It appears that this is the last class. And maybe I said this before, but may I say it again? Something I said before? After I say it, can I say it again? It seems like the good friendship that I've been talking about, the stories of good friendship I've been telling, are also stories of perfect wisdom. So the type of friendship on telling stories about are the perfect friendship which helps us.

[01:04]

It's a type of friendship which is freedom from our ideas of friendship. And freedom from our ideas about everything. one of the basic, perhaps the basic teaching of the great vehicle is that all things that appear, everything that appears, is just an idea. In the early times, the Buddha taught that everything that appears is impermanent, ill, and not self. then the next step of the teaching was to say all those things which appear that are impermanent, ill and not self, they're just ideas.

[02:12]

And also that teaching that we're just given is just an idea. And good friendship is, yes? Are the themes ideas or is it our relation, our experience? The appearances are just ideas. Appearances are entirely thought constructions. Everything that appears is mentally created. Yeah, there's conditions which are giving rise to the appearance. Yeah, which may not be an idea. But that doesn't appear. Like, for example, you are not an appearance.

[03:19]

You're like a living person. But you're not an appearance. he looks like he thinks he's in appearance. Well, I don't know what you are either. That's why my mind makes you into an appearance. Our mind makes everybody into appearances so we can know them. I was going to mention On Sunday, that was yesterday, we say, I was going to say yesterday something like, let me be clear. And I was going to say, let me be clear about something. Or may I make myself clear? And I was going to talk about that, but I didn't. But tonight I will. When we say, let me be clear,

[04:23]

or let me make myself clear. When we do that, we make ourself clear, but we also reduce ourselves to a cleared, a clarified version of ourself, into an appearance. I think the expression is okay. Anyway, living reality is not an appearance. The reality of you is not an appearance, but the reality of you which is not an appearance is inconceivable. Sentient beings are, you know, most of what we know is conceivable, or all of what we know is conceivable. Reality is inconceivable, Reality is not an appearance. But we have an appearance maker, and we come with appearance-making equipment. And in the place where we make appearances, where appearances are being produced, somebody's there.

[05:28]

Sometimes the one who's there seems like that one could be called me. And sometimes that one who's there seems like a battle-scarred tiger in a cage, a cage of appearances, encaged in appearances. He's battle-scarred, but he's happy. He's battle-scarred from the old times when he used to think that the cage was more than an appearance. Now he's roaming around there in the cage that appears. Now he's roaming around in the enclosure of appearances to invite everybody else to start playing with the appearances, with the teaching that appearances are just ideas.

[06:47]

Good friendship is to help us become free of ideas. Not to get rid of them, but to get free of thinking that there's something more than ideas. If we think appearances are more than ideas, we, generally speaking, almost almost always grasp them. And then there's stress and suffering. So freedom from ideas is freedom from suffering. And good friendship is a situation which realizes freedom from ideas So this is implying that sentient beings do not become free of ideas by themselves. And part of the reason they don't do that is because they're not by themselves. And to think that I could become free of ideas by myself is just another idea.

[07:55]

So there's a friendship in which we realize freedom from ideas. And this is the friendship of the ancestors and also the friendship of our current friends who are working with us to help us become free of our ideas of our current friends. This afternoon, or actually in the early evening, I thought about a time in 1971, earlier in the fall, like maybe September or October, the founder of Zen Center was sick.

[09:06]

In early September, he was diagnosed as having liver cancer. And he came back from Tassajara, and he was yellow. His skin was yellow. And he went to the doctor, and the doctor said that he had liver cancer. And from that time on, he never again gave a talk to the whole assembly. However, he did continue to go to the zendo for a while. After a while he couldn't, it didn't seem like he could go to the zendo, but he still came to meals. And after a while, in order to come to meals, we had to carry him. He couldn't go up and down the stairs. Now the city center has a little seat that goes down the side of the stairs. At that time, we carried him like this.

[10:11]

I went like this. Then somebody else put their hand on my arm, and I put my hand on their arm, and we made a seat for him and carried him down the stairs to dinner, to meals, and brought him back upstairs. After a while, he didn't come downstairs anymore. And he didn't have jokes on with people. And at that time I didn't think he was our friend. I just didn't use that word. And then this amazing thing happened. Today I was just amazed that this thing happened. As this person here, not this person here, but this young man who used to be around Zen Center, who has the same name as me, this idea rose in his mind, in his consciousness, to say to Suzuki Roshi, could I be in the room when you receive your massage and moxibustion treatments?

