Is the present separate from your past and your future? Well, if it is, you should confess that it is, but that's not good. It's good that you confess, but it's not good that it's separate. How are you doing? How's your present? Yes, Catherine. I've been wondering about a question, and I'm not sure if it's quite related to this, but I'm just wondering about skillful means in the context of like surrendering to the moment.

[01:03]

And when we, like, for example, with bowing, or I guess I'm thinking about the formal practice in the Zendo, and how we'll, like, maybe bow, or, you know, like, sometimes, like, if I'm tired, I'll take a deeper breath to... Or whatever. And I feel that's skillful. You know, if I'm like leaning over one way, I try to lean, get straight, you know. And so, and then I was just wondering about that in the context of really allowing the moment to unfold as it is. And back to my same question at the beginning, but I was just thinking about in terms of skillful means, like, I mean, I know in Buddhism there is skillful means, and how do you see that relationship to being present with what happens? Skillful means? Skillful means, like, I hear it like something, for example, if you felt very, like, a lot of anger, it might be...

[02:06]

Strictly speaking, skillful means is the term that's used to help other people. Oh, I see. It's not so much like wholesome activity. The word, you know, the word for wholesome, we say wholesome in terms of conduct, all right? There's a term, you know, like kushala, wholesome, skillful behavior. Yes. How to do skillful karma. Mm-hmm. We have that in turn. But skillful means is not is kushala karma or akushala karma. Kushala skillful karma. But skill in means is upaya. Quite a different word. Upaya kashalya. And it has how this, like this story, how a Zen teacher talks like that, says, you know, he's got suffering, he's in the middle of this world of suffering beings, right?

[03:13]

Now, among these suffering beings, there's some who have... He's like, he's doing this special work, instead of just helping ordinary, deluded people, he's actually trying to, like, wake people up now, to check to see if they are awake. So he's using some skillful device to check on awakeness, to help people wake up. Not so much like, do this more skillfully, or do this to take better care of yourself, but more like how to wake somebody up. That's what this story is about. He's saying these strange kinds of things like, without opening your mouth, Closed with your mouth shut, talk. That's... The thing you were talking about is more like wholesome action. If you practice wholesome action, you take good care of yourself and behave skillfully. That skillful action sets up the possibility of awakening.

[04:21]

Then skillful means... might provide an opportunity for you to wake up. So that's a little bit different. But it's a different use of the word skillful. Actually, Thai means not so much skillful. They say skillful means better. It means more like appropriate. Like yelling is not exactly ordinarily considered to be skillful in a Buddhist context. You need more quiet people. But if yelling will wake somebody up, or if not talking when you should talk, being silent when ordinarily it's appropriate, it's not so much necessarily skillful, it's appropriate apropos of waking somebody up. Pulling the rug out from somebody is an appropriate device to help them. And usually the people who can be helped or practicing wholesome karma or skillful karma.

[05:23]

Because if they're not being careful of what they're doing and being mindful, then the skillful device is offered to them and they won't even notice. Because they're not paying attention. I don't know if that responded to you. Well, I'm just sort of thinking in terms of, you know, for example, if, you know, like, for example, if there is tiredness or whatever, and then... Tired? Yeah, I'm tired, and then... What Charlie was talking about. I breathe in more deeply... You know, I can accept the tiredness and really be present, you know, that this is tiredness, and then say, well, I can choose to breathe more deeply and then I would be more upright. So it's not like it's really, it's accepting, it's surrendering to the tiredness and trying to respond to it. You're fairly accepting of the tiredness, right?

[06:27]

But then you decide to do something to be a little bit more alert, which seems... a pretty wholesome response. Yeah. But I'm just, I guess I'm just sort of thinking, I feel like I do this all the time. I don't just do it in the Zendo. I'm like, I'm always constantly... Right, this is, and this is what, and this is karma. This is stuff you're doing. You're, there's experience. You're aware of experience. And in your awareness, you're somewhat accepting of it because you're aware of it. I mean, you're... What you have to deal with. And you try to do some wholesome, reasonable, healthy response to it. This is good. This is called good karma. Right? Is there a good karma cafe in the Bay Area still? Yeah. Yeah. Restaurant. It used to be a restaurant, you know, Good Karma restaurant. Huh? Anyways, for a long time it was a Good Karma cafe. Anyway, this is a Good Karma, you've heard that. This is almost an English word in California, right?

[07:33]

Okay, so you're telling us that you make some effort to practice, right? And that you do that... throughout your life. Okay? And so we say, good. Good. But we also mention that this will never lead to freedom. It doesn't take it by itself. What's necessary is something more. What more is necessary besides doing good karma in order to be free? I don't know, but I'm just saying it's like a groundwork. What you're saying, it's sort of like a groundwork. That's what I'm thinking. Maybe it just presents the opportunity that this can happen. I'm just thinking that one can get too wrapped up in good karma. Exactly. That's what I was thinking.

[08:34]

Yes, that's right. One can be totally wrapped up in good karma. One can be totally wrapped up, packaged, strangled. That's what I'm feeling like. One can be just completely suffocated into the karma and totally paralyzed. And being doing bad karma isn't going to... Yeah, we'll try that. So what's necessary under a circumstance where you find yourself wrapped up in being concerned with good karma? What's necessary in order to become free of this being trapped in good karma? Being in the present. Being in the present, yeah. And so how are you going to be in the present? Not resist. Not resist. Yeah, not resist being wrapped up in the karma.

[09:38]

There's not karma, more karma. Karma is kind of a karma, good karma is kind of, is a way of resisting your life. So here we are alive, but it's hard to just like, what do you call it, take that sitting down. Yeah. So we fight back with karma. We fight our life with karma. And good karma is a better way to fight than bad karma. But of course, if we fight our life, our life comes back and gives us a hard time fighting it. So you want to fight? Okay, well, let's have a fight then. So there's a little bit of war between life and your striking back at it with your karma. That's what's going on. And if it's good karma, you have a chance of realizing this is not really working very well.

[10:43]

Even though it's... Because of good karma, you can realize that good karma is not really going to work. It is the result of good karma that you realize you have problems, even while you're Can you say what karma is again? That's the... It's action. Right action? No, it's not right action. It's action, and it's action of you. Of you. It's your action. Oh, I see. It's action based on the idea that there's a you. Right, it can be either good or bad, but it's still action. No, it can be good or bad, and it's still action, but it's good or bad, it's still based on the idea of you doing it. Right, like I'm being good, I'm being bad. Yes. And it's better for you to be good than for you to be bad in terms of realizing that it's bad to think in terms of you doing things. It's bad in the sense, but it's bad in the sense of it's bad for your freedom quotient.

