I probably shouldn't tell you this funny image that has come up, but it often comes up. So now I have all these wires into me. It's kind of, again, like being in intensive care. And I just thought, I wonder if when I'm in intensive care, if also in addition to all the wires, you know, the wires that the medical people are putting on me. I wonder if they'll also be like video cameras on me and various kinds of recording devices to see how I, you know, to record how I deal with being in intensive care. I've never been in intensive care in the hospital, but I wonder if I am, if it will be recorded. in various ways for people to observe my practice of stillness in the intensive care unit.

[01:13]

Or perhaps I should say the practice of stillness. An image of practice which I often bring up is the practice, what practice? The practice of the Buddha way. One image of it is clean the temple and then sit. And then another image is that Zen practice, which is a form of the Buddha way, is also clean the temple and sit.

[02:26]

And another way to talk about Zen practice is psychoanalysis and rituals. So today I offer the resonance between cleaning the temple and perhaps I could say psychophysical analysis and sitting as ritual. without doing some psychoanalysis, without taking care of our psychophysical processes, we may not be able to perform the ritual wholeheartedly.

[03:53]

without cleaning the temple we may not be able to sit wholeheartedly. But let's just say that we have done enough psychoanalysis, enough psychophysical cleaning, so that we can now sit in meditation and perform the ritual of sitting meditation. I don't know if we have cleaned the temple enough to look at the actual ritual. So I ask you, do you feel ready to look at the ritual?

[05:02]

Do you feel clean enough to look at the ritual? Or do you want to do some more cleaning? Ready to look at the ritual? I think sometimes you have to leave the place dirty, otherwise you spend all your time literally cleaning it. You never sit. So sometimes, at least, I mean, I'm taking it very literally, like cleaning the... I know we're speaking of it in metaphor, but sometimes... Yes, I'm asking you, are you clean enough to look at the ritual? which means not cleaning completely, but yes, being able to... Are you cleaned enough? Do you feel cleaned up enough, that you've cleaned the temple enough to wholeheartedly look at the ritual? Do you? If you don't, then I don't know if we'll go ahead and look at the ritual if you're not ready. So let me know when you're ready.

[06:03]

We'll just wait for you, okay? You're really asking me. I'm asking you if you're ready to look at the ritual or do you want to do some more cleaning? If you want to do more cleaning, we'll do some more cleaning. It's up to you. You're holding up the whole group. They're already... I think we should look at the ritual. You do? Because I think we would spend all our time cleaning, so we must move on to the ritual. He set the condition, so he's holding on. Wait a second. You should say that. Don't get her to talk through you. But I was confused about whether you were being rhetorical or really asking. I was really asking. And in really asking, when I really ask, my question does not exclude rhetoric.

[07:10]

My wholehearted requests and inquiries are rhetorical and ironic, paradoxical, humorous, playful. The whole universe is in all my questions. Are you ready to look at the ritual? Yes. Have you done enough cleaning to look at the ritual? Yes. She said, yes, that is a ritual. And if you say no, there will be consequences. May you ask a question? Yes, you may. What do I mean by cleaning the temple? I mean dealing with your consciousness in a compassionate way so that you feel that you're ready to look at what sitting is.

[08:26]

But some people may feel like, I can't look at sitting, what sitting is. I have to do more work. I have to deal with other things right now. I can't look at what Buddha ritual is. I'm not ready to say yes. What are the consequences? Of what? Saying no. Probably we won't go ahead if you're not ready, if you say no. So we have certain ceremonies and I say to people, are you ready to receive such and such a precept? And they say, yes, I am. Now will you receive such and such a precept? And they say, yes, I will. If they say, no, I don't, then we stop. That's a consequence. They don't very often say no, but if they do, the ceremony stops. And that might be, you know, people might say, that was a great, I never saw that before, that was great.

[09:30]

The whole ceremony stopped. The person said, no, I will not. I came to a precept ceremony and I said, I said, no, I will not. So, We do ceremonies where the person says or physically gestures by offering incense and bowing. They say, would you please give me the precepts? Or they say, would you please give me such and such precepts, Bodhisattva precepts, Buddha precepts. Will you give me the Buddha precepts? And then I say, okay, yes. Now are you ready? Now will you receive them? The person says yes. If they say no, we will not probably proceed at that time. Say, well, then maybe later. I'll check with you later. What we just went through could be seen as temple cleaning.