[11:22]

I said, I won't talk. I'll just be there and watch. And he said, yes. Today I thought, I was just amazed that I said that to him, that I asked for that. And I wasn't so amazed that he said, okay. I was amazed that I asked, you know, that I said, could I be with you when you're sick now? Because you're not coming to the Zen. I can carry down the steps and I can help you in various ways, but I'd like to also be with you when you're getting these treatments. I didn't say, I'd like to be with you. I said, I'd like to be in the room and just watch. I'm surprised I said that. I don't usually think of myself as having such good ideas.

[12:35]

That was like a super, super, super great idea. And he said yes. He didn't say, I remember him saying, that's a good idea. He just said, okay. That was like September, early October. So then I got to go in there and sit there and watch him get these treatments. And watch his face when the, The person was massaging and I watched his face and his body respond to the little cones of incense burning down on his back. And then earlier that year in June, he was going to go to Tassajara for the summer, which he did do.

[13:41]

And I thought, well, I didn't know he was dying. But I thought, well, it would be nice to go to Tassajara with him and be there for the summer. But I was the director of the city center, and I thought, well, if I asked to go, and I said to him, I said, you're going to go? And I was thinking it might be nice for me to go with you. And he said, yeah, that would be nice. I said, but I have these responsibilities as director, and it doesn't seem fair that I would go, because other people would like to go too. And he said, uh-huh. Well, maybe something will work out. So he went to tell Sahara, and I did not go with him. And I'm sorry in a way that I was not there, because he was teaching at Tassajara, giving lots of talks, and I didn't get to be there for that teaching.

[14:47]

But I'm kind of glad that I did not go, because things did work out really nicely. And I got to say to him, could I be in the room? And he said, okay. And I was. And I wasn't sick. So I could go and I could watch. So sometimes ideas are really great. And so there was the friendship which was teaching me to be free of my ideas of friendship. I didn't ask

[15:59]

my other friends if I could go and be with them when they got their treatments. But sometimes they ask me and I go when they're having their treatments and sit next to them. So here's another friend of ours.

[17:03]

If he was around, now I know that he was around, I would ask if I could be in the room with him. I don't know what he would say, but he might say. I'm not asking you about before the 15th day. But maybe you could say something about after the 15th day. And if I was in the room with him, I might hear him say, before I could answer, he might hear him say, every day is a good day. I'm kind of like hearing that he's saying, I don't want to hear about the past. I don't want to hear about your past delusions or your past enlightenments.

[18:11]

If you've been enlightened, I'm not asking you about that. If you've been born, I'm not asking you about before you've been born. And I'm not asking you about your birth if you've been born. If you haven't been born, however, I'd like to hear about that. I'd like to hear about after the 15th. I'd like to hear about now. So I'd like to hear about now. Yes? I have a question. Can you hear him OK?

[19:12]

I think he said, I have a question. Could you speak up a little bit? Because I think Mio could hear you, but a little louder might be good, especially if the next part's more complicated than, I have a question. Yes, I can speak up. Thank you. Can you hear him okay, Alenia? Alenia! Can you hear him okay? Apparently something's going on. We'll hear from you later. Yes? I'll speak loudly. Roshi, if, when realizing that an appearance is an idea, and letting go of that appearance, can it still hurt?

[20:14]

The appearance doesn't hurt unless the appearance is hurt. But along with appearances, there can be pain. So if you're wondering if when there's pain associated, they're coming up together with an appearance. If you're wondering when you're free of the appearance, when you understand the appearance is no more than an idea, would you also understand that the pain was no more than an idea? You're asking that? Not quite, huh? Go ahead, ask it. I'm asking if one is free from pain. You're free from the idea of pain in that case.

[21:24]

When you understand that the pain that's appearing to you is just an idea, you're free of that idea as being anything more than an idea. the pain may still be there, and also the idea of the pain may still be there. But when you're free of the idea, then you've got pain which you have no idea about. And you have freedom from the idea of pain, which you do have an idea about. And you're at peace. And you're unafraid of the idea of fear, and you're unafraid of the fear which you have no idea about. And at the same time, The experience of pain.

