Today I'd like to talk to you about our meditation practice and how our meditation practice is both our particular effort and the effort of embracing and sustaining all living beings. Like today we have news of another unfolding of war in this world. So the teaching about our meditation practice, our samadhi practice, is about how our personal, limited, detailed, particular activity of sitting in silence and stillness, how that is sealed, is sealed, how that is imprinted by the whole universe and how our practice seals and imprints all beings.

[01:21]

Welcome, Kika. So as most of you know, we have been contemplating, discussing, reading, reciting, worshiping, making offerings to the great flower adornment scripture. Some of you may not know that. But we've been working on this Flower Adornment scripture for almost three years. And this scripture has many teachings about meditation. Many teachings about a concentrated, collected, calm state of awareness. which are the Buddhas and which are the bodhisattvas.

[02:35]

This practice is the Buddhas, and the Buddhas are this practice of the samadhi. And there's many samadhis named in the scripture, but it is said that the fundamental samadhi of the scripture is called, is called the saraga mudra samadhi, which can be translated into English as ocean seal samadhi, or ocean mudra samadhi. This seal is like, not the seal of the mammal seal, but like a seal, a circle, or a seal which impresses itself on something and is impressed by something. It's a concentrated awareness that seals our particular meditation practice with all beings.

[03:42]

This is what I would call the Zen ancestor Samadhi. And I guess it's a matter of faith that by taking care of the particular, we are simultaneously taking care of the vast ocean. This is an oceanic sutra that offers oceanic meditation practices. So once again, The ocean has a surface and the ocean has inconceivable depth and vastness. So the awareness we're talking about is awareness that has particulars and has a vast ungraspable depth.

[04:50]

And so We're suggesting in this lineage that taking care of the surface, which you can feel with your fingers, taste with your tongue, smell with your nose, see with your eyes, hear with your ears, and think about with your conceptual mind, that surface, by taking care of that surface, we realize the whole ocean. And our care of the surface impresses the entire ocean. We limited humans cannot directly take care of the whole ocean. We can take care of

[05:56]

what we can hear and see. And that's a lot of work. Welcome, Leon. Welcome, Elizabeth. There's an expression in Japanese about taking care of the surface, which is memmitsu no kafu, which can be translated as minute attention to detail, family style. So our family style is minute attention to details, the details of the surface of the ocean.

[06:58]

details of the waves on the surface. That's sort of spoken of as our family style. But behind that family style, or around that family style, is this teaching that taking care of minute details is a way of taking care of the whole ocean. The way you put your arm into the surface of the water and stroke is the way you're taking care of the entire ocean. And if we take care of the surface, every detail of the surface, with great compassion, that is sealed with compassion for the entire ocean all the way to the bottom.

[08:12]

So this awareness is to take care of the surface wholeheartedly, and at the same time, walking on the bottom of the great ocean. And as you may have noticed, taking care of the surface is often, not always, but often difficult. It's trouble. Or troublesome. We don't It doesn't work to not take care of the surface and try to take care of the whole ocean.

[09:17]

If we skip over the surface, we'll skip over the whole ocean. If we hesitate to take care of this insult, this difficulty, we don't take care of the whole ocean of all beings. That may be not so difficult to understand, that if you neglect the details of your life, you're neglecting everybody. But what's maybe hard to believe is that taking care of a minute detail properly takes care of all beings in that same way because of this samadhi where all particulars are united with universals, where the limited is sealed with the unlimited. And again, we have the expression, the devil is in the details. As you deal with the details, the devil appears, the devil of laziness, the devil of trying to avoid the detail, the devil of disrespecting the detail.

[10:37]

The devil of being impatient with the detail. The devil of being uncareful with the detail. The devil of being rough with the detail. The details are very impermanent and fragile. If we're not careful of them, they are not cared for properly. They all deserve our respect and care and generosity. This is on the surface of the ocean. Giving every stroke of the ocean. Generosity. Respect. Care. Gentleness. Patience. And diligence. diligent care of the difficulties, of the details.

[11:41]

This samadhi is mostly beyond hearing and seeing. It's not in the realm of delusion or enlightenment. in order to realize that we have to take care of the realm, the deportment in hearing and seeing and thinking. I confess to you that a few days ago I was working on what are called tax documents. I have social security income. I have to report it to the government.

