Philip, is this your first time coming to Noabode? No, I was talking about Philip. Philip, right behind you. It's his first time. Roberta, you've been here many times. And is it Ali? Welcome to Noabode. Anybody who comes here for the first time? Oh, yes, and your name again? Daniela. Daniela? Donyelda. Donyelda. Donyelda. Oh, Sonia. You've been here before. Who else has been here the first time? Oh, and the first time you and your friend? Oh, okay. Didn't realize that. Well, welcome to the people for the first time. When I arrived here this morning, I was surprised.

[01:05]

When I went up to offer incense, I was surprised how beautiful it was up there in the incense offering area. The incense dust Lovely. You can go look at it if you want to later. And the charcoal was burning very nicely. It was very beautiful. I was surprised. Wow. So lovely here. I feel so grateful to be able to practice here. So I move around in different places and then in some places I bring up teachings about the truth or bring up truth about the teaching.

[02:10]

Teachings And in different situations, I bring up different things, or rather, different things are brought up. So I have a little bit of, I have some awareness that I'm in all these different places, but not all of you are. So I start, I talk about something someplace, and then I get into it, I talked about it, and then I bring it up someplace else, but the people that I'm talking to now may not have heard me talk about it yesterday, so I have to kind of be careful that you, to bring you kind of like onto the train that's been cruising along, or cruising around, and there's some adjustment to the situation. Like some stories are very familiar to me.

[03:17]

I've heard them and spoken them many times. So I can, when I think of these stories sometimes, they just kind of like, they're very kind of bright and clear and happy for me. But if I tell them to you, the first time you hear them, you can barely let it in or barely remember what I said. So right after I finish telling you the story, you might not remember it. But some people in the room also have heard the story many times, so then they start talking about the story. And you hear them talking to me about a story which is like, like a story, it's like a family story in a family. So some of you are coming into like a, kind of like this situation where some people know the family stories, for years and years, and some of you are hearing for the first time, so that's part of the coordination that I'm bringing up to do now.

[04:24]

So one family story that I have been telling is a family story about the Buddha Way. So there's like a Buddha way or a path, a path of the Buddhas, a way the Buddhas practice, a way the Buddhas live, a way they walk. It's where they walk. They walk on the Buddha way. I like to say that the Buddha way, that on the Buddha way is equally wholeness of practice of the Buddha way and equally enlightenment of the Buddha way.

[05:34]

That's what it's like in the Buddha way. Another way of talking about it is that every moment on this path is the same practice, equally the same practice and the same enlightenment as you and all beings. That's what it's like on the Buddha way. Each moment is equally the same practice as you and all beings and each moment for you and all beings. I bring this up so that you understand in the background that's what I mean by practice. If I say practice, mainly I'm thinking about the practice which is the same for you and everybody.

[06:42]

And if I speak about enlightenment, I mean the enlightenment which is the same enlightenment for you, equally the same for you and all beings. All beings, and that means all human beings, all non-human beings. And non-human beings means living beings and what we might call... beings that sort of don't have feelings, like mountains. As far as I know, water doesn't, you know, doesn't like go, ooh, when it gets colder. Whereas we do. And I even think that When we pollute it, when we pour, when we not pour, but we spill pollutants into the ocean, I don't think it goes, but maybe it does.

[07:56]

But the fish and the birds, they have a hard time. We have a hard time. We get dizzy and sick when we smell that stuff. That's where it So we and the water and the pollutants and the birds and the fishes, the practice is the same practice of the Buddha way. That's the story I'm telling. It's one of the stories I've been telling. I wanted to tell you again so that you understand when I say practice, that's what I mean. Now also, there can be practices which I do and practices which you do that are apparently different. Like some women have practices that I don't do and some men have practices

[09:00]

That's not the practice I'm talking about. I'm talking about the practice which is the same practice of all of us. None of us possess it by ourselves, even though it's based on us. So we totally embrace it, but we don't own it separate from other beings. And it embraces us totally, everybody else totally. At the beginning we chanted some words.