[10:36]

Maybe we did enough temple cleaning to proceed. Are we ready? Yes? I don't often know the difference between sitting and temple cleaning. You don't notice the difference between sitting and temple cleaning? Well, sometimes I'm cleaning while I'm sitting. Or stuff comes up. Yeah. Yeah. So I asked if there was enough cleaning going on, and it looks like a little bit more cleaning is kind of being called for. When we're in a meditation hall like this, and we sit down, Many times, after we sit down, we realize we have to do some cleaning at our seat. When you first come into this temple to sit, you may not have done the cleaning necessary to do the ritual. So the first, not the first, but you may have to do cleaning for quite a while before you can actually perform the ceremony, perform the ritual.

[11:46]

You may have to, for example, you might feel, I don't know what, you might come into the room and sit down and feel like, you know, I'm really sorry I came here today. Or it was really difficult traffic on the way here. Or somebody told me that they were going to come here today and I was looking forward to meeting them and they're not here and I'm sorry about that. I'm kind of disturbed that they're not here. That might come up while you're sitting. And you might have to clean that up before you can actually deal with the issue of performing the ceremony of sitting. What do you mean by clean it up? Like being compassionate towards it. For example, you could think, you could come here to sit And again, you sit down and feelings of disappointment might arise in you.

[12:55]

Feelings of resentment, feelings of sadness, feelings of fear might arise when you sit down. Can you imagine that? Oftentimes people come to the temple, they sit down and they start crying. When they're driving here, driving the car, I don't know exactly, but I imagine that people driving here, they're kind of like concentrating on the driving and maybe also having various other emotional things going on while they're driving. But they're not so often crying. So a lot of people walk in here not crying, they sit down and they start crying. Great sadness comes up, maybe when you sit still. You enter the temple and you notice things that you didn't notice before. Like this place is pretty clean. Have you noticed? When you arrived, pretty clean. There's not like, I don't know what, tin cans on the floor and dropped Kleenex and socks and stuff around the floor.

[14:07]

It's pretty tidy. But if you sit down here for a little while, you may notice some subtle messiness that you didn't notice before. literally, you know, like somebody came to see me just a minute ago and they put the cushion down and I saw a bunch of dust come up. So I thought, well, during this work period, it might be good to shake out, to pound the things a little bit outside and to shake the things because they're quite dusty. And when you first walk into that room and look at... Did anybody who came in there notice how dusty the cushions were? Did you notice how dusty they were? Yeah. They don't look dusty. They look black, which is one of the reasons we use black. Actually, white would also maybe hide the dust.

[15:09]

Anyway, the room looked tidy, but when they put the cushion down, I saw all this dust come up. And so I thought, let's clean that up. But I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been sitting there and the light had been coming in a certain way and they dropped the cushion. So all these things come up when you sit that you don't notice when you're driving or walking or talking. Have you noticed that? Yeah, many people notice that. When you're in the hustle and bustle of daily life, there's lots of subtle things that you don't notice. And then when you sit in the temple, you notice all this stuff. So how do you clean it up? With compassion. How do you clean the temple? In accordance with the Buddha way. How do you clean the temple? With compassion. Now, if while you're cleaning the temple, you think, this is a filthy temple and the people here are really not very careful of taking care of this temple,

[16:15]

This is a below average hygiene situation here. If you think thoughts like that, then cleaning those thoughts up is to be compassionate towards them. Any more questions about that for now? Yes? Sometimes I find that when I'm sitting actually solutions come up that I don't normally have. They're like just the right things clear up in a way that wouldn't happen if I didn't sit. So that's another example of something that arises that's in the temple and that now be another thing to clean up. The solution. The solution.

[17:17]

Or the insight. You know? Sometimes the things that need to be cleaned up are like beautiful flower arrangements. The thought, you mean. The thought of a beautiful flower arrangement. Yes, but also the beautiful flower arrangement. Those flowers have to be cleaned up at some point. They have to be taken care of. And at the some point is right now. Be compassionate to those flowers. Which includes being compassionate to all the people in the room. So we're still kind of, not still, but we're working on cleaning the temple right now to clarify all the things that come up in our life and that part of what we need to do is we need to tidy up so that all these things do not hinder us from the ritual.