[12:52]

And the details of these tax documents are something that one can have difficulty with, especially if you can't find the tax document, which I couldn't. I couldn't find the yearly tax document from the Social Security Administration. And so I tried to get the document from the Social Security Administration. I called the number. And they said, for most people, the easiest way is to go online, www, etc.

[13:56]

So I tried, but I failed. It was not easy for me. But I tried. While I was working on this, guess what I thought of? I thought of the ocean seal samadhi. And it uplifted me to do this difficult, frustrating, detailed study of tax documents to deal with the detail of frustration. And it's not, if it's just to deal with it because I'm supposed to deal with it, that wouldn't be enough. This has to be, for me, for all of you. I have to do these tax documents for you. Then I'm uplifted to do this work which might be seen as a waste of time

[14:59]

And so I was able to be uplifted and to deal with these difficulties in the context of this samadhi. To be relaxed and open and careful with the details of taxed taxes. To watch out for the threat of tax evasion. For the temptations of not being attending to the minute details, but enjoying them for the sake of all beings. A friend of mine is going to have a knee replacement, and I am... I've been asked if I'd like to help this person, and I said, yes, I would. And there's lots of details involved in taking care of somebody who is going to and will have knee replacement.

[16:15]

And I am really, with the aid of this samadhi, I really feel encouraged to deal with the detail and not, what's the word, disrespect any of the details that are involved. Also, I confess to you, I have a very nice car. It's a Toyota Prius Prime. And there's a lot of details of taking care of it, which are sometimes difficult. taking care of the details of your car, taking care of them with compassion, with generosity and carefulness and respect and patience and diligence, really being up for, up for,

[17:39]

the difficulties and the trouble. This is an essential part of the bodhisattva samadhi. If you don't have a car, fine. If you don't have income tax, fine. But whatever you hear and see is calling for your, for not your, is calling for great compassion. and taking care of what you hear and see, taking care of the details of your teeth and your toes and your elbows and your skin and your diet and your pain. Just yesterday I was walking down the hall of this building and I was feeling, temporarily, I was feeling almost no physical pain.

[18:48]

And I remember Thich Nhat Hanh saying, you know, usually we speak of physical pain, physical pleasure, and neutral sensation. And he said, actually, I think there are just two, because neutral sensation is really pleasant. To not have pain is... is really pleasant. Taking care of that with the bodhisattva practices of generosity, ethics, patience, and diligence, willingness to take care of all the details, opens onto the samadhi of the bodhisattva. We have the capacity to take trouble.

[19:58]

Take trouble like embrace the trouble, accept the trouble. And generally speaking, the troubles that we have are the details of our life. And we also have the trouble of occasionally negligence, non-diligence about these details coming up. And that's another detail. When you've noticed that you are resisting the details, that's another detail called resisting taking care of the details. When you're resisting minute attention to details, if you notice it, then there's a practice of compassion, of confessing, I'm resisting taking care of this detail. And I respect this negligence.

[21:05]

I don't like it. I respect it. I'm careful of it. I'm gentle with it. I'm enthusiastic about taking care of the resistance to taking care of the surface of the Bodhisattva Oceanic Dharma Ocean Seal Samadhi. The Samadhi of our school. A non-possessive hour ocean seal samadhi of the Buddha which is always present we're always in this samadhi but if we hesitate to take care of the details that are happening in our life if we hesitate we hesitate to enter this samadhi we're already in the samadhi

[22:19]

and yet we can enter the samadhi and arise from the samadhi and enter the samadhi and we're always in the samadhi but we have to keep re-entering it and we re-enter it by taking care of the surface and also another major example of a surface is the scripture the scripture itself has a surface What's the surface? Well, it's the words of the sutra. They are details on the surface of this scripture. The scripture isn't just the words. And all the words and each letter of each word of the scriptures contains the entire scripture. But we have to take care of each word of the scripture and many of us find it quite difficult to take care of all the words of this scripture.

