bring up a practice which is totally culminated supreme enlightenment. It's a practice which although I may speak of it it may be difficult for us to enter it. It may be difficult for us to trust, to have faith and understanding in a practice which is enlightenment. We might more easily have faith and understanding in a practice that is something that we can do by ourself.

[01:17]

But it may be more difficult to have faith in a practice that is the way we're working together. with all beings, that practice may be more difficult to have faith in because it's inconceivable. The kind of practice I'm talking about, an inconceivable practice, which is actually enlightenment, which is actually the way to help others. the awakened ones have a wondrous truth, a wondrous dharma, a wondrous teaching, which they transmit. They have a method by which they transmit it.

[02:25]

And the standard or the criterion of the method is called in various ways to call it. One way is concentration on receiving and giving self or receiving and giving ourself. Another way to say it would be the method of realizing the truth of the awakened ones is concentrating on self-fulfillment, on the self-fulfillment that lives in the awareness of how we receive and give ourself.

[03:33]

The awareness is of already having a self, not noticing that it was a gift. Not noticing, perhaps, or being aware that we received it and that we're giving it. Just noticing, I got a self, and this self can be used to do things. That's a quite familiar perspective. This new perspective, which is being offered to concentrate on, is received and given. The concentrated awareness of how the self is received and given is enlightenment. Another way to translate it would be to say that it's the concentration on the whole process of giving, which includes the receiving and giving of our self.

[04:59]

So I would propose to you that the whole universe, in truth, is constantly involved in a process of giving. That everything in the universe is giving itself. So concentration in the whole process of giving is the way to enter into enlightenment. Once again, looking at the process of giving, when we usually, when we approach the process of giving, we think, well, I will give something.

[06:05]

There's me, a gift, and a recipient. Or, I will receive something. In the process of giving, I will be a recipient. Who gives a gift. these elements of giving are, in fact, part of giving. But their separation is not real. They're not separate. You cannot have one without the other. They're always working together, otherwise there's not giving. So in the process of giving, when we fully engage with it, we do not know if we are, we do not know, we do not grasp if we are the giver, the receiver, or the gift. And again, I propose that we are constantly, each of us, a gift.

[07:13]

We're always a gift. And we're always giving and we're always receiving. But since we can't get a fixed position in the process, it's difficult for our mind to trust, our heart and mind to trust such a process that we can't get a hold of, a place to abide. And yet being immersed in this process and then being concentrated and learning how to remember it and continuously return to this process of giving is the initiation into enlightenment, which is the initiation into the actual process of helping others. And one of the main ways that we help them is by, once immersed, inviting them into the process of giving.

[08:21]

encouraging them to enter and concentrate on the process of giving and receiving their self, of being a gift, a receiver, and a giver simultaneously all the time. Perhaps, in a sense, theatrically or dramatically enacting temporarily one of the positions. Like now, you know, I'm a gift. Green Gulch Zen Center has given me to you for a little while. And again, has given me to you. I'm a gift. Or I'm a giver. I'm a giver to you now. But I'm also a receiver of you. But I could take one position for a little while, and then you could take another one.

[09:26]

Like you could be giving me your attention, I could be receiving your attention, and then your attention could be a gift. I could be giving you these words, and the words could be a gift. But I feel the real process is to understand that I'm not in the fixed position of being a giver of a gift. To open to that great, ungraspable warmth of enlightenment. But this is hard for us to accept sometimes. This concentration on giving is sometimes called the concentration of self.

[10:44]

the awareness of self. Because again, self is something that is received and given. It can be a receiver and a giver. So it can be a gift, a receiver, and a giver. Every moment we receive our own unique And every moment we give it to the universe. Being there and being completely settled there realizes for the moment. And then the question is, not the question exactly, but the challenge is to enter that again and again and again.