[18:26]

So there are psychological and physiological processes that all the perceptions that are arising are cared for in such a way that we can work on something somewhat different from insights and emotions and perceptions. Yes? Is cleaning up essentially not leaning in and not avoiding? Is it essentially not leaning towards or away? Or you could say that's... You could also say, is being compassionate essentially not leaning in or leaning away? Yeah. Cleaning up is to be compassionate to the temple. Compassionate enough so that you can now perform the ritual of the Buddha way.

[19:35]

I'm not in a hurry to talk about it, I just wondered when you're ready. Yeah? You keep saying the ritual. I keep saying ritual, yeah. It sounds like compassion is the ritual. Is that true? You could see compassion as a ritual, yeah. You could see cleaning the temple as a ritual. Then the ritual of compassion? No. It's not. The ritual is not different from compassion, and compassion is not different from the ritual of the Buddha way. But isn't the cleaning just an endless process?

[21:07]

I mean, it seems... Isn't the cleaning an endless process? Yes. How about the ritual? Well, I guess they go hand in hand. You have to do both. They go hand in hand. So the ritual is an endless process, too. Isn't the Buddha way an endless process? Yes. Mm-hmm. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about the ritual of sitting. The ritual of sitting. Or the ritual of the Buddha way.

[22:10]

So I... For example, I could sit. Like right now, I'm sitting. And the sitting could be the performance of... Listening to prajna all day long. It could be the performance of listening to Prajna all day long. It could be the performance of the Buddha way. It could be the performance of the practice. which is the practice of all of us.

[23:24]

there is a perception of sitting. And this sitting which can be perceived is offered as a performance of something which is not a perception. The way we are practicing together right now is not a perception. The way we are supporting each other right now is not a perception. The way we are in harmony right now is not a perception. The way each of us is living with perceptions, moment by moment, the way each of us is living with perceptions moment by moment, in harmony with everybody else, that is not a perception.

[25:11]

The way we are living together in peace and harmony right now is called many things. One of the things it's called is the Buddha way. Another thing it's called is the intimate transmission of Buddha mind. The Buddha mind seal is the activity of our true life. The transmission of the Buddha mind seal is the actual, is our actual life. and it's not a perception. The way we are living in peace and harmony is a transmission of an intimate harmony and peace which no one can perceive, which is not an appearance or a disappearance.

[26:33]

all the different living beings in the universe who have consciousness. In consciousness there are appearances. In consciousness there are appearances of appearing and disappearing, of arising and ceasing. And all these different consciousnesses are living in perfect peace and harmony with each other. And that is not an appearance. And that does not arise or cease. This posture is not an appearance. This sitting posture here is not an appearance. But human minds can make this posture into an appearance.

[27:39]

Cleaning the temple means be compassionate with this appearance so you're ready to let this appearance be used as a performance of a reality that's not an appearance. The ritual is to use this appearance as the performance of reality which is not an appearance. To use this appearance, this body and this mind, to use this to affirm. the inconceivable liberating intimacy of our life. When I was talking with you about cleaning the temple at that time, I could have been performing, I could have been using that conversation to perform the ritual.

[28:57]

I could have been using my perception of the conversation about cleaning to perform the ritual of our life together, which is not a perception. But I can also just say this posture and these words are offered as an affirmation, a ritual affirmation these words and these postures are offered as an act of service to all beings, but also an act of service to the actual relationship of this perceptible body and the peace and harmony of all bodies.

[30:05]

And I mentioned that there may need to be some cleaning in order to realize that the cleaning can also be sitting. The cleaning can also be the performance of the Buddha way. And that the cleaning and the sitting or psychoanalysis and the ritual are not actually separate. And this performance, this perceptible performance and the Buddha way are not separate. The Buddha way is the non-separation of our life and all life. That's the Buddha way.

[31:17]

But if we don't perform that, we will not realize it. If we do perform it, it's not that we will realize it, it's that's how we do realize it. That is the realization of it, and there's not another realization. And saying this, what I'm just saying to you, could be seen as cleaning the temple. To clear away any distraction from this as being the performance of peace and harmony. And this performance is the realization and there's no other realization of peace and harmony. But in consciousness there may be a thought like, no, there's another there's another realization of reality than this

[32:26]

perception. But the teaching is that there's not another reality than this perception. But if you don't make this perception a performance, then you miss that there's not another reality from this perception, from this performance. Without serving reality, we don't realize it. Even though we can't get away from it, we can't make it happen, reality is already the case. Are you making a distinction between perception and reality? Am I making a distinction? I don't know if I'm making a distinction, but the distinction can be made. Part of cleaning house is to notice, is to clean up the confusion between a distinction being made and I make the distinction.