[11:50]

It's bondage to think in terms of I do things. But if I do good things, I'm more likely that The fact that I'm thinking in terms of what I do is really my problem. And to see that actually karma itself is a form of resistance to life. Rather than just living, we convert life into something that we can... Isn't relaxing into the moment also good karma, even though that kind of gets you out of the way? Well, you... Relaxing into the moment where we've been taught today in terms of finding a place where you're not resisting. It's not good karma. It's not bad karma. It's not karma. But it's something... I mean, there's an action that kind of brings that on. What is the action that brings it on? I know you're going to amuse me a little bit, but... I'm sorry, but... I mean, well... Like letting go, relaxing...

[13:02]

Letting go. Letting go. So letting go is an action? It feels like it's kind of a mental or... A mental or a physical... Something. Yeah, but is that letting go? That's a good question. Thank you. Is that a question of semantics? In other words... we are using this is a semantic we are semantics I know I just tell you relaxing into the moment relaxing into the moment we're saying that's an action but that's just a semantical use I'm saying what are you talking about semantical use semantics means meaning that's all it means we're having a conversation so we're pretending all these sounds mean something Okay, what I meant is that we're using the device, we're using it as a device to say something, but it's not identical to what it is.

[14:08]

Right. Okay. In other words... The word is not the same as what we're talking about. Right. But, still, Liz is talking to me. Wouldn't relaxing or letting go be something? And if you can make letting go into something, I would say fine. But that's not as much letting go as if you don't do that. It's more letting go if you also let it go of making letting go into doing something. To something, if you make letting go in action. Right? But I can't do that. You can't do what? That's the joke. I mean, I can't do this to you. You can't do it. Right, that's exactly it. And so therefore, that wouldn't be... And that kind of letting go means letting go of doing. It means letting go of yourself. It means letting go of you separate from me, you separate from your actions.

[15:13]

And you can't do that. But it can happen. The letting go can happen. And... Yes? Well, I was going to say, but that action of letting go, could that be considered Zen training? No. No. What you just said was, could the action of letting go be considered Zen training? The action of letting go is considered something that you could be kicked out of the monastery for. Okay? The action of holding on, you won't be kicked out. But the action of letting go would be just a trick. Because you can't do that. As the archer, the guy let go of the string and said he didn't let go. He said he did the letting go, so he got kicked out for that. So Zen training is to kick you out if you try to make letting go into an action. Letting go is not Zen training. Training is to teach you how to let go.

[16:22]

And whenever you make letting go into doing something, the Zen training says, No, Liz. Okay, so earlier when we were just going to respond with, you know, with a calling... Yeah, with the slightest effort. So people did try. They tried to let go of the string without letting go. Right. It seemed to me that what helped that was just to... let go of outcome and whatever and whatever came up. Exactly. I don't want to use the word action. No, but you could. And if you try to do that, then you're doing like the guy who tried to calculate how to let go of it. So then you're using the slightest bit of effort to figure out how to let go. So when Daniel answered the question without hearing what I think what Carol said, you know, He did it. He didn't even know what he was doing.

[17:23]

You're just assuming that nobody's communicating. No, no, no, no, no. He responded without the slightest effort. He didn't even know what he was doing. That's right. If I had a request, I wouldn't know what to do. He would have thought about what to do and wouldn't have been able to answer, probably. You just said it. You just said it. It's impossible to do it. It is not impossible. And then you said, and you give the reasons why it's impossible to do. But actually, the reasons why it's impossible to do are the reasons why you can do it. The reasons which you're going to give about why it's impossible to do are the reasons by which you do things. That's what you're going to give because of memory and so on. Because of memory and so on, you do things. But letting go is not using your memory anymore. But it's also not rejecting your memory.

[18:27]

It's not identifying with your memory or detaching from your memory. It's leaping free. Are you saying we can't get there from here? I'm saying... I'm saying... I'm saying you can't get there from here, right. No, that's right. You can't get there from here. But what you can do is you can get here from here. That's what you can do. So you can... Just hold it there. You can do that. And you can notice what it's like to just hold the bowstring. You can sit in your chair... When somebody says hello to you, you can say, what? There's no effort there. I mean, it's easy to do things without effort if you're mindless, too.

[19:29]

If you're mindless? Tell me about that. It seems to me that there's plenty of times during the day when, you know, just say something you don't realize. Just reacting, you know, not always... Well, tell me a specific example of where you're mindless and where it's easy to do something mindlessly. Okay, a friend comes up and gives you a little push and you push him back. Yeah. I mean, that's a joke. Right, but what's mindless about that? Why do you call that mindless? It doesn't seem mindless to me. Well, what if it were something that could be considered wrong speech or wrong action? Wouldn't it be called mindlessness? Well, you mean like if somebody... If somebody comes up to you and insults you and you say, you insult them back? Would that be called mindless? Reactive, that's... Yeah, I'm trying to... That's reactive, yeah, right. But you're quite... You're there, your mind's operating, you're judging them, you think they said something bad and then you get angry and... So that wasn't my...

[20:37]

That was reactive, yeah. That's not the same thing about what you're talking about. No. What I'm talking about is just like I said. Somebody says hello and you say, what? Like that. If you say, excuse me, Shakyamuni, or excuse me, Bhaijan, he just says, what? That's what he does. He just turns his head. He calls his name and turns his head. Like that. What does an ordinary person do? Pretty much the same thing, right? Just turn your head. Have you let go at that time? I mean, in the story I just told you, you could very easily see it. He says, hey Liz, you go like that. That's not big effort for you. You're not holding on to anything, and you're not mindless. The Buddha would, the Buddha was named Liz, Buddha would hear her name and turn her head, just like that. Because she heard it. Or she'd say, I'm not going to turn my head.

[21:40]

But just turning your head like that, it's no big deal, right? But it's not mindless. And it's not reactive. And it's letting go. It is reactive, though. I mean, someone called your name, so you turned your head. reactive, you're using reactive a different way before. What you're talking about, you are driving, you're being driven by your own evaluation of the situation, you know, and things like that. In this case, you can turn your head when somebody calls your name without being the slightest bit reactive. This is not getting angry. You say to Buddha, hey Buddha, and Buddha turns his head. They're not reactive. They're just responding. They're not angry at you or attached to you for that, or saying, what took you so long to ask, or whatever. So what if you insult them? If you do something a little bit... If you insult the Buddha, then what happens to the Buddha when you insult the Buddha?

