Yesterday we had a tea and during the tea some people expressed some difficulty in understanding some of the things I've been saying. One person said something like, you know, being in class here on Monday night, And I'll say this, and then if he wants to revise it, he can. Sitting in class, he was observing the people in class, the participants in the class, acting, and he was wondering if everything that was happening there was the performance of the Buddha way. Something like that? Want to say it a little differently?

[01:01]

That's pretty good. And so I would... I don't say everything is the performance of the Buddha way. But I would say that the Buddha way is none other than the performance of the Buddha way. There's not some other Buddha way other than performing it. And this talk like that has been very difficult for some great Zen students to understand. So if you have trouble understanding that, that seems difficult to understand, you have the company of great ancestors who just really couldn't get it. but then finally did. And then they really thought it was great and strongly impressed it upon other generations who had a hard time understanding it and understood it and so on.

[02:08]

This principle that the Buddha way is the performance of the Buddha way or the Buddha way is making our action the Buddha way is called by Dogen, Grandmother Mind. And another way to put it is just that it is the idea that the Buddha way is that your daily action is for the sake of the Buddha way. Your daily action is an offering to the Buddha way. It's an offering to Buddhas, to Bodhisattvas, to the welfare of all beings. And it is that your daily actions of body, speech, and mind, that a given action of body, speech, and mind is dedicated, is given, is donated, is for the sake of the Buddhadharma and the Buddha, which is the Buddha way.

[03:11]

So it's simply that every action, it's simply that an action and hopefully each action and every action would be mindfully performed for the sake of realizing the Buddha way in this world for the welfare of all beings. So it's kind of simple in a way, although kind of difficult in a way. And another thing that Joseph said, he didn't exactly say this, but he kind of implied that he was watching the other people and wondering if those people were performing the Buddha way. So the Buddha way isn't something you can watch somebody else do, even if they're somebody who everybody thinks is like a Buddha. That's not the Buddha way. Some great practitioner comes into a room and sits in meditation. You watch and say, now is that performing the Buddha way? That over there isn't performing the Buddha way.

[04:18]

The Buddha way is when the person over there is observed by you and your observation of that person is for the sake of the Buddha way. Now if that person is also behaving for the sake of the Buddha way, then the two of you together are intending to perform the Buddha way, and that really is the way the Buddha way is realized. It's not just that I intend to take a step for the sake of the Buddha way, although I do sometimes, and that's required, I think. The grandmother mind wants, is for me to make every action for the Buddha way. But it's more than that. It's that I make every action together with others who are also making that action. That's the Buddha way.

[05:19]

But my part is that I'm mindful to dedicate my actions to the triple treasure. And I care about that with the wholeheartedness that a grandmother cares for her grandchildren. And so, but that's a little bit different from saying everything that is done is the Buddha way. And the teacher, Dogen, who emphasized this daily life as the enactment of Buddha way are making every action a ceremony of the Buddha way. That teacher lived in an environment where a number of students who came to practice with him had come from the Zen tradition which said everything that you do is the Buddha way. So it was very subtle

[06:23]

turning sort of in the wrong direction that they got this teaching. And this understanding that they had is sometimes called antinomianism. And antinomianism etymologically means against the law or against the norms. It means that since everything you do is the Buddha way, you don't have to worry about precepts because lifting your arm up is realizing the Buddha way. And you have faith in that, right? So sometimes antinomianism is called salvation by faith alone. You don't need to practice precepts. But part of the Buddha Dharma part of the triple treasure is the teaching of precepts. And one of the precepts is the precept of forms and ceremonies.

[07:31]

And the precept of forms and ceremonies, I'm suggesting, is that you make everything a form and a ceremony of enacting the Buddha way. So that form or that norm is part of what my actions could be donated and dedicated to. And without dedicating it to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, it's not the Buddha way. So he had to work to clarify this. And at the same time, he didn't want to say, oh no, it's not that everything that you do is the Buddha way, it's that make everything you do the Buddha way. And that And that's the only way to realize it. So again, if you see some excellent practitioner over there, and there are excellent practitioners over there, they're not really over there.

