Some of you are here for the first time, is that right? Is your name Mary? Pardon? What is your name again? Mary? Are you here for the first time? You've been here before? Welcome back. Anyway, some of you are here for the first time, and this year, first time, And I just wanted to kind of like draw a little picture of what's going on here this year. And by here, I mean here with this person and also mean this temple. This person, however, goes other places besides here. So this is what's going on with him when he's other places too. For example, on Monday I'm going to go to New York City, and then I'm going to go to Minneapolis, and then I'm going to go to Houston, and I'll tell the people there, when I arrive, I'll tell them about what's going on here.

[01:14]

Now, what's going on here, this year in particular, I'm emphasizing, what's going on here is I'm emphasizing something. And what I'm emphasizing is that the Buddha points to the earth. And this comes from a story in one of our Zen story collections, and the name of the story is The World-Honored One, the Buddha, Points to the Earth. And that story is sort of what I brought up at the beginning of the year, and I continue to return to that story. What's the story? Not yet. The story is The World Honored One Points to the Earth. Then the story goes on.

[02:19]

But the name of the story is The World Honored One Points to the Earth. The Buddha The Buddha is more than just pointing. But when the Buddha points, the Buddha sometimes points to the earth. This is a story about the Buddha pointing to the earth where we live. And then the story goes on. One day the Buddha was walking along on the earth. and the Buddha pointed to the earth and said, this is a good place to build a sanctuary. So this is another thing I'm emphasizing. I'm emphasizing that this is a good place to build a sanctuary. And wherever I am, I want to emphasize this is a good place to build a sanctuary. Whoever I'm talking to,

[03:22]

this is a good conversation in which to build a sanctuary. And so on. This is an emphasis. Okay? And then for me, I would like to build a sanctuary for complete, perfect awakening. Sometimes called Buddha. I would like to make a sanctuary for complete perfect awakening. So I would like to emphasize that and then also I would like to emphasize what I'd like to give life to in this sanctuary. And part of giving life to it is to talk about it, to talk about what I want to give life to, awakening.

[04:35]

And I have and will talk about this awakening in different ways. And Part of the reason I will talk about this awakening, this Buddha, in different ways, is so that we will be able to understand that there's no limit on the ways to talk about Buddha. In other words, no limits on ways of talking about Buddha could be understood as meaning everything is a way to talk about Buddha.

[05:46]

Buddha is a name for this awakening. The Buddha is not just a person or a being, it's also an activity. Buddha is an activity. Awakening is an activity. It's a way of living. And there are unlimited names for this awakened way of living. For example, Homa is another name for Buddha. Lorenzo is another name for Buddha. Mary is another name for Buddha. Christoph is another name for Buddha. A cypress tree in the courtyard is another name for Buddha.

[06:50]

rock, tiles and pebbles are another name for Buddha. Buddha mind is another name for Buddha. And another name for Buddha is intimate communication. So I... that name for Buddha, that name for Buddha, intimate communication, or Meeting face-to-face is another name for Buddha. Buddha is meeting face-to-face. Meeting face-to-face is another name for Buddha. And Buddha is another name for meeting face-to-face. So I'm emphasizing meeting face-to-face. And one of the ways I emphasize it is by meeting you right now face-to-face. This meeting, see it? This is an emphasis on Buddha.

[07:56]

This is a way to emphasize Buddha. Now I could turn around and face that way, and that could be another way for me to emphasize meeting you face to face. In other words, I want to emphasize that I am intending to meet you face to face right now, and if I turn my head around and I probably have to move my whole body to do it, the back of my head is offered to you as my face. I want to build a sanctuary here today. I want to. I think this is a good place to do it. And in this sanctuary I would like to practice Buddha in the form of meeting you face to face. I want to give you my face. And I'm trying to give you my face right now. If I give you my face, then we could have face-to-face meeting.

[09:02]

But I also want to emphasize that in order for us to have face-to-face meeting, you need to give your face, too. And You do. So we can have Buddha right here, now, by giving our face to each other and meeting. And once our faces are meeting, we can also have a conversation. And when we have a conversation, again, that's an opportunity for awakening. and we need this face-to-face meeting for awakening and also we need awakening for this face-to-face meeting. One of the reasons, one of the stories about why I might be concerned with

[10:14]

building a sanctuary for awakening is that I think awakening addresses something that's kind of an issue in my life, which is human suffering. I'm somewhat concerned with human suffering and also the suffering of other animals and plants and the whole planet. So the planet's a good place to build a sanctuary for the awakening which addresses the suffering of the planet. And the suffering of the planet, one of the main places to look for the suffering of the planet is in what we call self-centered consciousness. And the way I use the word consciousness is I use it for self-centered consciousness.

[11:20]

I use consciousness as a mind, a type of mind in which there's a self appearing, where there's a sense of awareness and I'm here. Hello, I'm here. And I see you there. and also I see you there and I guess that you have consciousness too, and I'm guessing that your consciousness has you in it, looking at me in this face-to-face meeting. This consciousness where there's a self, is there other names for it? Unlimited names for it? self-centered consciousness, egocentric consciousness, egoistic consciousness, but also you can call it self-centered cognition or self-centered mind. So I use the word consciousness for self-centered mind.

[12:26]

There's other realms of cognition which are not self-centered. For example, we human beings, I think, have another form of cognition which is not self-centered, which is called the unconscious cognition. It's not self-centered consciousness. It's a virtually infinite cognitive field of activity, which is involved in all of our physical, well, in most of our physical movements, in speaking language to each other, in regulating and influencing our heartbeat and our heart pressure and our digestion, and so on. It's an inconceivably rich field of cognitive life. which surrounds our little, our relatively small self-centered cognition.

[13:35]

as I often mention this image by D. H. Lawrence, where he says, this is what I know about the conscious self. I think that's what he said. You can find it in Being Upright. This is what I know about the conscious self, or I would rephrase it, this is what I know about self-consciousness. It's like a clearing in the middle of a dark forest. And I would add a vast dark forest. And the vast dark forest I understand to be the unconscious cognitive process which surrounds our quite reduced cognitive life in consciousness. And in this reduced consciousness, cognitive mind, where there's a self, that's where we, well, that's where we have greed, hate and delusion.