[11:49]

We said, we vow with all beings from this life on through our countless lives to hear the true Dharma. So again, what do we mean when we say we vow to hear the true Dharma? vowing to hear the true Dharma, I think, I vow to hear. I vow to hear how all beings have the same practice. I vow to hear how all beings have the same enlightenment. What would it sound like What does it sound like? What does it sound like when it's telling you that all beings have the same practice?

[12:54]

When you hear a bird, sometimes you hear birds, and some other time you hear the bird, but somehow you hear the birds telling you, you understand the birds telling you, that it has the same practice as you. You understand that the sound of the bird, you understand, is telling you that it has the same practice as the sky and the water and all beings. You hear, you hear that truth, that teaching as you hear the bird. So the bird's voice is not the Dharma, but when you hear that something the bird's song in relationship to all beings. Do I vow to hear that? And if I do hear that, then that when you do hear this, you will be able to renounce worldly affairs.

[14:05]

And I think in this room, A few weeks ago, there was a young woman, I forgot her name, she was sitting over where Yuran was sitting. Does anybody remember that young woman? And she said, what does it mean to renounce worldly affairs? Do you remember that, some of you? Do you remember that kind of woman asked? She said, what does it mean to renounce worldly affairs? And do you remember what I said? Huh? You do not part of me. Good going, Linda. Who else remembered that? Who else remembered that? Did you remember that? Anyway, that's one of my favorite stories right there. My story is that when you hear the true Dharma, you will be able to give up worldly affairs, which means, according to that conversation, you will be able to give up

[15:12]

Living half-heartedly, or I should say living anything other than wholeheartedly, you will be living partially heartedly, which I never said before, partially heartedly. Part of wholeheartedness is you wind up talking in strange ways like birds. Make a bird sound, please. Good. Yeah, so that's a story. The story is that wholehearted practice is the same practice as you and all beings. And when you hear the true Dharma, you will be able to give up. You will be able to give up any kind of half-heartedness. So, now, before you hear the true Dharma, if you haven't heard the true Dharma, if you haven't actually heard it, the truth of what I just said, if you haven't heard that in your heart, that you have this truth about all beings, then you can try to practice wholeheartedness, because that's the way you'll practice after you do hear it.

[16:28]

So start practicing, consider to start practicing like you would if you heard the true Dharma. consider practicing sane practice, wholehearted practice. And again, this is not something you're going to be able to do by yourself. So consider entering the practice together with all beings. Is that a new karuma? No. Yes? I can open at least somewhat to all beings having the same practice, but the same verification, or that type of enlightenment, that's harder to open to, that that's the same for all beings.

[17:30]

He said he feels he can open somewhat to the same practice as all beings, but he has harder, he feels some difficulty, some indigestion or something about opening to the all beings, the same realization of all beings. Is that right? Yes. Which also means he thinks that the practice and enlightenment are different. They're different words. So, you've heard this before, I'll just say it again. The practice of the Buddha is to practice in the same manner as all beings.

[18:39]

So that's the practice of the Buddha. Now is that also the realization of the Buddha? Well for Buddhas, again my story would be that the Buddha's realization and the Buddha's practice is the same thing. If you want to know what the Buddha is, the Buddha is what the Buddha does. The Buddha is the activity of Buddha. And what is the activity of Buddha? It is the activity of all beings. So most beings that I know, they think they have one activity and somebody else has another activity. Their activity is the activity of all beings. And Buddhas don't think that either. They teach it, but they don't think it. They are it. They are the activity of all beings. And that's what we mean by verification. And that's verification. Okay.

[19:42]

Even though they're verifying it. Even though they're verifying it, they don't understand it. I can open to that. So, a recent is that somebody told me about feeling seasick. If you get on a boat and go out in the ocean, you might get seasick. And one way of speaking about seasickness is it's a way you start feeling. Your nervous system starts getting confused because your organs are getting jiggled around. and it thinks maybe it should, for example, it thinks maybe it should throw up, it should empty.

