New Year's Conversations

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A virtual Dharma talk by Tenshin Roshi for an online gathering of the No Abode community

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i will now offer three bows to this great assembly
and
to each of you
and you may if you wish return the bows
then after i finish my third bow i will fold up my bowing cloth and set it down
and then i will wish you happy new year and do one more prostration which you may also return if you wish is that makes sense
are you ready for this

happy new year

can you hear me okay
yes
go i am
i wanna thank you all for coming to this new year's meeting
in this precarious world that we are living together in it's wonderful that we still managed to assemble here
on new year's day
i walked among the giant redwoods
and i don't know how they see time
if you bought in the realm of human reckoning
it seems like a very deeply difficult year has just ended and another difficult year has begun
i don't feel
on the verge of death
even though it may be so
wonderfully i do imagine being on the brink
of complete perfect awakening
on the brink of the buddha dharma manifesting right before us
so now i recommend to sit upright and still with all of you for least ten aeons
i will continue to practice with you another year since you have requested it
thank you for coming today thank you for all you do
for the buddha away at our practice of the bodhisattva

we have entered a period of
studying
the wondrous
teachings of the dharma flower suture
next week we will intensify the teaching
some of you may be involved in that
ah intensive for three weeks
will focus on it and i understand that many of you have been studying together in groups
and i wanna thank you all for doing that and i want to thank the facilitators the conveners of your meetings thank you so much for supporting this practice
what studying the dharma flower scripture
we don't know
really definitively where it is but we study it anyway
and i hope that you get the joke
or such study

the lotus sutra
offers
various expedient means
various provisional teachings

and one of the provisional teachings is that there are provisional teachings
another provisional teaching is that there are ultimate truths

another provisional teaching is that by studying the provisional the ultimate truth will be revealed
but the lotus sutra never tells us what the ultimate truth is it just gives us provisional means and tells us to study them to open them
to awaken to them
and to awaken to the ultimate truth which is always present
in the conventional provisional truth
everything you see all day long is skillful means of the buddha
and in that skillful means
is sitting brightly
the invisible ultimate truth
never apart from each moment of daily life
the lotus sutra teaches this but i won't tell you where
if you however discover it someplace in the lotus sutra or in your backyard or front yard i welcome you to let me know but i'm not gonna tell you where to look well i'm not going to point to it this is the way of the lotus sutra
so now you have it of course as always so please take care of it

does the great assembly have anything to offer this morning

if so you may do so

hell
ah good morning rab
i just wanted to say thank you so much for being here and for continuing to be an inspiration for my practice and que
welcome thank you for making it possible for me to exist
oh my

thank you rob for offering the one pointed ness and then no point of the lotus sutra
you're welcome
he's take care of it
enrique

thank you rep
i am
was wondering if you could offer any guide me somehow
i should approach the lotus sutra i started reading it
m bits and pieces
and i find it a little bit of a hard read and i also noticed there are a lot of different translations
i work with the one i have a month
but i was wondering if you have any suggestions for someone who's new to the sutra or how to approach has studied of it
which translation you have
ah i was afraid you'd ask that i didn't i know i don't know it's one i got for free on the internet
if you talk a bit i'll see if i can find it and i am i don't know offhand
well it's probably a good one
and on
in brief ah i had a fifty two year history
history of studying the dharma flower scripture
i started in autumn of
nineteen hundred sixty eight
and i continued into the winter of that year
studying
and
in the beginning of the sutra
i read the translation i read a bit at that time was the only one i knew of and not translation was from sanskrit and it was done i think and eighteen eighty four
by our i think i'm for a dutch person mr kern
so he left the sanskrit names in sanskrit
and
so i was reading the sanskrit names of all the bodhisattvas and i stopped studying the lotus sutra i closed the book
i did not force myself to read the lotus sutra
ah when i lost my joy in reading i stopped i'm not telling you what to do but that's what i do and then later up when i felt some joy at the possibility of reading i would open it again
and i did
and when i felt like i was
proceeding
my momentum rather than by
dharma joy i stopped closed the sutra but then i came back
and i did that often on for two years
and after about two and half years one day i opened it up and it really it it it started to speak to me the lights went on and the lights have been on ever since
but i didn't force myself to read it
i didn't force myself to
i recite it i didn't risk force myself to make copies of it but over the years without forcing myself i have read it i have recited it and i have copied it
and the lotus sutra tells me
close this book and practice to lotus sutra with everyone
teach and be taught by everyone and you will see the loudest searcher so it says to me and if you ask me where it says that right now i won't tell you
did you find your translation yes i did have three fold lotus lotus sutra by a traveler by bruno keto
are you familiar with that name it was like the second one i read
it's a good one
however
there's but eight or ten other good ones so on sometimes when i'm reading the lotus sutra and i get to a difficult spot that's something that doesn't make sense at that time i often go read another translation
i find that in translations of buddhist scriptures
oh assets at the places where the scripture is most intense the translations can be most different
it's that big days the kind of lee
burst into all kinds of different flowerings at is concentrated points
and the different translations sometimes almost are opposite of each other at these difficult places
so that's one that's one of the times when i go to other other translations to get other perspectives on places i'm having a hard time
one thing that has made it easier for me
our the parables of stories that that are and the sutra here and there and lately i've been thinking a lot about the terrible the burning house for example so i am encouraged by that i find it the stories
the parables make it more accessible to me
yeah so
again if you take care of the accessible parts
the inaccessible parts will be revealed
the ultimate truth is inaccessible
but it will be revealed if you wholeheartedly take care of the accessible parts
take care of the accessible parts of your life and the on access inaccessible parts of your life well be realized
but you can never grasp the ultimate truth
you can just
receive it and enjoy it and practice it
the practicing it doesn't mean you get it it made you live it
thank you you're welcome
sameer
thank you thank your teacher for this year and thank you for your support and you're teaching and i want to
wish the whole sangha around this word for happy new year and
i'm really looking forward to continue the study
they need to suit her with you next week thank you rob fact that five the lot thank you
you're welcome
meet you

happy new year teachers
with she'll have went to for a year and a wholesome africa and for new years
then to your major

