On April 2nd, Paul Winokur passed away. Some of you don't know him, but anyway, he was a member of this group and also the wider Zen Center Sangha. And this is a picture of him. Looks like he's in Japan in this picture. And he also was Tracy's partner for eight years. Is that right? And Tracy just told me, I guess she told me a story. And I thought it might be nice for her to tell you the story too. Will that story pick up if she speaks? Um. Well, the story that Reb's referring to, I have some colleagues and friends who are students of shamanism and actually teachers of shamanism.

[01:35]

They're Europeans, they both have doctorates, and they... Yeah. Yeah. So these friends have access to other realms. And they study shamanism. They teach shamanism. And after Paul died, they asked if I would like them to find out how the passing was going. It was about a week later. It's a particular ritual in shamanism called psychopomp, where they assist the spirit if need be. So they asked if I would like that and I said yes. And so they reported back to me what they found when they found Paul, which they both did together and in a little bit different situations. And the one I'm going to tell you about is the woman found him. She said this, I didn't tell you this, but she said he was just radiant. She said it was extreme radiance around him that was a little stunning to her.

[02:39]

And that she and he were looking down at me from not too far above at my house, and they saw I was covered with clouds. And... They looked, and these are the notes, they looked down and saw my energy darkened by grief. And this is what Paul said, the message to Tracy. I'm beyond the stories. Tracy is still with the stories. All she needs to do is to let go of the stories, and then there is no separation. Join me outside the story. Is there anything you'd like to say while you're very close to the speaker?

[03:43]

Yeah, I'll say one more thing that I didn't mention to you. They did another ritual with me and some of my friends, people who knew Paul, and they called it a dismembering remembering ritual. where they say when there's a trauma in that tradition, sometimes the, I don't know if it's the person or what, something they take yourself apart and then put yourself back together again to be able to deal with this situation. And so my experience of that was they say you find your power animal or a guide, and your eyes are closed and they're drumming, and who I found was Suzuki Roshi. And so I asked if he would help me with this, and his response was, there's nothing to dismember, there's nothing to put back together. But he was kind of willing to go along with it, but it

[04:44]

He wasn't buying it. And then some things happened, but the part I wanted to say is that Paul came to me, and he came from behind. And I don't even believe in all this. It isn't like I'm a real occult person. He came from behind, and he put a cashmere wrap around me, and he put his arms around me, and he said, I didn't leave. How could I leave? There's nowhere to go. He said, it's a closed system. So those are the messages. And it's been and it continues to be a very strong experience, this whole letting go. Yeah, that's about it.

[05:50]

Can you hear okay, Carolyn? Jonathan, did you have a question that you wanted to bring up? He came to try to work out what wisdom is. Pardon? You need some wisdom? You need a lot of wisdom? Okay. For your life. When you try to what? When I try to work out if I have wisdom, as soon as I try to determine that

[07:20]

Yeah, that's what Yuen Mun said. You all are a beam of wisdom light, but if you try to find it, or if you look for it, it becomes dim. What's your question? Well, the word discover seems okay because it's covered. It's covered by, for example, the story of trying to find it. Anyway, if you learn how to treat the covering a certain way, there's a way of treating the covering or your stories that will simultaneously open to the light of wisdom.

[08:42]

And that way of treating your stories, which also opens to wisdom, is called giving. and again you're already involved in giving. But if you don't practice giving, you don't realize what you're already doing. So you have to do, in a sense, the ritual of giving to realize the actuality of giving. Because if you don't do the ritual of giving, you'll do the ritual of not giving. Or, you know, you'll do the ritual of whatever. And even if you're doing some other ritual, if you do the ritual of giving towards that ritual, then that ritual will turn into a gift.

[09:50]

and the giving will be realized. So if you're trying to get wisdom, it doesn't sound like the ritual of giving. It sounds like trying to get something. So you need to do a ritual. If you're a person who's trying to get wisdom, you need to do a ritual of letting yourself be somebody who's trying to get some wisdom. give the person who's trying to get something to the person who's trying to get something. Give that person to himself. In your case, give yourself to yourself. If you see somebody else, if the Zen teacher sees somebody who's trying to get wisdom, the Zen teacher gives the person who's trying to get wisdom to the person who's trying to get wisdom. He leaves that person to that person. And so then he's practicing giving or she's practicing giving towards this person who's practicing getting or taking or seeking.