[20:47]

The nervous system says, maybe we should empty what's in the stomach because we're getting a signal like we do sometimes when we're being poisoned or when there's, you know, so maybe we should. Do people get diarrhea when they have seasickness or just throw up? Just throw up, yeah. Even, and then if there's nothing in your stomach, the nervous system says, empty vomit at all. It keeps wanting you to vomit, I think. And this is one story of what causes this seasickness is that the person doesn't know how to use their legs on the changing surface of the deck of the ship. They don't know how to go with the flow. So they go back and forth and their internal organs get shaken up and they get sick, they get seasickness. And after a while, if they, well, I guess if they can take seasick medicine, but also if they just keep walking on the deck, eventually they'll learn, hopefully, how to adjust to this change so that they don't feel seasick anymore.

[22:07]

so they get their sea legs as we say. And the nice thing about seasickness is that you are actually Linda, you're frowning. You can hardly wait. You don't want to wait much longer. The thing about seasickness is that it's for a lot of people, I think, I just think this, you know, I don't know that much about seasickness, but my impression about seasickness is that for a lot of people, they don't know about it. What? Yeah, yeah. And so the seasickness is a pretty wholehearted event for people.

[23:17]

Some people might wish that they were not participating. Like, you know, people give me some seasick medicine so I don't have to feel this. Right? So then they go through the seasickness with some kind of turning down of the symptoms. And then they still keep trying to learn how to... They still try to learn their... But before you take the medicine to whatever that does for you, I don't know. If any doctors know what it does. But if you don't have any medicine that you take for seasickness, I would say it's a pretty wholehearted event. And people are not used to being wholehearted. So they feel sick. But in wholeheartedness they find their sea legs. Then after they find their sea legs, then they can return to being half-hearted again.

[24:19]

You know, like sailors do not necessarily stay in the condition that they arrive at when they finally accept their seasickness and let their legs learn. Then after that, it's like they're on land again. They know how to walk and they're like on land and then they go back to their worldly affairs, you know. What are the worldly affairs? They go back to half-heartedness. How do they do that? But they don't just stand on the deck and be bored with the ocean. They don't just stand and look at it. This way is kind of like those last ones, you know, splash, splash, splash. They don't do that, most of them. They find some way to be half-heartedly on the ship. play cards, take drugs, lift weights, play shuffleboard.

[25:26]

Do you know what I'm talking about? Now when you have seasickness, you're not bored. I guess some people are bad seasick, but it's not that boring. But some people might say, boring, boring seasickness. But they don't mean boring. They mean this is tough boring. And then when you're okay again, then you start, what can I do to distract myself from being here with the practice of all, with the practice of the ocean? and the big ship. And people find ways often they have stuff on the boat usually for people to play with after their oath of seasickness. You know, steer the ship and so on, that's part of it. So they use work to distract themselves.

[26:26]

So, you know, for a sailor to do sailor's work can be used as a distraction, as a worldly affair, as a kind of half-heartedness. But again, when it's... They usually stop playing cards. Or maybe they keep playing cards, I don't know. But anyway, in some stories, you know, they get up there and they're not seasick anymore, but it's related to seasickness. It's called survive the storm. And they, again, are not half-hearted if it's a perfect storm. They're not half-hearted. They're wholehearted. and they have trouble adjusting to the wholeheartedness. Part of them is probably thinking, not anymore about throwing up, but they're thinking about death, you know, and how uncomfortable they might be, and never seeing their families again. They start thinking about that stuff. But ladies and gentlemen, at a certain point, they stop thinking about that sometimes.

[27:33]

And they're just on the boat and each other, and that's it. And they're wholehearted. And they're with the practice of the whole ocean. And they don't have time to think about doing something else. They don't have such a time. They have the time of practicing the same practice as the ocean. Now the ocean's not concerned about drowning. And at a certain point, they're not either. They have the same practice as the ocean. They have the same enlightenment as the ocean. Oceans have enlightenment? Well, that's what I'm saying to you. I'm saying oceans have the same enlightenment as the sky. and the fish, and the mountains, and the humans.