jean

hello rob it's nice to see you and to take a moment to share some intimacy with you sometimes when i see you i want to hide and today i'd like to be seen so it's nice to see you
when i woke up this morning and i knew you were on my schedule for a talk i was quite excited because i thought this is this is a new year's talk and during this talk
rappel probably encourage my practice
and on
you did and you mentioned very committing and i love recommit at the beginning of the year it always infuses my practice with integrity and so i wanna thank you for that and i want to thank you for
being my teacher and for
encouraging me
my practice is
our practice
and i'm grateful for that
i've been really enjoying the lotus sutra i particularly love the parable of the phantom city and without going into detail what would say that i thank you for once presenting the a phantom city for refuge
yeah
i appreciate your skillful millions and teaching
i've been a recipient of turning points with you that have been life changing and i thank you for happen
i have a one didn't question about the lotus sutra because i haven't read any other sutras and so my question is the book goes into the four noble truths the april path the twelve ah cheng caught a chain of causation and
i'm wondering is is this the first introduction of those teachings in the lotus sutra or are they mentioned elsewhere also
they were mentioned it see where we are told that the buddha mentioned them about five hundred years before the largest search or started to be composed i see so part of what the lotus sutra does
it's a revolutionary teacher
sorry movement however it wants to recuperate in relationship to the earlier teachings
buddha's teaching was originally a revolutionary teaching in india
but then hundreds of years later a new revolution came but the new revolution wanted to stay in close relationship with the earlier revolution
and the earlier revolution was the eightfold path the four noble truths the day the the twelve and ten and eight aspects of the pinnacle horizon those were revolutionary teachings so the lotus sutra keeps in touch with the earlier revelations but it
has a revolutionary way of seeing the early revolutions
return
the earlier revolutions needed to be refreshed and turned and the lotus sutra offered that i see
i also have one of the question and that is it i've read or heard that this is a teaching that down
i don't know the words he is but dangerous dangerous teach a teaching that is some not offered to the uninitiated or that it should be very carefully transmitted and i'm curious why that is

the lotus sutra itself at different points says that this teacher should be only for very wise people
the lotus sutra says that ten
and at the same time that or researcher says this this teaching in this scripture is for bodhisattvas
and everybody's a bodhisattva
so the suture says this teaching is for everybody and this teaching is only for the most wise people
and that could be seen as dangerous tissue right there
the lotus sutra has been a just like other in other traditions know people used the koran as a foundation for suicide bombing
people use the bible for ah
war as the basis for war
people use the bible as the basis for environmental injustice
but people also use the bible for acts of great compassion and they used the koran for acts of great compassion and they used to lotus sutra for acts of great compassion so it is a scripture that can that can be huge
used
in appropriately and appropriately
some scriptures maybe that almost nobody can figure out of an inappropriate were to use them
they just say be kind be kind behind
but the lotus sutra is on
yeah it it's it's the basis of some of the most
uplifting teachings and some of the most discouraging statements like a lotus sutra says that people who do not respect to scripture are going to get in big trouble
that's in there as part of the lotus sutra
and we have problems with that and so part of our study of the lotus sutra is to discuss the problems we have one to read it and if we see something that seems to be potentially misleading we are being called to discuss that
to converse with the difficulties that receipt to protect beings from misunderstanding the dharma but the lotus sutra can be misunderstood
just again all over the world
ha various revolutions can be misunderstood
and they can be understood in a way that is
liberating and beneficial to all beings
so it's a very challenging role reliving and so now we have a very challenging scripture to go with are difficult world
and we need to
bring all of our practices of compassion to the study of the screen

which is to bring our compassion to the study of everything that appears in our life
because the lotus sutra is our life

thank you
happy new year to you be well happy safe and filled with loving kindness and to the sanga
karen

hello rob
hello
i i would like to offer you my deep gratitude for your teaching and example and also for your friendly encouragement that we study the lotus sutra together
oh
thank you
i am i wanted to tell you the other night and a group of friends that was there were reading the lotus sutra it just happened that we were reading on a very rainy night in the world that i live in and we were reading the chapter on the dharma rain falling on every everything
had a blessing the whole earth and it just seemed marvelous
it was such a such a wonderful vision and incorporating you know where i was at least at that moment on
really lovely and and that sweetness you know calc kind of balances some of the who's sharp edges from me i i just really loved it
thank you
thank you so much with so often thank you so much for standing lotus sutra
northern california and or again and i guess in washington where they get lots of rain
sometimes people get depressed when it's not sunny for months and months so they named their zen centres dharma rain to remind themselves that this depressing weather is actually the reign of dharma
and that in minnesota they have dharmas snow
in dharma cold

an

and are you there
yeah sorry i'm i'm sitting in a lot of sunlight because it's snowy here and i have to be in the sunroom am
so i especially appreciate the lotus sutra group effort out loud deal if in this particular difficult time it's just so amazing to be
ah surrounded by george floyd and like just a lot of stuff going on and to be able to dig in a drunken hold onto the ancient voices that are in all of bus now ally and i just it's so meaningful to me i can't
in sales and just it's the path for me it's very helpful and before i read the lotus sutra out the first time on your kind of encouragement and
i was in the middle of reading the flower ornament scripture and then after reading a lotus sutra were and time if i went back to finish the other one because it felt like such a dear friend and if for whatever reason it explodes in my mind and heart
which makes me feel like i am a traitor to the lotus sutra and i am being damned no seriously i like it that it's not as it's not maybe it's good here you struggle the first time but the it's the the flower ornament scripture just kind of grabbed me out i could just like read that book over and over
so i wanted your take i know i don't necessarily need you to like compare what they're doing or what about you could but you know as you say it's our life so what's the difference for you in those books what's the what's the difference
he in the flower adornment scripture
it puts forward the teaching
bad
all living beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the buddha's
ah ha and however because of
attachment
and misconceptions they don't realize it so they need to practically need teachings and so the buddha gifts teachings but the basic messages that are already fully possess the wisdom and birches of the border
so it offers his teaching of buddha nature and the lotus sutra does too
the may be some slight difference in the lotus sutra and the times like a suture the flower adornment
is that the lotus sutra says not only does everybody fully possessed the wisdom and birches of the buddha but everybody is doing the practice of realizing it and everybody will realize it
so that's one of the main things that the lotus sutra has
into wonderful world of the of of the flower adornment scripture it says all the living beings who had this wonderful inherent
buddha nature they will realize it and not only that but a buddha is still living in the world right now
that also is very strongly stated in the lotus sutra so those are some things which
yeah which sure am
i'm not so clearly found in an object in flower adornment scripture and also i i think the flower adornment scripture seems to be a little less dangerous it why hasn't been used
missed it hasn't been misused as much
so it the there is a difference but they're both
mark they're both great vehicle t teachings the lotus sutra does pay respects to other ah
great vehicle teachings like the flower diamond scripture however some people think that the lotus sutra
we offer some things even beyond
the flower darn with scripture but not really different just just beyond or further further unfoldment
thank you
marjorie