[33:32]

Without cleaning the house, if you say there's a distinction being made, and then you say, I make a distinction, you may notice that when the statement, I make a distinction, occurs, that there's some confusion about distinctions. That's part of cleaning house. And being compassionate with a distinction's being made, and I make a distinction, being compassionate with that, allows the making of the distinction an opportunity, the making of distinction an opportunity to serve, make that distinction a service of the peace and harmony which is not a distinction and which makes no distinctions. and which is not the least bit distinct from making distinctions.

[34:41]

No matter what distinction you're making, you can never really ever be separate from peace and harmony. If you think, if the distinction arises, this is peace and harmony, how great, how distinguished this peace and harmony is. If such a distinction arises, that doesn't disturb the peace and harmony. Nothing can disturb it. But if I miss the opportunity when I say, this is peace and harmony, if I miss the opportunity of making that statement, the performance, of the Buddha way, then I don't realize that this is the Buddha way and this is not the Buddha way. Neither one of those are the least bit separate from the Buddha way.

[35:47]

But sometimes when people think, oh, this is, this is, they make the distinction rises, this is the Buddha way, they maybe feel good. which is fine. And if they think this is not the Buddha way, they may feel, oh, too bad. If the temple's clean, you can use both of those, not to hold on to either one, because when you clean a temple, you don't hold on to the dirt and you don't push it away. You use the dirt or the broom as an opportunity to perform the Buddha way. you use it as an opportunity to perform reality. And if I do not use the broom, these words, any distinction, these feelings, if I don't use them to perform the ritual, it's not realized, even though it is the case.

[36:58]

This is a strange thing about our life, is that if we don't perform our life, we miss our life. If we don't serve our life, if we don't affirm our life, if we don't pay homage to our life, we miss it, even though of course we cannot. And if you're not ready for what's going on right now, to be the performance of reality, then we should clean the temple until we realize that cleaning the temple is the performance of what we weren't ready to do before. I cannot yet say that these words are the performance of peace and harmony. I think there's some other peace and harmony than me performing peace and harmony.

[38:03]

So we have to have some more cleaning until I say, oh no, wait a minute. I'm going to use this life as the opportunity right now to perform reality. I understand that's a strange situation. I have to serve reality, otherwise I'll miss it. I have to pay my respects. I have to pay homage to reality. If I miss, I have to make offerings to it, even though it's already what's happening. Yesterday I was talking to a group of people about the transmission of the Buddha Mind Seal, which is the same as the transmission of reality. The Buddha's reality is not an unhappy reality.

[39:05]

It is a happy reality. It is a peaceful reality. The Buddha's reality is peace and harmony. The Buddha didn't discover that there's war. The Buddha discovered that there's peace and that this peace should not be held on to. etc. Every moment something comes up and in a way there needs to be temple cleaning. What is the temple cleaning? It's kind of like what Kathy said. Listening to wisdom, did you say? Prajna. Listening to prajna all day long. Another way to say it is listening to prajna every minute, every second.

[40:06]

So when something arises, it's temple cleaning time, which is to clean away any distraction from listening to what's happening as a performance of wisdom. If you're ready for this listening that's happening right now to be the performance of reality, temple cleaning has been successful. Because you are now ready and you are going to make this listening your service of reality and make this looking and this touching the current example of performing performing listening to the Dharma

[41:08]

So again, temple cleaning could be called whatever you need to do, whatever kindness you need to do in order to let go of distraction from performing your real life. And if you honestly feel, you know, I'm not yet ready to have this be the performance of reality. then I would say, well, tell me what you need to be ready. Let's do whatever you need to be ready. And later, when you're ready and you do perform, you will realize the way. And you might also realize that when you weren't ready and you said so, you were actually performing your life at that time, too. You never are not performing your life. You always are. Like we say, this intimate transmission, now you have it, so take care of it.

[42:22]

How do you take care of it? Clean the temple. Wash away any doubt that you have it. And even though you have it, you have to take care of it. How do you take care of it? You perform what you already have. Is there another word besides perform? serve. Just a second. She made a face and she said it was another one. Now, I think, you ready? Okay. Before we go on to another one, we need to clean the temple. Because when I, you know, the first time she said, is there another word besides perform? I said, okay, now I'll give her another one. But do you notice she wasn't satisfied? You need to clean the temple. You need to clean the temple before I'm going to give you another word.