[11:02]

So people who are practicing seeking deserve compassion and first of all they deserve compassion in the form of giving. And the person who's giving can open to the wisdom that is totally non-separate from the person who's trying to get wisdom. But since they try to get it, they go away from it. However, they do pick up from the person who's letting them go away from it while they're trying to get towards it, they do pick up some little clue called giving. They can see that the person is enjoying them running after wisdom and pushing themselves away from it, that they're enjoying that, that they love them. They're not exactly happy that they're running away, but they're happy to be with them in wisdom. So you need to practice generosity towards yourself who is a person who is trying to get wisdom. And in that perfection of generosity, wisdom will be realized.

[12:09]

But we have to practice it, otherwise we don't realize it. The Dharma is where we live, It's the way we are, but if we don't practice, we don't realize the way we are. So you have to do this practice thing, which is the same as the thing we're trying to realize. And it happens to be the same practice that everybody's doing, and the same enlightenment that everybody's doing, But we have to start with our own ritual, our own story of our giving, our own story of our not giving, and practice with that. Because that's what we usually don't practice with. That's what we usually, instead of practicing with it, that's what we hold on to. We don't, generally speaking, hold on to other people's stories. We hope if they have good stories of us, we have a story that would be good if they continued to hold on, but we don't actually hold their stories.

[13:17]

Because you can't hold other people's stories because other people's stories are changing. And you can't hold yours because yours are changing. But you think you can hold yours. So you need to do a practice for that thinking that you can hold on called letting go. called giving away. Yes, Jonathan? What lets go? Would you stand up, please? I was asking what lets go. When there's letting go, what lets go? What lets go. Because I was thinking at Lumon, which was the last time I studied, at the Zen warnings.

[14:20]

At Lumon's Zen warnings, if you believe in letting go, if you believe in what you're doing in some respects, you're tying yourself up. Right. If you have an idea, as soon as you have that idea of practicing letting go, of practicing generosity, that's it, stop. Right? So now … Well, again, you're trying to get a place to begin. So just let yourself be that way. Let yourself be somebody who's tying himself in knots. Yes, Brandon? It's question time? Yeah, it is, as a matter of fact. Certainly I have stories and it just seems like there's a myriad of stories of different sizes and shapes all tied together and within each other.

[15:38]

Most of my stated practice has been just like more like Vipassana, just calming your mind and just being, you know, feeling. And it's probably the same thing, very interactive, right? You've been practicing calming practice? Yeah. How do you practice calming practice? You practice it with the breath? Yeah, breath and posture. Breath and posture. So I just, you know, receiving this teaching about letting my stories be in challenge of my stories, and I think, you know, I get, I still get involved about, you know, what's, should I, in my mind for stories, oh, there's a story, okay, I found it, I'll be challenged at that point. Are you mining for stories?

[16:43]

No, you don't have to mine. You don't have to mine for them. For example, when you go into a meditation hall, be aware that you're thinking that you're going into a meditation hall. Just be aware of that. That's your story at the moment. It could be, I'm going into a meditation hall. That's a story. Be mindful of that. Start with the little ones. The little stories that are right here. Do you think that's a little one? That one I just said? Is that an example of a little one? It just seems more fleeting because, I mean, in a conventional sense, because if I think about my stories and where I'm going with my life, Yeah, that seems like a bigger one? It seems, yeah, it seems, you know, overarching. Uh-huh. My going into a zendo seems to be part of that.

[17:46]

You have a small piece of that. Uh-huh, okay. Yeah, so you have a story, I'm going to zendo, and you have a story that you, you have a story that there's a bigger story than that, that includes that one. That's another story. Yes, uh-huh. I mean, what kind of story is that one? Yeah, right. And you said that if you watch that story of going to Zender, you said that seemed fleeting. Well, that's good to see that stories are fleeting. If you can see that one's fleeting, then you can see that if there's another one that you think is bigger, if the big thing includes a fleeting thing, you might start to see that the big story is also fleeting, which it is. Well, you can look at the big story, but don't overlook the little one while you're looking for the big one.