thank you
can you hear me
yes i can thank you
ah ah
after a key
the or
the morning
up
that's
can you hear me
new your be marjorie
oh and and the zoom services that have been helping me i want to thank you for your teach i mailbox and can you hear me
you know i could hear you when you said can you hear me but before that it was it was like being underwater with you he sounded like an octopus
which is cool
that one
oh it is why new there
after her
ah can you give us all the how can you hear me now so
let me know that i could hear even for just that now i could hear you say can you hear me now before the okay
let me move it can can you hear me now he ah i got you okay now i can hear english a object good thank you so i'll say quickly thank you for your teachings about the lotus sutra i mailed off for a conversions
the circumstances of my life right now taking care of my life don't really permit me to take care of my life and also read the lotus sutra so i especially appreciate your teaching this morning
ah i just want to say briefly i'm thinking about how it is one i need to travel light as i do now
oh and i realize that that's a long term future
i'm
you first began to help me fifty years ago in the spring when you allow me to add a troubled time in my life to move into his center and there i heard a lot about sincerity and warm heart
ah it took me awhile to appreciate you very much personally i had some resistance how long would it take to well it took control either seventy eight or seventy nine i forget which year it was probably seventy nine when you came round the corner from
the dining room and i came along the hall in front of the pictures of the of the stained-glass window of that hands i think it was and the quality of your bow was so absolutely pure an unmistakably sincere
that i'm really got it that whatever our differences that your sincerity made me able to trust you completely
and it took me another ten years then to at another troubled time
to have you helped me through parker with that chain and become a student so i travel light with to thing what's all the time one the important to me
of
trying to use my own sincerity to proceed with sincerity of whomever i'm practicing with and then warm heart expanding to kindness and if i use those two things
they help no matter what i want to thank you very much for that through all the years and i hope and pray that that will get me through the rest of my life and you threw me through the rest of your life and whoever makes it longer that we
oh to the keep being able to do that but i thank you so much nine bar with only one hand because sitting outside i need to hold on my iphone with young
thank you so much and may you please keep teaching us all
you're so welcome thank you very much for that story
now go back inside because i won't be talking now thank you
and the story of your difficult times with me could be somebody else's story with the lotus sutra
katie
well alone iran
the morning katie the morning
i am not currently reading the lettuce sutra but i or not but that's just what's happening and and i wanted to offer an appreciation of you this morning and
and
i've really been in my own practice sitting with the gray need that i'm feeling and perhaps many people for feeling of the
urgency of the them
the shift we need and our relationship to the climate the environment and to each other particularly in the realm of racial justice and been sitting with how my individual what might benefit my individual practice in be
and also what might be a benefit in our collective practice as well and i'm just as i was reconnecting with your face this morning and feeling your uprightness and your practice it am it really was a
bodily somatic experience of
the vulnerability and courage that i i experience you continually modeling in your practice and am and those quality is seem so pertinent right now as we try to engage somehow in the shift and does
usually and collectively and i'm and part of what i was feeling in that was just how i was recognizing that it's it's actually it's it's rare for me still in my life where i'd go into an interaction where the outcome feels completely open
where i don't know where it's gonna go oh i don't know what the other person is gonna say but i feel a spaciousness that that the person i'm with hasn't decided something about me i haven't decided something about them ahead of time and so often when i meet you face to face i
have that experience of ah
i'm of the uncertainty the not knowing than not knowing where it's gonna go and am and i imagine i don't know what it's like for you but i imagine that that takes over and over again both a kind of vulnerability and courage and i i feel
eel that vulnerability encourage every time i meet with you and am i just want to honor that that that experience even it's bit different for you and just also share my own prayer for myself and share it to be witnessed by the sanga to keep trying to call
debate that kind of vulnerability and courage to go hand in hand together
i i would put it differently than when i pray for is not a prey to be vulnerable i am already i've never not been and i pray for us to accept my vulnerability and remember it
i'm afraid for vulnerability i'm praying for accepting it and not forgetting and not denying
which is similar to i prayed for on
i prayed remember the lotus sutra to same
so i'm not trying to be vulnerable i am i but i i i am trying to remember it
do not deny it to not not my field to numb not not numb my sense of it
i pray for that for all of us that will lead to a more peaceful gentle world
we're not not lead to that use a more peaceful world
that's the more peaceful world
so i'm looking at all of you i see vulnerable people and i see people who are you growing
in the ability the capacity
to honor vulnerability
but as you know there's there is it
part of what we're vulnerable to is ah
the impulse
to deny vulnerability were vulnerable to that too
denying vulnerability vulnerability music able to be hurt
and when we deny vulnerability and hurts us right away
and so people
not people exactly but the impulse to deny his part of what we
have to have to live with and that is another thing to be compassionate towards

thank you
and you said you're not reading the lotus sutra but by the way when you express your gratitude to a dharma teacher that's the lotus sutra
the lotus sutra teaches that but when you do it you're living the lotus sutra when you express gratitude to dharma teachers

linda
morning morning
thanks for what you just said about vulnerability that was really
deep for me
the reason i raised my hand was something else am
you spoke of you did some comparing at the beginning of this different for the books of different religions and you said they could be used for
not good purposes that they're dangerous and you gave an some example of the bible and you about those parts of the lotus sutra which are
three problematic for many of us readers
you seem to think that they were well
the problem was just that they'd be misinterpreted but they have a deep truth but they were just there was a danger of misinterpretation and the same with the bible and koran i would i want to propose to you that when the bible says certain things
like
one
slaves should obey their masters as if they were god or homosexuality is an abomination to god or you should stone your child to death at the gate of the city you know if their disobedience that's not just a danger of being misinterpreted that's just wrong
that's just really wrong it's a product of the historical causes and conditions i believe that some of the things in that lotus sutra are just wrong like that where do you think
i think that when you see something wrong and you think it's true
that's a big problem
and if you think it's wrong and you don't study it that's a big problem
so when somebody when when some scriptures tell people to be cruel
you think that's wrong
and i agree is wrong but it isn't the scripture and what the scripture is saying is what does that mean that that's wrong
what does it mean that it's wrong to denigrate any living being so rather than the sutures just say don't denigrate
they also sometimes say denigrate
what does that mean when it says denigrate it sounds like they mean you should that the ticket subject or encouraging you to denigrate well it does sound like that
or what is what is at what's the what's the meaning of that wouldn't say about that's something to have a conversation about that's a conversation booth it's not a truth a you agree it's not the truth
okay so if it's not the truth what do you do with things that aren't the truth used you penetrate them
if you leave em like that you haven't penetrated them then they're just sitting there is not truth what he wears the truth you need to true to read where you going to find the truth you find the truth in penetrating when you think it's true and you pay you find the truth and penetrating what you think is evil
what you think is wrong and lotus sutra isn't just full of things which almost everybody would agree with as good it has evil things in it so part of a teaching of the lotus sutra is that in the greatest most precious teaching there is evil
in it
a buddha's teaching does not have no evil and that's part of the message of the lotus sutra and that's dangerous some scriptures say this scripture is just pure it has no evil in it and if you find any evil and must edit that out
the lotus sutra has things in at that too many people
to you and to me look wrong
look unkind look disrespectful okay what is i mean let's talk about that
as on the lotus sutra one of the ways the lotus sutra as dangerous as dangerous if you do not penetrated
it's dangerous if you'd just go with your first take on it
it's just your first take my first take is this is wrong okay now the knowledge start talking
would you say the same thing about the the bible saying that i'm a slave should obey their masters you need to penetrate that rather than just say i reject that you can say you're rejected but don't stop there
and also don't dosed when you say you're rejected don't stop just penetrate your own rejection but penetrating your rejection doesn't mean you throw it out the window it means you use it to open the truth
you didn't sit in the same thing with your affirmation
like somebody may i can't do you say that was a really good lecture and you go well maybe so not
you penetrate them what does that mean when they say it's a good lecture well one of the things my manager they agree with you
so everything is calling us to study
including evil and and so-called
deep teachings
and the look but the load of sutures one this this kind of saying hey it looks like in the great suits are there is evil and as part of what people say yup
that buddha to buddha is not separate from the evil world
that's part of this teaching of this sutra
put it includes it
yes go ahead
okay thank you
kind of upsetting yeah
and that's part of what i said at the beginning are studying this we are living and upsetting times and the lotus sutra is for upsetting times it says this sutures for evil times
okay conversation started this this sutra is for times of upheaval and the sutra is full of upheaval it's not a smooth ride
and as one of our ancestors said the boat of compassion is not road over pure waters