[08:39]

they're here with you. And if you participate with them, then we have the practice, the excellent practitioners practicing together. So I, in one sense I feel like I'm kind of, what do you call it, sympathetic to to some feeling that you don't understand what I'm talking about. I'm not really sorry if you feel that way because I kind of understand that the way you are is really good. And I also understand that maybe it's starting to sink in and it's like on the verge of transforming your practice into authentic Buddha way and there's still a little bit of resistance to it, which takes the form of, I don't understand. But another principle which I offer you is please trust understanding.

[09:51]

If you understand what I'm talking about, please trust it. And if you don't understand it, please trust not understanding. And if your understanding has gone beyond understanding, please trust that too. Is it getting any clearer, Massimo? I trust. Yeah. I trust. Does that mean you will participate with the way you are? Yeah. Joseph, is that getting any clearer for you? No? Do you want to ask a question? No.

[10:51]

No? Yes. How can I be any other way than the way I am? You can't be. So how is that not performing the Buddha way then? I'm still not distinguishing. Well, do you realize the Buddha way? I guess not. Doesn't seem like it. Well, I mean, you seem to be saying that you don't understand it. I guess not. Yeah. But if you make what you're doing, if you make every action you do for the sake of the Buddha way, you will understand the Buddha way. You will realize it. You will understand it and you will manifest it. That's what I'm saying to you. But if you don't give Joseph and all his actions to the Buddha way, then you won't understand it.

[11:53]

That's what I'm saying to you. Now, if you do give what you're doing to the Buddha way, and then you say, I still don't understand, we can talk about it then, when you do. Yeah. The, you know, what do you call it? It's also like... Oh, here's another way to put it. One time I heard a rumor that Thich Nhat Hanh said that, I don't know, the Buddha way or Dharma or something like that or Zen was not imitation. And then shortly after that another Zen teacher said Zen is imitation. But then later Thich Nhat Hanh pretty much said Zen is imitation. So I think he was just being playful. But I think, so I proposed to you another way to put it is that the Buddha way is to imitate the Buddha.

[13:01]

So you like, and you know you're imitating the Buddha. You don't think you're Buddha. You know you're you've got some room to grow before you're Buddha, but at the same time you practice imitating the Buddha. Like you sit like the Buddha and walk like the Buddha. Or I'm not saying you do, but you could. You could sit like I'm sitting like a Buddha and you could walk like I'm walking like a Buddha. And you could even say I'm pretending that I'm a Buddha. And that's the ritual. I'm pretending that I'm offering incense to a Buddha, but I'm pretending to be a Buddha offering incense to Buddha because I've heard from Buddhas that they all offered incense to Buddhas. So I'm offering incense to Buddhas like the Buddhas offer incense to the Buddhas. I'm practicing like a Buddha. I'm pretending to do that. And in the ritual, you come to a place where

[14:06]

the distinction between me, the American man, pretending to be a Buddha, offering incense to Buddhas, where that separation drops away. There's still me pretending to be Buddha, or imitating Buddha, and Buddha. There's still that, but the separation is gone. And when the separation's gone, of course that's realizing the Buddha way. to imitate, to pretend to be a Zen student, then the difference between your you, the pretend Zen student and the actual Zen student, the difference isn't a separation anymore. And the difference, the separation is the problem. The separation, for example, I'm pretending to be somebody who understands relating to somebody who really does understand.

[15:13]

And in that relationship, the difference between the one who doesn't understand, the separation between the one who doesn't understand and the one who does, drops away. And then both sides share in the understanding. But I don't expect that you would understand that without practicing it. So I guess I just want to know, do you understand enough to start practicing? Or do you understand enough that you don't yet quite want to start practicing? And if you want more encouragement to get started, let me know. I'd be happy to encourage you to get started. And if you started, then I don't say instantly, you're going to understand that there's no separation between your state and this other state.

[16:16]

you may not be able to develop the wholeheartedness in the pretense or the make-believe. It has to be wholehearted. You can say, well, that's just a trick. You're just going to keep saying, I'm not wholehearted enough until, you know, until, yes, that's right, until. I don't want to talk you into this, but I just want to mention that, especially you people in practice periods, you have nothing else to do, so why not be wholehearted? No one's asking you to do anything else but this, right? You say, no, they're asking me to sweep the floor. No, that's not something else. They're asking you to sweep the floor, but while sweeping the floor, wholeheartedly do it. for the sake of the Buddha Dharma. That's all. Nobody's asking you to do anything, not here anyway, nobody's asking you to be half-hearted about that, are they? Right?