[22:43]

Yeah, right. What do you think happens when you insult the Buddha? Well, there's now another process that occurs when they turn his head, but... Well, why would the Buddha turn his head if he was insulted? You didn't ask him to turn his head. Huh? The Buddha probably wouldn't. If the Buddha was insulted, the Buddha probably wouldn't turn his head. Probably would just sit there and be insulted. I mean, there's nothing much more needed at that time. If you say, you know, you say, Buddha, you're a lousy Buddha, now what do you think of that? Then the Buddha might answer. Say, well, that hurt my... You know, hurt my feelings to have you, you know, yelling at me like that. That's not reactive, is it? You asked a question, you got the answer. Yeah, and before you asked how the Buddha was feeling, the Buddha didn't offer that. Now, the Buddha knows you're always interested to hear that kind of thing.

[23:45]

The Buddha might tell you right away, ouch. Ouch. Because, you know, you told the Buddha beforehand that every time you try to hurt him or her, you'd like them to tell you if you were successful. Then they tell you, yes, that hurt. Ouch. That's not reactive. Reactive, I think, has the meaning you're hooked into it. You can't stop, right? You're trapped into that response by your habits. Buddha is completely free. If you call the Buddha's name, and you offer to the Buddha's left, the Buddha wouldn't have to turn his head unless he thought it was helpful. But usually, when people call the Buddha, it's helpful for the Buddha to go, yes, people appreciate that. It's usually helpful. Your question was about letting go. And you let go of it, but then you got worried. Letting go, anyway, is not something you do.

[24:52]

Now, there are letting goes that you can do, like you can do letting go. But that's not letting go. You're still holding on to your karmic... Right? But you can let go. And actually, people do let go sometimes, like when you act like a Buddha. Then you're letting go. Like when somebody calls your name and you turn your head, you're doing probably just like what a Buddha would do. But you're not trying to turn your head to show that you let go. So you turn your head. But you can let go of outcome, right? Letting go definitely includes letting go of outcome. Letting go, of course, would include letting go of outcome. No, you can't do it. You can't. It's an oxymoron to say, I do letting go.

[25:54]

I understand. It's just my experience. It seems like that. It seems like what? That you can do it. I'm sorry. Stop now. It seems like you can do it. And I know that kind of letting go. But to my experience, it's not the right thing. It's just not really letting go. It's still holding on a little bit. It's like this guy who calculated how to let go. It's like letting go. It felt to him pretty good. He was pretty happy with it. But... The teacher didn't like it at all. And that guy knew, and he knew the difference. So when he got kicked out, it wasn't like he was saying, oh, wait a minute, this is unfair. He knew he had cheated. But he said, you know, I'm sorry I cheated. Let me stay. I'll go back and try to do it the regular way. He knew the difference. He knew he was calculating his way into being free of calculations.

[26:58]

But he got caught. So I said, okay, I'm sorry. I won't do it anymore. Well, no, you're out of here. You're not getting another chance. This is not like a little mistake. This is like the worst mistake you can make in this place. Just saying, hey, I'm getting tired. I don't want to do this anymore. This is too hard on me. I quit. Okay, quit. But you can come back when you want to. But to try to trick your way, that's much worse because you put yourself into hell. Because you trick yourself, you delude yourself into thinking this is freedom. Freedom means freedom from everything. It's freedom. It means you give up all kinds of striving to make yourself better than what you are to get something out of your life. And skillful means are ways to help people do that, or people who are getting close to push them all the way.

[28:04]

Dan? I mean, Dale? I have the experience of feeling like I'm resisting something and just Letting, you know, just yielding to what something... And that seems like it might be like this conversation. It's not necessarily something I actually choose, but I experienced that, you know, let it go by resistance. It's a kind of conscious act to choose to do that, I don't know. No, sure, you could be. You could say, okay, I yield. And then you could say, you could say, I did that. But you can say, I yield without saying something. That's something you do. You can say, I yield to you. You can say, oh, please go before me. Or you can say, here, here, have some soup. Oh, here, have some tea. You can do all this stuff without thinking about it in terms of I'm doing it.

[29:13]

It's possible. That's called You know, your life, my life, can be like you sitting here in this room, nodding your head, blinking your eyes, moving your hands. It can be like that. Life can be like that, right? You've seen that. You've lived that way. Also, life can be that way without resisting it by making this into that you're doing this. You can live your life without making your life into something that you do. You don't have to put that on top of it. But then, you know, it's not under your control. It's just happening, but it's not something you manipulate anymore. And some people don't want that, so shift back into resisting it and to make it into something that you can do or not do. So whatever examples you give, practically, could be examples unhindered by resistance.

[30:22]

But these are stories where it could have been that way, but where they sometimes say, no, you were resisting, and sometimes they say, no, you weren't. And how are you going to find out which is which? Well, you've got a non-resisting mode of being, and from that place, you comment on everything that happens. You can say, there's resistance over there. But you don't feel like you did that. You're like an assistant to the person who is resisting. To point out to them their resistance. And maybe you're wrong. I mean, maybe that's wrong. Maybe they weren't resisting. That sometimes is very helpful for somebody who's not resisting. Call him a resistor. And then they can say,

[31:24]

Oh, is that how it looks? Well, isn't that wonderful? It ain't that way at all. That sometimes deepens the lack of the non-resisting settling of what's happening. It's deferred to be challenged. That's also skillful means to deepen it, to challenge it. So a lot of these stories are ironic challenges to successful people. A lot of these stories are like congratulations as a challenge to get over what they just got congratulated on. In the example you used of the Buddha being insulted, and then he said, it hurt my feelings.

[32:37]

Yeah. I guess I had to... If there was no self, then there would be no feelings to hurt. Is that obviously wrong? Well, no, not obviously wrong. It just meant, it might be just that I said it was wrong. But anyway, if you go up and you pinch the Buddha's cheek, okay? Pinch the cheek. If you pinch, like I'm pinching right now, this doesn't hurt. You know, if I pinch hard and it starts to hurt. Okay? But I don't have to be reactive about that pain. And so you can hurt a Buddha. And feelings to be like... I mean, what I mean by Buddha is being heard, I mean, that the person who is an awakened person, their body and mind can experience pain. But, you know, it seems that... You don't have to have a self in order to experience pain.

[33:39]

It seems that there's a self that took in that insult, like, you know, like, you know, I mean, it seems like it would just pass through the person if there was no self. You know, that instant, like, would be like a sound wave or something like that. Yeah, but sound waves can hurt. If you scream at somebody, it could hurt. It could hurt. Especially if you're screaming with a real harsh and negative feeling. It can make their body feel tight and... You see, part of it is that Buddha needs to demonstrate that even beings that are being hurt can be free. By being free of your ego, you can be free while you're being hurt. But if you're attached to your pain, usually you tense up.