[12:03]

Whatever allows us to hear this teaching and enter it, or hear this teaching and then be able to see that the persons we're meeting are gifts, the persons we're meeting are donors, the persons we're meeting are recipients. Remember that, and remember that there's no fixed position the things that contribute to that, in a moment where we can glimpse and enter the process of enlightenment, those conditions change. In the next moment, another set of conditions arise. But because they're different, we might not notice, we might actually feel that they distracted us from the enlightenment we just entered. the things that supported us to enter enlightenment now are gone, and now we have a new moment, and we might say, I lost my support.

[13:21]

What I had before was a gift, and now that's gone. So this isn't a gift, this is a loss. So learn to not get distracted from the process of giving by anything. Well, that's Buddhahood. We all can enter enlightenment instantly, right now, by simply opening to this process, which is actually for us. But then the next moment we forget, perhaps. Again I propose we are already in fact living, you could say, of the Buddha, of enlightenment. We're living in the house of the whole process of giving.

[14:31]

We're living in the process, the house of the process of receiving and giving ourselves. We live in that house. And I say that to segue to a story from the Lotus Sutra, the lotus flower of the true Dharma. And in the second chapter, I think it's the second chapter, but actually it's not the second chapter. It's maybe the fourth chapter. And it's called Faith and Understanding. Today I feel like the chapter of faith and understanding is the faith in the process of giving. The faith that we are actually in the process of enlightenment.

[15:32]

And understanding that. So in that chapter of the Lotus Sutra called Faith and Understanding, at the beginning there's some students of the Buddha who do something by the Buddha directly such that they feel that they could actually enter into this supreme process. And they're very happy about this. And then they say to the Buddha, we're very happy because now we thought, you know, that we'd gone as far as we could go.

[16:34]

We thought we had attained nirvana. There's nothing more to do. We never thought to aspire to supreme enlightenment. But now, given what you're saying, great teacher, we know, we have faith that we can enter enlightenment. The enlightenment of the Buddha. We're so happy. A parable to explain how we feel. So the students tell the Buddha this parable. And it goes something like, and I, it's a story about a son and a father. I could change it to a daughter and a mother. It might seem a little strange to tell the story, however, as daughter and mother. Or I could say it as mother and son.

[17:38]

Yeah, mother and son or father and daughter. In the book it usually says father and son. But maybe today we could say father and daughter or mother and daughter. We're halfway between Mother's Day and Father's Day. Any suggestions which one you want to hear? Mother and son? Okay. We got mother and son? Yeah, right. That's what it is. That's what the story is about. It's about the mother of all beings. The Buddha is the mother of all beings. All beings are Buddha's children. So there was a young man who wandered away from his mother's house.

[18:53]

He ran away from his mother's house. He couldn't find his way home. And he wandered for 10, 20, 50 years. And during that time, he struggled to find food and clothing and became more and more destitute and emaciated. After he ran away, his mother looked for him and looked for him to find him. and was full of grief and regret to have lost her son. She moved to another city and became almost inconceivably wealthy.

[20:08]

She developed incalculable wealth and prestige. Her storehouses were full of treasures. But she missed her son. The son wandered from village to village and town to town and region to region and by chance he wandered back in the direction where his mother was living. And actually wandered right into the city where his mother lived and walked right by her great house. of giving, which he ran away from.

[21:20]

He looked up at the house and happened to see his mother sitting on a lion throne on her veranda. And she thought, Queen, or something like a queen, I better get out of here because her servants might apprehend me and force me into working for her. So he ran away again. His mother, however, after yearning all this time to see him, saw him and recognized him even in his aged, agitated, raggedy self.