[28:41]

There's an enlightenment which is the same enlightenment as the oceans, and the ships, and the sailors, and all beings. And we have to be wholehearted with this. So, looks like that makes a lot of sense to you, even though it's... And also part of the vocabulary of storytelling is some old stories which help us understand new stories. So today I... about seasickness and wholeheartedness, which are kind of old stories, but it's also kind of a new story.

[29:50]

I never heard this seasickness story in the Zen history before, did you? No, it's a story. I'm telling a story today. I never told it before that I can remember. Now, another story which I've heard before is a story about ancient China, Zen, world, and there's a teacher named Master Ma. Ma means horse or something like that. Horse master. Sometimes they say it's cow master, but anyway, some big four-legged animal master. He has a long tongue. And so he had a disciple named... Wong Bo.

[30:52]

Wong Bo, that's right. No, no. He had a disciple named Hyakujo, a disciple named Nanchuan, and he had some other disciples too. And Nanchuan had a disciple named Jiaojiao. Nanchuan killed the cat. Nanchuan killed the cat, yeah. That's the story anyway. And so Nanchuan killed a boy named Jiaojiao, and Jiaojiao is famous for living to be 120 years old. That's his picture in the hallway there. And there's a picture of him in the hallway, which Luminous Owl can show you if you want to touch it. You can also lick it if you want to. that relates to another story. But I'm not going to tell you that one right now. I'm going to go to the Zhao Zhou story. And Zhao Zhou, when he was a teacher in his later life, he had a monastery and one day the director of the monastery came to him and said, Zhou, a monk has come

[32:10]

and wants to know the essential meaning of the Buddha Dharma, of the true Dharma. And Zhaozhou said, tell him to have some tea and go. And the superintendent went and told him, and then the superintendent came back and said, so what is the essential meaning of the Buddha Dharma? And Zhaozhou said, have some tea and go. That's one story. Now, another version of the story, if you're ready for it, are you ready yet? The first one was easy, right? Did you get it? Have you memorized it? So, a more elaborate version of it is and told Zhaozhou that two monks had arrived and wanted some instruction. And Zhao Zhou said, send them in.

[33:19]

And they came in. And Zhao Zhou asked the first one, have you been here before? And he said, no. And he said, drink some tea. And then he said to the next one, have you been here before? And he said, yes. And he said, drink some tea. And then they drank their tea and they left and the superintendent said, okay, bring aside for the moment the one who hadn't been here before. How come you told the one who hadn't been here before to drink tea? And Valjo said, superintendent? And the superintendent said, yes, sir. He said, drink some tea. Do you know this story now? Please take care of it. It will be useful in the future. I have a confession.

[34:35]

I didn't get any of them. Okay. Not the first. Of those two, you didn't get either one of them? Okay. You didn't understand it? But can you remember them? Yeah. Yeah, I just want you to remember them because later we're going to work on this, okay? I wanted you to get this scene. When I say, you know, when I say, Jojo and the tea drinkers, you know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, you might say, well, what are you talking about, Jojo and the Tea Drinkers? I say, well, remember the guys that came? And you say, oh, yeah, yeah, okay. But you won't ask that because you remember that part. So now we're going to work this story for the next few weeks. Some of you will be here when we work it. Some of you won't. But eventually you think the stories are going to come back to you probably, so it's good to know these stories because you're going to work on them for a while.

[35:38]

Okay? So I'm not expecting you to understand these stories so far, and I actually don't expect you to understand them later either. It's just that I'm going to work on them some more. I want to just put them out there for you. And you can watch what happens when they get brought up in another context. Each time, you know, showing you the story in relationship to other stories. Yes? Is that story related to how we all realize in the same way, or practice in the same way? Is that story related to how we practice in the same way? I don't know. He doesn't know.