[43:23]

Once you clean the temple, then if I give you another word, you might be able to use that one too. You could use the first one, too. We can go back to the first one. The first one was given to you and you said, no, I'm not going to use perform to realize my true life. I'm not going to use that word. Give me another one. So I gave you another one. That wasn't good, too. We can continue, but two is enough. Now it's time to clean the temple. which means that you'll be ready to use whatever I say and therefore whatever you hear. You'll use that. And you will use that as the performance of your life. And if you're not ready to use whatever you're given as the performance of your life, as the performance of the Buddha way, then we need to clean the temple. And I'm happy to clean the temple with you because when I'm cleaning the temple with you, my dear, that for me is performing the Buddha way.

[44:34]

When I asked about that and these questions came up, for me, that was performing the Buddha way. And I need to make whatever conversation I'm having with you, I need that to be the performance of the Buddha way, otherwise the Buddha way will not be realized during our conversation. The possibility here is to realize it on every occasion. And this teaching is saying you can realize it on every occasion, not later. I am saying that this is offered as a service to reality. And if I'm not a servant of reality, reality doesn't have a servant. And I just want to say that yesterday, when I spoke of the Buddha mind seal, that word is a translation of the word mudra.

[45:51]

And mudra means a seal, like you seal a document with a seal. And somebody said, the word seal can also mean, she said, I think she said, it means like the same. So the word seal Like a replica, is that what you mean? Yeah, like a replica. She said the same seal over and over is the same seal. That's one of the things about a seal, it's the same seal over and over. So it has a sameness quality to it. It also has a sense of authenticity, or it's a mark of authenticity. It has that quality. It also has the meaning of a circle. The word mudra also means circle or ring.

[46:56]

And it also has a meaning of joining things. So the word seal has all those meanings of it's the same thing over and over. It's the mark of truth or reality. And it's all inclusive. So the Buddha mind seal is always the same. And it is the mark of authenticity. And it is all-inclusive. And that's what the Buddha way is. It is the transmission of this mind, this harmonious mind. So our individual consciousness if it doesn't line up with this Buddha mind seal, then we miss it, even though it always is lined up with it, because the Buddha mind seal is how our minds are all lined up with each other in a peaceful way.

[48:08]

Yes and yes. Are you performing the Buddha way right now? You don't know? Do you want what you're saying to be the performance of the Buddha way? Something's out there? A deer is coming to visit? A huge buck. Oh my gosh, there it is. Hi. Hi, big guy. Hi. Horns? Yeah, horns like this. And, okay, do you see the performance? Not all of you can see the performance, but it is out there. And the performance is not just the way it appears.

[49:22]

However, there's an appearance of a performance out there. And the performance is also, by the way, temple cleaning. He's eating the temple grass. He's cleaning the temple. He's performing the Buddha way. And if you perform the Buddha way, you get to see that. Okay? And you were performing it, so then you could see his performance of temple cleaning, which is also the amazing performance of the Buddha way. Everybody is performing it all day long. Everybody is in the process of performing it, whether they think so or not, and also whether you think so or not. Okay? You have this Buddha mind. It's been transmitted to you. It's been given to you. You are performing it. You are living it. But if you don't join the performance,

[50:25]

then it's not realized. If you don't serve it, if you don't worship it, if you don't affirm it, even though you have it, you're not taking care of it. So the teaching is you have it and you have to take care of it. You are and you have reality and you have to take care of it. If you don't take care of it, you don't realize it. If you do take care of it, you do realize it. But whether you take care of it or not, it's still the same situation. It's just in one case it's very unhappy, in the other case it's inconceivably happy. Yes? Your name's Homer? Yeah, Homer. I was just thinking about what we were talking about performance and performing Buddha way. What I hear is that perfect performance means wholehearted performance.

[51:34]

And in the wholeheartedness of performance, you are. I mean, that's who you are. You're just being the performance. And then my other side is what the deer came, or the other part of me, which I would love to do this also good way, is the part of me which is halfhearted performance. Okay, so sometimes there is the appearance of half-hearted performance. Yes, sometimes there is the appearance of half-hearted performance. But even though there's an appearance of half-hearted performance, you are still wholeheartedly You cannot see it. It's not an appearance. The way you are wholeheartedly performing the Buddha way is inconceivable. You cannot see it.