[14:40]

And that's where we speak languages. We don't speak English in our unconscious. We speak it in our consciousness. And The unconscious cognitive process makes it possible for there to be English spoken in consciousness. And in this consciousness we are, in the consciousness, we are trapped in the consciousness. In consciousness, people are trying to get out of the consciousness. In the consciousness, people are sick of the consciousness. And they're sick of the self that's in the consciousness. And they even want to get rid of the self that's in the consciousness because they sense that it's all sticky and obstructed around the self in the consciousness, which is, most people have some understanding of that. And there is all kinds of teachings coming out from what?

[15:43]

From the face-to-face transmission. There's all kinds of teachings coming into the body and into the unconscious cognitions, into the conscious, self-centered cognition. And we can hear these teachings, and these teachings tell us how to deal with this little clearing this little constricted, reduced version of our life where there's a self-consciousness, how to deal with that in a way that will open the self-consciousness to the face-to-face transmission which is going on all the time. The face-to-face transmission is going on. The face-to-face transmission is the Buddha mind, is complete perfect enlightenment. It completely pervades the body, my body, all of our bodies.

[16:53]

Complete perfect enlightenment pervades all of our bodies right now. It pervades all of our unconscious process right now. And it pervades our conscious process right now. But it's not another one of the things in our consciousness. It's a light. It's a radiant wisdom. It's a face-to-face transmission. And a teaching has come into our consciousness which is telling us that if we can enter into the practice of face-to-face transmission, we will realize the face-to-face transmission that is already going on. So I'm saying these things to you, and some of you, and maybe all of you, are hearing these words and are in your little tiny

[17:58]

karmic consciousness, self-consciousness, you're hearing that there's a face-to-face transmission available. And in this face-to-face transmission, there will be complete perfect enlightenment, which is already present. But it requires us to enter into this meeting and this conversation, which is already going on. And for example, one of the things that's required of us is to give our face. And if we give our face, we'll realize other faces are being given to us, which we will not realize even though it's already so. Some of you may already know this somewhat. Did you know that everybody you know gives you their face? Have you heard about that before? Most people have never heard that before. Have any of you heard that before?

[19:05]

That everybody you meet gives you their face? Have some of you not heard that before? Nobody here has not heard that before? You have not heard it before? Yeah. Most people, if I would go up to them and say, have you heard that everybody you meet gives you their face? If I was going to do that, I would go with bodyguards. Don't hit him. He's not trying to be mean. He's just doing a survey. The survey is, do people, for example, English speakers, have they heard that everybody that they meet gives them their face? Most people have not heard that teaching. Now, if I say to them, have you heard or do you understand that everybody you meet, you give them your face?

[20:09]

Also, most people have not been asked that question. For example, I have not asked my granddaughter that question, and I don't think anybody else has asked her that. But every time she meets someone, she gives them her face. And if you would say that to her, she'd say, I don't want to give my face. That's what her face would say, with a tremendous vitality. I don't give you my face, granddaddy. Do I give you my face? I don't want to talk about this. That's the face that I would get, maybe. But she might surprise me and say, wow, that's really interesting, granddaddy. You give me your face? I'll see her tomorrow. I'll see about that. But she might not pay any attention to me. So that's part of what I wanted to say to you.

[21:18]

And I will continue to emphasize this face-to-face meeting and tell you more about how wonderful it is. Or I should say, I will propose to you more and more about how wonderful it is. And before I go on to the other things which I'd really like to talk about, I'm going to call on the person who's making a face at me and raising your hands. At least I'm on the right theme. You are on the right theme. Do you have to have a face to give someone your face? Yes. So a rock and a tile are... Rocks have faces. They have faces. Do you have to have eyes to have a face? Yes. Rocks have eyes? Yes, they do. If you give your face to a rock, you will discover that rocks have faces. And you'll discover they have eyes and so on.

[22:27]

But until you are, I don't know what, moved enough or insane enough to go around and give your face to rocks, you probably won't realize that they have faces. You'll be trapped in your karmic consciousness, in other words. where you think only some beings have faces and you can only communicate with some beings. Like many kind of consciousnesses already think that about some humans. They think they can't meet some humans. So it would be natural that they would think, well, I also can't meet frogs or rocks. The more you give your face, the more you'll realize that you're being met by another face. But you can just start with humans. That's hard enough to just remember to do it with humans. And the more you can do it with humans, the more you realize that it's a teaching that applies to everything.

[23:33]

Because the teaching of face-to-face transmission is to free you from the self-centered consciousness where you think only certain things are possible. In karmic consciousness, we think only certain things are possible. But in karmic consciousness we usually do not understand that everything is impossible. Karmic consciousness is not up for that. But you can make it ready for that, for it to open to everything's impossible, and therefore everything's possible. It's possible that everything's impossible, and so on. Not to mention that rocks have faces. I mean, that's like... And it's impossible that humans have faces. And we need face-to-face transmission, which we've already got.

[24:36]

We need to practice that in order to realize that humans' faces are impossible. It doesn't mean there's no human faces. There are human faces, and we should meet them in wholehearted, responsible conversation. And through that conversation we will become free of our little enclosed space in the dark forest where we're trapped because we don't yet practice face-to-face transmission. If you practice face-to-face transmission in the little clearing in the middle of the vast forest, you will not any longer be limited or I should say, you will realize the infinite life that is simultaneous with your limited life through this practice of face-to-face transmission.

[25:40]

And I'm not attached to moving on to my next topic. So, yes? Sure. Am I sure? Well, I'm now demonstrating it. I'm not saying I'm sure, because my next topic has nothing to do with being sure. Actually, it does. I have some question or confusion around authentic face and inauthentic face. And how is, do we sometimes present inauthentic face, or is there such a thing, or how does that... Your face becomes a mask sometimes. Yeah, the word persona, right, means it's what the people put on their face, right? The Greek actors that they put on was called persona, right? So, is a face kind of a false thing in the first place?

[26:53]

Yeah, and I think we need to bring the false out and meet other falseness in order to become free of falseness. The face is all tied up with our entrapment in delusion. We become entrapped in karmic consciousness by means of our face and another face. So we use what entraps us to liberate us. And in fact, what entraps us already does liberate us. It's already going on. Let's see, Kurt? Is it fair to say that when we share our face and we see the face of someone else, that at the same time we see our own face reflected in that? Is it fair to say that?