[36:39]

And I don't know either, but the answer is yes. Out of the mouths of babes come pearls of wisdom. It can be a babe in Zen. And, yes? How do you know that this wasn't a method? How do I know what? That it wasn't a method. How do I know it wasn't? Yeah. How do I know it was? What do you think? What do I think? I think it was a method. But I don't know how it wasn't. Do you know how it wasn't? Yeah, I think it was a method. That's what I think. And I have no problem with that. Because Zhaozhou is the grandson of who?

[37:48]

Master Ma, Matsu, yeah. He's the grandson of Master Ma. So I don't have a problem with him having methods. One time, he was studying with his teacher, and his teacher was named Nanyue Huirong. So he was practicing, Master Ma was practicing with his teacher, Nanyue, and he was always sitting in meditation, always sitting upright, in meditation. Now, that might be difficult to understand, too, how somebody could always be sitting in meditation. But anyway, that's what the story says. He always was sitting in meditation.

[38:49]

And one time, his teacher came up to him and said, worthy monk, what are you trying to do sitting there in meditation? And Master Ma said, I'm trying to make a Buddha. Now that sounds like maybe he had a method. And he was using the method to make a Buddha. Sounds like that, but Don't be hasty. Just listen to this story. So this is a real story. It's a real story. In other words, it's really a story. It's a story based on reality, but it's a story. And now you've heard the beginning of the story. Do you remember it, Helenia?

[39:59]

Yeah. Do you remember anything? Just you. Just me? What do you remember about me? That you have begun to look like an old woman. I've begun to look like an old woman? That's her story. Before I asked, she already told me that's her story. which apparently I have a story that people found that entertaining. How about you? I am always sitting in meditation, drinking tea with the old ladies, which I've always wanted to do. So then Nanyue picks up a tile, a roof tile maybe, wall tile, and starts to rub it with a stone.

[41:15]

At length, Master Ma says, Teacher, what are you doing? And Nanyue said, I'm polishing this tile to make a mirror. And Master Yama said, how can you produce a mirror by polishing a tile? And Nanyue said, how can you make a Buddha by sitting meditation? So then Master Ma, the student, says, then what is right? And Nan Yue says, when a person is driving a cart, if the cart doesn't go, should he beat the cart or the ox?

[42:28]

Master Ma did not reply. Nanyue went on, are you studying seated meditation or are you studying seated Buddha? May I stop now for a little while in the middle of this ocean story? This morning I was informed that some people were here and practicing seated meditation. Did you hear that story? Were you part of that story? Were you practicing seated meditation? I heard about you guys. Were you studying seated meditation or were you studying seated Buddha?

[43:39]

Master Ma was studying seated meditation to make a Buddha. How about you? Were you studying meditation to make a Buddha? Were you studying seated meditation to study seated meditation? Were you practicing seated Buddha? If you're studying seated meditation, meditation is not sitting still. If you're studying seated Buddha, Buddha has no fixed characteristic. In the non-abiding true meditation, there should be no grasping or rejection, not to mention rejecting. If you're studying non-abiding true Dharma, there should be no grasping or rejecting.

[44:56]

If you're studying seated Buddha, this is killing Buddha. If you grasp the characteristic of sitting, you're not reaching its principle. So I wanted to cite this old story to you and the other one too and I hope you take care of it and I'll bring it up again and again if I keep living with the old ladies and drinking my tea which was very delicious and there's a little bit left if anybody wants a tiny sip You want some?

[46:07]

Mr. Johnson. No, no, thank you. Mr. Johnson. Yes. Was that wholehearted? Absolutely. There you go. Okay, well, I'll just wait for a second here for it to get to be 1212. And, of course, this watch, which is not correct. An incorrect watch, which I love very much. Is that my watch? Satellite is correct. That's true. How did you know? Tracy? First, I want to say it's very embarrassing making comments here because everyone seems so learned and they know all those names.