[23:24]

People are having resistance to the words of this scripture, which are the details of the scripture. They're the surface. Put positively, being willing to take care of the difficulty, the trouble of the surface words of this scripture is the entrance it's the entrance it's being present in the actual surface the actual sutra beyond the details so that doesn't mean you should be rough and force yourself to respect be respectful of yourself when you're resisting the sutra be respectful of your resistance that is also taking care of the sutra. I told you many times that back in 1968, 58 years ago, back in 1968,

[24:47]

various causes and conditions led me to open the English translation of the Lotus Sutra of the true Dharma. I opened it because Suzuki Roshi was teaching it. And I, very quickly, like after about a page or two, I started to resist the words of the scripture. me I resisted that great scripture and the translation I had starts out with lots of Sanskrit words lots of Sanskrit names of bodhisattvas in kind of archaic orthography and I resisted it however in my case I did not force myself to keep reading when I didn't want to read I didn't force myself I closed the book

[25:49]

with the intention of coming back some other time. But I didn't forget the scripture because my teacher, our teacher, was gonna teach about it. And I did go back. And when I went back, I had the same experience of resistance and I closed the book. That happened quite a few times. But I kept going back. I respected my resistance and I respected the sutra, but I didn't force myself to keep reading it. And then the day came when I opened it and I was ready. The door opened and I entered the sutra, which I already was in, but I was resisting it. The sutra tells us we're already in this sutra.

[26:54]

This sutra is that we're already in it. The teaching of the sutra is we are in this sutra together. We are all in the same boat now, and we have various degrees of resistance to being in this boat with these other beings. But by being careful to our resistance to being in the boat with all beings, The time will come when the resistance will lift us up and carry us into the Ocean Seal Samadhi. We call this Ocean Seal Samadhi Zazen, usually. Zen meditation. Yeah. There are many, many names for the ocean seal samadhi. So when we sit, we are aware of our body sitting upright and still, or sitting upright and moving, or leaning forward.

[28:15]

Anyway, we're taking care of our body. We're taking care of our posture with generosity, carefulness, respect, gentleness, patience, diligence, willingness to embrace the trouble of having a body. And then we relax. Once we completely take care of all these details, we are given relaxation and we are undistracted. by the details because we're taking care of them wholeheartedly.

[29:17]

We're not trying to be, have some other difficulties, we're taking care of these right now. And we enter into the Samadhi where we're taking care of everybody. Because we want to take, I think the people in this assembly want to take care of everybody. in the process of wanting to take care of and taking care of everybody, part of what we have to take care of is our resistance to taking care of somebody. Our resistance to taking care of this person or that person. Or this person's concerns or that person's concerns. This person's concerns we might think are not that are not a problem. They don't need to have that problem. We might think that.

[30:20]

And then take care of that thought. Be kind to the thought. They don't need to have this problem. And then you'll be able to really be devoted to the problems that they have, which you know are unnecessary. But they're not unnecessary. They are details to take care of. in the bodhisattva samadhi. There are eight million stories in the naked city. You have just heard one of them. So I'm going to just tell you one and that's it. But there's more to come. Do you have any stories you care to share with this assembly? There are eight million stories in the naked assembly.

[31:22]

Here's the... Rabbi, I like what you... Zazen is the ocean seal samadhi. I really like that. I was sitting in the Zendo in the morning and all of a sudden this curse came through, this obscenity. And, you know, was it mine? Was it someone else's? Well, it certainly could have been mine because, although I try not to curse out loud, I do a fair amount of internal cursing. But what I noticed was the peace and the goodwill with which I met the curse

[32:43]

Yay. And it struck me that I could meet anything on that diamond seat like I met that curse. I mean, because I could meet that curse. The only way I could meet that curse as not mine or not someone else's and just meet it with goodwill was I was in the state where I could meet anything. And so the curse was actually a sign of, in some ways, in Christian terms, the curse was an icon, no longer an idol, but now an icon. So maybe you could speak about that. But particularly, I mean, I think you've talked a lot about meeting. And I think meeting probably would more or less equate with taking care of, or at least some dimension of taking care of.

