want to thank people for informing me when they are not going to be in class. I appreciate that. And you can keep those copies of the text if you like. Take them with you to study in time to come. Tonight I'd like to go to the section where actually Tracy asked a question last week about the statement that now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. And it doesn't say that if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, it will not reach the end of its element.

[01:16]

It says that it will not find its way or its place. So in this last section here, or almost the last section of the text, the issue here is like the place and the way, or the way and the place. To some extent, also, the place is here and the way is now or the place is space and the way is time. So the focus here is finding your place and your time. But actually it says place and way or the path.

[02:23]

your place and then how your place can move through time was both and both and both place is this place and the way is this time or this this way right now among all the practices you've been doing we're talking about this practice the one now So it says, in different translations, this one says, if you try to reach, you know, wherever you are, if you try to, like, reach the fullness of what's happening, the completeness of what's happening, or the, you know, full understanding of what's going on, which is reasonable.

[03:26]

And other translations say, if a bird or a fish wanted to go through the sky, or if a bird or a fish, if they want to or attempt to cover what's going on, to understand what's going on, if you wanted to swim or fly, only after understanding your realm. Or if you wanted to move, if you wanted to reach the end and understand before you move in the realm, if you want to understand your life before you live it, if you want to embrace the totality of your potential before you live it,

[04:28]

or if you want to embrace the totality of what you're doing, or if you want to first understand and then swim or then fly, if you want to understand first and investigate first what's going on, check it out, check out the world, and then, after the checkout, then start swimming and then start flying or whatever. If you do that, you won't find your place or your way. We have to start swimming right now, not flying right now. Then we can find our place and our way. Then, if we find our place and our way, then we will actually traverse, then we will actually reach the end of our element.

[05:33]

We will reach the end of our water and our sky. Even though, no matter how far we swim, we never reach the end, or actually there's no end, still we will understand the totality of this ocean, of the sky, if we find our place. But in order to find our place, we have to start swimming. But not just swimming to get somewhere, but swimming in order to swim right here. Not swimming to get somewhere, but to swim here. Not to fly here, to breathe here, to be here. So it's about attaining this place. And one translation says, attain. Another one says, find. The one we've been chanting is, when you find your place where you are. This is find your place.

[06:34]

Another translation, when you attain your place. Another one is, when you make this place. When you attain your place, when you make this your place. And attain, the etymology of the word attain is to touch. The root of the word attain is to touch. When you reach and touch this place, when you find your place, which is this place, when you find this place, which is your place, your place is always just this place. Then, naturally, the practice becomes Genjo Koan. Then, naturally, the practice actualizes ultimate truth. Extremely compact realization. Extremely concentrated practice and realization.

[07:40]

The practice of finding this place is the place where the activity becomes the realization of ultimate truth. Not the slightest bit of, it's all, it's like, what does somebody say, somebody said, you know, in the history of the world, of the universe, all the different places in the universe were once one place. All the different times in the universe were once one time. In a sense, we're trying to recapitulate the oneness of the universe by being willing to find this place, to reach and touch this place, and then, even though we're in this place, there is activity arises, and this activity in that place manifests ultimate truth.

[08:45]

Now, again, if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, if a fish tries to move through the water only after thoroughly comprehending it, If you try to walk down College Avenue after thoroughly comprehending it, you will not find your place. You have to find your place on College Avenue and then move from the place that you found, which is where you are. But you have to come back here to do that. but the mind tends to, like, move down the street in our mind, wondering what it's going to be like, and then go, which is fine.

[10:03]

It's just that in that case you don't find your place or your way. You're moving and you're active, but you haven't found your place or your way. So you're moving and you're active, but you don't realize the ganja koan. because you didn't stop first to find your place and your way. This is life from our Buddha nature. And he says a little bit more about this, but I just want to emphasize that very concentrated, it's kind of a simple practice, but it's not simple. It's simple, but it's challenged. It's very challenged and challenging because the mind wants to fly off and check things out before being here.