[17:24]

Nobody's doing that, are they? No. Is there anything anybody wants to bring up? Please come, Elizabeth. I know I also really wanted to see what the room looked like from here for a few weeks. Yesterday was the first time I heard you mention crying into something when Anne asked you about painting. And I'm very interested in that place and if that was something that one could practice.

[18:32]

every moment, or is it only for painting? No, you can do it for sweeping, washing dishes, cutting onions. Yeah. Right? Could you express it with those? Yeah, who weren't there, yes. Oh, Anne asked me if I was a painter, and I said yes, and then we got into me, and I think she asked me, well, how do you paint, something like that? And I said, well, just the first thing that came to my mind was that when I'm painting or when I'm brushing, I try to, especially when I'm like, I might say, I must admit that I do it especially when I'm kind of like painting for keep, so to speak. If I'm just, you know, like for example, if I'm just transcribing sometimes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, when I'm transcribing from the dictionary or from a text onto some scratch paper,

[19:41]

Just to sort of get the shape of the character from the dictionary or from the text onto a piece of paper, I sometimes don't do this. But then when I actually start to try to make the finished product, then I try to like cry into the stroke. and that it helps me like read somehow it helps me be more more there and also it helps me be less controlling of the stroke because i'm partly i mean i'm crying like uh in the sense of i'm i'm really including that it might really be ugly and that that i might make a mistake and i'm not in control i'm just sort of giving up into the process and uh it feels that actually i really like to do it that way And then I could do everything that way too. So I'm not forcing the strokes. I'm not forcing things to go well. And they usually go much better that way, but sometimes they don't.

[20:46]

But if I make a mistake, it goes very well with the crying. And if it is ugly... I don't so often get angry that it was an ugly stroke and that I wasted the paper. It's all just a big kind of, like, tragedy. It's like the White Queen. What? The White Queen from Alice in Wonderland. She cries first, like, times backwards. So they cry before the pinprick. Yeah, so I think, yeah, it's similar to relaxing into the activity, giving up trying to control. It's similar, but still making an effort, you know, getting the paint and the brush and the paper, getting it all together. And sometimes doing that with the same spirit is good, too. Get your broom and get your...

[21:47]

dishcloth and get it all together with the same spirit of getting ready for this big surrender to the work. And then kind of things go really well usually. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think I'm asking for permission to practice or experiment with living on the verge of tears. Yeah, you have my support. I don't know about the administration, but, you know, I hope that they support you too. Thank you. Like, you know, if you're working in the office, don't cry when the guests come in. Don't cry when you answer the telephone. But I think that my work, actually, you might be able to have a very sweet sound, like,

[22:55]

Hello. And I really do mean on the verge, because I didn't know if that's what you meant by crying. I think I heard it as being on the verge. The tears are starting, and it's like your chest melts to live from that place. It's kind of on the verge. I just sort of cry. And not necessarily, actually, the tears aren't necessarily there, but they might be. Mm-hmm. And another thing that I feel particularly, doing calligraphy, I feel closer to the ancestors whose words I'm probably writing. And I feel closer to them who wrote these words originally when I had this kind of crying attitude. And now that I'm looking at May, I thought, well, you know, also it seems like tea ceremony has this sadness in it. Like, you know, take care of the tea house, but really the tea house is falling apart.

[23:57]

You know, take care of the flowers, but really they're falling apart. Take care of the whole tea ceremony, but really it's falling, everything's falling apart. And we're taking care of it, but not to hold it together, but taking care of things while they fall apart. So again, things are falling apart. That's the way things are. But if we don't practice with that, we don't realize. Impermanence is characteristic of compounded phenomena. But if we don't think about that, then we might not realize it. And not realizing it is missing out on a very tender relationship with impermanent things. or letting impermanent things have a tender relationship with us who are also impermanent. So it seems to kind of open up the chest, open up... And also try to do it with your whole body. I would start with the face maybe, but particularly like my arm, if I'm doing creativity, my arm has to kind of like cry too.

[24:58]

So my eyes, my shoulder... my whole body crying into the characters. It makes it really a whole body enjoyable experience, kind of no matter what happens on the paper. But I think the paper works out pretty nicely too. No matter what. It's beautiful. I also wanted to mention that Malvern asked me if we could sing America the Beautiful again. Yeah. But maybe not, huh? Okay. I'll be disappointed. You'll be disappointed? Okay, ready? I'm not going to sing. I don't know the words. Okay, so you're just going to listen?