[18:47]

And don't overlook the big one while you're looking at the little one. So when you go into zendo at that time, when you go into zendo, you might be thinking I'm going into his endo. Okay? I use that example of where you think you're going into his endo. That's what you're thinking. You're not thinking of the bigger story at that time. Well? What? Ideally. No, not ideally. Actually, because I just gave that example. I just gave an example of where you're thinking, I'm going into his endo. And you're not thinking of anything else at that time. Because that's the example I gave you. But you can also go into zendo, which many people do, and they do not think, I'm going into zendo, they think something else. Like they think, oh no, I'm not going into zendo. Or they think, I'm going into a zendo again. Or they think, why am I going into a zendo? Or they think, I wonder what seat I'm going to get.

[19:50]

Or they think, oh no, I'm going to sit next to that person. Or they think, I'm sleepy. I don't know if I'll be able to stay awake. Did you hear those different stories? Here's another one. I'm going into the Zendo as part of an overall program of becoming thoroughly enlightened, which is really going quite well, actually. That's another story. But at that time, that's the story. When that's the story, that's the story. At that time, the story of I'm going into the Zendo period is not there. you're in a closed system. Your mind's creating a closed, limited enclosure about the world. And the enclosure can be about 30 years or the enclosure can be about 10 seconds. But when you have a 10-second enclosure, it's a 10-second enclosure in your mind. If it's a 30-year enclosure, it's a 30-year enclosure, which includes a whole bunch of 10-second enclosures.

[20:53]

But your mind is creating a certain kind of enclosure and that's the one which you're being encouraged to pay attention to. Not like, oh, I should be paying attention to a different story. Because I should be paying attention to a different story is a story. That's another one. Okay, that's the one I should pay attention to. Pay attention to the one that is now happening. Pay attention to your current story. life story, the story of your life right now. Pay attention to that one, even though this one may not be a very interesting one. It may be teeny or it may be huge. You may like the teeny one and hate the huge one and love the huge one and hate the tiny one, okay, or you may not. The practice is if you hate the teeny one If you like the teeny one, that's two different stories. One story is, here's a teeny one, I hate it. That's a story. Here's a big one and I love it.

[21:55]

That's another story. Liking or disliking your stories is part of the story. That's not the practice. That's the thing which the practice is taking care of. So in fact, you do have a story right now like whatever it is. When you go into Zen, you do have a story like, okay, I'm going to get to my seat. Then you get to your seat and say, okay, I'm going to practice mindfulness of breathing. Okay, fine. Sounds okay. For most people in Zen, they will not mind that. There may be some Christians or Muslims that think you shouldn't be doing that, you know. in the room and they think you should be bowing east or west or something, but most Zen students will not mind if you do that. That's the story. It's not liking your story or disliking your story. But many Zen students do like their stories and dislike their stories.

[22:58]

They do. But that's just another story. But some Zen students love all their stories. They love them all. They don't like them or dislike them. They love them. They love every story. And they don't just love stories in general. They love each story that's happening as it happens. Like they don't love children in general. They love this child right here that's alive here. Not the child yesterday. Not the child tomorrow. This child. This child needs your attention. This story needs your attention. Otherwise, it will become dark and harmful if unattended. So if you have a story that you're going to practice tranquility, fine. Don't miss it. And now try to be generous with the story and you will become wise.

[24:01]

And you can practice tranquility and you can practice jumping rope and you can practice eating carrots That means while you're eating a carrot, you're being generously observing the story that you're eating a carrot. Or if you're practicing tranquility, you're generously observing yourself practice tranquility. And you can have the story that you're practicing tranquility without being generous to yourself while you're practicing it. It's okay. It's just that if you're not generous, you'll be stuck in the story of practicing tranquility. And you'll be stuck in the story of eating a carrot if you don't pay attention to what you're doing generously. That's all. Which, of course, is the problem of human life. is that we do not pay attention to what we're doing generously and therefore we get stuck in it. And then getting stuck in it has consequences of us being inclined towards another story which we will also not be generous towards and get stuck in that one.

[25:09]

This is the story of karmic entrapment. However, if you join in the entrapment process, you become aware of it and start being generous with it, the entrapment will turn into wisdom, will turn into light. And you will continue to tell stories. That won't stop. That's normal. And the stories will be entrapping until you love them kind of to death or you love them into light. If you love them, you will forget them And in a sense, you'll be liberated by them, but not exactly them. You'll be liberated by the light that's in them already, but which, if you don't treat them kindly, they almost seem to be opaque or...