[22:24]

And she was very happy to see him. And she sent some of her servants, some of her attendants. She said, run after him and bring him back here. So they did. And caught up with him and apprehended him and started to bring him back. And he was terribly frightened that they were going to press him into slavery. And he said, I've done nothing wrong. Let me go. But they kept trying to bring him back according to their orders from the queen. And he became so frightened he fainted. His mother, the queen, I mean it wasn't the queen actually, his mother, she wasn't the queen actually. She was involved in politics. She was just

[23:25]

extreme, she just had extreme treasures. She was a treasure store. The kings were her friends, the queens were her friends. She was actually a queen. So anyway, she could see her son faint, and so she, I don't know, somehow told the servants to sprinkle water on him, revive him, and set him free. So they did, and they said, you can go, and he ran away. Then she got an idea, a skillful method, by which she thought she could get close to him again or help him get close to her to bring him back to the house of enlightenment. So she sent, I think, one of her servants or maybe two who didn't look

[24:39]

who were kind of themselves old and decrepit and in tattered and dirty clothes to go to him and offer him employment at double wages. And the work they offered him was the work of removing dung And when they offered it to him he was very happy to receive this work so that he could feed and clothe himself. And he did for quite a while. And he told his attendants, the mother told her attendants to work with him and they did. And after some time he developed some confidence in his ability to do this work and the mother dressed up herself in she took off her her pearls which were worth hundreds of millions and her soft clean clothing and other adornments and put on rough dirty clothes and smeared herself with dirt and

[26:08]

dismantled her coif and went to see her son and said, you're doing a good job. You don't have to worry anymore about the necessities of life. You will definitely by this work. I'm like a mother to you, and you're like a son. That message, and continued to work, and he worked there for 20 years. And then she went to him again, but now I think in a different outfit, more the outfit of the house, and actually invited him to come into the house and learn the ways of the house of giving.

[27:24]

Learn how the treasures were received and dispersed. Become familiar with with the treasures of giving and the giving of treasures. And he accepted the position and moved into the house and became proficient in the great house of his mother, all the while still feeling inferior to this great woman, feeling separate from her. Then after a long time, she was feeling as she felt before, but now even more so, I'm getting old. This has been like 80 years or so since he ran away. I'm getting old. I won't have much more time to live.

[28:28]

I must now, now is the time to transmit everything, to give everything to my son. And so she invited the kings and queens and the nobles and the merchants and all the officials and other members of the society that lived around her and asked wealth to come and witness her saying that this person, this man who I have treated like a son, is actually my son. And now I give him the care of all this treasure. And now the son could believe this and accept this and understand this.

[29:36]

And this is the same with us, that we may have to work very hard to be able to accept, to believe and enter and accept and understand that we are living in the house of enlightenment, that we are living in the house of giving. And if we don't believe it and we don't understand it, then we simply, hopefully, will do whatever we need to do until we believe and understand it. With lots of dharma from our eyes and heart for a long time, perhaps, before we can accept for a moment and then another moment and then another moment until we're actually concentrated in each moment on giving of giving ourselves to others and of receiving others and of being a gift that we are the universe has given and we are a gift the universe gives to enter that realm of giving

[31:07]

which is the realm of self-fulfillment. There's no mention in this whole story about any concern for self. We have no concern for self. It's just a gift to us, which we know we should not hold on to. Thank you very much. Please help yourself. Oh, how nice. I have a self to give away. I'm not worried about giving it away. Another one may be given or not, who knows. But now I give it away at the same moment that I receive it. When we're focused in this way, the treasure store will open of itself. And you may use it as you wish.

[32:10]

That's what it says at the end of our basic meditation instruction. When you enter this concentration and you actually live there, the treasure store will open of itself. And he said, and the son said after his mother told him, he said, without really doing anything, the treasure store has opened of itself. So at the end of our basic meditation instruction, we say what the son said. Our basic meditation instruction is when we first come to practice, we don't really believe that everything is a gift.

[33:15]

We don't believe that everything is a gift. Some things are and some things aren't. We don't think that we're always a gift. We don't think that we're always giving. We don't think that we're always receiving. Sometimes we think we're taking. And sometimes we think people take things from us, like they take our life or they put us into servitude. That's what it looks like to us, and this is horrible. So the skillful mother should give us a break and let us run away from slavery so that we can be in a position where we voluntarily say, yes, I'll do that work. I'd like that. And the work in this practice is to remove the hindrances from believing in this practice. The practice of what?