[34:43]

And you can be driven and coerced by your ego's concern to avoid pain. But it is possible to be free in the midst of pain and in the midst of pleasure. But it's not that you have to eliminate all pain in order to be free. It's not that free... It's a higher class freedom. So that this freedom can plunge into misery with no problems. that a person with this kind of freedom can go anywhere if it's helpful, including into realms where that person will experience physical and emotional pain. And it's helpful for... How is it helpful?

[35:46]

It shows other beings in those realms what freedom looks like under the circumstances of various kinds of difficulty and torment. Does that make any sense? So it's like a bodhisattva doing it, I mean, showing, I mean, experiences fully for the sake of others so that they... It shows others Buddha's wisdom under these circumstances. It shows others how Buddha can show you another way to be under difficult or pleasant circumstances. Like some people under pleasant circumstances hold on. Under difficult circumstances push away. So the Buddha can show how, under pleasant circumstances, not to grasp, and how, under painful situations, not to understand and averse. She'll take a lot. And wisdom is what helps you not be governed by the circumstances.

[36:50]

Because wisdom is how you and when you are totally not resisting what's happening. It isn't that you just don't resist neutral situations, but then you get a negative situation and you resist that. Or it isn't that you never even have any negative situations so you don't have to worry about them. It's that there's a full range of possibilities of experience. You're totally intimate with what happens. And because you're intimate with what? Okay, got that? It isn't that you don't have an ego and therefore you don't... So, we're not even talking about, you know, not resisting problems. It's rather that you do have an ego, okay, but you don't resist your ego.

[37:55]

You don't resist your ego. You don't detach from your ego. You've just got an ego. Somebody says, got an ego? You say, yeah. What do you need it for? I would like you to feed yourself with it. Use your ego to feed yourself. Okay, fine. Give me the spoon and I'll feed you. That's how you tell who to feed, right? and that the person being fed is Catherine and all that. This is just ego function. Right? Ego, but there's no attachment to it. There's no belief in it. It's just a little something that has some usefulness under certain circumstances. In other circumstances, it does not have usefulness and you don't use it then. And the price of an ego is certain kinds of pain.

[39:01]

Like people start pressing on your ego and you say, oh, it hurts, you know. If you press on this ego too much, I won't know how to feed myself. So the ego has a certain resiliency and, you know, a certain muscle tone. And if you deform the ego, it has certain ways of, you know. But you're not attached to that. It's not a big, super pain. It's just a little kind of ego maintenance pain. Not a big problem. But you understand that's what it is, so you say, oh, that's just the ego, you know. It's just a sore ego. This is not a big problem. This is not something I'm going to hurt somebody about. Or argue about. I heard one time that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. And suffering is more about attachment to whatever it is. It's a focus. Focus on something.

[40:02]

Wanting things to be different. Well, pain is not inevitable, but pain is necessary. But even by suffering in Buddhism usually, which is the same word as pain, means you're attached, you're holding. And that's option. Although, very, very, very difficult to overcome that option. But not resisting your ego is freedom. You know, just completely being intimate with your ego. You'll be free of your ego. But to get rid of your ego, you still haven't necessarily achieved intimacy. So, if you didn't have an ego and you didn't have intimacy with this creature without intimacy, you'd be miserable.

[41:05]

If you have intimacy and you have an ego, you don't have a problem. The key thing is the intimacy, the non-resistance. You either identify with your experience. That's the key thing. Then you just feed this process of intimacy, whatever, and it just turns it into light. Whatever it is, it grows on that. What you've been talking about is something that I've learned to recently, this idea of grasping, and it's... I've come through my life, come to understand, like, letting go of expectations, like, that's... from grasping to expectations. If I have expectations, then I can be disappointed. So if I get rid of my expectations... Okay, now there's stuff.

[42:10]

Getting rid of expectations... No, you expect nothing. It's different than letting go of them. Getting expectations is a repressive regime or a low body, one or the other. It's not normal for a person to not have expectations. It's not normal. it's abnormal, it's unhealthy, unless you have certain drug-induced states or certain surgical procedures. You are a being who has the ability to generate expectations. To try to stop yourself from that is something which you would expect when you tried it to be successful or unsuccessful. You wouldn't try to stop yourself from having expectations unless you expected something from it.

[43:14]

Right? You expect that they will relieve you from certain things if you could stop yourself from having expectations. So to try to stop yourself from having expectations is the same system. I don't recommend it. It's better to be the person you are with exactly the expectations you have and not resist this person. Be the person who has the correct expectations. And if you can tolerate having your expectations, you will become free of your expectations. That would be like letting them go. But letting them go means you don't really care about their expectations. You say, I was expecting to be successful today. I noticed that I came here and expected, for I came to this workshop and I expected something from this workshop. And I can hardly remember what my expectations were or whether they were satisfied or not.

[44:18]

Because somewhere during the day I left And so those I forgot, and I don't remember whether they were satisfied, but I do have some new expectations coming up for the evening. I notice now I have expectations for Saturday night. I forgot what my expectations were for Saturday. And I feel really good that I forgot. And I feel really good that I don't care whether they were satisfied or not. But I did have them. I even considered at some point in my life to try to get rid of my expectations. But today I didn't try to get rid of them. Today I had them. I had some. They cropped up in my mind. I saw them come up and go away. And it didn't cause me any problem. And I didn't have to be a different kind of a person even. So I went ahead being my same old Julianne with expectations and it didn't bother me. Being me was not a problem. I actually got to be myself today. And it wasn't a problem for me or anybody.

[45:19]

That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you actually being allowed by you to be you. Everybody else is allowing you to be you. Now they say, of course, don't be that way. But they wouldn't be able to say that to you the way you are. so everybody else is letting you be yourself the one person that doesn't let us be ourselves is ourself we're the person who's so it's another reason why you cannot do letting go because letting go you wind up being yourself and you can't do that Yes? Excuse me, because I have to go. Just almost like, how could you have a want without grasping?

[46:54]

I thought about that a lot. I think for a long time I was like, kind of that I had to have a want, because I was afraid somehow that was like, forbidden, you know? And then I started calling it like, my heart's desire, and that kind of softened it up, you know? And I was going to ask you about bodhicitta, like, the arousing the thought of awakening, that's kind of the want or wish, isn't it? Because it can seem so passive that instead of Buddhist activity, it's like not our personal activity, but... Do you know what I mean? Well, I don't know if I do. What do you mean? That arousing... Well, arousing, again, arousing... It sounds like the way you said it, the nuance in your language sounded like you meant that you were going to arouse it. That's what it sounded like. Is that what you meant? No.