[11:11]

Funny, huh? Let's check out to make sure it's all right to be here before we are here. Let's scatter around here and see if it's okay to like exhale and relax. Where? Here. We have that tendency. We have to be careful of that. So being concentrated is is challenging with a mind like that. I think I've told you this story before about a Native American. I think you could say he's a teacher or a shaman or whatever, but the way he taught was by teaching about plants, native California plants. And so people would come to him to learn about the plants, and he would, what he called his test to see if he would accept them as students is he would tell them to find him, I think, 20 native plants.

[12:24]

And if the potential student took a step away from him, he'd say, you can't study here. only the students who like looked down at the ground and started without taking a step look right there where they were for the for the plants or even without even looking down seeing the plants in the air right before your eyes would be accepted maybe word got out that you know people say when you go to check when you go don't move look you know find something right under your feet He was probably not interviewing them in a parking lot, you know, covered with asphalt. He was probably just out there someplace in California, and a lot of places in California, if you just sit still and just look right in front of you, you will see many, many different kinds of grasses right where you are, if you're, like, outdoors. Lots of different varieties of grasses right around your body.

[13:31]

Like Atasahara did that once with a botanist. I said, would you teach me about the different kinds of grasses? We were just sitting on a hillside, and she could do it right where we were sitting. I don't know if there was twenty, but there were a lot of different types of grasses. Not one special place at all. They're just the grasses. And today I came here and I was going to exercise at the Y, Things didn't work out that way. So I just walked around Berkeley and I just tried as I was walking to do this practice. It was nice, actually. I didn't have anything to accomplish. And it's hard to do this practice if you get into accomplishing something. Because accomplishing something can slip into like you want to check things out and get things done and then you can be here.

[14:38]

Get various kinds of work done, and then you can just have this place and this time. But I wanted to get something done, but I couldn't get anything done. So I just was in Berkeley on the streets. Did any of you see me walking around? I got around quite a bit. And I even went over to, I went over to the, what is it called? It's called the, I think it's called the Cal Recreation Center or something like that, CRC. And I said, can you be a day guest? He said, yeah. I said, how much does it cost? He said, $10. And he said, and you need a valid photo ID. But I didn't have one. So I said, well, thank you. So I walked away from there, too. I just tried as I walked down the street every step to find my place or to make this very place my place.

[15:52]

This isn't a selfish thing to make it mine. It just happens to be mine where I am. And where you are just happens to be yours. It's not possessive. It just happens to be your place and your time. But if you don't make it, if you don't touch [...] it, if I don't touch it, if I don't touch it, if we don't touch it, then we have other things to do, like investigate various things or understand various things. We will miss touching, simply touching this place and this time, this place and this path. So it's nice to, in some ways, have some project frustrated, then wind up in a situation where you have nothing to do but find your place and your way.

[16:54]

And then see how that is, realizing the fundamental point. Don't let your mind get in your way. Don't let your mind block you from your place where this practice is going to come out, going to arrive. Find your place.

[18:27]

Find your way this moment. Make this place your own. Make this time your own. All the Buddhas support us to make this time our own. And when we allow this time to be made our own, the fundamental point is actualized.

[19:34]

practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point. Practice occurs manifesting the truth. You don't make it happen. I don't make it happen. The practice occurs from the place from your place and your way but you have to touch your place moment by moment and touch your way moment by moment because you can be distracted from that so you have to give up distractions from your place and your way For the place, the way is neither yours nor others.

[20:51]

The place, the way has not carried from the past and is not merely arising now. When you say touch your place, I'm wondering, is that the mudra where the Buddha is touching the ground? Uh-huh, yeah. That's an example of the Buddha touching the earth. He's touching his being there. He's touching his being there, uh-huh. And he's also... And although it's his place and he's touching his place, he was touching his place to check, to verify that him being in his place was not selfish, that he wasn't thinking that he was doing it by his own power. Because your place is not done by your power.

[21:53]

Your present, you don't make your present, but you have to live it. That's your responsibility. But you might think, oh, I'm going to make myself present. No, the universe makes you present. You can only distract yourself from where you are. So being present is not really a self-centered trip. But if anybody in your mind or outside your mind accuses you of that, then just take your hand and touch the earth and see if the Earth says, we support you to be present. And that was his story. He touched the Earth, and the Earth roared in affirmation that he was sitting not just for himself. You're not doing this just for yourself. You're not being who you are just for yourself. You're being who you are so that truth can be realized in your place. that truth can be realized in your way.