[34:16]

Of giving and receiving. Of reality. It is not reality that we take things. Stealing is not the truth. It's what we think we do, are doing, when we don't believe that what we have is a gift. And people don't believe us either. As soon as it looks like they're taking something, we instantly can learn, we can learn to instantly, we don't instantly learn it, but we can learn to instantly turn it into a gift. If we miss that it was a gift, we turn it into a gift. And we'll be astounded if they thought they were taking when they see that we saw that they didn't take it, we gave it. They who we should have known in the first place were a gift.

[35:17]

So now, yeah, we may have quite a bit of work to do. many years, perhaps, of clearing away and learning, and after we've learned to clear away, of learning the process with each person we meet, with each feeling we meet, with each thought we meet, learning the process of the receiving and giving. So I'm talking about the practice which is enlightenment, the practice which is immersion in the process of generosity. This temple or other Zen temples and get introductory meditation instruction.

[36:28]

You may be told certain physical forms to practice. upon entering the meditation hall and upon sitting on the seat and making a posture and then how to get up from the seat and get out of the hall. You may want to get out of here. If the, you know, as you start the inconceivable reality of generosity Maybe too much and you faint. So there's a way to get out without causing much disturbance. So these forms we practice here are forms that enter and sit together and open to enlightenment and perform a posture which is given to us.

[37:35]

and perform a posture which we give. Use the posture as an opportunity to realize that this sitting posture I am giving this. There is giving of this sitting posture and receiving of this sitting posture. And the sitting posture is a gift. And now that the posture is here, all the psychophysical things that arise with this sitting posture, all the feelings, the comforts and discomforts, all the thoughts, they're all gifts. to this place, to this place. This whole practice is being given in both directions, in all directions. So we perform enlightenment here using these forms of sitting and walking, entering and leaving.

[38:42]

The sitting is totally culminated, such sitting is totally culminated, supreme enlightenment, such sitting is for the sake and happiness of all beings. To enter the realm and to be concentrated in the realm where all beings are. in harmony in the practice of giving. And also if we get distracted when we're in the meditation practice or we get distracted even from performing the meditation practice and we forget for minutes or hours, then we are gracious with our forgetfulness and have an opportunity to re-enter this concentration on receiving and giving the self.

[39:57]

This concentration on receiving and giving the self is concentration joined with wisdom. Wisdom is understanding, is the understanding of the whole process of giving, which makes everything insubstantial and cooperative. Disharmony comes from believing in substantiality. Understanding there's peace, through understanding that all the elements are not fixed. So this practice is a concentration joined with wisdom. Now this concentration practice joined with wisdom, which is enlightenment, is based on other basic practices of giving even before you understand what giving is, of being careful

[41:13]

how you walk, how you think, and how you talk. Being vigilant of how you think and talk. Being gentle with how you walk and think and talk. And being patient with the gifts that are given to you. Being patient with the things that are given to you. Being patient with not thinking the things that are being given to you are gifts. Or thinking that what's being given to you is a theft or an insult being patient with your lack of understanding of this process. Based on that, you can start concentrating on the process. Not discontinuing those basic practices of giving ethical carefulness and patience. Not giving them up. Continually doing those practices together with this one. This one practice of enlightenment.

[42:17]

Sometimes a gift can be very uncomfortable. Like, for example, a baby in the body of a of a mother can be very uncomfortable for the baby and the mother, but we don't have much information from the baby about how uncomfortable the baby is. But the mother can tell us, this is really uncomfortable. It's painful. This gift, this is a gift from me to the world and from the world to me. This baby is a gift. And now, of course, I'm a gift to the process is very uncomfortable because I have to go through these huge changes. And I've got nerves which tell me when I'm changing and say, I don't know if this is okay.