[47:54]

Well, what did you mean? I think... Things happen together. To what? To arouse something? Is that what you mean? Yeah. Okay. So things happen together to arouse something. So you have some questions about that? Well, I guess the question is, did anything I said make sense? So far, the sentence has not been completed. I'm very tired. So what are you going to do now? Are you going to just be tired and just let it go at that? I guess I want to ask you what you call Buddha's Bodhicitta. Do you want to ask what it is? Yeah. Bodhicitta, it means the thought or spirit of enlightenment. And the spirit of enlightenment is the wish to attain for the welfare of others.

[49:03]

Complete freedom so that you can go to work to help other beings become completely free. To help other beings become completely free. That's the spirit of enlightenment. That's an intention. It's an intention, yeah. Come enlightened to help all beings in your enlightened state. What? The phrase, from the ocean of samsara, may I free all beings? Yeah, that's a bodhicitta type of statement. But the bodhicitta is a little bit different. May I free all beings from the ocean of samsara. May I develop the abilities, the skills, the appropriate means to liberate all beings. Participate in freeing beings. Participate in freeing beings. But also, I'm the project of becoming skillful. Not just participating, like, I'll be there in the stands somewhere watching this wonderful show.

[50:12]

I'm not just rooting for this. I'm also willing to look like somebody who's even though I'm not doing it by my own power, I'll be willing to play the role of the one who people say is helpful. I won't necessarily see it that way myself, because I don't think of myself as doing helpful things. but I'll participate in the drama of beings being helped and blaming me if that's necessary. I accept that. I wanted to come back to expectations. Spentic? Yes. I have a lot of expectations every day I go to work about how much stuff I'm going to get done. And so does... Right? I don't know if you want to... Now I've got my word. It's my word. I work for the county, so... It's about relationships, I think. No, no.

[51:22]

No, I'm just saying with the people I know, we're just creating relationships that feel, that have positive energy in them, so... Can you quit telling her what to do? No. Um, just... Being able to be with that person without your expectations of what they should be or what you want from them. That's something you'd like? Yeah, that's something, that feeling, I'd like to go away. To not have it, to feel like I need something other than what they are. You'd like the feeling of wanting somebody to be different from they are, you'd like that to go away? Yes. Okay. That's an expectation. No, it's not an expectation. Oh, you're right, but that's not my expectation. You'd like your expectation of them to go away. You'd like them to be different to go away. You would like to be different from who you are.

[52:27]

Right? You'd like your desire for other people to be different to go away, but you want to keep your feeling that you should be different to stay. We don't want that to go away. We don't want that to go away. Be able to be different so that you can let them be that chaos. Nice. You should go back. No, not yet. I just want to say that. If you would let yourself be the person who wants other people to be different, generally speaking, probably. I'm sorry. If you would let yourself be this person who wants other people to be different, if you really would do that, you would start letting them be the way they are. But if you don't let yourself be the way you are, of all things, if you wouldn't let yourself be the way you are, and you're the main person that has to do that, you won't let other people be the way they are. You won't let them have what you won't give to yourself.

[53:28]

You will not. I say that It may not be true, but I'm saying it. And I'll say it with a lot of emphasis. And I'll tell everybody who doesn't let herself be herself, who lets other people be themselves. I've met people who talk like that, who act like that, but I've never seen them really be true about that. They're really always kind of... When it really comes down to the last minute and the person's like... When the person's kind of like sort of almost being themselves, they say, yeah. When it actually comes down to it, really like, actually like, do it. You say, no, I changed my mind. And that's because she won't let herself be herself. If you let yourself be yourself all the way, you'll let other people be themselves. So, don't try to not be somebody who doesn't want these other people to be different. Let yourself be that way. And when you drop trying to change yourself, you'll also drop changing and trying to change them. It has to start with yourself first.

[54:30]

No. You have expectations at work or whatever. And I think the path I've been taking is to have fewer expectations. Yeah, well, that's so true. And I don't recommend that. I don't recommend that you have fewer expectations. How many expectations would I recommend? What have you learned from me? You have exactly that number, no less, no more. You've got enough for my taste, but you can't have the least bit less for my taste. You have to have exactly the Spencer number of expectations. That's your Buddhahood, right there, in letting that be. Don't mess with yourself. Buddha does not mess with herself. And that means you're not proud of yourself. Say, hey, I got 13 expectations. You're not proud of yourself.

[55:35]

You're not down on yourself. You just let yourself be. Juliana's got 63. I've got 4 million. I've got 4 million. But it's not that I'm better than you guys by having more expectations. I'm just me. That's all. We're not better than each other. It's our eccentricness, it's our eccentric individual weirdness that we have to be. Not more or less than that, and not proud of that or ashamed of that. Just be it with no resistance. And that, it's easy for you to be me, but it's hard for you to be you. The hardest thing for each person to be is herself, because that's the most dangerous thing. Spencer has 13 expectations at the end of the day. He has accomplished them all. And he expected to complete a report and do this and that and whatever that is.

[56:39]

Right. The joy of life, or part of the joy of life, is as he walks out of the office at 9 and 10, There was some miracle. He had to accomplish his expectation. Yes. Feeling pretty good about himself. Yes. That's different. Yes. He said he should let go and take no joy. I didn't say that. Well, if I take joy, I'm not letting go. Oh, you said take joy. Yeah, take joy, yeah. But you will have joy. You just want to take it. Joy is okay. Just don't take it. I enjoy feeling good about myself. That's fine. I think that's fine to enjoy feeling good about yourself. I think that's great. No problem. I have no problem with that. I've never completed my expectations, so I really speak for myself.

[57:42]

But I would like that. I think most of us would. There'd be no problem with that. It'd be very enjoyable if an expectation comes true, if it was a positive expectation. But even negative expectations, it's easier to make them come true. They're somewhat satisfying. But what I'm saying is, Let your expectations be your expectations. That's the path to freedom. If they come true, let the fact that they came true fulfilled be that. It's okay. It's the trying to manipulate the situation when you notice the problems that it occurs that I'm cautioning you against. I'm cautioning you against resisting the way you're manifesting moment by moment. And these stories... behaviors that come from beings who are no longer resisting.