[27:57]

Well, it's certainly fair to say that. It's not fair. I think it's certainly fair for you to say that, and also it's fair for you to say the opposite of what you just said. A lot of stuff's fair here. Part of the process of this face-to-face transmission is to be looking like you're talking to somebody. Like I'm talking to somebody. I talk to some of you people, right? I have conversations with you." Part of the process of face-to-face transmission is while you're having a conversation with somebody else, you realize that they're you. That's part of what happens in face-to-face transmission is you realize that the other is the way you are, really. So that dynamic of face-to-face transmission is He is me, and in truth I am not him.

[29:00]

Or he is not me, but in truth I am him. That dynamic is what goes on in the face-to-face transmission. Yes? So I'm very curious about the statement of needing, like, face to face in like in its darkness in order to liberate it because I feel like when somebody is putting on a mask and is saying one thing and doing another thing being able to meet that doesn't feel good to say one thing and then do another thing doesn't feel good to match it so I'm really confused about how You don't have to match with the other face. You don't have to match it. You can say, thanks for giving me your face, and I'd like to offer you a face, which I'll alternatively call my face, which I think doesn't match your face.

[30:01]

You can have conversations like that. The thing is that now we're getting into the conversation, which I'm happy to do forever. And in the conversation, in the fully responsible way of having a conversation, there's so many possibilities. You can agree with the person, you can disagree with the person, you can ask them questions, you can feel that they are calling you into question, and you can allow being called into question, and you can check to see if they're willing to be called into question, and if they're not, you can call that into question. and so on. You don't have to be the same as somebody else at the beginning. You just have to wholeheartedly be different when you're different. And in the wholeheartedly being different and responding to that fully, you realize that without matching them, you are completely what's not you.

[31:03]

But that isn't like you switch sides. It's that you wake up to this person who like this person who says one thing and does another, you wake up to that that is you. And that liberates you from them and you. This is like you wake up to freedom from your self-consciousness. But the way to become free of my self-consciousness is by having a conversation with you. But I have to train in order to have a fully responsible conversation with you. And I need you to help me. And you will. So, thank you for clarifying. And then what do you do if that person is in your space and not your choice? What do I do if someone's...

[32:06]

injure somebody? Did you say, what do I do if someone is in my space? Yes, yes. They're not there by your choice, they're there by somebody else's choice. She said, what do I do if someone is not there by my choice? Generally speaking, forget about generally, often Often, almost always, the person that's in my face, the face that's in my face, I did not choose that face to be in my face. And my faith is in dealing with the face that's in my face, not the faces that I choose to be in my face. If I notice myself choosing faces to be in my face, I have the good fortune of a certain face calls me into question and says, are you trying to choose which faces are in your face?

[33:09]

I do want some faces to be in my face, but I do not want to get into choosing the faces that are in my face. So anyway, right now your face is in my face. But I didn't choose that, but you gave it to me, so now I've got it. And this is what I want. I want what I've got. But I didn't choose you. Now what if I also, now I didn't want you, but I don't want you. Well then, I work with, I'm not open I'm not open to what's being given to me. And so here's a key factor of face-to-face transmission, is that I welcome you even though I did not feel that I invited you. I welcome you. That's how the face-to-face transmission starts. It starts as an act of generosity, which is to welcome you and to give me.

[34:13]

even though I didn't want you and still don't want you. And I welcome that I don't want you and that I'm afraid of you or whatever. This is what I'm trying to learn, is to welcome the other who I didn't want, didn't choose, and to give my face to the other who I didn't want to or did want to open up to the reality of our relationship which will liberate both of us from our egoistic entrapment and open us to the, not just open us to the vast forest, but open us to the intimate relationship between the vast dark forest and the little clearing. openness to the wisdom, which is the relationship of everything and everybody to everything and everybody.

[35:19]

But we have to do this work in a little clearing we have to meet each other face to face in Little Clearing in order to open to the forest and then open to the relationship between the Little Clearing and the forest and develop the dialogue within the Little Clearing and between the Little Clearing and the forest which includes all the other Little Clearings which are communicating to us and coming into the clearing but also communicating to us from the dark forest. And that whole relationship is Buddha's wisdom. And so that's another topic which I am sort of offering for the rest of the summer anyway, spring and summer, is, the topic is, exploring our infinite life. My karmic consciousness is finite.

[36:24]

Your karmic consciousness is finite, is limited. In it there lives birth and death, beginning and ending, arising and ceasing. That's part of what's going on in the little karmic consciousness. And that's part of our suffering, is we sometimes say, I don't want to have this thing start. I don't want to have this thing end. I don't want the birth of this. I don't want the death of that. That's part of what it's like there. It's stressful. The face-to-face transmission liberates us from getting stuck on any of that stuff. and opening to our infinite life. We have a finite life, which is this little karmic consciousness, which is so powerful, so interesting, so amazing, but also it's entrapping and it's deluded. It's false, but it's a very useful falseness. Like, again, the story I tell over and over.

[37:30]

The man comes to the psychiatrist and says, my sister thinks she's a chicken. Now it could be, it could compound the problem and say, my sister thinks she's a rooster. Why didn't you tell her she's not a rooster? Anyway, gender things aside, my sister thinks she's a rooster, no, my sister thinks she's a chicken. No gender problem there, right? And the psychiatrist says, why don't you tell her she's not a chicken? He says, well, I need the eggs. So we don't tell karmic consciousness, you know, that it's not right, because we need the eggs. It's powerful. But we can work with the situation and become free of I'm a chicken. I'm a person.

[38:31]

I'm a man. I'm a woman. We can become free of that. We can become free of attaching to our identities and rejecting other identities. We can become free of this attachment and rejection. And we have another life which is simultaneous with our little life. It's an infinite life, which is always simultaneous with our limited life. But our limited life only exists in our consciousness. Outside of our consciousness, there's no way to limit our life. There's nobody saying, oh, now it got born and now it dies. That's all thought construction in karmic consciousness. My birth, my death. I have another life, which makes possible this limited life. And when this limited life and this limited consciousness goes kaput, my infinite life supports the kaput, but is virtually unhindered by the kaputting or the not kaputting.