[26:00]

With open ears. Okay. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of green, for purple mountains' majesty, above all fruited, America's, America's, God shed His grace on thee. And crown thy good with pride. It is beautiful. This is good for politics.

[27:22]

Anyway... I like shift. So, I have a slight problem with pretending. With the word, really, rather than the doing. How about make-believe? Well, the word I was going to ask about, if I could use for Melbourne occasionally, is rehearse. Go right ahead. Is that all right? Sure. Because I quite happily rehearse being a bodhisattva, but I don't really want to have the pretense of one. Do you want to make believe that you're a bodhisattva? Oh, I make believe, yeah. I can do that as well, yeah, both of those. Is that all right? Yeah. Grand. Yeah, once upon a time there was a man named Malvern who was a bodhisattva. Yeah, sounds good to me. Yeah, welcome. Thank you. Welcome to the Bodhisattva rehearsal.

[28:24]

Maybe dress rehearsal. Yeah. We'll talk about it. We'll have an ongoing discussion. How's the Roxasin on you? Go on. It's slow. You keep changing the schedule so at four o'clock I can't do the sewing. And I think it's being done on purpose. Anyway, but yes, but it'll be done. Really? Fantastic. Yeah, great. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to get my grandchildren to come. You're kidding. No, just my grandchildren. They're going to come here? No, no, no, I won't be doing it. We're going to do it back in the old country. Back in the, yeah. Any colonials who want to come. LAUGHTER OK, great. LAUGHTER I went to Oxford one time and I went to this beautiful library and the person who was giving me the tour said, this is the colonial section of the library.

[29:38]

This is America. Anything else you want to bring up tonight? Marshall? So, what it seems to look like to me is that someone says, oh, sweep this. Okay, maybe I even think, oh, I don't want to sweep it. But then, sometimes I think, this is great, because now I have an opportunity to... practice the Buddha way, have an opportunity to do something for others who I can realize are also myself.

[30:39]

This is a good opportunity. This is good. Yeah, I agree. And it seems like I'm sweeping, thinking, uh-uh, sweeping brothers who are myself, sweeping brothers who are myself. I realize I'm going away, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. And it feels like this background track. You know, I've got this music going on, the theme music to my sweeping. I keep playing this. sink in but but it's very different than sometimes i just disappear in the sleeping oh what was that i don't know i wasn't thinking there wasn't my music something different yeah and then uh and then sometimes i'm i'm distracted and sometimes i'm uh forgetful i forget that i was sweeping for all others

[31:41]

totally forget that that was what I was doing. And then minutes later, oh, that's right, I had intended, I had thought this was a great opportunity, but I totally forgot. I started to resent what I was doing. Or I was thinking something else and completely neglectful of what I was doing, not really paying attention. And I guess that's just an opportunity to... It could be, yes. To be with my confusion and neglect or whatever. And be with your confusion, which, you know, that's a traditional suggestion. When you're confused, be with it. And also be with it. You know, give yourself to being with it, not just be with it to be... because it's good, but also in more than good, more than just good, also it's the enactment of something that helps. Well, it's sort of the same as good.

[32:43]

It's the enactment of what helps all beings. And also, you can also, you don't have to think it, but you can actually just, when you're sweeping the ground, you can feel like an authentic Zen monk, because Zen monks do that. They sweep and they rake. And they don't necessarily think, I'm an authentic Zen monk. They don't necessarily think that, but they maybe feel completely into that and they have confidence that they're doing this together with a centuries-long tradition that's supporting them and that they're paying homage to and paying respects to by sweeping the ground. And then you have the joy of feeling all the ancestors there with you, practicing with you. You don't necessarily think it, but you feel uplifted and ready for whatever because you're not sleeping by yourself anymore.

[33:47]

And that can come when you're sort of like, when you're not there, too. You're not there, and suddenly everybody's there. All that can happen when we're sweeping, when we Zen students are sweeping. That's why, you know, that's one of the great things about our work. And are those just two different states with the same practice Buddha's way? Or is that like... They're kind of two different states. One state is a state of like... It's the context of emptiness, and in the context of emptiness, all form is the realization of it, and you can't find anything. On the other side, you're taking care of forms in such a way that you're open to emptiness, that you're open to the truth. When you're open to the truth, in some sense there's nothing there, but that also allows all the support to come to you that allows the sense that you're practicing together with everyone because you have no sense of, you know, substantial separation anymore between yourself and others.