[33:45]

has to do with this meeting in which one is in goodwill with the thing met or the being met. Yeah, congratulations for taking care of the curse. The curse wanted the care and taking care of the curse is swimming on the surface of the ocean seal samadhi. Good morning. You said something which kind of caught me, and I would love to hear you say more words about it. This is what I think you might have said, that if we pay total attention to what's on the surface, but like totally, that it affects the whole ocean all the way going down.

[34:58]

And maybe... all beings. And I love that. I want that to be true. I want to think it. I might even think it. But then I get a little voice, is that spiritual bypass? Is that just, wait, it is okay to just sit in a cave and really do my cave? And is that right response to what's happening in the world today? So I just wonder if you have any more words you could Say on any part of this. You mean another story of the naked assembly? Sure. So, when you're talking about taking care of something, I thought of, like, some of these Olympic swimmers, when they put their hand in the water, do they do it carefully?

[36:00]

And when they do it carefully, are they in the samadhi? And when they do it carefully, are they like, when they do it really carefully, like I think of this person named Michael Phelps, when he puts his hand in the water, does he do it carefully? Yes. And is he relaxed? Yes. Is he making like a total effort? Yes. And does that stroke affect millions of people who are watching him and saying, look at that, look at the way he strokes. He's the most relaxed swimmer on the planet. And it inspires us. And what's this girl's name, this figure skater, her name's? Alyssa Liu. No. Is she having fun? Is she relaxed?

[37:05]

When she puts her blade of her skate on the ice, does that touch millions of people around? Does that encourage people to practice samadhi? Yes. Is she in spiritual bypass? That question is not excluded in her relaxation. Some people might say, is she like, is she? denying the suffering of the world? When she's engaging with having a body flying through the... That question is not pushed away. We could be in... All of Buddhism could be spiritual bypass. Okay, we hear that. We have been indicted. The Buddha way has been indicted. The Buddha and the ancestors have been indicted for spiritual bypass. However, some people look at them and they think, they seem to be up for whatever trouble you offer them.

[38:09]

And people see how well they receive the trouble, and what do they do? They give them more. They get more trouble because of how well they're doing it. If people are in spiritual bypass, people might say, leave them alone. They don't want any trouble. They do not want to take the trouble. Part of the practice of taking trouble, of dealing with individual details of life, part of the problem is questioning what we're doing. And I said in Houston at the beginning of the talk last week, I said, I just want to remind you, I don't say it all the time, but I just want to remind you, I am questionable. All my actions are questionable. I'm not saying my actions are right or wrong, but they're definitely questionable. And you might question me and say, I'm laughing because I see this character on your t-shirt, which I wrote.

[39:17]

That's my calligraphy. It's a detail that made me laugh. So yeah, don't ever think that you're not questionable, and you can question yourself. Maybe I'm overlooking something. Maybe I'm resisting and don't know it. Maybe I'm trying to avoid problems. Yeah, maybe. And smile when you know that you could be really missing the boat. Yeah, I could miss this boat and I'm going to fully engage, I'm going to fully embrace boat missing. But I've heard another teaching which is, If you embrace with great compassion missing the boat, you verify that you're always on the boat. We are always on the boat together, and that includes being accused of missing it.

[40:18]

So helpful. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you for your... Thank you for that wave. Maggie. I have a detail on the words of this sutra that I want to take care of. It is book 10, which attracts me a lot. Book 10 of Avatamsaka Sutra. What is it? It is an enlightening being asks for clarification. Oh, yes. So... There is a poem talking about phenomena. There are a lot of metaphors. So, for example, phenomena have no function and have no individual nature.

[41:25]

Therefore, all of them do not know one another. Then it keeps on talking about water and fire and earth, et cetera, et cetera. In the end of each stance of the verse, it always says that they don't know each other. Phenomena, water do not know each other, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm wondering, the question is, how do we know that phenomena do not know each other? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is, if phenomena don't know each other, how are you going to know the phenomena not knowing each other? That's what the sutra is saying. That's why I... So why the sutra is saying that phenomena do not know each other? I don't know why the sutra says that, but it certainly does say it.

[42:27]

And the sutra also says that this samadhi, which pervades everything in our life, is quiet and still. And it has no nature. And it's ungraspable. So, I don't know why the sutra says that, but when it says that, does it help me not try to grasp the gift that it's giving me? And if I have a question that arises, my question, is my question another gift? Or is my Yes, it is. Your question is a gift. Why does the sutra say that? That's a gift. Now that that gift has come, do I want to receive that gift with gratitude?