[58:45]

Or they're stories about interactions between those who aren't resisting with those who are, and how those work. And for you, these stories are like, what do you call it, little touchstones for you to test yourself on whether you're resisting in your life or not, because that's what these stories are about. And your, what do you call it, your certainty and your confidence about yourself is related to your confidence about being able to pick up a story about something that happened a long time ago, for all you know, in another place, and be able to be as sure about this as you are about, you know, when I raise this up, do you know why I do this? It's the same as you knowing why some Zen master in the Tang Dynasty raised a whisk. Same. It's the same universe. But you can't be sure of anything unless you're going to accept what's happening.

[59:51]

Because you're not with what's happening if you don't accept what's happening. I'm not trying to resist what you're saying. You're not trying to what? I'm not trying to resist what you've been saying, but I have a feeling that you could say something more about, you know, if we have a kind of sense that we're causing a suffering, somehow we're attached to the outcome or something, to what would be a way to... Well, that's a case where sometimes people recommend... Some people say, well, reduce your expectations. You've got this is happening, this is your expectation, and you're suffering. So some people say, well, bring your expectations down to meet what's happening. Wouldn't that be reasonable? I would say, go ahead, fine. But before you do that, you could be enlightened right there.

[60:55]

With this, what do you call it, cognitive difference between your expectations and And what's happening? Sometimes people say to me, blah, blah, and I say, well, that's fine, but it's unrealistic. Or sometimes people make these outrageous claims, not claims, but statements of what they want in life, and I say, that's fine to want that, it's just not reasonable to expect it this afternoon. if you expect to have peace with all beings by this afternoon, that expectation is unreasonable. But you can go ahead and have that expectation. And most people don't. They don't really think it's going to happen, but they put a little pressure on themselves. So it's not so much that you should change your expectations, but I still might comment, just for your information, that it's reasonable to want it, and I think actually I agree for your desire or your goal, it's reasonable to expect it.

[62:01]

I don't mention that so you get rid of the expectation, but just so you'll know that the reason why you're miserable is because you have an unreasonable expectation. But not to get you to change your expectation. I don't care Just so you know that it's not reasonable that that would happen. It doesn't happen for most people. So I sometimes tell people who are having problems in practice that it's normal to have problems in practice. I don't tell them that they should stop practicing so they won't have problems. I say that she's trying to change the practice so they won't have problems. I say, when you're practicing, you do have these problems. That is normal. It doesn't mean the problem's okay. It's not okay. It's just that you can feel comfortable that you're not sick to have this problem that most people have. So you can relax into having your problem. And not try to, like, think, not distract yourself by thinking there's something wrong with you that isn't wrong with you.

[63:07]

So if I had a friend and I did something nice for them and I expected that they would, you know, thank me or respond or be nice to me, I could be aware of that's my expectation. Yes. And even possibly aware that this might not happen and just be with that, just do it and see what happens. And then if it happens that they don't thank you, even though you did this very nice thing for them, and maybe not only that, but they are... that you notice that doing nice things for people who are mean to you, that that creates a special situation, a special learning situation, a very good learning situation. But at times like that, it's very important to remember it. It's hard to remember at those times that this is a learning situation, this is a good learning situation, because your own mind has set various things up. So now you have this great opportunity to learn. And remembering my expectation, helping me, so I have it as part of that.

[64:15]

Yes. If I push the way I said, oh, I didn't expect it. Yeah, and you wouldn't understand why you feel that way. But I did good things, I had expectations, they did this. That combination of conditions creates this feeling. And I value this opportunity to understand how things happen. That's called not resisting your life. You could continue to behave in that way. You could continue to behave in that way. And sometimes, some people say, somebody told me a couple of days ago that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and getting different results. Yes. So you might continue to do the same thing, but not expect different results. You might say, okay, I do nice things for people, I expect that they'll do nice things back, and sometimes they won't, and I suffer.

[65:21]

I expect that I will continue to do nice things for people, that when I continue to do nice things for people, I will continue to expect or want them to do nice things back, and sometimes they won't, and when they won't, I won't feel good. But that's not crazy because you don't even expect it to happen that way, but you don't expect it to be different, and you don't do it expecting that it will be different. So you're not insane. You just have to do the same experiment over and over until you understand it fully. And at that point, you might or might not stop expecting something bad for the good. You might or might not. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you're free of all these different patterns. You're free of... You can do good things or not. You don't have to do good things anymore. You're not enslaved to doing good things. You're not enslaved to being a good Zen student or giving good answers to the teacher. You're not enslaved. You're not enslaved. So, you can give a good answer.

[66:23]

Or not. You can slap the teacher in the face. You can tell the teacher to shut up. You can also, so you're free of doing good things or not doing good things, so when you do good things, then you don't have any expectations or not expectations. So you say, I think now I'm going to do a good thing today, and I'm going to expect a certain result. But you don't have to expect growth. I'm going to do a good thing, and let it go at that. For a week, I'm going to do good things and not expect anything. Next week, I'm going to do things and expect things. Notice, okay, this week I did things I didn't expect anything and then it went like this. This week I did good things and didn't expect anything and it went like that. So you do all these experiments. And where do they come from? They come up out of not resisting your life, hopefully. If they don't come up out of resisting your life, you haven't got to do the experiments and do the experiments until you can do the experiments just as experiments and then you're not resisting the experiments.

[67:27]

So then you start settling your life that way. And then the experiments start coming from that same place. Or you experiment, moment by moment, with your life. When, in that cycle, The suffering part, coming from the expectations, and expectations not being that, and then you're in suffering. The path to freedom is, if I understand it right, is to be in the suffering, the same suffering. Yeah. Not resisting that. Or, you know, again, we talked about doing something good, but you can also try to do good things and not be able to even do them.

[68:32]

And be frustrated and suffer at not being able to do the good things you want to do, even before, you know, even forget about what the people are grateful to. You can't even do the good things. Say, okay, one, two, three, I'm going to do a good thing, and you fall on your face and do a bad thing. Right? In the middle of doing a good thing, you forget, and, you know, and it switches into, it's like a real cruel thing. There you go. This is what's happening. And there's, you can do things where you're just doing them out of curiosity to see what does come up. Yep. Well, yes. And that can apply to you. Yes. Yes. There's many possibilities here. I'm really glad that everyone else is, like, chilling like this, that people are responding to that, that it's an issue for a lot of people. It's a really hard one for me. What's a hard one? Dealing with expectations.

[69:34]

Doesn't that help with not expecting too much? Or I mean, not that you don't have expectations anymore, or that they're reduced, but I don't know, a lot of disappointment. I mean, like disasters seem to help people. Oh, really? It seems. Whether it's a flood or people help each other out. Well, wait a second. Before you got to some people helping each other out, you said, if you're frustrated and suffer from your expectations, doesn't that tend to lead you to have less expectations? Not less, but maybe a little freer. Does it help you be free of them when they get frustrated? If you have frustration. No, it takes something more to become free of them. I understand that some people here are familiar with having expectations, right? And having them not met, right? And being frustrated by that. You've got that part down. Now, what a lot of people do in response is not flat out become... It takes some... To try to then reduce your expectations doesn't work, I don't think.

