which oftentimes your caregiver does think you're really great. And when they think you're great, their eyes dilate and all kinds of light comes out of your eyes, and they can see your brain, They're actually looking at your nerve going back. So the information you get through the eyes is really a great opportunity for stimulating the whole body and mind in such a way that certain normal processes get set off. So for a child who doesn't have that, we have to find other ways. And blind children can learn it, but somebody's got to make a big effort to help them find it. And... It's interesting that the other students, 45 other people, look at him, but they try not to look.

[47:19]

So we're all learning a lot. Yeah, but people who can see, they feel the intensity of looking at somebody who can't. We're afraid to look at somebody who can't. But I don't think he's afraid of looking at us. No. He did his presentation yesterday. And other students didn't stand up. Yeah, so... He stood up. Yeah, and so a lot of kindness has come to him so that he has been able to do this. And so how he will meet the face will be a unique path will be a different path from the way that people who can see will find a way to meet the face. Because he has to do it too. And I think he is trying, from what you're saying. He's trying to have a face-to-face meeting even without vision. But there's something about these eyes that our eyes... Like, it's hard for my ear to show you how interested it is in you.

[48:27]

Like even if I turn my ear like this, you say, well, he's trying to listen to me. You can't tell that I'm more or less interested because my ear is dilating. But you can tell people's interest by their eye. It acts differently when they care about you in different ways. And babies can see that. And when they see it, their eyes change too. which then causes the person who's looking at them, their eyes change too, which causes the baby's eyes to change. And then part of what the baby learns is to look away because at a certain point they can't stand any more stimulation that they're getting from looking at this eye which is so interested in their eye, which is, you know, this thing. So if a person can't see, we have to find some other way for that same kind of meeting. And again, you can meet with flowers and trees and you can meet through the touch and smell and these other ways of meeting are possible.

[49:30]

Cynthia? I'm struggling with what feels a little bit like a paradox of making effort to be wholeheartedly who we are, which feels a little bit like, I have to be this other thing, or I have to be ethical or patient or generous. It's like I have to move somewhere, and yet what I'm getting is like it's really wholehearted to be just this now. Yes, and also the reason we practice being wholehearted is because we are wholehearted. So someone might say, isn't everybody wholehearted about being themselves all the time anyway? Yes. The whole universe is making you the way you are. You are wholeheartedly, but if you don't practice that way, you don't get it. So you could say it's paradox, and I'm not saying it's not paradox, but I would say maybe it's more like ironic.

[50:39]

Because again, it's not exactly paradoxical that you have to work to be who you are. But it's ironic that you do because you didn't expect that you're going to have to work at being you. It's kind of surprising. And also another part of the irony is you have to work at being you and you don't really know who you are. But you still want to do it. Tracy? Could you call on me when we're ready to change the topics rather than right now? Could I call on you when? When we're changing topics. This is so... What I've got to say is what I can do with this. Oh, okay. All right. Yes, Jeff. Are you changing topics, by the way? Are you changing topics? No. No. So is there another way perhaps to put what you just put, that you already are and you just have to work to be?

[51:48]

Do you have to work to be aware of who you actually are? Yes, and being who you are is that you are aware of who you are and you have to work at being aware because you are. So you are aware and therefore you have to work at being aware. So part of you being full of yourself is to be aware of what you think yourself is. And you do think yourself is something. And you're aware of it. But if you don't practice that, you might not realize that you are aware, that you are aware, that you are thinking. Descartes said, I think, therefore I am. We actually, on some level, we know that the way we know we exist is because we're aware that we think. We are aware, but a lot of people are not aware that they're aware of thinking and they're not aware that they're aware of existing. But you are, so you have to exercise it.

[52:50]

You are generous. The reality is not that you're stingy, the reality is you're generous. So therefore you have to practice being generous. You are ethical. That's who you really are. So you have to practice that. And that's the kind of irony of it, is that you have to practice being who you really are. Because who you really are, part of who you really are, is that you have to practice at being who you are. Part of reality is that reality is practicing being reality. I'm going through some of my books and one of them, which I never read before, is by Meir Baba. And this is one of the books which I may be giving away. I'm gonna give it to you. And he starts off by saying something like, God is love, but God has to love. God has to be loving. So then there's problems of who's God gonna love because God's everything, so he's just loving himself. But anyway, the thing again is God is love, but God also has to practice loving.