[39:39]

Right now, I'm not kaput, but my infinite life is okay with that. And when I am kaput, my infinite life will support that totally and be changed by that totally. When I die, the whole universe will change, and before I die, the whole universe is changing with me. Every moment, the whole universe is changed based on me, and I'm changed based on the whole universe. When there's no longer me, that will change the whole universe, and the whole universe will change me into not being me. This is another part of what I'll be talking about, how to explore our infinite life, how to set up a face-to-face conversation between my finite life and my infinite life. And one of the doors to my infinite life is emerald. and Leo's another door to my infinite life.

[40:44]

The surface, the surface face of each person, the limited way you appear to me, and the limited way I relate to you, those are doors to our simultaneous, with our conversations right now, our infinite life is making this all possible, and what we're doing here is contributing to and making possible our infinite life. There's no end or beginning to this ongoing process, except in karmic consciousness, which thinks that way. But now in your karmic consciousness I'm suggesting that there really isn't birth and death. Just in karmic consciousness there's birth and death. In karmic consciousness there is birth and death. And we had a workshop of how to work with death. in such a way that we can have a conversation with it. And if you can have a conversation with death, you get to open to no birth, no death.

[41:49]

But if we don't converse with it, then we get stuck in it, in our death, in other people's death. But if we know how to have face-to-face transmission while we're dying and when we die, then we're not confined and constricted by death or birth or beginning or end. It's a mask. Death is a mask, right? Death mask, birth mask. But isn't that we don't practice with the mask? We practice wholeheartedly, have face-to-face, mask-to-mask meetings with everything. Does birth have a face? Does death have a face? I say yes. You can meet it. You can look into the eyes of death. and say, welcome, friend. I, a living person, offer my face to you, death. Does illness have a face?

[42:53]

I say yes. Does it have eyes? Can it see me? Yes. Can it talk with me? Yes. Can I talk to it? Yes. Hello, cancer. Hello, heart attack. I had a heart attack one time. I had a conversation with it. It went pretty well. Now, some people say, yeah, you're still here. Well, even, you know, I was alive during the heart attack, and I was talking with it, and I was talking to other people about it. I invited Grace to come and visit me. In the Doksan room is where I had it. And I invited Grace to come down and talk to me. And she came down, and she said, I think she said, I don't think you're having a heart attack. No, I know, but you came down later. I was talking to Fu, and I think I said to Fu, go get Grace. But before I talked, before I had her go visit you, I thought maybe I'm having a heart attack.

[43:55]

I wasn't sure. Want to hear about this? So I'm talking to Fu, you know, and she tells me this sad story. We're having a conversation. Okay? We're having a face-to-face meeting, right? And here comes this... this guest named Fu. And she tells me this sad story. So then another guest came in the form of a pain across my chest. That guest came and I think I did okay. I kind of welcomed the guest and I talked to the guest. And my first hypothesis about who this guest was is I thought it was like empathy for the sad story that she told me. I thought, yeah, I'm feeling some empathy here. for this sad story. But then I thought, but the shape of it's kind of surprising.

[44:57]

It's like a nice, clearly defined band across my chest. But it didn't, it kind of stayed. And I thought, well, maybe it isn't just empathy. Maybe it's a heart attack. So then I, if I didn't say this out loud to her, I was having this conversation inwardly between my face and the face of this sensation in my chest, this tightness in my chest. So then I said, and I thought, maybe I'll lie down. And when I was lying down, Fu thought that was my next teaching to her. And it was. The teacher's now lying down in the duksan room. And after a while, I thought, well, maybe, maybe, why don't you look at Grace? So she went and got Grace, and Grace came down. And then I think Grace said, well, why don't we call the paramedics? And so on. Grace said, did you still know what I said? When the food came up to get me, I said, did you call the paramedics yet?

[46:01]

She said, no. I said, what were you thinking? What were you thinking? What were you thinking? You can't be having her. But it's having a hard time right now. Go call the paramedic. Get Rousseau. And I may have come down and said, I didn't think you were having a hard time. Yeah. Well, I was only... Pardon? I didn't hear what you said. I did give you nitroglycerin and aspirin. I asked Diagon to get his nitroglycerin, also to get an aspirin. Yeah. Grace said she might have said that you weren't having a heart attack just to make you feel better. Oh, I see. I didn't know she did it just to make me feel better. I just heard her say that. And then when I got to the emergency room, the cardiologist said, I don't think you're having a heart attack. But they did some tests.

[47:04]

And then the test, one was, I think one was, anyway, the test anyway led to doing another test, which had a risk factor in it. But I accepted that and I went. So the conversation occurred between me and Grace and the paramedics and the cardiologist and this conversation goes on. This is the practice. It's the face-to-face conversation. And when this conversation becomes wholehearted, I'm suggesting to you, that we give ourselves to it and we welcome what's being given to us. And what's being given to us is sometimes really awesome and tremendous, excuse me, you know, which means makes us tremble. But it's also like, you know, you might be attracted to it, but you don't have to be.

[48:09]

But anyway, welcome it, give yourself to it, and in the fullness of that meeting we open and can learn from something that we cannot, our karmic consciousness cannot comprehend, but it can have a conversation with it. It can let into itself what it can't contain. And we can have this relationship, and we learn things in that that will liberate us from this And so I am going to be encouraging the exploration of our infinite life which doesn't arise or cease, which doesn't come or go, which doesn't increase or decrease, All that stuff's going on in karmic consciousness. But we don't trash karmic consciousness.

[49:10]

We practice face-to-face transmission with it. And the way it appears sometimes is a face that we have questions about whether we should have a conversation with this face. And that's fine to question it. That's another thing to have a conversation with. I question that I should be talking to you. But as I was telling someone who was having some difficulty having a conversation with someone, I said, well, talk to them about how difficult it is to have a conversation with them. So if you have difficulty conversing with me, tell me you're having difficulty conversing with me. I want to welcome you telling me that you're having difficulty talking to me. And I hope you welcome me telling you if I had difficulty talking to you. This conversation, in order to be fully responsible, means going through some difficult moments and welcoming them and giving our face to them.