[52:35]

If it is inconceivable, then How is it conceived? Okay, so you asked, I'll tell you. I'll tell you. The way it's conceived, you can look and see in your mind right now. For example, you can conceive of the performance of the Buddha way as half-hearted. That's one way to conceive of it. Which is perfect. But if you don't make that statement, it's perfect, as the performance, you miss it, or it's missed, even though it is already happening. So the performance of the Buddha way is, there's no other Buddha way than the performance of it and you can perform it in a way that you can see. Simultaneously, it's been performed in a way that no one can see. It's been performed as a reality. So, the ritual is what you can see, like these hand gestures, these vocalizations, you can see them, you can hear them, and then I must make these, each one,

[53:52]

I should say, if I make each one the performance of the Buddha way, that's how the Buddha way is realized, and there's not another way to realize it. And if I don't make it, the Buddha way is still the Buddha way, but it's not realized in this case because I passed up on the opportunity. So then I have to do temple cleaning, which means I have to find out where I think, where I'm not willing for my life to be the way. And then I need to be kind to that until I say, okay, okay, this is the opportunity I will use. I don't know who was next, but I see Johnny raising his hand and making gestures. And I'm wondering, is he offering this as a performance of the Blue Way? Yes. Great, thank you. It seems to me that temple cleaning is repentance. It seems to you that temple cleaning is repentance?

[54:56]

Yeah. Yeah. It does seem that way, doesn't it? Once we confess and repent, we're realizing the Blue Way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, once you confess and repent and realize that my confession and repentance is offered to the Buddha way. Because you could be confessing, because even before you're confessing, the Buddha way is the reality of your life. When you're confessing, the Buddha way is the reality of your life. But if before you repent, you think, what I'm doing is not the Buddha way, then that might lead you to say, oh, I repent that I didn't think that was. I'm sorry. But then you wait. You might think, now that I'm repenting, then the Buddha way. But right while I'm repenting, I'm performing the Buddha way. This morning as I was driving here, I was looking at my navigator in the car. While I was looking at my navigator in the car, the car in front of me was coming to a sudden stop so the lady could walk her dog across the road.

[56:03]

I suddenly realized that looking at the navigator was not as good as looking through the windshield. And so I repented, and I looked at the windshield and I stopped the car. What I realized was, is that my foot was already going toward the brake before I saw it happen. So that seems to me to be kind of what you're talking about here. There's a lapse when I'm not realizing, but in actuality, I am already performing. The realization is kind of a repentance, like I better just be wholeheartedly performing and not in some... alternative reality. Yeah, part of realization, realization sometimes manifests as repenting that I missed opportunities to celebrate realization as my life now. Maybe that was too complicated. But realization is

[57:06]

realization is sponsoring our repentance of making exceptions in our life, of saying that this, you know, this is not the time to affirm by this action, reality. And I'm sorry, I noticed that, and I'm sorry that I did that. But now I am making what I'm saying the performance of the Buddha way, the performance of peace and harmony. Repentance, temple cleaning, at an ultimate level, are like the smoke of incense, because ultimately They're not there.

[58:09]

They're just apparitions in a perceived life. And ultimately... Can we start from what you just said? Are you ready for what you just said to be the performance of the Buddha way? Yes. And someone could say something different to what you said. Like you could say something different. And then could you use that as the opportunity to affirm peace and harmony? Oh, yes. Yeah. And did oh, yes affirm it? That's the ritual, is whatever you're doing, the ritual is whatever you're doing, in other words, whatever you can perceive you're doing, make this perceptible action of body, speech, and thought, make that

[59:30]

the transmission of the Buddha Mind Seal. So again, we have the expression, the teaching is when you express the Buddha Mind Seal in your three actions, your actions means the appearance of action in your consciousness that's yours, the appearance in consciousness of my speech and my gesture and my thinking. These things appear in consciousness, and I wish to express the Buddha Mind Seal through this gesture, through this gesture, through these words, and through the thinking that's going on in consciousness. I wish for my thinking that you're in this room with me, I wish that to express the Buddha Mind Seal. And the teaching of the ritual is when you do the ritual of expressing the Buddha Mind Seal

[60:42]

your gestures and your words and your thoughts, when you use those things which are going on all the time in consciousness, when you use them to express the Buddha Mind Seal, the entire phenomenal world becomes the Buddha Mind Seal and the whole sky turns into enlightenment. When you do the ritual in that way, the entire universe realizes reality with that ritual. The ritual is your ritual, but it realizes everybody's practice. And me talking like this is partly ritual and partly temple cleaning.