[43:29]

Or do I want to get something from that question? Do I want to take care of it? The question, why does the sutra say that? Do I want to take care of that question, that surface? I do. Do I want to get something from that question? I do. And I would say that's not, that trying to get something from it is not caring for the sutra. However, trying to get something from that question is another thing to take care of. So you read the scripture, you're taking care of the scripture, right? A thought arises, and the thought is, why does the sutra say that? That question is just as important as what the sutra is saying.

[44:38]

So now take care of the question. But taking care of the sutra and taking care of the question, in both cases, you're not trying to get anything from the sutra, and you're not trying to get anything from the question. Why does the sutra say that? The sutra's a gift, and your question is a gift. The sutra's not trying to get anything, and your question's not trying to get anything. But if your question is trying to get anything, then take care of that gaining idea. Even the Buddha sometimes tried to gain something from the Buddha. The Buddha confessed, I served Buddhas and I tried to get something from them by my service. I'm sorry. However, he took care of his gaining idea. And if you take care of your question, you're doing a job. And if you think,

[45:42]

that you should do something more than take care of your questions about the sutra, like you're reading the sutra and you say, why does the sutra say that? I could answer that and say, the sutra says that so you can ask me that question. But I would be careful before I say that because I first of all want to address that when you ask a question in this assembly, is it a gift or is it trying to get something? If it's a gift, then I say, thank you for your question. And you say, you are welcome. And I say, you asked such good questions. Thank you. But now that we're not trying to get anything, you can say whatever you want as another gift. I want to say that I was laughing at my gaining idea.

[46:50]

Yeah, that's a good response. While listening to you. Oh, silly girl. Silly woman. Yeah. You helped me to see that. Yeah. And when you laughed, you gave me a gift. You gave me a gift when you laughed. I was so happy to receive your laughter. And I thought... I wasn't trying to get her to laugh, but she gave me that anyway. So I'm not giving you gifts for you to give me gifts, but when I give you gifts, you give me gifts. And you give me gifts, and I give you gifts. That's the samadhi. We both didn't plan anything, so it's happened. We just give ourselves. to the sutra and to each other. Give ourselves to this samadhi in which we already are living. But if we don't give ourselves to where we're already living, somehow we magically miss where we're already living.

[47:55]

We're already in the samadhi. Thank you for your face. Thank you very much. Thank you for the story. Can you hear me okay? Thank you for the story about Social Security because I had the exact same story. And one of the things I noticed about myself is when I was so angry at Social Security and so impatient, but finally I settled down and I had someone help me to scroll all the way down to the end of the instructions. And anyway, I got through it is the main point I wanted to say, that by having patience, I got over my upset and anger. But when you were talking today, what came to my mind is I live in a senior apartment complex. There's 150 units here.

[48:57]

And we are invaded by bedbugs. And I used to think of them as like kind of like thinking of immigrants coming across the border, you know, that we have no boundary here. There's no way to keep them out. And people treat them that way. They're so frustrated and angry and upset. But today, I just feel a gift of listening to you talk about paying attention to the details because there's so many people here. We live in teeny tiny apartments that are stuffed with furniture. And people, sometimes they just can't. They have no training. They've never learned how to be clean or clean. take care of anything. And so the way people respond is they're angry at them. There's just this turmoil. And this morning, my entire morning was filled with emails and texts about the bedbugs treatment.

[50:05]

They sprayed them and now they're in the hallways. Anyway, I'm just thanking you for I don't want to treat people with anger about the way they live. And I just feel that somehow your words today will have an impact on how I respond to this situation. So thank you. You're welcome. And I want to also say that in the past, sometimes... when we were in the same room, you had difficulty hearing me. That's true, I have hearing aids now. But today, you seem to be able to hear me well. Yeah. And also, I wanted to mention that although I couldn't figure out how to negotiate the website of the Social Security Administration, while I was trying to do that, I did make a telephone call

[51:13]

and to try to talk to somebody and they said average wait time 50 minutes so I but you could put your telephone number in and I did and then while I was struggling to negotiate the website somebody called me and I answered and this Bodhisattva was there And she was so kind, so clear, so helpful. Yeah. I don't know. And she said that they would send me the documents. So we'll see if they come. And if they don't, she still was great. And may we welcome the bedbugs. And also, may we wash our sheets.