[22:59]

This is for everybody's benefit. Everybody supports you to be who you are, and then they support you to accept and realize who you are. And again, there are various little tips around there, like it says, when you're fully engaging, when you're being present in your fully engaging body and mind, it's not like things and their reflection in the mirror. So, it's not like the moon reflected in water. There's no sense, or it's not like the Buddha is not self-consciously aware of being Buddha. You're not necessarily, there's no duality there. You're just here, now. But not like here, now, like I'm here and now's there. Or me and here are two different things.

[24:01]

There's just here. Then here is my place and my place is me. And now is my time and my time is all I am. And I don't make my time, or me. And yet I can be happy that I'm celebrating being here with you, by you, for you, and so on. Yes? When he says he cannot hear an argument, that's wrong. yeah it just being what it is you can't you can't have it the other than just the way it is because it seems that what you're talking about now it is because it hindered what i was thinking of enlightenment if we don't

[25:14]

She said it seems like if you're distracted, in a sense, you hinder enlightenment. Oh, you think a different meaning in enlightenment there? Yeah, it's possible. It's possible, but I think he's saying that just like the moon isn't hindered by the water. There's two senses that the moon isn't hindered by the water. One is that the moon is reflected in the water, but also the moon is still sitting up there in the sky. The water isn't hurting the moon. And the moon can shine in the water. But both the reflection in the water and the moon in the sky are not hindered by the water. And a person who is whatever, whatever the person is, does not hinder enlightenment.

[26:30]

And enlightenment is in the person. But just like also you cannot notice that the moon's reflected in the water or that the moon's in the sky. But the relationship's there. But there can be a lack of appreciation, an awareness that the enlightenment is illuminating you. And that's often called, then your awareness doesn't seem to be illuminated. So he says at the beginning of Ben Doah that we're moving in this illumination all the time, but our consciousnesses are not necessarily illumined. And also our consciousnesses Nobody's consciousness can actually reach this illumination, just like the water can't reach the moon, in a sense.

[27:35]

And the person doesn't really reach the enlightenment. And the enlightenment is actually enlightenment about what the person is. Just like the moon enlightens what the water is. And the water also enlightens what the moon is. And people enlighten what enlightenment is. We show what enlightenment is. Enlightenment is realized through persons, human persons and other kinds of persons. So I think the enlightenment he's talking about is the regular old big enlightenment. It's more like we can be distracted or we can ignore, but you can't, you can't, even our ignorance does not interfere with the way things are.

[28:48]

The way things are can completely include our ignorance. The world has made beings who are able to ignore the way the world is. But that doesn't change the way the world is and that doesn't change awakening to the way the world is. Awakening to the way the world is is unhindered by people who aren't awakened to the way the world is. The awakening is not hindered by people who aren't awake. Fortunately. And the nature of awakening is that it isn't hindered by people not being awake. It completely includes everybody that's not awake. Again, Buddhists are those who are awakened about the beings who are ignoring awakening.

[29:54]

That's what they're awakened about. How do you make the ground? Without trying to get to the end of the element, without finding your place in being there, how do you make the ground?

[31:02]

How do you encourage it? How do you make the ground? Encouraged. Encouraged. How do you make that happen? Are you encouraged? What are you encouraged about? if you're encouraged to find your place and your way, then your place becomes the genjoukon and your way becomes genjoukon.

[32:04]

And when your way becomes the genjoukon, then that encourages everything, not just you or not just others. It's not yours, it's not others. Not self is not other. This is Gendro Koan. For the place, the way is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others. Are you encouraged to touch this place? If you're encouraged to touch this place, and when you touch this place, then your place becomes the manifestation of the truth. And that is the ground for others to find their place in their way. Just as others realizing the truth was the way that you turned towards finding your place and your way,

[33:13]

Buddha ancestors found their place in their way and realized the truth that encouraged you, that is encouraging you to touch your place, to reach your place, to reach where you are and touch it. If you do that, it's because you were encouraged to not be distracted from your place and your way. even to be encouraged is somewhat encouraging to others. But if you're encouraged and actually then drop your distractions and concentrate on where you are, when you are, who you are, and naturally realize, so all your activity becomes this realization of the koan, then that becomes again the encouragement to others to do the same. to find their place and their way. So somebody who has realized this koan is now the ground for the realization of the koan by this person, through this person, and other people joining it.