[35:00]

You've actually realized that that cannot be found. And in that state when we first experience there isn't really anything happening. There's nothing. Nothing's happening in that realm. There's no coming or going, no increase, no decrease. But then that opens the door on the positive side of it, which is being able to see that you're practicing with everyone, which is part of that same unfindability. Another part of the unfindability is that others are yourself. But when you can find things, when you can find, for example, yourself, then you still maybe sort of think others are not yourself. But when you can't find yourself, you realize others show you yourself. As soon as you see another from that place, you realize who that is. So it goes round and round for us. Now the Buddhas do both simultaneously. But for the Bodhisattvas, we flip back and forth between form and emptiness, between thinking and beyond thinking, or thinking and not thinking, back and forth.

[36:11]

In emptiness there's really no rituals. But then when you come from emptiness, whatever you do is a ritual. And then if you get to the place where everything you do is a ritual, you're open to emptiness. And then from there, when you come back into doing something, what you're doing is a ritual. And then around again and again. So there's an opening to emptiness, and then there's a residing in emptiness. Not exactly a residing, but a realization. And in that great spacious openness, then when form comes again, you understand that it's emptiness. And you understand that it's... that's who you really are, whatever comes. And whatever comes is usually not you. Then you understand that others are yourself. Then you understand that from emptiness you understand everybody's practicing together. And then you practice that way, and then you get another dose of emptiness.

[37:20]

So you get liberated from the form to the emptiness, and then from that liberated place you plunge back into the practice, the forms of the practice, the sweeping, the sitting, the seeing, the hearing. Keep practicing. Keep practicing. And then hopefully I just keep practicing, keep practicing and realizing. And when there's realizing, then there's practice, and when there's practice, there's realization. It's the Heart Sutra, you know, in action. It's performing the Heart Sutra. So I came to think of a question a couple of days ago, and now it felt relevant.

[38:38]

I was wondering if you ever pretend to be a sentient being. Do you ever play a sentient being? Do you ever just do casual blah blah blah blah? Or are you who? Because it seems like every time I meet you, it seems like you're in the place of Pretending to be a bodhisattva or perhaps being a bodhisattva? When I notice that I'm acting like this ancient being, I often do try to dramatize it. And that helps me not take it too seriously. Like if I notice that I'm getting happy because I gained something, or getting sad because I lost something, or even if I notice that I think I gained something, I do try to kind of emphasize that.

[39:45]

Otherwise, I maybe sink down into it a little bit. So I try to, in some sense, do it really fully. when I notice it. But sometimes I'm a sentient being, but I don't notice it, so then it's hard for me to pretend to be a sentient being. But when I'm a sentient being who's mindful, then I often will dramatize what I've noticed I'm up to, I try to. So bodhisattvas are sentient beings, they're just this type of sentient being that's playing all the time with being a sentient being. And when the bodhisattva is on duty, they're noticing that they're ascension being and they're dramatizing that. They're enacting that. They're totally being that. They're playing that role. Yeah, but sometimes, you know, like again, if I see a gain and I get happy, I sometimes get carried away by the happiness without like really being mindful.

[40:52]

that I'm getting caught by the happiness. I want to really say, okay, I'm happy and I'm really totally into that. Or I'm sad and I'm really like totally foolish and that's, you know. So I do that. And some of the time I'm doing that, you might be, when you see me, I might be doing that. And so, but to you, I look really busy concentrating on what I'm doing. Yeah, I'm kind of, like Alex said, I'm kind of serious, right? Kind of serious. But serious and sincere are kind of sometimes related. I'm sincerely sometimes doing what I'm up to. Just like children, when they're playing, they're kind of like seriously pushing the trucks through the dirt, you know? They're really kind of... But they're also kind of concentrated. You know, they're really kind of paying attention sometimes really well at what they're doing, and it could look serious, but it's also that they kind of know what they're doing. Sometimes, not always.