[52:14]

May we do all this as an act of compassion. I saw an advertisement at Enso Village about a walk today, a silent walk. which is now over. And when I saw it, I said, I want to go on the walk. It was a silent walk. And the dress code for the walk was to wear black. I thought, that works for me. And the walk was for compassion and peace. And I just want you to know, I was going to go on that walk, but I came here instead. But that would have been a nice walk. But this has been a nice walk, too. Thank you, Nancy.

[53:19]

Hi, Rev. Justin. Thank you for your talk. I found it really helpful. Great. I found myself applying situations I've been in, especially when reading texts, but others as well. When you were talking about reading the Lotus Sutra many years ago, and I often have trouble deciding what I need to take care of, whether that be, I was using that moment as theoretically for myself and saying, do I take care of the urge that the, the, the urge to be determined or the urge to rest. Sometimes I'm confused by whether or not my urge to rest is laziness. Um, and whether that, and which to take care of, which kind of competing urge to take care of in the moment and, and, and how to know if, um, I'm going to say, right. I know that's not the correct word.

[54:37]

And, um, or, And I feel like you kind of, I think you may have kind of answered this in speaking to Maggie, but I'm curious if you could give me some guidance there. Being diligent, of course, is to make a wholehearted effort. Right? But part of making a wholehearted effort is to rest. So resting is part of being diligent. In that case, resting is not non-diligence. It is part of the diligence practice. If you're doing some work, sometimes you get to a point where you've done enough for the time being of that type of work. And it's appropriate to stop. I often think of the example of when I do calligraphy, it takes me a while to get into it, to warm up.

[55:38]

At the beginning, I have a little resistance to it. I'm not in the flow. And then as I keep going, I get into the flow of the writing. And then I think my effort is quite good. It's relaxed. It's present. But at a certain point, I've done enough of this activity. And if I don't honor that I've done enough of this thing and give it a rest, then I start making mistakes. So one type of laziness is overwork, where you're not attentive to when it's time to rest. Another kind of laziness is to try something that's too hard. that you're not ready for. That's also kind of uncareful. So this being diligent is an art.

[56:41]

And it's an ongoing art of checking to see if there's some resistance. And if there is, the diligence, if there is resistance to it, usually take a few steps back and start practicing generosity and carefulness and patience with the activity or another thing is go back to your aspiration to do the work that you're feeling some resistance to and and commune converse with the aspiration until you start feeling some more joy about doing this work which you think is good but even something you think is good at a certain point, you get tired from doing it. And it's good to stop and rest. And after you're rested, reconnect with your aspiration to do the work and see if you feel joy at the thought of the work.

[57:49]

And you still, you might feel some joy. That would really be good to do that. That would really be good to listen to my son really carefully and kindly. But I'm tired now. I'm tired. Let me take a little rest here. Okay, now I want to go back and listen to him some more. But I'm still not quite enough energy. I need to rest a little bit more. And I need to think about how good it would be to listen carefully and kindly to my son. It would be good. And now I feel the joy of going back and trying again to really listen to him. Yeah, I'm ready. And go back to work. So there's a rhythm in it. I often use the example of my grandson. When he was young, he was quite interested in me. He liked to play with me.

[58:51]

And he got lots of rest, so he had lots of energy. But I sometimes would get tired, and I would say to him, you know, I need to take a little rest so I can keep up with you. And he would say, no, no, no, no. I said, no, just a few minutes, and then I'll be able to play with you better. And he'd say, no, no, no, no, no, please, just a little rest, and I'll be a better playmate. Okay. And then I'd take a little rest and come back, and he would see that it was good that he let me rest. So resting. And also, when you rest, don't be absolutely sure that you're right. Just say, I think maybe I need a rest. Let's try it. And I'm going to rest so that I can come back to the work with more enthusiasm. So try it. And then sometimes you'd rest and you'd come back and say, yeah, that was a good rest. I'm ready to work more effectively now. So that was a good... I'm going to try that again sometime.