[34:32]

So the quietness of the class, this way of being quiet, if you reach it and touch it, even this quietness, even this silence of all things is manifesting the fundamental point. And if you speak from your place and your way, then your speaking will manifest. Fundamental point. But maybe your way now is to be quiet. Maybe this really is your way. Or maybe your way is to raise your hand and smile. and stroke your forehead.

[36:13]

And chuckle. You what? I'm thinking about when I'm at work. Are you thinking about when you're at work? Yeah. Are you, as you're thinking about work, have you reached your place? Why are you thinking about work? Yeah, I'm thinking about what we're talking about here. like what I'm not yet. Are you doing that right now? Are you real, are you finding your place right now? Yeah. You are? Yeah. Are you finding your way right now? Yeah. Okay. Congratulations. Um, and, uh, it seems to me that when I'm talking to the living beings, um, Are you speaking now?

[37:14]

Are there emotions arising now? I don't think so. Are the other people who are listening to you speak, do they have emotions now? They do. They do, yeah. So are we all finding our place in the middle of these emotions that are occurring while somebody's speaking, even if it's me who's speaking? Yeah. I would think so, too. In other words, I would encourage myself to think so. I would encourage myself to think that way. Not so much that everyone is, but I would encourage myself to think about finding my place while I'm talking or you're talking and while I have emotions while you're talking, or while I have or you have emotions while you're talking and I have emotions while you're talking.

[38:30]

And in that situation, among these native plants of emotions, I think about finding this very place and making it my own. And my own, again, is not possessive. It just means my own and I don't have another place. This is my place. This is my own place. I don't have another place. Now I do, but I didn't then. And now I do, but I didn't then. I always have my place. But do I appreciate it while I'm talking at work? And if I do, then we have genjo koan, If I don't, we have delusion. Fundamental point's there, but we're not manifesting it, we're not realizing it. Because, huh? What if what?

[39:32]

So in pain, oh, that's one there, pain, yeah. When there's pain, can I touch this place of pain? Can I reach and touch the pain? I don't know. Am I encouraged to reach and touch the pain? Dogen is encouraging you that when there's pain, to reach and touch the pain. When there's pleasure, to reach to make the pain your... to make this place of pain your own, then the activity that's going on right there in that pain becomes again your koan. Practice occurs realizing the truth when you make this pain your own place. Of course, when you have pain, it is your place.

[40:38]

But do you say, yes, this is my place right now. This pain is my place. Do you fully engage it with body and mind, intimately? So it isn't like the pain and me. It isn't like the thing and its reflection in my mind. It's more intimate than that. There's just the pain. It's not me and the pain. The pain is my place. That's where I am. But pleasure is hard, too. Like pleasure. There it is. Not I'm going to get it or keep it. I wonder where I came from. I'm just going to make it my own place. It's going to be my place right now. Not like hold on to it, but this is where I am.

[41:39]

I'm in pleasure with no separation of subject and object. That's what it means to touch the place, to attain the place, to find the place, to find it. And forget about yourself when you find it. Like sometimes you found some places that you were looking for, and when you got there, you were very happy to find them. And at that time, sometimes you weren't thinking, oh, I found a place. You're just happy to have found a place, but you're not thinking about you found it or that you were there. In some sense, before you got there, it was you and there. But when you actually arrived, it was just there. And before you arrived, when it was you and there, you still were not too happy about it being you and there. And then you found it, and it was just there. It was just... So now it really became your place. So pleasure or pain or confusion, these are difficult places to make your own.

[42:48]

So we have lots of difficult places being offered to us to make our own. and maybe some easy ones, fine. That's okay that once in a while there's an easy one. Oh, yeah. I got to be here. Wonderful. But there's a lot of hard ones, which means we have a tendency to separate, to, you know, Try to find out what's going on rather than just be there, rather than just swim or fly or sit or breathe.