[43:31]

You're changing so much. This might be not good to be stretched. So giving is really uncomfortable. Plus, the discomfort is also a gift. So to learn, we have to have patience in order to stay on the giving train, the giving ball, when we're uncomfortable. But it's not that when we're uncomfortable, the giving starts. And it's not that when we're comfortable, the giving starts. But we get distracted. We think, oh, this couldn't be a gift. I can't accept this as a gift. I can't receive this offering. Okay, let's be just with the fact that we cannot see this, whatever it is. It's just too much for, it's too advanced. I can't see it as a gift. Just like the young man who wasn't young anymore, he was at least 55 probably, couldn't see his mother

[44:39]

couldn't see his mother sending her attendance to him as a gift. He thought it was an attack. He thought being drawn back into his mother's embrace was an attack. He changed her approach and offered it in a way that he could say, oh, that's a gift. I can say, that's okay. That is a gift. And then finally he could accept the original thing which he couldn't see as a gift. What was the gift? Come and live at your house again. And as you know, many, many, many, many people, many humans cannot see their own mother's house as a gift. They want to get out, which is fine. Now how can we show them that their mother's house really really is the house of giving it may take many years mother has to be very skillful and patient and we have to be skillful and patient with ourselves get us to enter the house of enlightenment and then live there moment after moment

[46:10]

to share the treasures with the whole universe, which have been given to us to share. Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend to every being and place. I see your hand, yes.

[47:19]

Could you come up here please? Can you use this so everybody can hear you? So I was thinking that maybe you were saying the wise mother is an equivalent of the practice, but I was wondering if there was anything simpler. The wise mother is the equivalent of the practice, did you say? Well, that's what I gathered, but I don't know. I'm asking. Well, in this story, the wise mother wanted to give her son the treasures to take care of and she wanted to be with him. So she wanted to be with him but also she wanted him to carry on the family. But she also realized that she couldn't just give it to him. He wasn't ready to even be near her.

[48:29]

So she had to give him something he was ready for. Some task that he felt was appropriate for him at the time. The advanced practice of the tradition upon him. But who is the mother in all of our lives? That's what I'm wondering. Who's the wise mother? The wise mother in all of our lives? is the Buddha. And the Buddha has given teachings. Also in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha says that, you know, I do not reveal myself until they're ready. So I tell them what the practice is. So the historical Buddha is not around anymore, but the historical Buddha left teachings.

[49:35]

In the Lotus Sutra, in which this story appears, there's another chapter where the Buddha says, if you do these practices, if you practice all virtues with everybody you meet, and you're upright and balanced, and generous and honest thing that you meet and you're open to meet everybody, then you will actually see the Buddha who sent these practices to you. So the Buddha has transmitted these practices so that you can actually meet the Buddha. But you're not going to meet the historical Buddha because he's historically past. But the historical Buddha told us that there's a Buddha that's not a historical Buddha. And that Buddha is available anytime. But we can't see it, just like we can't see everything's giving.

[50:41]

But if we do certain practices, for example, focus on giving, we more and more see that giving is really what's going on. But sometimes we think, like I said, we think, I don't want to give or is taking from me. So we have to be kind to that. And being kind to that and finding some place where we feel like, well, now I can give this. and I can see that's a gift. So you start to tune into giving and gradually to see that something that you couldn't previously think was a gift, is a gift, and something you previously felt like you couldn't give, you can give. And your sense of giving becomes more and more pervasive. And when it's fully pervasive, you're actually giving. When you see everything as giving, that's the Buddha. That's our mother.

[51:47]

Thank you. Anything else? Excuse me, I'd like you to consider another gift. You've given us a beautiful gift of a beautiful talk today. I would like you to consider another gift. I would love to hear your talks this year online. And we've made many inquiries and we've been told that it's sort of up to you to put your talks online. So you want me to give that gift?