[26:11]

hiding their truth from you. But it's not that they're hiding, it's the result of past action that makes them obstructing. But if you now learn to bring generosity to these obstructions, it will become doors. Everything is a Dharma door, and it will turn into a Dharma door and be realized that way if you treat everything generously. But again, generously together with being present with it. But again, you already are present, but you have to practice being present. Okay, present and generous over and over Fortunately, generosity is joyful, so it doesn't really get boring.

[27:21]

It's so joyful to let things be themselves, so it's possible to keep it up. Any other? Yes? Practicing tranquility, sitting down and practicing tranquility of mind, relaxed, calming mind, can in a way two-fold its benefits in sort of the one being that you're calming the mind and the other being that you're practicing generosity based on calming the mind. Right, exactly. And the same with cutting carrots or eating carrots. There's the benefit of eating the carrot plus the benefit of practicing generosity with the eating. Generosity is really almost the same as enlightenment and almost the same as tranquility. Because if you're agitated and you give your agitation to your agitation, you calm down.

[28:22]

I'm agitated. I'm really, really, I'm really agitated. And you really lovingly let yourself be agitated. It's pretty much the same as tranquility exercise. And I'm not even trying to get rid, I'm not trying to get rid of my agitation. I'm not trying to hold on to my agitation. But I did lose it in the process of not trying to get rid of it or hold on to it. I lost it. So now I ain't agitated anymore and I'm not trying to get rid of not being agitated or hold on to not being agitated and I keep not being agitated, keep coming up with not agitated when I practice generosity towards agitation and non-agitation. Perfection of tranquility comes from giving it away.

[29:42]

Have you ever happened to have any in tranquility? If you want it to be perfected, give it away. Then it goes deeper, and then give that away, and it keeps going deeper. I can see you all getting really tranquil now. I can see you all giving away your tranquility. We're going to go through the floor any second here. You can even laugh, you're so tranquil, and not get upset. Pardon? Lynn, yeah, Lynn. Well, I kind of look at you because you're trying to give me some instruction. I'm trying to pay attention to you. I wouldn't dream of trying to give you some instruction. So you just keep going like this? Can you want me?

[30:46]

You weren't trying to... Oh, you weren't giving me indications, so I'm paying attention to you. Any other indications you want to give me? Since you don't want to receive that one, I do have a number. Okay. May I make a transcription announcement before we leave today? Just a second. I have to talk to Lynn. Lynn, could you wait a while while Catherine makes an announcement? She wants to make a transcription announcement. This is purely business. Ah, what kind of business? Dharma business. Dharma business. Buddha business. Rav mentioned that there was a book in the works on karma. There's actually a transcription that has to be done before anything like a book will occur. And there's also a transcription beginning on teachings from... That's her story, by the way. Sound and Ear Motion Sutra Transcription, where I also get close. Anyone who would like to transcribe either on karma or on the teachings from the sutra, you can get in touch with me or with Al.

[31:56]

Thank you. Does he hear your story? My story that there won't be a book on karma until the transcription's done. That's a story. Yeah, right. I kind of think it's probably, you know, the sequence of how things unfold. Yeah, see, she actually didn't believe that. Right here, she showed it. You do, right? I can throw the ball, though. You could? Yeah. Great. There is like I could write a book on karma before the transcriptions are over. Here's the book. No, no. The transcriptions aren't done yet. So what about this one? I'm not saying I will. Lynn, Lynn, yes. Like a carrot?

[32:59]

Yeah, okay, so... Yeah, so you got, there you got, that's a story. Do you hear the story? Tell me your story, tell me your story, tell me your story, you promised that you would. Well, I'd like a carrot. I'd like dinner. I'd like it to be night pretty soon. I want to go to sleep tonight. These are my stories. Thank you for the stories. So you've got stories of wanting. You've got the stories of desire, of trying to get things, okay? You see, you get to be that way because that's who you are. You're a girl who's got those kind of stories.

[34:00]

Okay? And then there's the practice. Pardon? What you mean by I get to be that way is that... It means I let you be that way. I support you to be that way. I'm practicing generosity towards you. Even though I said Well, even though, and because you said that, I practice generosity. But if you say something different, I will practice that with that. Now, it would be nice if you would join the team, the giving team. And while you're sitting there, in this living world, and your mind's creating all these stories of getting stuff, okay, it would be good if you would do some practice along with that called being generous to yourself. while all this story-making is going on. So you're generous with the story and you're generous with yourself? Yeah, generous with the story and generous with yourself who's got the story happening to her.