[43:51]

Make it my own, make it our own. It feels to me like grasping. If you can't handle that instruction, then just go with the other one when you find your place where you are. Sounds... Well, go with that, then I'll make it. You make it your own destruction. You'll make it again. Yeah, I'll make it. I'm trying to make up analogies in my head that mean that what you're saying. I'm not the right way to go about it, but I find myself moving. It's your way.

[44:52]

I guess my way. At that time, it's your way. It's your place. Sometimes it seems helpful, but then I'm not sure if it really is what you're saying. Well, before getting into what is helpful, it's your opportunity. What you're doing, that's your opportunity. When you were talking about touching your place, I was thinking about how people live in community. Most people are in community, whether participating in it or not. And how, to me, that's if you're in your community and engaged with it and participating and appreciating that's touching that place that you're in. But if you don't, the community's still there functioning around you, but you're just not... Right. And that's, again, refers back to the earlier part where it says, when you're in community, in other words, when you're in community means when you see people or hear people or smell people,

[46:08]

when you engage, when you do that fully engaging body and mind, then those people aren't like the things reflected in your mind. It isn't like then you're just in your place with the people and there's no self and other. But it's possible to hear sounds and see colors, to be in a Maybe sometimes more than hairsbreadth, but it's always possible to just drop that separation and engage fully. Engage fully means touch it, reach it and touch it fully. And then you are grasping intimately what's going on, and then there's no separation, like this situation here.

[47:11]

So when we hear sounds of people, like, you know, at Green Gulch this morning, I opened the window in my room when I was talking to people, and it was beautiful, and it was, you know, raining, the sound of the rain dripping, you know, it's very… Somehow, when you hear that sound of the rain, that's one of the easy ones, you know, easy to go, okay, I'll fully engage that sound. i'll let there be kind of like not me and the sound now just like just the sound and i'll experience the the joy of just having the sound and like not worrying about me anymore don't i don't care whether it keeps raining or not or i don't know how to sell the rain i don't have to figure anything out i just how lovely just to hear the just the hearing of the rain But then sometimes the rain sounds like somebody who you don't want to embrace fully with your body and mind.

[48:30]

Or you want to embrace them a little bit more with your body and mind. And then as that separation occurs, not realizing the fundamental point. I do not want to fully engage that sound or that color fully. So when you do, like, you know, I also have these maple trees around my house, and this morning they were, like, they were, you know, all wet. It's, like, it's not that difficult to, like, commune with the maple trees, to be in the community with the maple trees, to fully engage them, and for a moment anyway to, like, not have to worry about me anymore. They're just the maple trees. And not even and me, there's just the maple trees. There's just what I'm looking at.

[49:32]

Or just even hearing the drops fall from the maple trees onto some pebbles. That's all there is. And that's my place. It's my place. But I'm not anything more than this stuff. Then I'm with my community. But if somebody messes with those maple trees, then I might like, that's not my community. I'm not going to fully engage with my body and mind this person who's bothering my maple trees. So then I lost my place. I got distracted from my place and my way. And then I don't see that this person who's messing with my maple trees is in the community with me so then I don't see the actualization of the fundamental point.

[50:35]

And I still struggle with the gophers. You know? More than a couple of years. More than a couple of years. It's been like 17 years. 17 years of these gophers saying, can you embrace this? Can you embrace us? Can you find your way and your place with us? Can we be in your community? Do we rank Can we join the ranks of your grandson? You don't try to control him. Why are you trying to control us? He makes a mess, too.

[51:40]

But you're willing to clean up after him. Why don't you clean up after our stuff? Get with the program, man. So it's, and I'm very glad to have a community of practitioners because I know you people don't want me to kill those gophers. Most of you don't, anyway. Huh? . Sure. . What part are you speaking about in particular? .

[52:44]

That you do not return to birth after death. That the firewood doesn't return firewood after it's been hatched. And particularly about the firewood, to deny that birth turns into death. To deny that birth turns into death. Or that death turns into birth. But it's not just denying something that seems on some level apparent and on some level not. And it wouldn't have to be denied. I'm not sure. I think that's right, that it appears that way. Therefore, otherwise it wouldn't have to be denied. Just like waves, you know, on the ocean appear to be moving from out farther into the coming in. But actually they're actually going up and down. They're not actually moving. But it looks like the waves are coming into the shore.

