The teacher gave the student a teaching that helped the student become free of her mind. And at the time of delivering the teaching, the student was not able to apply it and become free of her mind. But later, it's one of the great moments in the history of the world. But now I think maybe we need a little warm-up to this story, because what happened was so astounding. Maybe it's a bit much just to start there. So maybe a little warm-up might be good. And one warm-up would be for me to mention that it seems to me, I imagine, that reality must be touching us right now.

[01:21]

The reality I like is the reality that I'm devoted to is a reality that has something to do with us right here, right now. If there's some other reality, hey, Okay, fine. But I'm kind of thinking about a reality that's all pervasive and that touches, right now, a reality we don't have to move to contact. Our practice, actually, in some sense, is not to move. When we move, we kind of miss authority here. So the context, in a way, of what I'm saying is that the way of reality must be what's happening here now. But it doesn't have to be just what we think is happening here now.

[02:23]

Reality must be what's actually happening here now. If reality was something other than what we're doing now, then reality would be kind of defiled by being separate from us. We need a reality that has to do with us. So we need to practice, we need to be in a way that's also not... defiled by being separate from reality, and the reality we need is a reality that's not defiled by being separate from us. So reality must be what we're doing, and what we're doing must be reality. Otherwise what we're doing is not reality. The Buddha way cannot be separate from our daily life, otherwise it wouldn't be the Buddha way. But if our daily life is imagined as separate from the Buddha way, Although it's not, that imagination can cause a sufficient sufficient condition for all the misery in the world.

[03:46]

So the context is that the way is all is perfect and all-pervading And so, like one of the ancestors said, the way is perfect and all-pervading. Why do we need to make an effort? Why do we have to make concentrated effort? The Dharma vehicle is free and unfettered. Why go off here and there to practice? And yet, if there's a slightest difference between our daily life and the way, It's like the way it can be seen very far away. And also if there's flight discrepancy between our self and other, the way is lost. We're confused. And that mountain is ready to block our way. So what's the practice?

[04:52]

What's the concentrated effort so that there's not any discrepancy between reality and our life? We have to enact that non-discrepancy with practice. So whatever's happening, we have to practice with it in such a way that there isn't any discrepancy between our life the way of peace and freedom for all beings. So, if we wish to realize the Buddha way, if we wish to realize reality in this moment, in this place, at this time, with these people, in this world, if that's what we wish, in order to realize that, we have to apply all the practices of the Buddha way to what's happening here.

[06:00]

Apply all the practices of reality to our phenomenal situation. if we want to realize that our phenomenal situation is reality, or how it is. I said this to somebody recently, you know, to apply all these bodhichitta practices, bodhisattva practices to what's happening, and he said, you mean zazen? And I said, yeah, but I need zazen, which is all bodhisattva practices. Some people think zazen is like one of them or six of them. Bhakti, do you think there's six of them that could do it? There's six of them. There's a certain six of them. So practices that need to be applied to what's happening right now are generosity,

[07:12]

Ethics, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom. What's happening right now to some extent, or to some extent, what's happening right now for us is our idea. What's happening for us is our idea. of what's happening for us. And the way it looks is such that we have a tendency to grasp what's happening there. And this situation is not at all separate from the Buddha way. However, that's not the Buddha way. The Buddha way is not to grasp what's appearing to us right now. It's not to grasp anything.

[08:14]

To put away is not grasping anything. To put away is not grasping anything. To put away is not grasping anything. Not grasping anything is to put away. But that's not grasping anything while being actually with everything. That's like being with everything with no separation, not grasping everything. That's being intimate with everything, not grasping everything. That's the Buddha way. The Buddha way is intimate with all beings without grasping anything. It's intimate with all phenomena without grasping. That's the Buddha way. So it's totally embracing us now and not grasping us. But sentient beings to some extent grasp. And that grasping, although the Buddha is totally intimate with the grasping, the grasping is not the Buddha way. It's the way of sentient beings who are grasping.

[09:25]

Buddha ways of not grasping, sentient beings grasp. So we need to practice with the grasping. These six practices can be summarized in soto-zen as zazen. They can also be summarized as the three pure precepts. Ethics of strength, ethics of practicing the six perfections, and ethics of transforming beings. Infant practices of compassion and wisdom apply to what? Grasping, suffering, birth and death. Everything. If we practice generosity, ethics, and patience, and we're still grasping, or we're practicing generosity, ethics, and patience, those practices benefit sentient beings.