[59:54]

Resting. for the sake of the work, resting for the sake of the bodhisattva path. And do you feel like that, or does that same approach, sometimes I struggle with how to apply that to sitting, especially in a group, because everyone's on the same schedule and you don't want to be interrupted to a schedule. But like even within a day of sitting, sometimes I feel like I need to, I want to do this. I really want to be here, but I need a break. Is it like, but I feel like I'm perhaps disrespecting the schedule, disrespecting the effort of others to say, go take a nap for one period or something like that. I think that's good to be aware that, in other words, Justin is questionable. So if Justin sits, he's questionable. If Justin wants to rest, that's questionable. It's good to question. would it be good to take a rest?

[60:55]

And questionable means you question yourself, but that other people could question you too. So if you're in a group situation, what you do has effect on other people, and if you want to rest, it's questionable. But also sitting, continuing to sit, is questionable too. So, I'd like to keep sitting, but I'm not sure it would be good, I question whether it would be good to keep sitting because I'm in so much pain. So in that case, you're questioning yourself. And if you're in a group situation, maybe you can ask a senior person, you know, I'm thinking of resting, what do you think? And the person might say, okay, rest. And they might say, I think it's okay, keep sitting. So question what you're doing is good. That's part of enthusiasm, is to question your effort. And let other people question you too. And tell people about your questions, about your effort. And they may say, that's okay. Or they might say, I agree, that's questionable.

[61:58]

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Good morning, Rev. Good morning. As I was listening, I was crying. There was sorrow, sadness inside. Really deep, deep sadness. And this sadness was about purity.

[63:05]

Sadness was about not seeing purity, the sadness about the kindness of purity, the sadness about our blindness to this purity, the sadness of struggles that we keep wanting to make something, we want to keep making something of this purity. And the sadness about why we get so exhausted. I can totally see my whole exhaustion. Because I cannot be with what is. And Tracy mentioned about bypass. We are bypassing what is. There's no problem. with what is.

[64:11]

Being with what is is not a bypass. We have been, I have been bypassing all the time. We're not just being with what is. To the point, Rev, when you were talking about the ocean, that's how deep my sadness, to the point that we have even defied the ocean for God's sake. Look what we have done to this beautiful, beautiful nature. There's so much sadness. So much sorrow. And on the top of it, creating all these wars

[65:13]

the truth. That is inconceivable. I mean, it just, I cannot comprehend it. Something that is so obvious for God's sake. Our blindness, inconceivable means it's vast. And I don't know what to say. I ask for some thought. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. What are you asking for? For some thoughts into this. Oh, you want some thoughts? Yeah. Okay, here's a thought. Are you ready? If you want to be... with the purity of what is, then it would be appropriate to practice compassion with all the sadness and horrors that you described.

[66:35]

All the sadness and horrors are on the surface of the ocean of purity. And if you don't take care of all this sadness and all these horrors, you will close your eyes to the ocean of purity. So taking care of the details that you just told us about, these terrible details, taking care of them, you will realize what you want to realize. Yeah. Yeah, just going through so many different emotions, just listening to everybody one after the other and different thoughts.

[67:48]

And then it seemed like there was something in your talk that made me put my hand up. What was that? I remember what it was. It's just so many other things have happened. So... say a couple things. You can say a thing or two and then we'll go on. I was consistently disappointed with your talk this morning. You started with a kind of general reference to violence and war and then you went on all your examples which were just the usual mundane attention to daily activities that we learn about in Zen practice. I go to a Sashin or a practice period of some kind of, I have the luxury of just focusing on how I cut the chart or whatever, you know, that's actually very beneficial and good for everybody.

[68:52]

But when you only give those examples, you know, They're just these little personal... I know that the attention to those details is important, but I keep thinking, we have choices. Everything is in front of us, not only the tax form, not only the stroke of the swimmer, but right next to me, right in front of me, the deaths and destruction of so many people are going on, so many innocent people. Those don't come up in your examples after a sort of generic bout of violence in the world. So that's how I was annoyed and disappointed with you. Like, you know, somebody could pay exquisite attention to the way I cleaned the sink this morning, and that would be good for practice. But I could forget about the people who were killed and destroyed, 85 schoolchildren or something, you know, by bombs from Israel and the U.S.