[52:50]

Yes. Okay. I'll give the gift of all the talks that I've given so far. You can put them... Just for Stephen. Thank you. Or anybody else that asks. Yes. What a fascinating story about Buddha and his... Never heard this story. I've got a number of questions. Fill them in as you choose. As the story is going, we're sensing that he doesn't recognize his mother from his position down here. He changed the story to Buddha and his mother. Interesting. Okay, so I'm way off. Well, you're not off.

[53:51]

You just told a different story. It's good. The story is more about Buddha's children than the Buddha. We are Buddha's children, and we can't believe. If we met the Buddha, we might say, no, no, you're too much for me. So it's more about Buddha's children, which we are, and Buddha. In this case, Buddha, we said, is a mother. So who are the... characters in the story? Who is the writing the mendicants? Those are Buddha's assistants. Who are living after he lived? Or living at the same time? You could do that. You could say that the people who, like me, I could be a ragged mendicant. I'm a tattered assistant to the Buddha and I'm bringing you these teachings which maybe you feel okay about.

[54:57]

Bringing the teachings you might faint. But so this tattered version may be good for you that you can accept what I bring you and do the work that I'm giving you Do we know anything more of that story from the point of view of the man who's at age 55 or whatever is welcomed back into the house of his wealthy mother, of which one of his jobs is to disperse news and disperse the wealth of the house? Do you know any more of that story, or is the story more or less the end right there? The stories in the Lotus Sutra are, you could say, non-historical. They're not historical stories. So there are more stories about the way things are right now. And the way things are right now is if we can accept the full reality of our relationship with all beings, we're in the house.

[56:07]

And then everything in the house is basically a treasure. And everything that comes to us now we can share with beings as treasure. So something that might be considered relatively worthless Sometimes they say, well, that's not a treasure. I don't know what. Everything around here looks like a treasure right now. But if you gave me a piece... Oh, I have, here I have something that some people might not consider a treasure. Where is it? Oh, here, here. No, that's a treasure. These almonds are treasures. That's for sure. And this cloth drop's a treasure. But here, this is something which I think a lot of people might not see as a treasure. For a muffin. That has been kind of folded up. But if I give this to you, then it's a treasure.

[57:12]

So something that's relatively worthless, if you give it, it becomes a treasure. So everything in our life, when we really give it, not punish people with it, but offer it as a gift, then everything... If I say something to you, even though what I say to you may be not particularly intelligent... if I speak with a sense of, this is a gift to you, then it's a treasure. And you could even say, that wasn't very intelligent, but it was a gift. He gave me a treasure of not, you know, kind of being a little bit, not very intelligent. But I could see that what he gave, I could see that what he gave me was a gift.

[58:16]

And that might have to do with that he actually meant it as And when I was a kid, I remember there was a story I heard called The Littlest Angel. And it was about that God was having a birthday party or something for God. And all the angels were bringing God presents. Or maybe God was having a... He's graduated from God College or something. Anyway, there was some party where the angels were going to bring God presents. And the full-grown angels brought solid gold pianos or celestial palaces or lands of radiance. And they brought these spectacular gifts that you could imagine an angel could bring. You know, an army of pacified demons. And the littlest angel wanted to bring God a present too, but I think all the angel had was a wrapped up piece of muffin, muffin paper.

[59:32]

That's all the littlest angel had. little drummer boy song little drummer boy song You want to tell us? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was in a high school choir that sang that. All I remember is a boom, boom, boom, boom. Thanks for telling me the words. Yeah, so, yeah, so things in themselves are not treasures unless they're given.

[60:44]

They can be terrible if they're not given, right? Even though people think they're valuable, they're really not very, they're really kind of terrible if they're not, if they're like being held down to and people fight over them. They're like afflictions. You know, diamonds that, like blood diamonds, right? Diamonds that are used to manipulate power, they're not really treasures anymore. They're horrible in a way. I mean, they're not really horrible in themselves. They're not treasures or horrors in themselves, but if they're not practiced, they're not dealt with generously, then they're part of a horrible process. But even anything that's in the giving process is a treasure. It's hard for us to keep turning towards, if it's a gift, make it a gift. How is it a gift? To keep focused on that, absorbed and concentrated on the giving process.