[10:48]

We are a sentient being, and we're sentient beings, and we do these fruit practices with grasping and suffering that's caused by it, benefit arises in the situation of grasping and suffering. Benefit can be developed, cultivated, and realized prior to realizing the Buddha way. All the while, the Buddha way is not the slightest bit separate from the grasping And I practice. But until we stop grasping, we think something is separate. We've heard it, nothing is, but we think it is. And we have not yet realized non-grasping. But we can benefit before that by these practices.

[11:52]

What did I say again? Restraint. Huh? Restraint. Generosity. Generosity. Patience. Ethics. And patience. Yeah, those three. We can benefit the situation even while we're still clean. And to get ready to regenerate now, to refuel our energy and get ready to practice concentration. Get ready to calm down and relax and get ready for not grasping. Yes.

[12:58]

Is grasping itself a delusion or is it an illusion to think that grasping is part of the good way? You said, is grasping an illusion? Grasping, well, people who are grasping, the people who are grasping, grasping is a delusion too. That there is a... The disciple of the Buddha was something like Chan Yang. And he was a disciple of somebody who really had lots of wonderful stories about, named Bai Zhang. And he studied with Bai Zhang, and then Bai Zhang said, bye bye, I gotta die now. Please study with my great disciple, Wei Zhang. And Guishan then accepted Shaoyang as his student, and they worked together. And Guishan could see that Shaoyang was a brilliant living sentient being.

[14:09]

The world of illusion that he lived in, the things that he was seeing were more brilliant than what most people see as separate. So he really liked to grasp them. And so, at some point, Guishan said, you know, I don't want to hear any more from you about the Buddhist teachings, which I know you've mastered. You're a great student. You're a genius. So I'm just going to suggest that you have to say something to me now You have to say something to me from before you were born, and from before you were discriminating objects. He says to the great student, and . He doesn't know what to do with that. He makes some comment as the teacher says.

[15:15]

Huishan says, Huishan is trying to liberate this wonderful sentient being from his mind. His mind which is appearing is up to where he grasps. He's grasping at his mind. Grasping at brilliant things. Grasping brilliantly. But when he hears this teaching, he just tries to grasp it too. So of course it doesn't work. Because the teachings are the teachings about how to stop grasping. In other words, go to the place before you know how to grasp. That's what he told me. Go to where there's no grasping before you know how. and he just couldn't get it. And so then he went and looked at all his sutras and all his notes from his teacher, Vaidyan, and came back and tried again, and Vaisana said, You're not speaking from that place.

[16:28]

You haven't got to that place. The student is deeply moved. to tears, and he sees that his sincere efforts all this time, he has been sincere, but they're not going to work here. He goes back and burns all of his wonderful teachings and notes that he had from all his wonderful teachers. And the He's heard that there's a monument to a national teacher who's an ancestor of Bajau and Guizhou. And he wants to go and take care of the monument of the national teacher and just be a landscape gardener.

[17:33]

The national teacher's monument. a caretaker for the National Teachers' Monument. And I told this story here before, but in a way, that's kind of what it's at, is to be a caretaker to the National Teachers' Monument, or to be a caretaker to the World Teachers' Monument. To take care of the ground around the monument of the Buddhas. But this is an actual Chinese Zen teacher. So he tells Guishan, he says, Guishan, that's fine. So he goes and he takes care of the ground along the wind. And I don't know how long he did that. But I feel like he practiced compassion towards the ground, towards the grass, towards the weeds.

[18:39]

and towards his own mind, which was working with his teacher's teaching. He was working with the thought before birth, before thoughts of discrimination. He was practicing compassion with his own mind, he was practicing compassion with his own birth. And he became concentrated and calm with his mind, with the earth, with the earth and his mind. He was standing on the earth. It was sweeping or siphoning or whatever. Heaven flies through the air, hits a stalk of bamboo, and goes. And he hears the two diamonds.

[19:42]

He hears the Chidamari. He hears the place before her. So, in one sense of the old Maybe it's too much to tell people this. Very difficult teachings. What's a teaching? You have to say something from the place before birth. You have to say something before objects are discriminated. Such a difficult, such an advanced teaching. In other words, you have to say something from the reality. There's no separation in our life, actually.

[20:48]

But then I thought, oh, well, but Xiaoyang couldn't answer it either, so maybe if the people here can't answer, it's okay. Because then they're just like a great Zen minister was before he answered. They can't. Maybe they can. But maybe not until after work period. So it's a dangerous work period here. When you're working on the land here, when you're cleaning this hall, where do you are on this place? This place is a monument to the national teacher, to the world teacher Buddha. This place is a monument to Buddha, right? I put this place here, isn't it? So you can take care of this place. You can be a caregiver to this place which is a monument to the great teacher.