[54:19]

But actually it's an up and down motion that's going on. So they're rising and ceasing, but it looks like something's being conveyed. So birth arises and ceases, and death arises and ceases, but it looks like death turns into birth and birth turns into death. It's kind of an optical illusion. So we have to deny it so that you can find your place and your way in birth and death. But isn't what is born also dies? Isn't there a continuum there? Is what is born what dies? Is that what you're saying? I understand that they are... Well, you know, I think it's okay, maybe it's okay to say that I will cease.

[55:27]

But my ceasing will not be me. That will be its own thing, which is not me. I'm not going to change into my ceasing, but I will cease. Again, that's difficult to understand, but I'm impermanent, but that doesn't mean I change into something else. Because if I change into something else, then there is an abiding self. No, I wasn't something else before. But there are conditions that weren't me that are producing me now. And this person produces this person, or, you know, is conditioned for this person. But this person is not that person. I'm not the person I used to be. But the person I used to be, or the, you know, that condition for me is important, very important.

[56:32]

So when I say the person I used to be, it's not really correct. But the person in the past that had my name is a condition for me now. But that person didn't change into me. Just like the conditions for you don't change into you, they just produce you. But they don't change into you. But it looks... In a way, it looks like that. It looks like all the conditions that made you changed into you, but really... You're just those conditions. They didn't change into you. Again, this teaching is saying if you can find your place in your birth and then find your place in death, that you'll understand this. which means you'll understand that that's why this is called, you know, that's why it's called no birth and no death.

[57:43]

To realize no birth and no death means that we're alive and then we're dead, but we're realizing nirvana in birth and death. that peace and liberation are inseparable from cyclic suffering and birth and death. And we can realize that by meditating on this teaching, supposedly. Birth is a position in and of itself. It has past and future. Death is a position in and of itself. It fully includes past and future. But the death doesn't turn into birth. Spring doesn't turn into summer.

[58:50]

But spring is a condition for summer. But so is autumn and winter. And so are we. And so are grasses and flowers. So we don't say snow turns into flowers or flowers turn into spring. We just say flowers is spring and snow is winter. And hopefully that will help us understand no birth and no death. There's no self. Of spring, there's no self of firewood. So the self of firewood cannot change into the self of ash. But firewood does have the dominant position of firewood, and it fully includes past and future.

[59:57]

But it doesn't change into ash. It just ceases. It's impermanent. It doesn't last. And then, quite lawfully, there's ash afterwards. And ash is the same. It fully abides in the position of ash. Our job is to make this place of firewood, to touch this place of firewood, to find this place of firewood, and to find this place of ash, to find this place of spring. Touch it. And then you can enjoy how

[61:02]

the activity becomes the genjō koan. Check it out and see if you find something other than genjō koan when you reach and touch your place and your way. See if you don't find genjō koan there. I'd like to hear about it if you don't. I know that we don't find genjō koan. That's pretty common, but that's usually we don't find it when we're not touching here and now. Then we don't find out. I know about that. But do you actually really feel like you touch completely here and now, that you're fully engaging here and now, and then you don't see ganja koan? I'd like to hear about it. I think you will. I think you will realize the fundamental point if you do that practice, if you don't distract yourself from this extremely dynamic thing called life. Life is not the same as birth and death.

[62:10]

But life is inseparable from birth and death. And life is not the same as nirvana, but life is inseparable from nirvana. No birth, no death. Birth and death. It's all part of life. And at one point, this firewood and ash thing, though, was so beautiful. You know, at one point, Gary went off home, and now she's in a couple of the properties. Yeah, I guess

[63:21]

I guess what I'm suggesting to you and me is that in a situation like that find your place find your way and then practice actualizes the fundamental point. Like right now we have bingo right now we have whatever bad food bad food make that your place your way and practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point in the next moment what may happen is asking to talk speak to a dietitian that may arise thought of a dietitian following on the heels of experience of bad diet, unhealthy diet.

[64:56]

But this is not talking about going from unhealthy diet to some other thing. It's talking about when unhealthy diet is happening, find your place and your way. and take care of unhealthy diet at that moment because that's what's happening and how do you take care of unhealthy diet by being in your life which is called this is an unhealthy diet that is the way it looks right now from that place you realize the fundamental point and then We'll see what comes up next. And again, you'll realize the fundamental point if you continue that practice. This does not preclude anything. It does not preclude a profusion of, like, Berkeley is like, got a lot of roses happening right now. All over the place is roses, and they smell great.