[61:50]

I'm performing the ritual while I'm talking. I'm offering these words to realize reality, to realize the Buddha Mind Seal. And I'm also offering these words as temple cleaning to wash away any doubt in any consciousness that it is possible to make what's going on in consciousness the expression of the Buddha Mind Seal, which makes the whole universe that way. So I'm simultaneously, as I perform the realization practice, the realization ritual, I want to do that in a way to simultaneously clean the temple of any doubt, any resistance to the realization of the Buddha Mind Seal. And I'm not trying to get rid of the resistance. I'm performing the ritual as an act of compassion with the resistance so that the resistance no longer hinders the realization.

[63:06]

Yes? Before the deer came. Did you say before the deer came? Are you still back there? So we welcome this. Here's a temple cleaning opportunity. Yes? So when I call something a ritual, there's a quality of attention that's called forth. And maybe the problem is that I only think of specific acts as ritual acts. Part of temple cleaning would be to wash away or, you know, let go of the idea that certain things are ritual opportunities and not others. So this, the emphasis on daily life means the emphasis on, again, as Kathy said, no matter what's going on, listen to prajna.

[64:15]

Could be. Could be. It could be that way. So again, the image of the wind bell comes to mind. You know, a wind bell hanging. So, one of our ancestors said, like a moth, hanging in emptiness, speaking of a window. No matter what direction the wind comes from, it just always sings prajna. How does it sing prajna? By receiving the wind and going with the wind and it goes ting ting tingle tingle. then the wind comes from the other direction. Everybody sees it, goes, tinkle, tinkle. Comes from another direction, it goes, tinkle. No matter what direction, it always sings prajna.

[65:28]

It doesn't say, oh, when east winds come, then I can, you know, then I can sing prajna. But when west winds come, no. If the word... Ritual comes, I'm not going to move because I have some idea about what ritual means. No. The word ritual comes, ding, ding, ding. The word no ritual comes, ding, ding, ding. The words I hate ritual come, ding, ding, ding. Rituals are ridiculous, ding, ding, ding, no matter what comes. You use it to perform prajna. And if you have any doubts about that, then we do temple cleaning. So that you will use whatever comes. Whatever comes means whatever arises in your consciousness. Use that as the current opportunity to express the Buddha mind seal.

[66:30]

Is it a quality of attention? I won't say no. But I would say it's more a quality of faith. It's that no matter what, it's the faith of no matter what's going on in consciousness, no matter what's going on in consciousness, and there's three kinds of actions that occur in consciousness, body, speech and thought, no matter what karmas arising, My faith is to use this karma, not some other one, this one, to use it as the opportunity to express the Buddha mind seal. I have faith that it's possible. I have faith that the ancestors are telling me, use this one. to express the Buddha Mind Seal, and I have faith that it would be good for the universe, that it would realize peace and harmony if I could use every occasion in consciousness as an opportunity to express this.

[67:38]

The teaching is, if you do that, the whole phenomenal world will turn into this Buddha Mind Seal. That's an act of faith. It's an act of faith to affirm that this moment is an opportunity for realization. I affirm that. I witness this. It's a statement of faith that I'm going to use my current life as the opportunity for the way. And also, it's my faith that there's not another way than this opportunity. The Buddha way does not teach later. It doesn't say later. But if you're not ready now, then we do temple cleaning with your not readiness. and being compassionate to not being ready is again, right now, the Buddha way.

[68:38]

Okay, well that was the talk for this morning. That was the discussion for this morning. That was the performance of the Buddha way for this morning. And also the same applies for this afternoon because it's now afternoon. it's no longer morning. So we're going to use early afternoon as an opportunity. And then there's going to be like lunch, going to have lunch as an opportunity. So it's there's an opportunity for continuity. And we have to train for there to be continuity. If there's not continuity, then we say, oops, I missed a chance. Sorry. Now, here we are again. Here we are again.

[69:44]

We are here again with this opportunity and this one and this one. I'm in awe of that teaching. Amen.

[69:59]

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