[69:58]

You just forget about that and think, oh, my practice is good. I'm paying good attention to the cleaning of the sink. So that upset me and disappointed me. And even as I prepare to say these things to you, I thought of this great song by Sancho Panza in The Man of La Mancha, where he just tells, he just says, I'm sticking with my master. He's my friend. And I thought, I'm sticking with you, Reb, you know? You'd probably like this song if I sang it to you, but I've already taken enough time. So anyway, that's it. Your examples are so individual and so local and so nonviolent. That upset me. So let's hear the song. I'm Sancho, yes, I'm Sancho.

[71:02]

I'll follow my master to the end. I tell all the world proudly. I'm his squire. I'm his friend. That's the opening to the song. Thank you for the song. Thank you for that song and the previous one. Thank you for the song. It's called the song of disappointment. It's called the cry of disappointment. How does that affect you? I feel grateful that you told me. I feel grateful that you can tell me that in person and with other people witnessing. This isn't just a cult here. The people who are in the cult are critical of the cult.

[72:10]

That's good. I'd send you that song if it was a cult. Right. All right. Hello, Great Assembly. I'm feeling appreciation for the presence of the Assembly today and all those who have shown their faces. I wish to offer confession of

[73:16]

not taking care of the particular and as of late, noticing how it has caused some harm and looking at, hmm, what is it? How is it that I'm not taking care? And what comes is what seems to arise is that I want to push away my experience. I want to push away where I am. And this morning, it's been a luxury of immersing myself in where I am and feeling support from the community. I'm confessing that I am not taking care of the particular, and I'm sorry.

[74:23]

I feel sorrow about that. I wish to. My aspiration is to take care of the particular, as I believe that takes care of the whole. Now, the hard part, the challenging part, which I often, I've noticed in talking with the Assembly, I stop there, but I'd like to take it one step further, something you have shared with us, to say, I need help. I feel that support and help today. And I wish to feel it when not here.

[75:32]

I wish to remember to take care of all the particulars. for the welfare of this assembly and beyond. Thank you. I have a comment, which is... Do you want to hear my comment? I welcome it, yes. I think you said you want the support? Yes. I don't know that I said want. I think I said I need. Did you say you want? You said you feel the support.

[76:36]

Yes. And I think you said, maybe you always said sometimes you don't feel the support. Yes. So... you said you'd feel the support and then sometimes you don't. And I would say to you, you are supported, whether you feel it or not. So, if you feel it, you're supported. If you don't feel it, you're supported. And in order to realize that you're supported, part of what's necessary is to take care of not feeling supported. Yes. So when you don't feel supported, you are supported to take care of that. And if you take care of it, you'll understand that you're supported even when you don't feel you're supported. So I'm one of the people who support you to be compassionate to not feeling supported.

[77:42]

but not just so you have a compassionate response to not feeling supported. When we don't feel supported, if we compassionately respond to the feeling of not being supported, we will wake up to the Buddha's teaching that we are always supported. But in your case, you sometimes don't feel supported. So that's calling for compassion for not feeling supported. Calling for compassion for the resistance. Mm-hmm. For the resistance, for the not feeling supported. Of not feeling supported, yeah. No, no. Two things.

[78:46]

One is resistance to the support. Right. The other is not feeling supported. The other is thinking that not feeling supported means you're not supported. All that stuff is calling for compassion. Sometimes people think they're supported and they probably like it. Sometimes they don't. But when you don't feel supported, that feeling of a lack of support is calling for compassion. What do you think of that? I'm ruminating. OK, yeah. So what do you ruminate about that? I don't know that words would Be beneficial.

[79:50]

Maybe just absorbing what was just shared, what you just shared. And sitting with that. Okay. Thank you. There's quite a few people who have their hands raised. and it is now past 11 30. uh usually we end at 11 30 so i'm sorry but um i think and people are leaving the assembly so i'm sorry but i think if it's all right could we conclude our assembly today thank you so much sorry we didn't get to all the questions

[80:45]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.03