[70:47]

What is another factor that comes in there to set you free? To just realize what's happened. To realize what's happening, yeah. And to realize what's happening means not resisting what's happening. So, expectation, frustration, not resisting. Not sort of saying, no, I shouldn't have expectations. If you have expectations and get frustrated, then you can try to reduce your expectations to avoid the frustration. You're just more and more trapped in that same pattern. That doesn't do it. But many people do that, right? Many people lower their expectations, like they have children or spouses, right? And their spouses and children or parents, and the person doesn't fulfill your expectations, so you reduce your expectations. So then where do they go? They go lower. So then you've lowered down lower, so then they go lower.

[71:54]

So until finally you're sat down so low that everybody... No, you shouldn't necessarily raise your expectations either. So I say, well, since they won't be really good like I expect them to, I should expect them to be even better. No. Just leave your expectations where they are. There's some reason why you have the expectations you have. There's some reason for that. So respect that that's what you've got. And don't mess with them too much. Yes? In a way, I don't know if this is right, but what Michael was saying was, like when things get bad enough, when we're really suffering, then it's kind of like, in a way it's easier to let go because it's so painful all along. Kind of like Sashen kind of looks at it. Let go of what? Resistance. Let go of resistance to your expectations.

[72:56]

I'd say expecting your expectations to be met. That's how it works for me. You let go of expecting your expectations to be met. I still have them, but I don't really expect them to be met. Sometimes. Having expectations that you don't expect to be met. Let me get a little more specific. It happens in my job. I go in and day after day, I say, it's a job thing, I say, oh, I'd like this to launch this project. Wait a second, wait. Wanting something is different than expecting. So let's get the logic. All right, okay, that'll probably... An expectation that you don't expect to be met is an expectation. Okay, it's a desire. An expectation in the sense of, I require that you be a Buddha. It's not my expectation. I do require that you be a Buddha. Okay? It's a requirement. I will accept nothing less. There are consequences to expectations. Expectations have consequences. Right, but also requirements have consequences. It's the same thing, but wants may not.

[73:58]

Requirements, demands, and expectations. I do not expect you people to be Buddhas. I require you to be Buddhas, and I want you to be Buddhas. I do not expect you to be that way, however. Now sometimes I do, sometimes when you are Buddha, then I sometimes slip into expecting that you're Buddha. I do sometimes slip into that. But I have to be patient with myself about that. But I try not to expect that you'll be Buddha, but be grateful that you are. But I require it of you. I demand it of you, gently. I don't expect it. If I expect it, I suffer. Now, it turns out I do not expect that. But I didn't stop expecting that, you know, just because of the suffering. I stopped expecting it because I saw it didn't help people. It helped people more that I require it of it, or that I work for them to achieve it and make sure that they want to do it than for me to expect it of them and think that's what they're going to do.

[75:12]

But I didn't get to that place By reducing my expectations, I got to that way by dropping my expectations because I saw that they were useless. So I just don't have them about the things I care the most about. The things I care most about are not in the realm of expectation, they're in the realm of, that's what I want. So Buddhists want people to have expectations. They don't expect it. And therefore they don't suffer Because people are not doing what they expect them to, they suffer because people are not doing what they want people to do. See the difference between wanting somebody to do something and having them not do it, and expecting that they'll do it? Yeah. It's different. I think what are now wants used to be expectations. Now they're wants, and I'm suffering a lot less. Well, I don't know if you suffer less. I don't know if I suffer less. But it's different, you don't get angry at people for when they're not doing what you want for them.

[76:16]

But you're more likely to get angry. And that's not, especially if you want good things for people, it's not helpful to get angry at them. But it hurts you still that they aren't fulfilling themselves. It still hurts. Whether it's more or less, it's maybe a difference. It's compassion pain rather than frustration pain. Yes. Let's go back to Spencer. Okay. We said that, you know, he shouldn't try to lower his expectations or change them. But letting go of them all together, like he just comes into work every day and just, you know, he has wants and requirements of himself that he's going to do. Or his co-workers, yeah. That would... that would not be like not trying to be yourself. In other words, you know, you said... If he was that way, he would not be being himself if he was that way.

[77:23]

But you said you changed. You used to be one way and then you became the other way. I did change, yeah. And so you were being yourself and then... Through being myself, I learned that this wasn't working and I changed. I did. But you didn't consciously try to change yourself. I used to try to. That's one of the things I used to be. I used to try to change myself. I tried that for a while. It didn't work. I tried to change other people, too. It didn't work. So, I tried to be myself more and more. And that is the biggest, big change in me. The big change in me is having me being more and more myself. And in some ways, it's very risky. But I'm convinced it's a good way to go. And I'm willing for you to go that way, too, because I let myself go that way. And if I won't let myself go that way, I won't let you.

[78:26]

But I do, so you can. Even you. Okay, don't be that way. Liz? But the result with you was that really you stopped suffering and feeling bad and let go of your expectations. Yeah, right. So now I appreciate the way people are, even though it hurts me that they're that way. And my appreciation for them when it's really strong helps them to become better and better and to become freer and freer of these jerks that they are. So they become more and more Buddha, more and more Buddha grows up out of this jerk. The more I let the jerk be the jerk. You know, I really set this up in a way that I could let go of my resistance to cause by saying we just wouldn't do any today.

[79:29]

Let it live. When we're talking about this whole thing, though, it does sound again like we are doing something. Like what? What are we doing? Playing with our expectations, being with the resistance to our expectations. It sounds like that? We went through that one before. I know. It sounds like that. The reason why it sounds like that is because we run everything through the doing filter. You cannot... Because you think... If you didn't confuse that way, you know that. Right, right. So you have to go over this several billion times. You should speak up so I can tell, no, Liz, that's wrong. It's wrong in the sense that you're projecting your own karmic view onto a non-karmic person. So the Buddha lets go is not of doing something. But when you hear about somebody not doing something, you make it into the person.