[50:16]

This is the door to our infinite life which is currently present all around us and it's more than just the vast forest. Our infinite life is the relationship between the vast forest and the clearing, but also it's a relationship between all the other infinite number of clearings in the forest. So his image, D. H. Lawrence's image was the small clear space where there's a self and lots of self-centered problems in the middle of a vast forest. But he didn't mention that out in the forest are infinite number of other clearings. And all those clearings are pervading the other clearings. So the forest is supporting and creating the clearing. There is no clearing without a forest, right? That's why there's a clearing.

[51:19]

It's called a clearing because the forest is vast and dark. But he didn't mention that there's many clearings in this forest. And also that the clearings are pervading each other. Your clearing, your consciousness, is pervading all the other consciousnesses. your limited, clear, light, deluded consciousness. Your deluded consciousness is, without me explicitly inviting you, your consciousness has pervaded my consciousness. But since I'm teaching you that your consciousness is pervading my consciousness, I say, well, why don't I welcome it then? And so I do welcome you to pervade my limited consciousness with your limited consciousness, since you're already doing that. And also, by the way, my diluted consciousness, excuse me, is pervading your diluted consciousness. As if you weren't diluted enough, now you have my diluted consciousness too.

[52:22]

But actually you already did, so it's not really adding anything. It's more like waking up. I'm sorry in a way that I make your life more difficult by pervading your consciousness. But I'm going to continue. I can't stop myself from pervading your consciousness, as some of you may have noticed. I try to stop myself, and then I just pervade all the more. I try to hold myself back so I don't enter all your consciousnesses, but then it just makes it more pointed. It penetrates more deeply. I'm trying not to penetrate your consciousnesses. Really, I am. And while I've been talking away and pervading your consciousnesses while I'm talking, of course, you've been pervading my consciousness by raising your hands. And you changed me, but I still didn't call on you yet. So now I will. Yes? Hand raiser.

[53:25]

Hand raiser. That's my new nickname for you. Yes? Yes? Hello, hand raiser. I was... I'm turning on the word welcoming, which you use a lot. I think that too. Yeah. And so I thought if I was not really welcoming, it would be kind of like holding back, blocking. Yeah, I usually would think that. I use the word that way too. I thought maybe for me, and so I wonder what you think about it, maybe... It's more like accepting what's in front of you, rather than trying to push away. Because welcome sounds like the door is wide open, which it is. Yeah, I think welcoming sounds like the door is wide open, and then you say it's more like accepting? Well, if I accept, oh, I see your face.

[54:28]

I accept that. Actually, I wish I was looking at your face right now. Yeah. And I welcome you making that comment, and I wonder, are you going to welcome what I'm going to say? Okay, I'm ready. That accepting is... If there's not accepting, there's not welcoming. So accepting is kind of like a minimal requirement for welcoming. Yes. But accepting isn't really accepting unless it's welcoming. Accepting the door, and the kind of welcoming I talk about, it's accepting with the door wide open. But if you're accepting like partial acceptance, thanks, and let me know when you can open the door all the way. And part of accepting... and welcoming is that I might welcome the thought that I don't want to continue this. Yes, that would be another thing to welcome.

[55:29]

I don't want to continue this conversation should also be welcomed. So I'm welcoming you and I don't want to continue this conversation or I'm welcoming you and I'd like a different you, please. My thought that I would like a different you, I think that's you. So I'm talking to you and I'm welcoming you, and in the process of welcoming you, this thought comes up, could I have a different Sonia, please? And then I welcome that. I mean, I want to. And in this process... Yes, go ahead. So the precursor to welcoming might be a willingness to accept what's happening? A precursor to welcoming would be the willingness to accept what's happening? Yes. I think it's more than a precursor. It's kind of the same thing. The willingness to accept is like a precursor to the willingness... No, it's not. The willingness to accept is the same as the willingness to welcome.

[56:31]

But it might come to you first. Like I might say to you, are you ready to welcome? Are you willing to welcome? And you might say, no. but I am willing to accept. And I may say, you said you're willing to accept, and you say, yes. Are you accepting yet? Not yet, I'm just willing to. And I might say, now are you actually accepting? Say, I've gone from willing to I'm actually accepting. And I say, are you welcoming? You might say, yeah. Yeah. Wow, it's happening. And also, if I ask you, Are you ready to welcome, for example, me? You get to say, no way. And I get to welcome you saying, no, I'm not ready to accept you. And you get to welcome, no, I'm not ready to welcome you. And by accepting that you're not ready to welcome me, you might realize you are ready to welcome me.

[57:37]

And I'm also welcoming my own experience of not being ready. Yes. [...] Not because there's anything out there. Yeah. And so that's... You know, sometimes people say, I can't welcome that. I say, can you welcome that you can't welcome? And they say, yeah. Well, now you're on... You're in the welcoming band, or the welcome wagon. Yeah. If you can't do it here, that's the way you're welcoming. You are welcoming already, but we have to learn how to practice it to realize that we are already welcoming. That's reality. Face-to-face transmission is reality. I see you. I see your face. Face-to-face transmission is reality.

[58:38]

But if you don't practice it, you might not realize that. And face-to-face transmission means you welcome the other face. And you are welcoming the other face right now. I am welcoming your faces right now. But if I don't practice it, I might think I don't welcome you. Yes, Cole. Did I say rarely? I might have. But we really don't. We think we do or we think we don't. We don't have the ability to choose the things that arise before us. And yet it seems that in moments we face the crowd, the clearing, and we do have the ability to choose a sea of bases. There are moments. Well, like right now. that there is a strong sense that we do have to choose.

[59:43]

And I wonder... That strong sense that we do have to choose is one of the very difficult things that appears in the clearing. In the clearing there's this, often for many people, there's a strong sense that they have to choose. And people come to me, as you might not be surprised to hear, agonizing over this strong sense that they have to choose which airline to fly on, what time to buy their ticket for, whether to keep practicing Zen, whether they should marry so-and-so, whether they should pay attention to so-and-so. People think in karmic consciousness there's a strong sense that I can choose and that I have to choose. This is part of the clearing. And that is very powerful, that thing. It's powerful and using it is powerful. This is part of the power of deluded consciousness, is choice. I'm not talking about trying to be not that way.