[61:50]

So sometimes you have experiences that are useful to look at as gifts when they might not appear that way? Sometimes. Right. Well, sometimes you see that sometimes you do. That's right. But I'm saying that the practice is to always look at how this is a gift. Not so much what about it, but how can I see this as a gift? Because then it becomes a treasure. So what teachings do you have for us about discerning when you've had perhaps enough treasure from that particular gift? And I'm thinking about some relationships, whether at work or with others, that maybe... Yeah, I understand. So how do you... Another way to translate her question is, how do you offer a boundary in the gift

[62:59]

So people are bringing you gifts. Like, first thing that came to mind was, we have a situation called rape. We call it rape. That's when somebody wants you to give you a gift of their affection, right? Which you're not interested in. I want to kiss you. No, thank you. No, I really want to kiss you. It's okay that you like me, but don't touch me. No, I'm going to give you this gift. So we can say that they're not really receiving the gift of you saying no. But what I'm saying is that you can say as a gift to a gift. We often do that and it seems okay. Like somebody wants to give you more food and you say no. And they feel like they're giving you a gift. And you kind of do too, but you also feel like you want to give them a gift and the gift you want to give them is no at the end. But even if they say no thank you, you can be doing no thank you as a way to push it away.

[64:06]

Then you don't think it's a gift what you did. But you can actually see something as a gift and feel like I wish to now offer you a boundary. Like you do with other gifts, you do it without expecting anything from your gift. So you give a boundary as a gift, but you don't think that that's necessarily going to, I don't know what, stop that gift from coming. So you can give it again, and each time you give it without expectation, you're not demoralized by it being followed by another offering which you'd like to say no to. However, if this thing keeps happening and you keep practicing giving, although things are happening which you're continuously saying no to, you're on this... And isn't that... Then finally they did what you wanted, what you asked for. It's finally... Well, finally they wake up.

[65:11]

Up with you, because you're practicing awakening all the way. But anyway, again, it's... one of the main things that we, one of the main and most important types of treasures we can give people is resistance or boundaries to struggle with. But again, is it a gift or is it a manipulation? So going to children are, often we see their treasures, but they're calling often, they're begging for limits and boundaries. But they would like actually these boundaries to be given as gifts so that the boundary doesn't disrespect them or crush them. They just want something to struggle with. So you put some force out there for them to push against. And then we can do this dance.

[66:12]

Last night, Margo told the story of Mr. Close, right? Mr. Close, what's his father's name? Chuck. Chuck Close, who had somehow some kind of an event happened such that he wound up as a quadriplegic. And then after this event, when he had sort of found a new life with his new body, people asked him, I guess, what did you learn from this or something like that? Yeah. What's it like to be a quadriplegic? And he said that it's the best thing because he was supported, you could say, or forced to be a total beginner again at a full-grown age, to learn a whole new way of living. So for an artist, he was forced... to really start from scratch, which is what artists really want to do, but sometimes they can't, because they've already accomplished something, so they want to hold on and just do another one of those.

[67:30]

Michelangelo wasn't really a painter, and they forced him to do the Sistine Chapel scene, and he wasn't a painter. They said, you'll do okay, go ahead, do it. And they forced him. And he did all right. It was really hard though. He had to reinvent himself. Someone told me the other day that... This started from a discussion about... inhaling dust from stone cutting. No, that's not good for your lungs. And I mentioned that Michelangelo used to have kind of like a shower on him while he was sculpting David. Dust down. So he was spending, I don't know how long, but a very long time working in this marble dust, wet marble dust being washed on him all the time.