[41:55]

They get distracted too, of course. So yeah, that's how I do try to practice that way. Sitting here, I don't think you don't seem very serious and concentrated to me, like in this kind of setting. You seem more like, it seems more like you're hanging loose. Just being like, open to what's going on. I seem more serious in other situations? Yeah. I kind of think of something else. Yeah, but I don't feel, for example, when I sit down at the table for dinner, I don't feel like I'm being invited to, you know, to talk to people. I mean, it's okay if I talk to people, but it isn't like they're coming. I've been specifically asked to sit down at the table to talk. I haven't even been asked to eat. So I don't feel a request in most situations. Whereas here I feel like you're kind of a little bit asking me to say a little bit, at least for a while.

[42:55]

So then when I start talking, it's kind of like that. So otherwise you're just... Otherwise I'm kind of a quiet guy. I'm kind of quiet and serious. That's how I usually look, kind of like a cow walking. But the cow has inner practice. Yeah, and kind of like when you say cow, you know, cow's little tail, what do you call it, goes flap, flap, flap. To keep the flies? Yeah, it seems. And I was looking at you, you're touching this and going like that. And I've seen her sometimes wear the tea bag. I remember once you dropped the tea bag and you went, oops. I thought that was kind of sweet because it seemed sentient to me. Yeah, one time I was eating in a zendo, and I was looking up at Suzuki Roshi, and he was eating, and he had his main bowl, and he had white rice in there, and he had made his white rice into kind of a ball, sort of gathered together, so kind of all together in a kind of little ball, and he was tilting it, the bowl was tilting sort of,

[44:21]

at about 45 degrees and almost like the ball could roll out. And I thought, well, but Zen masters can pull that off. But then the ball rolled out of his ball onto his lap and he picked it up and put it back in. And I thought, oh, he's a sentient being. But good enough for me. Yeah, sure. Yes, Alec. Hi, how are you? Good. I want to talk about myself for a minute. We can come back to you. But I'm not noticing anything about you right now. I have a confession to make. I'm not really up here. I'm just pretending to be up here because I realized after numerous times coming to your classes and sitting here in Wheelwright Center and watching people come up in this format,

[45:29]

I played out different scenarios of how I might do that in my mind, and I sort of acted them out in my mind, and each time I would come up with absolutely no real good reason to come up here. So I was doing that again tonight, and I thought I'd just tell you a little bit about how I came to not be up here. You mean how you came to think it wouldn't be worthwhile? No, how it is that I'm not really up here. I'm just pretending to be up here because I'm really way too shut down emotionally to actually sit up here and share what's going on with me with this room full of people. There's just no way. So I wanted to share with you how I got there to this place where I just in no way can I share what's going on. Okay. One of my strategies when sitting and listening to you talk in these classes is to try to seize upon something clever, I might say, because it seems to me that this process is very exhibitionatory, exhibitory. And so if I'm going to come up here, I'm going to want to seize on something clever that will make people laugh and think I'm funny and smart and cool.

[46:35]

So the first thing that occurred to me, you were talking about encouragement if if you uh get it enough do you get enough so you feel encouraged enough to start practicing you were sort of saying that rhetorically um and if you don't then ask me and i'll give you some encouragement so i thought to myself i know i will go up there and i'll ask her for some encouragement and then i said to myself well do you really need encouragement i mean do you really need encouragement to practice? You pretty much have the motivation, I think, at this point to practice. What are you really after? And then I said to myself, well, I think what I'm really after is I want to get, I want to trick Reb into telling me some know some detail that some particular that i could do uh because i don't quite get what practice means so if i if i pretend that i want encouragement maybe he'll let slip something information and i thought you know that's kind of dishonest so if you're going to go up there you better cop to that so that's what i'm doing um and then um you were talking about imitating and pretending and

[47:46]

And then I thought, well, gee, I wonder if, I thought to myself, well, that sort of implies a level of inauthenticity, you know? And I thought, well, that sounds very erudite. So maybe I could share that and then suggest maybe a word like emulate. You could, oh, I see. You know, and I say, well, emulate be better and then if you agreed then everyone would think I'd be really cool and if you didn't then they wouldn't. That you had sort of upgraded the discourse. I had claimed the nomenclature and laid the groundwork and could be remembered for that or something. So then I got to you know, a bunch of little things I've sort of been keeping in my quiver, like you keep talking about how we're working on realizing that others are myself, and there's this great line in the Tenzo Kyokun, when Dogen is talking to the Tenzo, and he's out there in the hot sun drying the mushrooms, and he says, Tenzo, why don't you get an assistant to do this?