[22:26]

You can be aware of the experience of pain. No, you cannot. The appearance of pain you can be aware of very easily. And if anybody is not aware of the appearance of pain, I can help you with that any time. But the experience of pain, I propose the experience of pain, you do not know. It is inconceivable. However, you are experiencing a way. Moment by moment, you are a full experiencing person. You are a full experiencing person, but your full experience is not an appearance. It is the entire universe. and you don't know it. But you're a knower, you've got knowing equipment, so you render the inconceivable universe of your life into a little pipsqueak of your life which you know.

[23:34]

Now, some of these little pipsqueaks are really great, like, can I sit in the room with you, teacher? Yeah, fine. Those are great little pipsqueak versions of my life with the universe. And if you understand that, then you're free of this idea, and then you still have the pain experience, but you're not suffering. Matter of fact, you are totally at peace and at ease with the pain. This is the amazing proposal of the Buddha Dharma. We have a teacher who I told you about earlier, who I asked him if I could be in a room with him while he was in pain. And he was teaching me how his practice was dealing with his pain. I got to watch him be with his pain and with his idea of his pain.

[24:43]

I got to watch this person show me a little bit about after the 15th day, about how he was dealing with the appearance of pain and then how he was realizing intimacy with the actual pain by his level of freedom from the idea of pain. Another person who I hadn't mentioned recently is Shakyamuni Buddha. He also was in pain. He had eaten something which was really hard on his body, and apparently he got really sick, and he was in pain. And he had an idea of pain, and then he had the experience of pain. But the Buddha was still the Buddha. And the Buddha was still free of suffering.

[25:45]

The Buddha was still free of suffering and still practicing the path of freedom from suffering with this new suffering called his final illness. And he had pains before that too. And with all those pains, after he understood that the appearances of pain are nothing more than an idea. We're not saying that pain is nothing more than an idea. We're saying that the appearance of it, the way pain appears in this world, is nothing more than an idea. And we need friendship to open to that teaching. And then entering that teaching releases beings from suffering, suffering with pain, suffering with pleasure, and suffering with all conditioned phenomena. Is that like good for you?

[26:51]

Huh? Thank you. You're welcome. I'll be right with you, Justin. Elenia, did you want to tell us about what seems to be happening? You have no idea? And do you understand that that's nothing more than an idea? Do you understand that what you just said is nothing more than an idea? OK, good. Is your expression complete? Justin? One thing is you're just having a hard time understanding the difference. Or are you perceiving the difference between pain and the appearance of pain? Well, for example, here's an example.

[27:52]

You could be having an experience of pain which you don't know about. You know, like you could be, I don't know what, watching something really interesting. Or, yeah, like your son maybe needs some attention and you're like totally paying attention to that. Or maybe a better example is you're in a lot of pain and the pain is appearing to you. Okay? And you're kind of going, I see a lot of pain there. And I'm next to you and I say, that's an appearance of pain. You say, right. And then your son needs your attention and you pay attention to your son and there's no more appearance of the pain.

[28:54]

Meantime, you're still in pain. If you looked, you know, and we can do that now, you know, with equipment, you look at the nerve situation going on in your body and your brain and these little things are going off. Pain in the arm. Pain in the arm. Pain in the arm. You don't know about that, but it's happening to you and it's a condition for you having this idea, I have pain in my arm. Actually, this message really isn't pain in the arm, it's just pain. And then we have the idea it's in the arm. and then your attention goes someplace else, and there's no appearance of pain anymore, and you're in pain. You're experiencing pain like you could even be sweating from the pain, and shaking from the pain, and not even notice that you're sweating and shaking, because you're focusing on something else so strongly that there's no appearance of pain.

[30:01]

And then your son's okay, and then boom, it seems like the pain comes back. What comes back is the appearance of the pain. And it's not always that case, but I'm making an example like that, where your cognitive processes are registering the pain, your body's registering the pain, your nervous system's working with it. There's all kinds of cognitive activity going on and adjustments being made to it, and you don't know about any of it. And then that supports then an idea of it which appears in consciousness and you know about that. And that can go away pretty much entirely for a while with no change in the basic underlying cognitive process and the body information. I mean it's changing but basically the same. It might even be more painful. I teach classes in the yoga room over in Berkeley.