[80:42]

When a person lets go, you make it into the person did that. Because that's the way you usually understand the world. That's the world. But even when we talk about being with our resistance... Yeah, you even make that into a doing. Yeah, I'd find... with my resistance, because I'm trying to be it, I mean, be with it. Yeah, well, so I... So you can do that, but I would say, don't. Don't make it that heavy. Just notice the resistance. And you say, well, okay, I'm doing the noticing, okay? So I would say, don't even notice it. Just let it be. Say, well, I'm doing the letting it be. I say, well, how about just Have what's happening be what's happening. Are you doing having what's happening be what's happening? Are you doing that? Gradually you might find if the language keeps moving enough you find untenable to project you're doing it onto the situation.

[81:47]

So just back up until you get to the Just keep working and keep telling the truth about your own ability to make what I thought was a kind of expression of not doing anything into a doing. Because you can always convert anything into an action. Because your mind can do that too. Like, for example, Liz being Liz. To me, I don't see any way you can do that. I don't see it. I don't see how you can be you. I just don't see how you can do it. But you can make that into, well, I'm going to do this thing called me being me. I don't know. I don't know how you can do that. I don't see how I can do it myself either. I don't see it that way. But that's what I'm trying to do is to show you a way that you don't do, but also what's happening. So it's not like I'm talking about a way to practice that you can't do that's also not happening. I'm talking about you've got what's happening working for you.

[82:50]

All you've got to do is join it. joining what's happening. But that's not, you're already there. So it's a really light joining. Fill out applications in the day. It's just like stop resisting that there's some alternative to what's happening. Just let go of that. Again, you know, just be intimate and find the middle between identification and Separation between touching and not touching, between doing and not doing. Find that middle way. But again, the middle way is very difficult to understand. It's very subtle, because the mind keeps coming back and making it into veer off this way and veer off that way. So again, it's normal that it's difficult to find the middle way. Normal. It would be very difficult to find this subtle, very subtle balance point.

[83:54]

If you're having a hard time, that's normal. If you find it for a moment and you slip off, that's normal. It's a very tenuous, subtle point of balance. It has no character. And at that point, you're not wishing for anything. It has no particular quality that you can identify it by. It's not a thing. And that is You know, our light. That is our nature which can set us free. That's where these koans come from. And that's the place from which you speak with your mouth shut.

[85:05]

Can I just look over here, please? Yes. Okay. I've been thinking about it for like five years. And it was causing a lot of anxiety. And my heart was beating really fast because I started battling the thought of, you know, if I would have just drinking the tea, like taking the cup, not separating, like this is your cup. And I started doing that, like separating. Well, this is, you know, it's appropriate. The tea. Now I'm really thirsty. I have an understanding of the expectation idea that the expectations are up here and I wind up here at the end of the day and there's this dissonance, this cognitive dissonance that you talked about and then I just

[86:19]

I'm going to practice not resisting this distance, which is what I've usually done, but resisted it. Got upset about it. And I'm going to practice not resisting it. Yeah, don't resist it. Just really be intimate with that discrepancy. And not lower my expectations for the next day. You can do that if you want to. Okay. That's your business. Where you set these expectations and how you figure out that they didn't get met, that's up to you. What I recommend is, however this works out, however you think this happens, whatever happens, that's the workings of your mind. I'm not saying anything about that. What I'm saying is, when the expectation gets set up, you're right there with it. There is the expectation. You're right there with it. Something happens in relationship to it, you're right there with it. The difference, you're right there with it. Right there.

[87:21]

When they get closer, the pleasure, you're right there, you know. Or sometimes I switch like this. This could be painful too, you know. Like nobody, you know, nothing left to, no challenges left. Too easy. Anyway, it's right in the ear if something happens. Something happens here, something here. You be in. If you can understand how this happens, okay, you'll be free of being a person. who, for example, has expectations. You've got other things going on, too. You have other abilities, too. But whatever it is, even if these things are themselves a kind of resistance to life, if you don't resist this manifestation of life, namely life manifesting as a resistance to life, if you are intimate with that, you become free of the whole thing and still be alive. I don't know if you're interested in freedom, but that's what I'm talking about.

[88:25]

His koans are about freedom. His koans are about setting beings free from self-cleaning and self-concern and whether my expectations are met or not, whether my desires are satisfied or not. All that stuff, this is about freedom from all that stuff. A fear is that, I don't know if I really know how to really come into it, but that dissonance. Your fear is you don't know if you know how? Yeah. Well, you don't know how. When I can tell. It'll take you 20 or 30 years to learn how to do it. That's mine. Unless you train really hard and, you know, change your occupation, probably. And find a really good teacher. It'll take you 20 or 30 years. even with a good teacher, 50 without. So, you probably don't know how. It's very rare to find this balance place.

[89:27]

So don't be afraid of that. Just assume, basically, not assume, but just probably take it that that's probably the case. You have not figured out how to do this yet. Okay? It takes so much training to be into it. Of course, there's moments when you hit it, but you often don't notice it. But those moments are probably why you're here today. And why you could tolerate this workshop. Brenda? I was just thinking how each of these affected me differently. Each of the stories? Yeah. Oh, good. What was the difference? Well, it's kind of hard. But, um, like the first two, um, seem much more, um, like an open, there's definitely like much inspiration and opening.

[90:38]

Um, the third, I didn't feel it, the inspiration come through as much. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's, in a sense, that's understandable because the third one, He didn't seem to understand as well as the first two months. So, it sometimes is easier for Zen students to be inspired by success stories than one more trial, one more lesson without actualizing the point of the lesson. The point of the lesson is, in each case, to speak without depending on words, to free yourself from human sentiment. The first two seemed to have done it. The third one didn't. So in some sense, when they collected these stories, they decided to put all three in. They could have just put one in. but they put all three in.

[91:42]

For you to feel the difference between these three qualities, two different styles, two different kind of success styles, one more relaxed and mellow, the other one more abrupt and shocking, and the third one, a very sincere... Didn't quite, didn't quite, didn't find his place. And Yunyun is a wonderful person because he is our ancestor. Our ancestor is kind of like the slow. He was not a student. It took him 20 years of close supervision. But again, he was a very precious being who got all that attention from one of the great masters. He took all that. The teacher was willing to give it to him. And so the resources did come to bear A person who was not so hot.

[92:43]

But it's still a little bit of a... His story has a kind of poignancy to it all the way through. And even when he went to see Yaoshan, Yaoshan kept saying, you know, you were with Baijian for 20 years and all the better you got. But he didn't storm out, you know. He just sort of said, yeah, this is where I am. I'm this person after 20 years. And he just kept going. He just kept working, kept working, kept working. How many millions and millions of interactions did he have? But he did find a mature. So we too will be able to mature if we just keep going like he did. Because sometimes he was a great Zen master who didn't seem... The difference between him and us is that he was there. And if we're there the way he was, we...

[93:49]

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