but just remember which boucher you
you're rowing the compassion boat
over these impure waters
catherine
i rub
marla get broken on
you have been amazing in my life and i so glad to hear that just thanking you
give me some credit that i'm embodying the lotus sutra because my dilemma has been i came from a very serious intellectual father who forced a lot of lectures and reading on me so i almost don't read which is bizarre no one can believe it but i stood of her
have like traumatize with books so what's cool about you is
and i became like an athlete comedic actress blah blah blah and so would i get from you is very visual it's like someone listening to a song but paying attention to the music and not the lyrics it it i the first time i met you i watched you for ten minutes get into your chair and
i was i was on the edge of my chair watching you get settled into your chair it was fascinating at some workshop i went to and then i got you asked me to come on stage and despite me having been onstage for years i was absolutely petrified and it was the first moment
when i realized this idea of authentic self for me the practice is teaching me about authentic self and that's what you do for me the most it's like i'm a little bit of you know who am i really with all these years on stage and then i get onstage with you and your singing and i want to sing along and i doubt and it
like very interesting for me
and so i just want to see the other thing you did was fabulous on the way down a mountain madonna my very first interaction with you after that first time ah on the way down and get a call that someone was in the hospital in my family in new york and i met with you i'd never met with a teacher before and i said so should i jump on an airplane
nerd go there right away or something and you said you said very kindly you said i don't think you're in any shape to help anyone else if i were you i would just stay here as long as you can and those two things i just wanna say and i mean it seriously were very life changing for me
me it just shook me totally about what i thought about myself and like and that's what you do i feel like even if i'm not reading
you and body you and yourself in the way you are in the fact that you sing
ships you from my serious father who's just reading and talking and studying to someone i can connect with and so to me
that's a great great gift that i can listen to the melody and i can watch your movement and i can get and learn
about the way that way
forever indebted thank you
how much do the lotus it
hat-trick

little
no it's lee can you see me or hear me
i can see you and hear you okay good now i can see you to i am so thrilled with the questions this morning and i'm so glad that you just opened it up pretty quickly
ah because i'm i get so much from each question my wanted to thank linda for asking that question about you know having because i had that same experience of thinking things are wrong and i'm really feeling that conviction of that like in my body viscerally but i wanted to clear
if i what you meant by penetration and a hum
i'm seeing through
i'm going to try to tell you what i understand and then you can tell me if that's accurate or night
that the penetration is your effort once after to of
be with for example the conviction in myself that something is wrong it's just wrong and i'm
be willing to
penetrate to some other true that is behind what appears to be wrong
that's what i've got at this point that feel remotely like what you mean by penetration penetrating
how are you could say investigate
right
but again it's a compassionate investigation it's a respectful investigation so how can you respectfully investigate what is wrong what you think is wrong
right and i i usually have to start with my reaction because the reaction is often rigidity and and reaction to the reaction deserves respect also right like katie was i feeling of vulnerability right and i
finally when linda said when linda said it was hurting her heart i felt that her vulnerability and and felt it in mail on hard to it's hard to be with what appears to be wrong but it's also hard to be with the pain in your heart
yeah so if you see something that you think is wrong and you feel a pain in your heart would i'm saying that investigating or penetrating to the truth would be to take out the feeling in your heart
yes we respectful of that to have a conversation with that pain right and then america's first
no before i can be with appears rock or catherine was saying before she goes and helps her family she should take care of the pain in her heart before she gets on the airplane right you don't need somebody who's not taking care of themselves to come to visit
yeah so again first of all take your your body and then go take care of the evil
it right respect your pillow pain and then respectfully study the evil in order to protect beings from evil
studied evil evil loves to be unstudied i mean it thrives on the lack of study
like an evil people burning up documents rights so that nobody can study them
you leave the documents somebody can study them and protect people from what's in them
you like
i just wanna thank linda for asking that question or thank you linda yeah and i have one other question thank you for supporting linda lee
and linda thank you for supporting be which you did by asking that question
and read the are all your responses obviously very helpful
but the other thing i wanted to ask it out because i'm not reading the lotus sutra and i i i don't i liked i think i believe that i won't understand it so what's the point so when you said
yeah we read it on
and i don't i don't understand it but we study in any way i am i hope you get the joke i there's part of me that on
i am i i don't totally get the job that i do feel the absurdity and is confusing
we say absurdity but you cause to say irony yes and it's a huge the lotus searches and opportunity to develop the ironic dimension of human life and our irony is actually funny
when you get the irony it's funny what's funny to me is that here there's intelligent he thought studying something they don't understand that that does feel ironic yeah and the lotus sutra says quite a few times that this sutra is very difficult to
to trust or believe and very difficult to understand it keeps saying that over and over
that's sounds very challenging
the lotus sutra says the lotus sutra challenging
and sometimes the dharma says the dharmas easy
but that's also ironic

so i wanted to ask one more thing if one is upright sincere honest has integrity and has appropriate guidance which is really important as it matter which
hex scripture one studies
and i don't mean that rhetorically i really have that question i wouldn't say i wouldn't say no it doesn't matter or yes it matters i would just say that this practice would should be applied to every single thing
but i won't say that it doesn't matter which thing you study just i would say study each and every living being
study each and every suitor that it comes into your life
but i want our any and if they are in if somebody says it does matter it doesn't matter that's another thing to practice with
before those practices which you just listed it says to practice all virtues but another meeting for practice all virtues his practice with everything
so i won't say it doesn't matter what you what you're looking at i would say whatever you're looking at is the up is the opportunity don't skip over what's in front of you now
so if i chose to put the qur'an or the vedas in for economy approach it with that same
i respect him honoring an interesting curiosity as you're asking for the lotus sutra
the hey if somebody put you in a room full of carolyn's i would suggest you look at the not saying what page you should open or even if you should open the books but i think i'd be a good to do you admit i'm in a roomful of corrodes i'm in a full room full of bibles
i in a room with moss on the wall
don't skip over what were you are and
you might eventually opened the koran and discover oh my god as the lotus sutra
with a with the koran cover
i've never story him
is this is a story from the culture of islam so this guy gets put in prison
and somebody says i'm a prayer rug
and he thinks why they send me a prayer and want to send me money or food or or a key or saw or a gun it enough guns but he were sword