[21:52]

And you can take care of it, and you can take care of it, and you can take care of it, which is the same as realizing you're taking care of your mind when you take care of this place. This is a place of no both. This is a place of no attachment. This is a place of no grasping. It's a monument to the teacher of Nebraska. It's a monument to the teacher of Rialto. When you take care of this place, please do not get distracted by the work. The work is not anything other than taking care of the running around the National Teachers' Monument. Please realize the place before birth when you're working here today. And when you're sitting here today, please, when you're sitting, please take care of the world teachers. Please be compassionate towards what's happening.

[22:58]

And go to the place where there's no grasping of birth and death. No rejecting of birth and death. No. We get to the place of no grasping birth and death by being thoroughly compassionate. We've got plenty of birth and death, no shortage, which means no shortage of opportunities for compassion, and therefore no shortage of opportunities for entering the reality of not grasping birth and death. And not grasping birth and death is called reforming. It's called peace. But we have to not grasp birth and death to enter this world. And we cannot stop grasping birth and death. We have to be really, really, really, really kind to it. With no exceptions and no holding back, no matter how nasty birth and death gets.

[24:06]

But be really, We're not happy that birth and death is nasty. We're happy that we can be with it in total compassion. To the point where we're so with it that there's no separation in birth and death. There's no grasping. And then we enter the place before the birth and then we'll have something to say. And Yangshan entered that place and he did have something to say. And he said it. And they wrote it down. And it's been translated into English. He was so happy. It's a great happiness to be in this place before we separate ourselves.

[25:11]

before our mind separates, before we grasp. It's so happy, it's so peaceful. And you can talk from there. Words don't reach that place because it's before words. But that place can talk. It can sing. And it can take baths. It can take baths from that place. So when he got there, he took a bath. And he got some incense together. And he offered the incense in the direction of this teacher who told him to find this place for a birth. And it wouldn't explain to him I'll find her. And so he said, Thank you, dear teacher.

[26:18]

You're kinder than one's parents. You're so kind that you're not to explain. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to find her now. Now he's speaking from that place before birth. That happy place before birth. That happy place before birth and death. Now he's free of all his great learning and he can sing how free he is by saying one stroke And I'm free of all the knowledge. Last year's poverty?

[27:27]

It wasn't real poverty. This year's poverty finally is genuine poverty. In last year's poverty, there was a place for me to plant my hole. In this year's poverty, not even a hole remains. He's a monk. He wasn't really a monk. He was dreaming of being a monk, and he thought the dream of a monk was what he was. But he was tied to the dream. I'm not really a secular Buddha.

[28:35]

I'm just dreaming of being a secular Buddha. Buddha is not separate from you. Not at all. Buddha is not separate from you. Not at all. But I'm dreaming of being a disciple. But I also am dreaming of being kind to myself. Dreaming of being a disciple. I'm dreaming that I'm really pretty darn kind to myself. Even though I'm like this. And I can be worse. But even though I'm worse, I can still be kind to be worse. And I'm draining myself into compassion towards who I am. I'm Kel. I had to become this before. And then I'm really the separate Buddha that I am.

[29:36]

And I realize that I never was separate from the Buddha. But I thought, yes, I believed it. And I had some friends who believed it. And I asked them if they want to keep believing it or if they want to realize the real way. And they said, I want to realize the real way. Well, then be kind to this person that you hit the nail in the head and make an exception. And not be kind to him. Be kind to this person who's trying to get something out of practice. The kindest person who's always into trying to gain something and avoid loss. The kindest person. Really? Yeah. How wonderful that we can practice compassion even before we're in the place of before birth.

[30:37]

And then... It's okay also when we enter the place because then we're going to be able to be compassionate even more thoroughly. Unyielding by our dreams. Unfold by our dreams. We have the rest of our lives. Sing songs. from the place before birth. You can also sing songs from the place after birth. We know about those. Now we can learn what kind of songs we can sing when we enter reality before birth. And I think you're probably somewhat clear now about how to enter the place, right? Aren't you kind of clear about how to enter the place before birth?

[31:43]

No. Aren't you kind of clear? You're asking me? Yeah, I mean. I'm dreaming. You're dreaming, yeah. I'm dreaming. Is the dream clear? The dream that's a little cloudy. I'm dreaming of clarity. Are you dreaming of a cloudy dream of clarity? Yeah. Cloudy dream of clarity. How you get into the place before birth? I'm dreaming that I am in the place before birth. Oh, you are? Wow. How'd you get there? I didn't get there from here. Are you here? I'm dreaming I'm here. Yeah, I'm here. And how do you enter the place before birth from here? With generosity, exactly. Exactly. With generosity towards here.

[32:43]

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