[48:48]

Why are you doing it? And he goes, and he says, others are not me, and I've been wanting to pull that on you for a long time. And I know that that really doesn't happen. But the truth of the matter is that I don't have the courage. I don't have the openness of heart right now. My heart's really closed down, and I'm really resistant to practice, and I don't know what it means. And it's really because... As a personal note, I was informed today yet again that my medical insurance is going to terminate. And so I rely on very strong and constant medication to keep myself from being an institution. And it looks like that's going to go away. And so now I'm all afraid of being reinstitutionalized and being separated again from Zen Center. And so my walls are up and I don't have any real ability to talk about this anymore. And so I'm just pretending to do that today. Pretending to do what? To come up here and tell you that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

[49:49]

It seems when you talk about ritual, that part of what it means to make something a ritual, an action, is to perform it without a gaining idea. Is that right? That's what I think Zen ritual is. So is there any reason then to put it in a more positive way, like you've been doing, instead of saying act without any expectation or without any gaining idea, to say... act as an offering to the Buddha way. Because the negative way... It's kind of the same. The negative way seems to work better for me. And I'm not sure, is that... I think if the negative way works for you, that's fine, and then you'll hear the positive way, and you might someday see that the positive way is actually... totally in accord with the negative way. For example, to make an offering to Buddha of your practice of offering without a gaining idea, that's a very excellent practice.

[51:43]

To make an offering to Buddha without, you know, without giving up the gaining idea, it's still an offering. But to offer the practice of doing it with no gaining idea is, in some sense, even a greater gift. It's a dharma gift rather than just a material gift. So if you give incense to the Buddha, that's an offering to Buddha. If you think of Buddha, if you honor Buddha, but if you do that within a gaining idea, it's not really... as good as if you would do the same acts with no gaining idea. Or if you do the same acts really for the welfare of the practice rather than thinking about myself when I do that. Well, anything, any action though, not necessarily a ritual, ritualized action, so like sweeping you were talking about earlier, if you just do that without any gaining idea, that's already a ritual.

[52:48]

Yes. Without even thinking about it. Right. Okay. And I often tell the story of the Tibetan monk who was approached by, I guess, his elder brother or teacher and he said, I see you doing all these rituals around the temple and it just really deeply touches my heart to see you doing these rituals. He's actually doing what people would usually think are rituals, like making offerings and bowing, instructing students and things like that. He said, would it be nice if you did something spiritual? And the guy says, and I go around like this on a number of occasions of him praising the rituals he's doing, but then saying, would it be nice if you did something spiritual? I said, what do you mean? What would be spiritual? Stop trying to get something out of life. the same actions but not trying to get anything out of them.

[53:51]

That's what makes them really Dharma practice in the full sense of the word. In the meantime, they develop the, they kind of set you up for somebody saying that to you. He thought that you would actually like, he actually heard it several times, but he says, well, what do you mean? He got the information several times before he asked him, what are you driving at? And I guess when he told him, it made sense. And the person who, you know, well, anyway, you get the picture and you're going to try to practice that way, I guess, huh? That's what I'm doing. It's called via negativa. That may be your way. For now. Yeah, it's a great path. Many great ancestors have practiced that path. Oh, yes. May I invite Alex to come back? Yes, you may.

[54:53]

Would you like to come back up here for a second, Alex? Here? Does that work for me? Yeah. Do you want to trade spots? Would that work better for you? No, that's fine. No, that's fine. I'm happy here, or I'd be happy to rearrange. That could be kind of fun to switch spots. Wait. That. That. That. We want to talk to you. Are you playing Alec? I guess so. Alec, who are you playing? I'm not sure. Do you want to come over here and I can send Steve over there? I can come over there. Since I guess both of you are Alec, and I'm Alec too, I just wanted to say I admire your courage.

[56:16]

And I really enjoy practicing with you. I enjoy practicing with you too. With all of you. May it always be this way. No, I'm up here. Do we move from box to box, or are we just playing in this one big box? We don't move from box to box. We are a succession of boxes. I don't understand. You're a box now, and now you're a box, and now you're a box, but you're not moving from one box to another.