and then not in our i guess he wasn't he didn't move he didn't immediately think all great a prayer rug i can prayer he wanted to get on a prison
of course he was in prison because he did not pray
if you really not a prayer your year you won't be in prison
anyway he was in prison and somebody sent him a prayer rug so after some time he got over it
ah what seward his anger at getting a prayer rug instead of the keys and he saw well maybe i'll start using the prayer rug so i start here he rolled it out and start bot you know bowing on the prayer on right and he did it over and over and after a while i started to actually look at the prayer rug that
he was bowing on
and they looked at it he looked at it he looked at it he started to see patterns in and he looked at it and then he saw oh my god
this parag has the designed for a lock in it
and so he he he opened the clock and walked out of prison
everything has the design of liberation and and but you have to study it respectfully it or not spit on the rug get down your knees and touch your head to it and you will see the truth
in the koran in the moss on the walls
in the lotus sutra
when we first started studying the neurosurgeon when i was a tatar and we first started studying a lot of the students said what's the wouldn't it be just as good to study comic books as the lotus sutra
and i don't say no it wouldn't be
i just say i don't think there's any comic books are taught horror
what we have a budget lotus sutra year and cigarette she's going to come and teach it so maybe we'll look at the lotus sutra but if we were in a in a monastery that just had comic books well what we we do you know maybe we'll look at them and made it we discover the dharma in the comic books if we practice
being upright with them may be
if we practice right with anything we will discover the dharma
and that means everything everything in our life don't skip over what's in front of you study it
open it up and discover the truth and then you can really help people
and also helping other people study is also a way for you to learn how to study
so you're talking to me i'm talking you this is also
opening the teaching this is also learning about myself

meet you

i sure
hello rem
love to hear me hello
am i can't see you at the moment for me find you there your am
so i wasn't sure what i wanted to ask but i felt like i wanted to ask something
and i i think it came to me it in terms of what you're saying just now that i'm his desire to open up whatever is right in front of me and away becomes like an obstacle to actually relating to what's right in front of me
because i have a hard time accepting it as this opaque surface like it appears to be and i as i can rejecting how it appears and i want to go through it to something amazing that it must be hiding inside of its up or something like that
sense but
oh

your muted
i forgot that i can talk know i got
i got muted so you can and you can speak for me to bodrum
so what of the subtlety of penetration is do not skip over the surface
so if you want a penetrate to them for found teaching don't skip over the surface don't try to get rid of the surface and go deeper that's not how to penetrate just be totally wholehearted with the surface and the the the deep will be
he revealed
sodium
and brought up the flower adornment scripture end of the main samadhi of the flower adornment scripture is called the oc ocean seal samadhi and that's almost like a pun but ah
the the character right doesn't refer to a mammal
but the word means the ocean mudra
the ocean circle the ocean seal samadhi and dog and commenting on this ocean seal somebody says at this samadhi is to what is to be on the surface of the ocean
at the same time have your feet on the deepest a floor of the ocean
but we don't realize our feet on the deepest floor of the ocean
unless we're really up there swimming on the surface so don't skip over the surface to get to the depths
take care of the surface and you'll realize the depths
there simultaneous
i think this is are struggling to develop that confidence that i can just relate to the surface that appears to me and that sufficient sunlight our not up
her struggling to do where it's an endless is an eternal struggle
to take care of the surface
you know where there's evil and good popping up in out to just take care of the surface and remember that when we take care of the service our feet are also on the profound truth at the same time and we will realize we will realize that
will integrate the surface in the deep by taking care of the surface
both i know it or not it's their when whether we not we
we don't know if digs we don't know we can't know it was a can we will we cannot but we can realize it i taking care of the superficial and we can realize that it's a superficial is superficial
it is superficial
like you know the prayer rug
but they're us right in a superficial is the profound liberation
without moving anything that's right now and we can get we will discover it
by being faithful by being confident in what's being offered to us right now
thank you and thank you also for this opportunity to meet face to face representation of a face to representation of a face painting of a face to painting of a face
you're welcome thank you for coming to meet
eddie

did you say patty yeah thank you
thank you read and keep them being our teacher this past year
oh and thank you to linda for bringing up her difficulty ah and with the lotus sutra and i'm reading the lotus sutra with linda
i mean with them carrying mueller and a they we came across this one part and i wrote down the page numbers
ah pages ninety eight one oh four were very race study three and yeah
she spoke in page one of five he spoke harshly of disabled persons page one of seven he spoke against animals and i haven't haven't wanted to pick up the lotus sutra since then because i felt very discouraged
ah but i am i'm definitely feeling encouraged by the way that you have been
suggesting that we investigate since i'm linda asked her question
yeah so so even so the lotus sutra sang study or i would call got study racism is saying studying study of just respect for different categories of beatings it saying study this stuff
but it doesn't say it that way it says it in a way that makes you really want to quit studying yeah
so
if you come back to steady you're gonna is gonna is gonna
you realize you're getting into hot water or aren't they say cold water
you're getting into some difficulty
and met first is cut like me when you first run enter you say i've had it i'm out of here
and again i think of a number of zen stories where ah
i'm somebody's interacting with some teacher and they they get angry and they say i'm outta here this is this is stupid this is absurd
and then they will they did they leave the monastery and sometimes they never come back but sometimes as they're walking away they think
hmm
maybe i should give give it another chance
and then go back and the same thing happens but they see it
in a new way
it doesn't take away it just to get another perspective which they couldn't get
the first time and what and of and what the first time but they got was something that get made them wanna give up and not study anymore
they came back and they said i want to study more let's try it again or now i see what life's about
i thought i know is about in what i thought i knew as about made me wanna give up
now i see what it's about and makes me wanna it doesn't make me want to be racist it wants me it in now i see it now i see how to take care of disabled people now i see how to take care of animals now i see how to take care trees
before i thought i knew how but now i really nine really know how and this isn't the n
so there's many stories of people getting discouraged by many teachers
and the lotus sutra has stories about that

as it there's a chapter in the lotus sutra called never disparaging this one this one body sought for went around and said to everybody you will become buddha i will i will not disrespect you i will not disparage you you because you will become buddha and people who didn't like that guy they thought that guy was
was evil with stupid was a was and they punished him but he didn't give up
and he became shakyamuni buddha

thank you patty thank you read and take your time
get your compassion outfit on before you go back what
are you see