[53:57]

And Buddhas are enlightened, Buddhas are Buddhas, but they have to practice being Buddhas, otherwise they don't realize it. So you're Buddha, and you have to practice it. You're generous, you're ethical, And if you practice it, you can realize it. And when you start practicing it, you might start thinking, I'm not ethical. Well, that's part of maybe your path to practicing ethics is noticing that you're not ethical. That's part of ethics practice is to notice when you don't seem to be. And if you don't do that hard work, you don't realize that you are already doing that hard work. You're already working at being just and ethical and generous and patient. You're already working at it. And so you have to practice it to realize whether what I said is true or not. And if you find out that it's not, you'd have to work at then proving it to me. And as you do it, you start to realize that now you're working at it again.

[55:04]

We are hardworking. And we even work hard at thinking of ways to be lazy. Like teenagers. Very energetic at figuring out ways to be lazy. Yes? Are you going to change the topic? Would you like to? Yes. Okay. I'll be right with you, Tracy. You still want me to talk? Well, yeah, you could change the topic, so... You have to have passion and energy in that encounter. And you do. You do have passion and energy. And if you don't practice it, you don't realize it. And in that encounter with this passion and this energy... You need to be free.

[56:10]

I want to be free. I need to be passionate. You want to be free and you want to be passionate. And you are passionate and you are free. And you want to be, maybe both, in your case you want to be free and passionate. Some people want to be free of passion. That's not your problem. But the freedom from passion is by being wholeheartedly passionate. And to be wholeheartedly passionate, you have to be compassionate to the passion. And then you realize that the compassion was always right there with the passion, always was completely there. And not only is that nice to hear, maybe, but it also frees you from the passion and the compassion. So you're not stuck in compassion because compassion is always with passion. And you're not stuck in passion because passion is always the same as compassion.

[57:16]

So you're free of both. And that's the way you already are. But you have to sit and be upright in that awareness. Are you aware that you're free? You can be aware that you're free, but that's not freedom. That's something else to be free of. A lot of people say, how will I know that I'm free? No, no, no. Change the subject. Did I just change the subject? Tracy? No, no, no. You guys are still talking about the same thing. Oh, wait a second. I want to be with Tracy. Oh, my God. Tracy, some people in this class are rebelling against your control. This looks promising. Are you complete?

[58:38]

Yes. I didn't understand what you meant when you said reversible. Well, like I'm reversible with you. I'm pivoting with you. And I'm me, and I'm not you. and you're you, you're not me, and we're pivoting with each other, but it's the same pivot. We share the pivot. The pivot, we have the same nature, is that we're pivoting with each other at this moment. And in order to pivot, I mean, in order to realize the pivot, I have to be fully me. If I'm half-heartedly me, then I'm kind of like half-heartedly you, so then I'm still kind of stuck in me, And if I would flip to you, I'd be stuck in you. Which is not true. I'm not stuck in you and I'm not stuck in me. So my job is to be fully me.

[59:47]

To realize that I'm fully not. And it's not so much that not me is better than me. It's the relationship. It's the face-to-face relationship between me and not me. And of course, not me is all my ideas of not me, plus much more than that. Yes? I still don't understand what you mean when you say pivot. When you say pivot, I think of a turn like this, or a turn like that. The dancer pivots. Yeah, it's like that. It's like... I don't get that concept. I have more sense of something like you breathe in, you breathe out, there's a slinging door. I look at you, I see whatever I perceive of you, and then maybe I sort of let go and maybe get some sense of

[61:02]

Maybe how you are and how you see me. But pivot? I don't get that. Well, everything you just said sounded to me like you. I thought you just gave me some... You conveyed to me something about what it's like being you. Where does the word pivot come in? It comes in... How did that work in the little engine we got here? Well, it... Or the mechanism, or the physics, or the metaphysics, or something. You were talking about you, but you didn't quite get to the point of showing that the way you're that way depends on me and everybody else. You didn't get to that part. which is fine but even if you don't have to I'd like to but you don't have to even you can forget the word pivot but you still have to be yourself in order to realize the pivot and you've forgotten the word the pivot let's say we just put the word pivot aside right and now you're working at being Marjorie