[57:26]

You're a form. You're five skandhas now, and now you're another five skandhas. The first skandha is the form box, physical boxes, and then there's feeling boxes, and perception boxes, and emotional boxes, and that's where we are now, and now we're another one, and now we're another one. We're not moving. We're transforming, we're changing. We're impermanent. And every one of these boxes is an opportunity to realize emptiness. Every one of these boxes is to realize that others are what the box is, that it has no self. And then bring that understanding into the next box and really in the suffering of the world. Okay? Thank you. You're welcome. I have an idea what your answer would be like, but I just wanted to bring it up to hear it again from you.

[58:56]

I'm noticing that I often think like I'm not treasuring this practice period enough or just the time and the great opportunity that I'm actually here and all the beings that helped me to be here. including my company. And today I received an email from Barbara, and you know her. And she said, like, be careful to really treasure this time. She's coming for Rahat. Be careful to really treasure this time. It's so special. I was a bit afraid. And I find it pretty hard. Sometimes I feel like I have to feel bad because I'm relaxed. And perhaps this relaxation is just the other side of not making enough effort or not trying enough or harder.

[60:05]

Yeah, so I wanted to bring it up. And so what am I going to say? Can you be playful with people this way? Yeah, and also, I also say that this relaxation, although it might be laziness, it might also be very close to the way Buddhas are, because Buddhas are relaxed. They are relaxed, and they're also totally wholehearted in their devotion and concern for the welfare of beings. And great bodhisattvas are relaxed and at ease, and they're willing to give their life at a moment's notice from that relaxed place. So, what is it? There's a Japanese expression. There's probably a Korean one, too. When the people in the mountains see fresh fish, they think it's rotten. You understand?

[61:10]

People in the mountains never see fresh fish. They only see old fish because it used to take a long time to get up in the mountains. So when they see fresh fish, they think it's rotten. So when you actually get to the balanced place, you may feel like you're sick or that you're lazy. If you don't care too much, if you don't work too hard, you may think you're lazy. So when you start feeling relaxed, that actually may be very similar to realizing how precious the situation is. If you realize it's precious, but you get worked into it, we're all worked up about it, then you might miss it too. It's so precious, I don't want to miss a moment of it. Well, you just missed three right there. So I think actually relaxation opens you to like, I could miss the preciousness of the situation. That's kind of like part of what the situation is, is a place where you can realize, I could be missing my life.

[62:17]

You can think like that for a whole practice period. That's very close to being with your life. I could miss my life. I could miss my life. That's similar to crying into each moment. Like, I could miss this life. I could miss this life. I could lose this life. I could waste my time. And that feels intimate with my situation when I think like that. So I think actually there is this danger that we will miss the opportunity, but a more characteristic form of missing the opportunity, which you may also be challenged by, is to be thinking about what's going to happen in January. or a later part of December. That's more this kind of thing that you should watch out for. But when you're actually looking at yourself and assessing your level of presence and relaxation, I think you're not thinking about January. You're right here being this person who is concerned with whether she's balanced. And that's really, you know, that's what we're trying to do.

[63:23]

I think we're all spending some time with that, I hope. I hope we're all wondering if we're present. Are we really present? Could it be more present? That question is quite present. Am I distracted? But just thinking about January and what best flights you can get and stuff like that, that stuff I think I would encourage you to put off for a month. A whole month. But I'll miss my chance. A whole month. I would encourage you. You may not be able to, but I would encourage you to work with the kind of problems you're bringing up. That's good. You need say that if we think that we understand your teaching, that we can trust.

[64:42]

And if we think we don't understand, we also can trust them. Not so much trust the teaching, but trust you're not understanding. Yes. I wanted to say that. Thank you. And also to go beyond the understanding. But how can I know if I don't know if I know? Well, by being wholehearted, basically. I have a question now. When you are teaching us, then I can feel a lot of love. It means not love, you know, not this kind of... Not liking. No, it's an opening. Yeah, right. And all the time when I can feel opening, then there's a feeling I can trust.

[65:49]

So, can I be so... And complicated, when I feel opening, I can trust. Or I have to know I can... Do you say opening you can trust, or do you say you trust opening? Yes, I wanted to say that. That you're trusting opening. Yes. I would encourage you to trust opening, to trust being open. Attention, everybody, stand to ready.

[66:54]

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