[66:03]

It's wonderful. That's what's happening now. But do I realize my place and my way with these roses? If I do, I say that's what I'm talking about here in this text. Then the practice occurs realizing the fundamental point. But those roses may fall. And then I find my way and my place with the fallen roses. And then those roses make compost. And I'll find my place in my way. I want to find my place in my way with the compost. And maybe I seem to be actively participating with the compost, making piles of it and watering it. That may happen too. And I may plant more roses. And I make plant roses for my mother. Spring, summer, autumn, winter are going to be happening.

[67:14]

And ideas of helping our mother are going to happen. And our mother's health is going to change constantly. That's going to happen. This is our place and our way. We're talking about realizing truth in such places as healthy mothers, unhealthy mothers, healthy daughters, unhealthy daughters, healthy grandchildren, unhealthy grandchildren. These are our fields. These are our spring and fall. are we realizing the truth in spring and fall? If we are, then we can realize no birth and no death in spring and no birth and no death in fall. We can realize freedom from birth and death in whatever the season is.

[68:19]

And in our freedom, many things can happen, like It's autumn now, but now we can go shopping for seeds for spring. Or we can go shopping for good food at the grocery store for our mom. Lots of things are possible. The main question here is, are we distracting ourselves from a place in our way while we're shopping for our mother? Are we distracting ourselves from our place and our way while the roses are falling or while we're planting? Anything we can do can be an opportunity to lose our place and way or find our place and way. If we find our place and way, we find the Buddha way, which helps everybody. And we can find the Buddha way when our mother is sick and when our mother is healthy. And if we find the Buddha way, that sponsors Buddhas, sentient beings, birth, death, you know, delusion and enlightenment.

[69:37]

Everything can happen, but it's the Buddha way now. And there's freedom which is being realized. And if I want to do this, that's another. If I have a desire to do something for my mother, or to do something for the garden. These thoughts are opportunities to find my place and my way in those psychic areas. To learn how to stay focused on this fundamental meditation no matter what's happening is the great challenge. and to watch how freedom is born from that and how that sponsors all kinds of creativity and beauty. No matter what's happening, there's beauty. There's beauty in these old folks' homes, in these convalescent homes. There's beauty there.

[70:37]

Anybody can see that it's ugly. Anybody can see that it's stressful. But we have to actualize the fundamental point to see the beauty in some situations. And even in situations that are beautiful, if we don't find our place in a way, we miss the obvious beauty. And since we miss it, it's not obvious. We don't see it. Even though other people see it, they say, she's missing the beauty. It's incredibly beautiful, and she's missing it. So Buddha is looking at us, and no matter what we're doing, Buddha's seeing the beauty of our life. No matter where it is, Buddha's seeing the beauty of it. including the Buddha, seeing the beauty of people who have their eyes shut and who are asleep and do not see the beauty.

[71:55]

Buddha sees the beauty of people not seeing beauty. And Buddha is deeply touched by the suffering of those who do not see beauty. And Buddha is devoted to those who do not see beauty. But I'm sorry, but Buddha still sees the beauty of those who don't see the beauty. beautiful people can be afraid and tormented. But they're still beautiful. They don't think they are, and they maybe don't think anybody else is, and that's why they're tormented, but they're still beautiful in the eyes of some people. In the eyes of those who really love them, they're still beautiful. And in that love, person has found their place and their way with that person. And it's not afraid of that person being afraid and distracted. So Buddha is not afraid of us when we're distracted and not afraid of us when we're not distracted.

[72:59]

Because Buddha is finding her place and her way with all of us and encouraging us to do the same with all of us. So try it, like I said, and see if you find your place in a way. See if there's any exceptions. I mean, does something other than the fundamental truth manifest when you're totally present? And when it's manifesting, is that anything other than assisting you in finding your place in your way again? the best way to respond to the situation because it is your place and your way? Okay. Difficult, huh?

[74:01]

Well, I've gotten... We went over time. I'm sorry. But thank you for your your deep participation.

[74:15]

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