[60:47]

I'm talking about how to be free of this powerful sense that I have to choose and also that I don't know which to choose and I'm really scared of choosing the wrong one, etc. That's what people really suffer over is like decisions and choice in karmic consciousness. I'm not sure, but I think in the unconscious cognitive process lots of choices are being made, but there's no self there, so the choices are really pretty comfortable. And given those choices, you wind up paying attention to some people rather than others. Like my unconscious process made the decision to let me know that you raised your hand. I did not consciously think, okay, now decide to notice that he's raising his hand. I did not choose to be aware that you were raising your hand or that you were raising your hand. My unconscious process could have totally not let me know that either one of you raised your hand.

[61:52]

But it did let me know. But I wasn't consciously coordinating that that information got to my consciousness. my unconscious cognitive process let me know that you two were raising your hands. I did not choose to notice that your hands were raised. I didn't consciously say, okay, now I'm going to choose that his hands are raised. And I don't know whose hands were raised that I didn't notice. But if I didn't notice them, it means that my unconscious process didn't put them into my consciousness. Once they get into my consciousness, well, then I got to choose which I call. Do I call on Cole first or Sonia? Or do I go by who raised their hand first? Do I go by who's best looking? But because of some training in Zen, I am not agonizing so much about this thing about I must choose. That thought can rise in my mind, I must choose.

[62:54]

But I kind of know that that's just a thought. in my consciousness, which in a moment might change to, well, maybe I have to choose, but not necessarily, or you don't have to choose, because you assigned somebody else to make that decision yesterday, remember? Oh yeah, right, etc. But one of the main afflictions of the clearing is the thought, I must choose. And another affliction is, I don't know what to choose. Another affliction is, how can I choose the right thing? These are afflictions. But again, we don't try to kill them or say bad things about them. We just call them for what they are. They're what the person's thinking about when they're agonizing. So many, many conversations, the person's in agony trying to choose And by having a face-to-face conversation with this agony, there can be liberation.

[63:56]

And it's not just liberation from the agony. Without changing this thought at all, the thought could just be sitting there, indestructible. I must choose. The thought can still be there. At the same time, there is peace and liberation with that bossy thought. And more than that, more than just peace and liberation, which is pretty good, there is openness to the infinity which is surrounding this little drama of I must choose. And also, in the background of I must choose, it would be nice if I chose well. And the background of that is what well is and so on. How you doing there, Cole? Yeah, I would say, I would say, you know, I don't usually, you can choose to face, you can think in your consciousness, you can think, go right ahead, you have my full support, you can think that you choose to show me your face, go ahead, you can go do that,

[65:19]

But I'd like, and if you do, are you doing that? Okay, so that's pervading me now. But also I'm going to say something to you. I want to show my face to you, but I don't really choose to show my face. I don't have time to choose my face to all of you. I can't do it. But I do. My faith is that I do show my face to you. And my choosing to or not, I can get into that, but basically I've got other things to work on. Like, for example, I'm trying to remember that I want to give my face to you. Not choosing whether to do it or not. I want to. If I want to, I'm with the programs. If I want to practice face-to-face transmission, I'm with that program. But I'm not exactly choosing, because I can't choose face-to-face transmission because you're in on it too.

[66:23]

I can't choose for you to do it with me. I can want you to do it with me. In other words, I can want reality. but I'm not really... I'm emphasizing wanting and desiring the meeting rather than choosing. It's just... It's energetically an economic decision on my part. I barely can remember to keep giving my face. That's hard enough. But to be choosing, it's like... economically a disaster. It makes it too hard if I was to choose, am I going to give my face to him but not her? I can barely remember, I want to give my face. I want to give my face. I'm on the donation path rather than the choosing path. And in consciousness, it looks like there's choosing. Like somebody say, well, you chose to look at Cole rather than John.

[67:28]

But I, you know, now I'm looking at John. You chose to look at John. Now you're looking at Veronica. Now I'm looking at Korea. You chose. Well, I can see that. I can see that it looks that way, but I don't feel like I consciously chose. I mean, did I put John next to Cole? How far do you think I'm choosing this universe? My effort is to give myself to the person I'm talking to. And that's like a full-time job. And not only give myself, but give myself fully. That's my job. If you look at the practices for bodhisattvas, choosing who you're talking to is not on the list. It's like being generous with who's in front of you. It's being careful of them, you know, of everything you say to them and everybody, everything. It's being patient. It's these practices which I'm trying to do with the face.

[68:33]

I'm not trying to choose who I'm talking to. And if I see myself choosing, I go, hmm. I try to, like, welcome them. Then I'm slipping into looking like I'm choosing But that's not on my list of practices. Yeah, so now here's this person named Catherine raising her hand. You know, I didn't choose for her to raise her hand. I didn't choose it. I noticed it. But I did notice it. Now, I could add choosing in, but I'm not choosing to choose. So here I am, me and Catherine. What's going on? I think a lot of people choose not to give their face because they're anxious. So of course they can choose then to look at the anxiety as that face. Yeah, and then they're doing it, then they're facing the anxiety.

[69:36]

But, like, for example, perhaps when Grace thought you were having a heart attack... Yes, and didn't tell me. And she said, probably not, maybe she said that, I don't know. Maybe she said that. Yeah, but so that as a gift to other people, sometimes we try to say things that we think will benefit them at that moment. Yes. So, I guess that just didn't... So, in other words, it was a kind of... Like, I'm not going to give that face because that might harm the situation. It might increase the anxiety of the other person. My anxiety might increase your anxiety. You're more vulnerable at this point, let's say. I'm just saying that maybe as a body software kid, We change our face a little bit, because I do think, I know when I get anxious, I feel like if I give that to other people, then that will increase their anxiety.