yeah
mining web camera that
i'm about ten or fifteen years ago i was it or know about day and it was work period and i was given to them wash the door
wash the glass of the doors to go outside down to the deck and so i am my windex paper towels and i was you know really i was gonna do a good and job like a perfect job of cleaning the windows and you are fine and you say
be sure in don't try to accomplish anything here
and i was just like stopped in my tracks it's like what are you talking about i
have to say i've been thinking that for ten or fifteen years like what were you talking about so at another time you've said something like when i've been made not argue that i've questioned your use of language sometimes you said while my job
is do
unseat you are to have you not just carry on to be thinking
and so today when you talked about your own relationship with the lotus sutra that you started reading it and then it was like gone up so much and so you went away until joe a sense of joy returned
and
i'm city i am but i would characterize my zen practice with joy
i mean i think i would characterize as being the intensive a green gulch
that was joyful for me but like if i think right now
twenty twenty one thinks it's tough out it's gray
here's a lotus sutra by my bed here's netflix which
i don't know it's it if i were saying now really what would give me the most joy it's
i'm questioning howard and questioned that word in relationship to plowing into the lotus sutra
and i wonder if you have any comments
well i don't know if i actually said the things you say i said but
fire well
i'm good for something
anyway it is not that the lotus sutra gives me joy it's studying the load of search of it gives me joy
the lodge doesn't come walking over to me in zapped me with joy the lotus sutra set to look at the larger is sitting there and if i am practicing compassion towards it
i become joyful
if i turned it it turns me i turned it it turns me so you said something about my job is to use it on seek you
that's a word can be used you know that game what is called her
the called but the chairs
when you go on different changed chair which i can use the musical of musical chairs my job is to get you not to unseat you to give you give you know chair or my job is to turn you and returned by you
and your job is to turn me
and to be turned by me so when you're washing the windows you turn me
and when you turn me i say
you're not trying to get anything out of that are you
and that turned you the lotus sutra is turning and being turned as my job that's the lotus sutra job but it doesn't give us joy it's that we we will return it
joy comes and when it turns us joy comes it's the interaction
so if and in if you turn netflix
that would if you turn netflix it's the same
do you turn netflix it's possible
it's possible any dharma any phenomena is possible to turn if you apply the practice jerry and any dharma then can turn you any phenomena can turn you and in that turning you see that
the truth
the donald wheels turning
and if it's like when we need joy in the process and there is joy in the process and the joy
nourishes and fuels the process and the process ah include renewing the resources of joy so you said i don't think of my practice as joyful but you said but in the intensive i do while the intensive you're making so much you're doing so much turning you find the joy and be
cause you find the joy you do turning because you do the attorney if i enjoy
if you practice for the load of search of the way your practice during the intensive
it's the same if you practice with netflix the same way you'd practice with the intention it's the same comic books netflix lotus sutra
moss covered trees they're all there's no there's nothing that's not an opportunity for practicing compassion
there's nothing is not an opportunity to wholeheartedly study
and we're here to encourage ourselves to each other to do that plus to turn each other in the process of study
not just to encourage each other like tracy would you please wash the windows
but then when you wash the windows to come over and talk to you about how you're doing it
you asked me to wash the windows and now you're asking me just give me a break and let me wash the windows
when you say that
you're turning me
and then i can say sorry
i just wondered and that turns you
so washing do you washing windows netflix comic books load of sutures white walls demon faces
this is one of the getting by the zora sutures says study them all
when act

dennis
good morning wrap happy new year be new year to you thank you i'm so grateful for another year another moment
with you for your teaching thank you i have nothing so profound to say except for just my gratitude for how wonderful it is to be with you this song how the questions the
penetration
and i'm just so grateful for that
one of the things on
you made of you've helped me stop and think about the way we use words
the way way
and that means so much to me the with you you've stopped me a couple of times and asked me what i met by a question or a word
and it has made me investigate the usage of so often we use a word without thinking with that word actually means
the word investigate if we investigate that word
and unpack it it's the vestige
the com struck the structure looking at the structure taking it apart on packing it and that's so helpful for me to think about it in that way that i i can't understand him
permanence
i can't understand the lotus sutra
but i can what is as you say what's assessable to me i can take that
unpack that i can't know the whole thing right now but slowly for ever and continually i can unpack it and just understand this much ah
and investigate steady
that small portion and that feels good to make that's joyful to me that i can understand this much right now
and i don't get so frustrated
well if he ever gets is frustrated you know what to do with it right
investigate it

when that
excuse me for speaking twice on i just want to say read that on
ah i understand that the world is our world has evil and cruelty and suffering and that it's
up to me to penetrate that both outside and inside well i would like to compare you to the lotus sutra
precious beloved venerated trusted
if you started saying things that were very that were cruel and violent as if they were true
i would that you know i don't know what i would do
i haven't heard you do that ever except i've heard you made a mistake now and then that was unconsciously cruel and you
we're vulnerable to and you worked with that but to say it as if it's true from such a position of being trusted and loved
not okay i wouldn't be terribly terribly hurt by that so is that a valid comparison with the lotus sutra
i think so
the lotus sutra says those things as if they are true
yeah been and if i sell you said if i set it as though there were true yeah that would be very painful and hurtful would be terrible i will it would be such a crisis that i would either be crushed or you know you might not be just for rabbits just using skillful means
would be careful it would be terrible because it would be spreading that to the great assembly will be terrible however the way you respond to it could be wonderful
yes you and it's not easy when you're feeling terrible or when you're feeling crushed is not easy to come back with compassion
but i come with compassion to the author of the lotus sutra who unconsciously spread violence let's talk about with me if i did something terrible
it's possible that you would come back to me with compassion and me that when i just did seem terrible to you miss that you would that you would help me when i was being terrible and hurting you or other people
you might do that
now that would be a lot to ask of you but that's what
is being asked of you
and it but it's very difficult and if if i make a mistake and quickly say i'm i'm sorry that makes it not so difficult for you but if i make a mistake and then say i didn't make a mistake that makes it harder for you put again
could you after i refused to say i'm sorry still hang in there with me and helped me
hence they can i try this again with you
are you opened the possibility that you just did something harmful and not like the oh yeah for you finally get to me i'm sorry
so did what you do for me if i get off track
do with the lotus sutra if it gets on track
yeah i would do that with lotus sutra but i wouldn't say all the lotus sutra is telling the truth i just need to understand it better in that particular instance
i don't say that the lotus sutra telling the truth
i see the lotus sutra is the truth and the truth includes
arsonists
the truth includes evil it it isn't second some of the world the truth penetrates and cohabits the world of evil that's the lot sutra teacher
so when we see evil we're being called
to go there to enter it and liberate liberated
and yeah and that's not that so difficult we've got up and get me outta here i don't want to deal with that okay fine
the lotus sutra says practice with that and how the upright gentle harmonious honest i think this is evil be honest about them but in a
like the buddha would do it
and this is the path of liberation
but not the path of elimination
the lotus sutra isn't eliminating anything
it's
including at all and that means we're gonna run into some really tough stuff because everything's included
and then the worst thing is harming beings so if i do something that's harmful i need your help
and not and if it gets so bad that you're on the verge of giving up tell me that you're on the verge of giving up on me because i'm so evil