[35:03]

The story's being given to you. Be generous to the gift, the story, and be generous to the person who's got the story. That's the practice. And your stories can generally be stories about, for example, trying to get stuff. They could be that kind of story. Like, maybe you could do a survey and say, like, 85% of the stories are about getting stuff. Okay, fine. Those are perfectly good candidates for generosity. That's why I always use my grandson. He's always trying to get stuff. Never trying to give me anything. Trying to get stuff from me all the time. Pardon? Pardon? No, of course, he doesn't know he's giving me something, and I am receiving something. I'm receiving a grandson who's got a story he's trying to get something from me. Right? Is that clear? But I can practice giving to him towards the mind which is trying to get stuff. And he can learn that, too.

[36:06]

So he can continue to be a greedy little kid who's trying to get stuff, but he can start to practice generosity towards himself while he's still a little greedy kid. He can learn that. So if we're greedy little kids and we're trying to get stuff, whatever, while we're trying to get something, there can be this great giving all around that trying to get. And also if you're trying to give something, you can also practice giving towards your giving. and if you're receiving something, not trying to get anything, but you're just receiving things, you can practice giving towards it. Because some people practice receiving, yes, that's part of giving, but they don't notice that they're practicing giving. So, receiving and getting, either case, those are stories. You can practice giving towards it. So, always be

[37:07]

Try to always be in the practice of giving, the field of letting, giving things to themselves, giving yourself to yourself, giving others to others. Try to always be tuned in to that giving, no matter what the story is. When I was speaking about, when I had the story about seeing getting in my mind over time, now, future, when I have that story, if I just give that, if I surround it with generosity, then maybe it'll change. If I want it to change, then I surround that with generosity. She said, maybe the story will change if it's surrounded by generosity. The story will change anyway. Even if you don't practice generosity towards your stories, if you have a nasty, greedy little story and you don't practice generosity towards it, it will change.

[38:11]

If you do practice generosity towards it, it will change. The giving doesn't make things change. Things by their nature change. So it'll change anyway. However, if you pay attention to it and practice giving, you will notice that it changes. If you don't practice giving, you might miss that it's changing, and then you might think you're stuck in a series of greedy stories. But if you pay attention to your stories, you'll see they're giving, you'll see that they're changing, and also if you're generous towards them, you'll also see that they're changing, and you'll see that they change into light. You don't have to upgrade your stories in order for them to turn into light. However, if you do practice generosity towards your stories, you will see them turn into light, plus also you'll see them upgraded you'll see the stories becoming more and more positive. They will become more positive in that generous field because the attention to them is required to be generous, to practice generosity with them.

[39:17]

And the attention causes a positive evolution. And it also causes an opening of the wisdom eye to the light. So stories get better, become less and less greedy, And the eye for the wisdom comes along with the positive evolution of the story. But it is possible without your stories evolving any more positively than they are right now, to right now, with your current, perhaps sub-hunky-dory level of story, with the present level, without moving anything around at all, without the slightest bit of upgrade on your story, to see the light. but you have to really be generous with this story. Just like the Buddha can look at a person who's got a very narrow, nasty little story, and they see the light. In the nastiest person, they see the light in the most generous person, and they see the light in everybody else, because they bring this vision to it, this generous vision.

[40:24]

So we have to do that with ourselves and with others. But if we skip over ourselves and try to do it just with others, that doesn't work as well, and vice versa. Just with ourselves, not with others, that doesn't work so well. Do it both. Give yourself to yourself and others to others. Give Buddhism to Buddhism. Give Islam to Islam. Give Republicans to Republicans. Give Democrats to Democrats. And in other words, Give the stories to the stories. Let your thing be, and you will wake up. You will discover this wisdom. Or rather, the wisdom will be discovered and you get to enjoy it. Well, I have a feeling that there's some other stories that could be told, but there's also the story that's about 539 and almost 540.

[41:43]

There's a story that's 539 and a story that's 540, but right here a story is 539. Getting very close to 540, so maybe we should stop and thank you for making this day a day. And I particularly feel good about cleaning up that garage and getting all that junk out of there. What? It's your story, huh? Yeah, right, it's my story. I feel good about that story. My junk. Huh? My junk.

[42:29]

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