[47:10]

Could you hear what she said? It's very embarrassing talking around here because I don't know all these Chinese people and I feel ignorant and like I should only ask about stores and I have something else I want to ask about and it's embarrassing. Okay, so I appreciate you telling us about how embarrassed you are. And this is today's story, the Tracy Apple story. Okay, and now, but I just want you to know that you can go right ahead and be embarrassed, but I told this story because I didn't think you'd memorized it yet. So I was telling you so you could memorize it. And then you can be like real smart the next time. Yeah, so this is just, I'm trying to teach you vocabulary so we can do some Zen exercise programs. So you're being introduced to these stories now, okay.

[48:14]

But now you want to talk about something else? Yes, some other story? Yes, okay. Okay. It seems like you're saying that in this practice, wholehearted anything is better than half-hearted anything else. I didn't say better. I didn't say better. I didn't say that. No, it is the way. It is the way. It is the way. Wholehearted is the way. And half-hearted is not the way. So wholehearted is the way and half-hearted is not the way. But half-hearted is completely included in wholehearted. So don't worry. If you're half-hearted, don't worry. Or go right ahead and worry. You are included because the way you worry, there's a way you're worrying, which is the same practice. and the same enlightenment as all beings, and that wholeheartedness includes your half-heartedness.

[49:21]

That kind of takes the wind out of my question. You did? Oh, we're still kind of interested. What was your question here? I'm thinking of being sick, and I'm thinking of a time when I was just in huge anguish, and I got the impression from you, you said someday you may be grateful for this time. And I've been thinking about that ever since. Like, what are you talking about? Why would I ever be grateful for it? And it seemed to me today, maybe you're That was very wholehearted. Yeah, right. But who would want that? It was horrible. Who would want wholeheartedness? Yeah, whether it's seasick or anguish. Why would you want that? Who would want wholeheartedness? Well, WHO is an acronym for World Honored One. But are you really saying that? Really? That that's better than... I didn't say better.

[50:29]

Better is half-hearted. I don't know. It's just the way. The world-honored one practices the Buddha way. And the Buddha way includes all beings. It includes you. No matter what you are, it includes you. It includes your way of practicing. But sometimes... You're not into liking and disliking. You're not into liking and disliking. You're just into like... You know, like Gordon. Well, you know, without any comparison or past and future, you're not looking to entertain. You'd like to entertain yourself, but you're just too occupied with something. You just can't get away from it.

[51:30]

You just can't distract yourself. You just can't be half-hearted. And there's a time there when you're not at all, and there's no like or dislike, and there you are. And looking back on that, you have a taste of what it's like to be on the way. I do that in my worldly affairs. Sometimes I'm very seasick and very wholehearted in conducting worldly affairs. And somehow, I feel that's enlightenment. That's my practice.

[52:31]

That I don't have to give up all of the affairs to be wholehearted. When you... up the world, worldly affairs, Because the way I'm using worldly affairs is half-heartedness. But I don't think you're using it that way. I think you're using worldly affairs to refer to something different from what I'm calling it. I'm calling it half-heartedness. But I think you're talking about something else when you say worldly affairs. What are you talking about? Can you give us an example? Yeah, the conventional, you know, marketplace versus... Yeah, the marketplace, the monastery, if you're in the monastery and you're half-hearted, you're practicing worldly affairs in the monastery. If you're in the marketplace and you're wholehearted, you're giving up worldly affairs.

[53:36]

So you're in the marketplace and you're really sick for example, in the marketplace, totally sick, not even like thinking about how long you've been sick or how long you're going to be sick, you're just sick. At that moment, you're giving up. When you're resisting being sick, if you're in a monastery and you're resisting being sick, you're involved in worldly affairs. If you're in marketplace and you're being sick, you're resisting that. you're in worldly affairs. So in the marketplace you can be shopping and be wholehearted and you're on the Buddha way in the marketplace if you're wholehearted. And somebody said, well, what about wholeheartedly doing unskillful things?