that might get my attention

as i said earlier this last year i said quite a few times
and the year before i said quite a few times i would i am what i am is questionable that means you can question me
i am debatable
i am i am open to to question i am to be called into question and so as the lotus sutra
and so are you you're like the lotus sutra your questionable you need to be called into question by others the lotus sutra is being called into question by others this is the process of ethics

l vino
thank you i'm bread and to everyone who's is ah speaking this morning
and happy new year i am i want to i just wanted to acknowledge how how it's alive the the dialogue fields and i'm really appreciating feels like as lot of heart and ah
the connection
in a formed it's a challenging at times for me
but i'm a wanted to thank you read for am helping me over the years being a real healing force in my life
and one thing in particular is that i struggled i think i would come to you a lot with feeling is feeling of being alone and separate and you would say carry you're not alone and am i really didn't feel that i mean i really it was really
is taken quite some time to really get up i do feel like i have a much greater sense of being able to let the love and
so i i really feel am
you know it's time to thank you for that an
i'm
yeah to thank everyone in a way really italy
yeah not like i'm quite something for for me
i'm an adult the last thing is just i wanted to thank katie and not others who have brought up racial justice and racial injustice and
i've been working on investigating a lot as sheer what is my
heart and being i'm in this a system of white body domination mom
and i don't have a lot of answers you know good i i do feel like i've been more able to
feel uncomfortable and
ah
yeah just just hang in there with it
so i appreciate that conversation and are sanga like how can we together on
bring up growing awareness and and open to the unconscious ways that
i'd like to
more conscious are welcome the conch what's on in the unconscious around that
thank you think
if you have anything to say about that i would love to hear
i think what come to my mind is
the way of relating to your feeling of being alone
is
kind of in concert with your way of feeling the pain of racial injustice and your responsibility for it
so if you feel alone and i say you're not alone i also want to say that if you can totally embrace feeling alone you will discover that you're not
and if we can embrace the pain of of of racial injustice and always put the pain of our responsibility for it
we will discover racial justice
but we can't skip over
you know the surf the surface pain of our understanding or the or the pain of are superficial understanding
of injustice we have to feel the pain of it
opened the pain of it
and that will open to us seeing new ways of relating
to the injustice
there is justice but we aren't gonna find it if we skip over the injustice
there is a joyful peaceful feeling of justice but we can't skip over the painful feeling of injustice to get there
thank you for bringing that up
hero and barry

arab
i it is a very yes it is for him is capturing lesson hi kim i i arrived i want to spank the sang i want to thank you for all the western member teachings
the question today have been really good i have a question for you and in my practice i'm i'm i'm able to get in touch with the story is there i tell about other things and people that stories that i make up in my mind and when i get in touch it my realize that there's off
fun and emotion behind them that's making me tell the story to justify the emotion that i feel
i'm and ah but when i get in touch with that emotion i realize that it's so much deeper emotion like raise your or or about
greed or am
pain of some kind and i wanna know how to deal with on get into to take care of that deeper emotion that seems to be
from my childhood on as i really have a powerful strong emotion that that that is struggling all of their the stories that i make up in the present
the question makes sense to you
yeah so
you have some experience of pain of rage and yet stories circulating around those feelings and those feelings are interviewed with the stories
and if you wanna get in touch with something deeper about the pain or deeper about the stories i'm suggesting that you practice compassion with the current stories
the current pain and as you practice compassion with the stories remember that part of compassion is that your called into question by others about how you're practicing compassion
so you got a story and let's say you're ready to now compassionately study the story
that's good
but also you need to be in conversation with the story and for example with kim bought the way you're studying the story don't study the story all by yourself without any without being questioned about how you're studying because you can study the story and think you're studying it and kim my notice
that you overlooking a certain aspect that you could be questioning or you could be looking at so if you study your stories wholeheartedly which means you do it together in conversation with others you will realize the profound truth of your stories
if you study your feelings in this way you will discover the profound truth of your feelings are your feelings have a superficial and profound truth
and you can actively consciously work with a superficial appearance of your feelings
but you need to do it together with kim and me and everybody else they can't do it thoroughly by yourself you can do somewhat by yourself but most important part is to include other people in your study what you're doing right now you studying your rage your study your stories and you're you're asked you're talking to me up
about it
so please continue this way of dialogue around these superficial things and the dialogue will open up the profundity of these things that the profound meaning
i think i'm i am a hero exactly what you're saying but it feels like the the deeper emotion is it felt so powerful that does the the trivial an emotion in the present a is just being fuel
old by this this bigger emotion from the pass on the bigger more powerful rage that know that is an unjustified and in the present moment but it's it's in the where it's coming from us this powerful
yes that's three promotion right that i don't i don't know where get how to get we will not get rid of it but how does it have met into that i can see what you're say and what i'm saying further is that when you deal with you could say the superficial emotion when you deal with it in a compassionate
that way which met again means compassionate with other people helping you be compassionate with it
that transforms the place from which this emotion comes this this huge could say field realm from which this current emotion comes that huge storehouse gets transformed by the way you take care of
this current little emotion
and the the power of that source of this current emotion is because of the way from ancient times you and skillfully lad take took care of your emotions
and it is huge but it it is transformed
it is immediately transformed by the way you deal with the current emotion and it can be trend it can be transformed into growing bigger and darker
bigger and more unfortunate if you don't take care of the soup little superficial thing but if you take care of the little superficial thing the huge thing gets transformed not all once so but every single time your compassionate with your current emotions is place you feel is
a switch you heard about which is the source of these superficial things it gets transformed
i just got the image on the way you take care of a mushroom transformed the fungus of which the mushroom is a base of flower
the mushrooms are just a flower of this vast system of fungi
the way you'd take care of the mushroom it immediately transforms the whole fungus the same with your emotions the way you take care of their manifesting president's transforms the their source
which is huge thank you you're wrong
i'm rabbit if i can have a two-fer i just want to thank you so much for her in your teaching and for another year of your teaching and i also wanted to ask because i think my mind does a little trick when i'm looking at something that i disagree with that say
because i think what i think of is investigated investigation of we know something that i find unpalatable
a wrong ah
and actually sort of bringing it around to my way of thinking about it instead of allow it like you know so then if i extend that to let somebody who has opposing an opposing viewpoint of sat phone you know how life should be or whatever that i cried
to justify their their way of looking at it you know so that it comes it comes back around to my web that can hurt it a hammock an excuse for ever so i don't think i'm actually being skillful in that way
in the way that you might be right and if you tell your friends about that they might say hey what he doing kim you just folded you pulled a fast one there
you didn't really do with the problem the way you turn it so we do turn it but we also turn it with feedback
yeah because what i really say what i say as well what what would that went that writer really means is young and that in that sometimes is that helpful sometimes edge helpful sometimes that's good but but still even though it might be good you still might say as very what he thinks of it
and he might say you know i think you took kind of a shortcut or you know you kind of bypass the real problem when you did that that was nice and used you know you feel good now but i think you still have some more work to do there
so bring your bring here you know bring the solutions to problems to your cohort
and see if they think you really solved it
thank you
robards