[68:34]

And He didn't wear his wet boots for a really long time, and actually his boots and his foot kind of like merged. So there was a major problem of getting the boot separated from his foot. But anyway, someone said, yeah, and he died at 36. In other words, from this environmental toxicity of being wet. But then they found out that actually they got the number wrong. He died at 86 of art toxins. Anyway, yes. So Chuck Close really felt that that turned out to be a gift. Yes. So my question is, why leave his mother? In the first place? In the first place. Oh, because he was a teenager. Now, the story is with the father, but But in some stories of evolution, we start with our mother or our father, a situation where we're basically, the situation is sometimes called the static mother or the static feminine, where basically we're unconditionally loved.

[69:56]

But then we have to get to a phase that's called the dynamic masculine. So whether we're male or female, at a certain point we need to struggle against this unconditional love in order to grow, which the teenager is a typical example of do stuff you know to in some sense test that love but also to express ourselves in ways that we weren't allowed to do we won't be allowed to do in the house with the mother offering of boundaries and unless she's really skillful even or maybe even if she is you got to get away where we can do some stupid stuff and we do that for a while and that's good for us and terrible and we survive then we move into the next phase which is the static masculine entering into the dung shoveling

[71:03]

Sculpture training, painting training, music training, math training, mechanics training, farmer training. In other words, we enter into the phase where the masculine is set, is fixed, static. The way you use a chisel. This is the way you use a hammer. This is the way you build a scaffold. And we go from being an adolescent into being an adult. But it's kind of like there's some narrowing with. And we develop there. We develop in the maternal unconditional support. We grow up there. Then we grow as a teenager. And then we grow as a young adult. become adult and then we move into the dynamic feminine where we learned how to use the hammer and the chisel and the scaffolding and then the art comes.

[72:07]

And then we go from the art back to the static feminine where the art now becomes the basis of unconditional love again. Start the process. So He had to go away, and then when he came back, he went into the static masculine training. And when you go into the dynamic masculine, you often do sometimes get hurt. In some sense, what do you call it? Anorexia is a kind of rebellion against... food and mother and young men. Some people say that men who overwork out with all these steroids and stuff, it's like the male version of the same rebellion. and then they get in trouble and then they start, then they're going, hopefully, into the next phase of some kind of discipline in a tradition which offers you some forms and then you evolve and then you into real art, into the dynamic.

[73:25]

And then we're getting around again. So that's what I would say is he, we don't hear about what it was like in the house before he left, But I think he had a pretty good mom and dad. And because they were good, he dared to run away. My grandson, I remember when he was little, and I would be taking care of him. You know, he'd be with me, and then he'd run away, like 15 feet away into the grass, maybe 20 feet away. And he'd basically fall apart, you know? It's like he'd, like, his... his psychophysical tone would deteriorate so that he couldn't really function. Then he'd kind of somehow struggle, crawl back to me and just touch me for a little while. Then he'd settle again and go off again. And again, he'd fall apart and come back, just to touch the body, which is kind of coordinated.

[74:31]

So it's a natural thing that can happen at an early age. And the classical example for a full lifetime is being adolescent. So I think in some sense he was an adolescent. But he managed to get back into a system of discipline. And the first level of discipline that was offered to him, he said, was to... But he wasn't forced into that way, so that's another thing we have to be careful when the person comes out of being a rebellious teenager that we don't force them into. They're ready for some discipline, but not necessarily any discipline. So it has to be tailored to them in such a way that they thrive. And then proceed until the discipline's over, which in different realms it ends, and then you get to go kind of freak out creatively. Anything else this morning?

[75:38]

Is it still morning? No, it's afternoon. Anything else this afternoon? Thanks. I think I'm happy to accept it. Bernie Glassman inspired me to make this song. If you want to accept it now, I'll meet her. Thank you. Thank you. It's a heavy responsibility. Yeah, right. This side, for you, you can now see why it's heavy, right? But now it looks light to me. Now it looks heavy to me. Anybody want to feel it? Thank you very much.

[76:45]

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