[70:41]

Well, okay, I hear you. If you're feeling anxious, you feel like if you give your anxiety to other people, it will make them more anxious. Right. Maybe. And you don't want to make them more anxious. Right. Okay. Well, I'm suggesting to you that when you're anxious, this is my suggestion, ready? That when you're anxious, you do give it to other people. And maybe it does make them more anxious, but not necessarily. For example, when you come to see me, if you're anxious, do you give me your anxiety? Yeah, I'm asking you, do you? You would. And do you think you could not? If you're anxious, do you think you could not give me your anxiety? I think it would be beneficial to try to hide it. Do you think you could hide it? I think I might. You think you might be able to? I don't know. Okay, yeah. Well, we're having a conversation, right? You... And I'm saying, here's what I say to you, is that

[71:46]

If you're anxious and you try to hide it, then you give me two things. You give me your anxiety and you give me trying to hide it. We are intimately transmitting to each other. If you're anxious, you do transmit it to me, and if you're trying to hide it from me, you transmit that too. That's what I'm saying. Now, you might say, well, in his case, if I feel anxious, I'm okay with showing it to him because I think he can handle it. It's not going to ruin his day because he's into this business of people giving him their anxiety. He's up for it. But I want to tell you, I'm also up for people not only giving me their anxiety, but I'm up for them trying to hide it, which they do. And so I've had this conversation, not innumerable times, just many times. People come to see me, they're anxious, and they try to hide it.

[72:54]

And I see the anxiety, and I see them trying to hide it. And I often say to them, you know, this is not a good room to hide. If you want to hide, it's better to go outside and close the door. I have... you'll be more successful at hiding it if you're in another room. But if you come in and you show me your face and you're anxious and you try to hide it, I will see both. And it's not because I'm some kind of like, I don't know what. It's because you just came and gave me your, you gave it to me. I wouldn't be able to see it if you hadn't given it to me. If you're anxious, you give it to me. Yes. Everybody has that capacity. But some people say, I do not have that capacity. So people come and show their anxiety and the person says, I don't see it. I don't see that they're anxious.

[73:57]

And in that case, the person might feel like, I don't need to hide there. They're not going to notice it. Because they're going to deny it because they don't want to see it in the first place. So I don't have to put the extra effort into not only... I don't have to hide my anxiety from them because they don't want to see it. But this guy, I think, is going to see it unless I try to hide it. And now I've learned that if I try to hide it, he sees that too. Like, we woke up here with this big thing and then they try to put this thing up in front of it and I go, whoa, what's that? What's that thing up there in front? Where'd that come from? Why are you telling me about that? I wonder why you're... And sometimes people... A new student came to me and she said, I noticed I'm talking about this because I don't want you to see that. A new student could see that she was like putting up this big thing so I wouldn't see this thing that she was feeling. I said, very good. May you continue to be this wise in your second week of practice. So, but if you think that you're anxious and you think this person won't be able to handle it and you try to hide it, I'm not telling you not to do that.

[75:10]

I'm just saying you're not going to be successful. It is making, you know, you're missing out, I would say, on the fact that whenever you're anxious, and you may feel like, I'm fine at missing out at this. I don't want to be in on how my anxiety is pervading the whole universe. And you can feel that way. I'm just saying it does. When you're anxious, it pervades everybody. And if you want to hide that, that pervades everybody. I'm saying by face-to-face meetings, you will become open to the infinite life, which is that your pain pervades all beings. And it's fine. It's enlightenment that everything about you pervades everybody. And if you try to hide who you are, that pervades everybody. And face-to-face transmission will teach you that no matter what you are, if you're a little bit anxious or tremendously anxious, you pervade the whole universe.

[76:16]

If you're completely calm, you pervade the whole universe. And vice versa. So again, I'm not telling you not to hide. But I might mention, if you were hiding, and I don't feel like you've hidden from me, But if you tried it, I might say, Catherine, this is really like not a good place to try that. It's actually a good place to show me that you're trying to hide, though. If you want to show me you're trying to hide, do it in front of me. Then I'll be able to see more clearly that you're trying to hide. Otherwise, I wouldn't necessarily know you're trying to hide. But people are very nice to me. They come to me and they say, I'm trying to hide from you. And I go, wow, this is really interesting. Why would you come so far to hide from me? One of my dearest old girlfriends, the first time I met her, she basically walked up to me.

[77:20]

I didn't know her at all, really, and she walked up to me and said, I do not want to talk to you. That really interested me. Emerald. Emerald. No, I called it an emerald. Emerald. Emerald. But you can pass to Bruce if you want to. Huh? I mean, I would like to say something. Go ahead. That... I'm really confused today about, and I'm welcoming that, about what you're saying, about the... You're giving me your confusion. Thank you. Hiding the anxiety, or anything that you're feeling or experiencing. had a mother who had Asperger's who shared everything freely and openly.

[78:25]

So when I came out and started sharing everything openly and freely with people, the response was not welcoming. or accepting or kindness or anything. It was a very different experience. So I actually then had to learn, this was the benefit of it, but I had to learn how to, you know, be calm and to experience that calm space. But I had to at some point go, okay, I cannot say what I need to say or have anxiety and be like, I'm feeling this way right now, really uncomfortable, and have a really positive experience. I feel like maybe as I'm getting older, that might be shifting. But I'm just really having a hard time where you're saying, just be open and if you have anxiety, share it. It feels like such the opposite of how I've interacted because of the response.

[79:31]

And I mean, yeah, I'm just very confused. Going back to face-to-face meeting, okay? If you want face-to-face meeting, if you receive the teaching that this is enlightenment, that this is where you realize your fullness of your life, then it would go with that that you would find a way to give your face to people. But I'm not saying that when you give your face that the people will be ready for it. They might not. But also if you don't give your face, I'm not saying that people will be ready for that. Because they're sometimes not. Either way, the person you're talking to, part of the skill of face-to-face transmission is giving your face

[80:31]

and then watching for the response, and give your face to that response. But you can also, as part of giving your face, the face you might give is, I have something to offer to you, and I'm not, and it's kind of like, it's kind of a difficult thing I have to offer, and I'm wondering if you're up for it. And a lot of people will say, no, I'm not. But anyway, I have something difficult, like I'm really anxious, or I'm really frightened, and this is what I am, and I'm not saying that yet, but I'm welcoming it in myself, and I think I need now also not just to welcome myself, but I need to meet with somebody also. Because in meeting with somebody, it will help me understand what it is. by being open to my anxiety and myself, this is a really good start. So when I'm anxious, I try to welcome my anxiety, myself.