[62:24]

And part of being Marjorie is to tell me about her. I'll say. Yeah. That's part of you being you, is to tell me about how it is for you. How I understand the meaning of language in this case. Yeah, part of you being you is for you to talk to me about how you understand language. That's part of you being you. Right. So I can try to perceive how you're perceiving the word pivot and how that works for you. You can work at that, but again, you're stuck in your version of how I do that. That's probably permanent. Did you say permanent? That's probably permanent. So now you're telling me some more about yourself. And you're seeing that you think it's permanent. But it's not permanent.

[63:29]

The self-centered point of view is not permanent. But in the self-centered realm, people often do think that stuff in that realm are permanent. That's part of the way a lot of people's self-centered consciousness is understood. On the other hand, I feel as though I kind of get that being me is more like being everybody else. There's the pivot. That's what you call a pivot. That being you is being other people. Really being you is to be not you. And that's your reverse. Well, back and forth is language, right? Back and forth. And another word for that would be reversible.

[64:34]

Back reverses with forth. Forth reverses with back. So reversibility is another word. Swinging back and forth or moving back and forth. It's not just moving back and forth, it's also like being the other. Okay. That language helps me. Yeah. And in order to realize that you are otherwise from this person who is interested in various things, like language, is to be fully that person who's interested in the things that you're interested in. And I'm also saying to you that you won't be able to fulfill being fully yourself without having a conversation with people like me. And everybody's like me. Ergo, here you are. You're welcome. Eric?

[65:36]

I think you said in an earlier class that Being another doesn't necessarily include trying to imagine what the other positions are. It doesn't necessarily include that, although it could. Some people are super into imagining other people. That's part of who they are. And they would need to do that wholeheartedly. And I'm saying that I will not be able, if I'm one of these other imaginers, I am to some extent. Like a novelist? Yeah. That I wouldn't be able to do that without other people conversing with me about how I'm imagining others. But some people don't do it. They have other things that they're interested in and they won't be able to do those things fully without meeting face-to-face with somebody. So we don't have to all be novelists, but some of us can do it.

[66:39]

But the novelist, I'm saying, will not be able to be... The novelist will not be able to be wholeheartedly novelist and realize that they're not novelists without the help of others. Mike? What's it like for you sitting Zazen in a chair instead of your usual posture? What's it like? It's indescribably delicious. Okay, it is getting close to time to stop and Anne has to go take care of her babies. So one more question from Peter. Tracy? I just brought up Troy.

[67:43]

Peter. Looking into a face can be absorbing. Last week, you, in passing, snuck in self-remembering. And that's pretty, under any circumstances, it's difficult. Let me put it this way. Is it useful to attempt self-remembering in that context? In the context of meeting face-to-face? It's oftentimes... It's always useful, but it's also sometimes very helpful to remember yourself while you're talking to the other, and also remember the other while you're talking to yourself. Yeah. Tracy. You mentioned Noah Boat, and when we were checking in tonight, somebody mentioned that they didn't know what Noah Boat was.

[68:52]

Do you know what it is? What is it? It's an opportunity for... That's true. Noah Boat is an opportunity. It's the main opportunity. Yeah. So you're welcome, you're all welcome to come to no abode. If any of you haven't come yet, you're welcome to come. So no abode is the name of, no abode is the name of a place which is devoted to no abode. It's devoted to going back and forth.

[69:54]

So you can come there and go back and forth with the universe, right? Of course, you can do that in Berkeley too. But Berkeley is not called Noah Bowen. And this place is called Noah Bowen. It's especially dedicated to a mind which is not stuck in itself. And the place that's devoted to the mind which isn't stuck someplace is stuck someplace. But not really. So come there and verify that it's not stuck there. Interesting. So anyway, thank you again for coming to the last meeting. I really appreciate you making the effort to come to this challenging class. Thank you. And I'll keep taking care of this fragile body for you.

[71:04]

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