[54:39]

I'm saying to you, that you cannot be unskillful when you're wholehearted. You cannot be unskillful when you're wholehearted. You have to be half-hearted. You can only be half-hearted when you're unskillful. We're ignorant, so are we half-hearted all the time? If you're ignorant, And you're wholehearted about it. Okay? What do you mean? If you're wholehearted about your ignorance? About your ignorance, yeah. Or in your ignorance, if you're wholehearted, like a person, you take a person, an ignorant person, put them on a boat, start rocking the boat, they get sick, and they're like totally, wholeheartedly sick and ignorant on the boat. Okay? That's the way. wholeheartedly practicing in the midst of ignorance you're so wholehearted you're not trying to not be ignorant you're trying not to be you know you're so wholehearted you're not trying to avoid any ignorance you're also not trying to get any enlightenment

[55:59]

You're not trying to get anything. You're not even trying to get over seasickness. You're just totally sick. And your legs are like, you know, trying to find out what to do with the deck. You're totally involved. That's the way. And that way of being includes everybody else being that way. And all the Buddhists are that way. You don't have to change. You don't have to get more. enlightened or be less deluded at this moment. You have to be wholehearted about what you are. And then that's not... Then you've given up worldly affairs. And I see Lynn, but there was somebody else wasn't there? Somebody? Yeah. Elizabeth and then Lynn. I raised my hand in response to Tracy, what Tracy said.

[57:06]

Okay. And then now I've gone to something that happened last night at a restaurant with my family. What I heard, for me, the answer, when Tracy's to me was a cry, why would you want to feel that anguish, for me, the response, I felt my heart open to that and the response was because that meant that you would want that much. It meant you would love that much. You would love that much. Which I think I envy. Did you say you wish you envy that? I think I envy that. That for me is that that would be incentive to me to bear anything as it came with having loved that much. Right. Then did you wish to give us something?

[58:26]

What about gain and loss, which you had said previously was being... I don't know if I said that, but you got gain and loss, okay? I'm sorry, half-hearted. I think you said gain and loss was half-hearted. being concerned for gain and loss, being involved in gain and loss, that comes from being half-hearted, yeah. When you're wholehearted, you're not involved with gain and loss. However, when you're wholehearted, you have the same practice and the same enlightenment as gain and loss. Gain and loss are two beings that you're practicing with. So, like, you see gain, you go, you love it. When you see loss, you love loss. You don't like gain and loss, you love them. They're like your dear friends. Well, they are your dear friends, right? Well, I should say, well, gain's my dear friend, but loss isn't.

[59:33]

Well, no, I think loss is your dear friend. You just don't realize it yet. You love loss, but you don't like loss, usually, and you do like gain, usually. That's deluded people like gain and hate loss. But actually, they're both your dear friend in wholeheartedness. Everybody and everything is your dear close friend. And because you love everything, if anything's suffering, and things are suffering, you feel anguish. But it's a great happiness that you feel anguish because you love all these beings. That's great happiness that you love. And their pain really hurts you, but you're very happy that those you love, when they're in pain, you feel pain. It's super happiness.

[60:34]

It's the greatest happiness. And it goes with the wholeheartedness. The wholeheartedness, it opens us to the suffering of those we love. Because in wholeheartedness, we love everybody. When we love everybody, everybody and everything, not like everybody and like everything, or hate everything. The love and the hate are part of what we love. We love, I should say the hate and the like and the dislike is part of what we love. In ourselves, in others. Like is a being. Dislike is a being. Mushrooms are beings. They're fungi. Fungi, you know. Everything is something to love. That's wholeheartedness. Everything is something to love. Everything. Including people who seem to be acting half-heartedly.

[61:36]

And when they're half-heartedly, then they're into like loss. So all these beings that you run into are involved with these beings called gain and loss. And they're really, you know, like liking and disliking them. You love all those beings. And you love the things that they're liking and disliking. And you love their like and dislike. And you don't like or dislike anything Practicing with all the likes and dislikes, you are just wholeheartedness. That's all you are. Everything else is an illusion which you love. That goes. That goes. And that goes. And that goes. It's gone. And now... May our great love and wholeheartedness equally extend to every being in place with the true merit of the Buddha Way.

[62:54]

Now here's a chant you can listen to and recite when you can hear it.

[63:04]

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