[81:38]

But then when I meet someone, which I do, then there, here it is, and this is the person I'm meeting, and if they, maybe I tell them about it, But I would often check beforehand because it's challenging for me to deal with the anxiety and it might be challenging for them. So like I said, I don't usually tell my granddaughter such difficult information. But if she ever gets to the place, in some cases she will, where I can bring this up to her, I might ask her beforehand whether she's up for it and she very well might say, no, she's not. So then I wouldn't, but I still did offer the gift of myself, but she wasn't ready to hear more about it. And so offer my face is also listening and checking with what's being asked of me. So I do think I'm being asked to give my face, but also I keep checking with the thing I think is asking me if they are.

[82:45]

So that's part of it. And that's a great art and it's also difficult to learn it. But I don't just walk up to people and say, have you ever, do you realize that you're giving your face to everybody you meet? I don't say that to everybody. but I say it to you because of the situation. And you're giving to me the information if you're feeling really confused. And I'm welcoming you feeling confused, and I'm welcoming you telling me that you're feeling confused. If you stop being confused, I will welcome you not being confused. I mean, I want to, even though it's more pleasant. I still welcome you not being confused. And I want you to welcome when you're feeling confused.

[83:48]

And I welcome you to tell me when you're feeling confused, which you just did. This is face-to-face transmission. Okay? And maybe it wasn't so easy for you to say in public, I'm feeling really confused. But I welcomed it. And I think some of the other people welcomed it too. As a matter of fact, I think everybody welcomed it, and we're trying to understand that, that everybody is welcoming the way you are, and sometimes the way they express that is saying, I don't want the way you are, because they don't understand that they're welcoming you. Or they might even understand it, but then they have this gift for you, saying that they don't want to, but really they're just being playful. Yeah. And for me, when people tell me they don't want me, I often don't get the joke.

[84:49]

Yeah. But a lot of times I do get the joke that all these people who don't want me, this is a joke. And I get it. But maybe I don't laugh real loudly because then they might give me even a stronger sense that they don't want to talk to me. So again, I'm proposing reality is you are welcoming everybody. Everybody is welcoming you. We're trying to realize that by conversation. Because karmic consciousness, where we're suffering, we do not understand. I say if we don't understand, then we suffer. So we're trying to educate karmic consciousness to liberate it. Yes? Didn't Bruce have... You were before Bruce. Every time we meet you face to face... Yes.

[85:53]

Even if we don't think we're trying to hide... Yes. If we put a story there, if we try to present... a conscious story of what we're doing that is hiding, you know, that is putting an extra facade in front of the face. Yes. And you said you're hiding, but also if you put a face on me, you're kind of hiding. And a lot of times people put a face on me and the face they put on me is called, he is not me. That's the face they put on me. Do you understand? A lot of people think, they look at me and say, he's not me. That's something they're putting on me. I don't actually walk around with this thing. I don't have this sign on me saying, I'm not Charlie. I'm not Tracy.

[86:57]

But Charlie and Tracy, some of you also might put not Charlie on me. This is also hiding. You're hiding me from yourself. So there's a lot of hiding going on. And face-to-face transmission is not a good place to hide. But actually it is a good place to hide because in face-to-face transmission is where you get called into question for your hiding. Or somebody can say, yes, I am imagining you to be like this and I know you're not. I'm hiding you from me and I'm trying to hide me from you. That's part of what's going on. So maybe I should say, rather than, this is not a good place to hide, this is not a good place to succeed at hiding. This is a good place for your hiding to be exposed and get over it. Bruce? Here we have a case that what causes the door to open.

[88:14]

Could either be some, It could be like a flaw in someone's consciousness. It could be something like a catastrophic cancer of the outside. It could be a medical diagnosis. It could be something you're supposed to eat. It's what actually causes the breakdown of this happy little query. And it's like a fall into a hole, which in some way it advances us because we now come in contact with the other. I don't know if we can welcome that exactly. It's sort of like later we might feel prepared to do it for having this door open. I don't know if we can welcome it. At least not so much. Let's just look at this. So in your examples, I think that maybe there was welcoming, but you didn't notice it.

[89:27]

Like there was a catastrophe, and you did welcome it, or there was a catastrophe and somebody welcomed it, and because they welcomed it, they opened to reality. But they may not have noticed that they welcomed it. Just like right now, you're welcoming what I'm saying to you, but you may not notice that you're welcoming it. So welcoming, I'm proposing that welcoming is reality, and you may be doing it, and because you're doing it, that may serve you to open the door that's usually closed. And if you fight the welcoming enough to some catastrophe, it's like you might be successful in having it not be a door. But the catastrophe is a door, but you have to open it with opening yourself. Every face is a door, but you have to open yourself to the face. And sometimes you don't even notice that you opened to it, but you did.

[90:34]

And then you see something in the face which you never saw before, or in the catastrophe that you never saw before. But isn't it that the catastrophe opens you, Or maybe it does. Maybe the catastrophe calls you and says, open. That's the way I see it. The catastrophe is calling you and saying, open. And you say, nope. And then the catastrophe gets a little louder. And the catastrophe says, open. And you say, nope. And then the catastrophe says, open, a little louder. And you say, oh, I get it. You're just going to keep saying this until I open. Right. And how loud do I have to yell at you? Like I have not been yelling just now. But if I yell long enough, everybody would open. Now some people would open even for a quiet call. So then they might say, could I be excused while you yell louder at the people who refuse to listen? I'd say, yeah, you can leave now. You've opened.

[91:35]

You can go out and enjoy yourself. And everybody else has to stay after class and did not open. And I'll just keep calling louder and louder. But I'm not going to say, no, no. Why don't you try calling softer and softer? Okay? That's part of the conversation. Open. What did you say? What did you say? Thank you very much. This is, I think, the longest morning talk we've ever had at Nobode. And I'm sitting cross-legged. Which, I don't know what's going to happen when I try to get up. But I sort of, yeah, it's like, here I am sitting cross-legged for two hours. And it's not too bad. The healing is coming along.

[92:36]

Thank you very much for this wonderful, beautiful face-to-face transmission.

[92:45]

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