okay my minute it
can you hear me robert i can hear you read can you say
the you and i can see your books
am i i've been reading a lot of bernard for recently and i've always enjoyed his box and perfectly recently i've been reading them and one of the authors that he talks about his are one of them works he talks
about is our parks pleasures of attacks and i in it reminded me of of ah my being a working class kid who just locked into college i'm at the time they were they actually still had public university on scholarships
and stuff them i went to college and i learned the pleasure of reading well and i i bring us up because ah
and so sorry for my random thoughts but my heart really start speeding and you know that we'd have discussions before and sometimes a total they've got to talk but on
so about fifteen years ago i read brand victorians work on on the of zone in imperial china and imperial japan and i i almost like all i'm sort of them because it's so upset me too
he here the history of some of them in its participation in the war mom and as i was listening to discussion this morning it reminded me also that in reading the sort of as i'm reading the lotus sutra in the last six weeks that a lot of clay
last injustice came up for me because while these images and stories are always of the rich ah and the poor hardly make an appearance or if they do they're rather on no treated somewhat medium-weight and since i was working class kid who lucked into college
i still carry a lot of and in me a lot of resentment or for for that kind of treatment on so i bring up these think because ah
one other ways that i ah yeah sort of
managed to get a lot out of the lotus sutra is for me texts have carmen and they carry karma with them and i see my body sidebar
my body soft way is to work with com i'm reading the and your work on some jr vulcano sutra and a reading some other works that also plus the work itself on one of the things that
really struck me was that in every moment we have the whole of karma that resides with us that comes with us that is renewed with us and what we do in that moment with our with all that karma
in how how we moved to the next moment is really what's important and when you talked about penetration in really reading the text and not not accepting everything in the text but working with that text and
you know it's sort of like that historical and the ultimate dimension to really taken all that historical dimension and and and let yourself
go somewhere beyond it up their tummy has he has really been important and on i just want to tell you thank you for the stain for some aeons and on i want to express my gratitude and i'm looking forward to the intensive
and i think you've heard me say this before which is
ah a general recommendation not to ever swallow anything whole
don't swallow even the lotus sutra with the heart sutra or anything i do don't swallow it whole however
you might take a bite of it and then shoe it and chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed and if you chew thoroughly you never even will notice that you're swallowing
but you will after you thoroughly chewed material
but if you swallowed whole it's not good for you
chewing it study it but you might think about taking a bite now and then
and don't take a bites that so big that you can't chew it
whatever size by you take choo choo choo choo choo and you'll compassionately so you don't break into you don't break your teeth
or you know so you don't and and put something your mouth is too hot or too cold
may your study continue
tillman and isabel

oh and thank you
i wanted to
well thank you rep and the whole saga for this
be very precious and talk and because i feel
yeah very touches me and it feels very close and n
yes an at initially i just wanted to say that and twenty and raised the hand
it's the i started to be stressed because i was about to talk for at at at some point one and and at a point and now
yeah i wanted to share that to and thank you
thank you go
evening for me morning for you thank you
you're welcome
hama

thank you for calling me again ah
i i've been hearing you for many years and are hearing a lot of teachers for many years
i find myself
always in a problem
and the problem is
i either believe it's one or two
it's either this or that
and from the teachings
hearing it's neither won nor too
either one or two
and i my problem is i have a hard time
and you speak about that hardness and compassion and be compassionate be compassionate become passionate to the hardness of
slipping into one side or the other
i guess my mice as i look into myself i'm realizing that
i am not and i cannot and i don't see that compassionate heart i have to be that compassionate heart and i'm not and the not side of it it keeps me going
and i don't that's the problem
at a problem as a big one that's not the whole problem what's the whole crop even if you are compassionate you still it's still difficult
so you say not one and not to gay not one not two not both one and two and also not neither one or two
and living in that place where it's not want not to not both not neither living in that one guy one place is hard for us it's so demanding
so even if and you practice compassion with that difficult to yes but even if you are even if you are get over them
your problem with compassion you some days you're not even compassionate well that's a problem but the compassion also
it's hard
so this is it's hard this is again an expression of being upright not one or two not both not neither and be upright with that
and that's a great challenge and we'd have to be compassion with how hard that is and also when we slip into one are we slip into to are we slip into both are we slip into neither than to be kind ourself we slip so it's hard to be upright and it's easy to say
lip easy to slip
and maybe hard to be kind to ourselves when we slip
but when you you're kind to yourself when you slip than you can come back to being upright with no one not two at both not neither that's where the truth is alive
and it's a constant struggle to rig
new the uprightness and to be kind when we slip off

yes and if you can give a little bit more comment on ah my not wanting the constant struggle i want to not have this struggle constantly i want to deny i want to avoid or i want to go beyond i want to
skip i want to do anything i can so that slipping into to
that's that's that's what it's like when you slip into to
that you want something else
i agree i agree with that but that's i call it that's me that's why i'm if my my being is that the phrase of my been so who you are at that moment of you just slipped
your unskillful person at that moment when you slip into that have one in something other than this
soapy the unskillful being be the and go for being know you already did that as good and that admit admitted and forgive your and be kind to yourself for being a slippery a slippery person who keeps slipping him join skillfulness be kind of that person and then
we're back to work again
i try please do
at least for one more year
amanda
happy new year happy new year
i'm gonna love you why i can nobody's le jeune homme way more com shaun
that is a said as a something i i feel like i've learned from you
an eye on it's in coming up that songs been coming up a lot in my i don't actually know the whole song perhaps perhaps i will learn at sunday
but it turned its reminding me actually as we're talking it's kind of the same on them
an aunt
i am going to recite you like no one three sided you come rain or come shine
and it kind of like keanu i am gonna study you like nobody's studied you
come rain or come shine
i'm gonna question you like nobody's questions you can leaders come shine
happy together
i'm happy together
would it be fine
no that's keep studying
let's study everything
thank you
thank you

maybe we have completed our
conversation this morning and may we continue
together
for at least ten aeons
thank you very much
and once again happy bless new year
may our intention equally extend to every being in place with a true merit of buddha's way
rings are numberless i vowed to save them afflictions are inexhaustible i vow to cut through
dharma gates are boundless i vow to answer them
buddha where is unsurpassable i vowed to become
and i wanna say thank you again to all of you who are studying the lotus sutra and all the people who are facilitating your study
and
i also wanted to mention that
i said some a few months or so ago that we i got kinda got some clearance from green got to meet with people individually here at no abode our doors social distancing and wearing masks but with the current
and past surges green gulch has become stricter and they're not still not ready now that you've written they've withdrawn permission for me to meet with you in person under those outdoor conditions so i'm sorry to postpone our meeting longer i think
i hope you understand and yeah
yeah i hope we can be together in the same place i should say closer six feet of boy instead of six miles away or six thousand miles away i lie i pray for that thank you so much
and thank you i lean for
being our hosts today