[31:07]

And in the old place they had, it was in a building called the Julia Morgan Theater. The theater was designed by a female architect who also designed the city center. And next to the yoga room was a dance studio. And downstairs from the yoga room was another dance studio. So we'd go in there and we'd have meditation at the beginning of the class. And sometimes there'd be two dance classes going on with two different sets of, two different piano players. And then outside the yoga room, there were the neighbors and the dogs and the buses and the airplanes. And we'd sit down there with all that auditory stimulation. And I would sit there and be aware of all this noise. And somewhere during the meditation period, I wouldn't hear any noise anymore. And I never found out whether the noise stopped or not.

[32:11]

but I didn't hear it anymore. It didn't appear in my consciousness. What appeared in my consciousness was, oh, how nice to be sitting here in quiet with these people. I didn't even notice that the noise stopped. It wasn't appearing anymore. Do you understand better now? You're curious what? You're curious what? You wonder what the practice is? Oh. The practice, well, which practice? You mean the bodhisattva practice or... So I wasn't clear what you said.

[33:21]

You're wondering what the practice is, so tell me which practice you're talking about. So you're sitting, and then pain appears to you. And you're wondering what the practice with that is? Well, it depends on what school of practice you're enlisted into. Which school of practice are you in? You want to know what the Mahayana practice with the pain is? What the Mahayana practice is, when the pain appears, then you practice generosity towards it. By the way, you may have already heard the teaching that pain is just an idea. You may have heard the teaching. But it may be that when the appearance of the pain comes up, you either don't remember the teaching or you don't understand it.

[34:24]

In other words, the pain appears as an idea, which is the only way pain appears. Okay? Pain only appears as images, as ideas. That's not what pain is. Pain's not just an idea, but the way it appears is just a mental construction. You heard that teaching. You've heard it, right? So the pain appears, and you remember the teaching, but you don't understand it. So you actually heard the teaching, but you think, well, I actually think that is something other than an idea. Doesn't look like an idea to me. Doesn't feel like an idea to me. I don't think it is an idea. I don't believe the Mahayana teaching. And I'm on the Mahayana path. So what should I do? Well, you should get ready to believe it. And how do you get ready to believe it? By practice generosity towards the image which you do not yet understand is just an image. Be generous towards it.

[35:28]

Say thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever to the pain. That's the first thing. Do you know what I'm going to say after this? Next, you practice ethics with the appearance of the pain. You don't slander it. You don't lie about it. You don't intoxicate yourself in response to it. You don't try to get control of it. You don't hate it. And so on. Are those familiar? Those are ethical trainings. And if you notice that you're not being generous, and you're being nasty towards the pain, and you're trying to get rid of it, then you say, oops, I'm not practicing ethics with this pain. I'm trying to get something that's not being given. I'm sorry. And you keep working that little ethical training machine with the pain. And you practice patience with the pain. You kind of like train yourself to like really be in the present with it.

[36:35]

Or excuse me, you practice patience with the appearance of the pain. Then you practice diligence, which means you generate a lot of enthusiasm for practicing compassion with this pain. And also you develop enthusiasm for calming down with this pain and being relaxed and undistracted in your practice with it. You're not exactly focusing on the pain, you're focusing on practicing with the pain in a way that will benefit all beings. And you develop enthusiasm for practicing that way with the pain. This is not about getting rid of pain, this is about liberating all beings, whether there's pain there or not. And then you open the door to understand that this pain that's appearing is just an idea. And then the pain's there, the experience of the pain's there, and the appearance of the pain may also be there, but we have now a liberated being in the pain room.

[37:48]

Do you understand? And of course now we have to remember to practice that. And it's hard when there's pain, because not only is there pain, But the pain appears in this space where everything's changing all the time and where there's all this deception appearing. All this stuff is going, I'm not an appearance, I'm a real thing, and you should do this and that. So it's a hard place to practice, but it's the place of practice. Okay? All right. I see Jackie, but before Jackie, we have a word from James. Well, we have a message from James. I didn't even talk about appearances. I had a thought, which was, along with appearances, disappear. Maybe the problem is not so much that they disappear, but that we forget sometimes that they also disappear, that we may not want them to appear, or we may not want them to disappear.

[39:03]

So we try to hold on to appearances and resist their disappearance. Or we try to resist their appearing. and disappear without trying to control them, to hang on to them. And they'll just appear and disappear. Right. They'll just appear and disappear, right. But if you're letting them just appear and disappear and you think they're external, then they'll appear, disappear, and you'll be scared of their appearances and you'll be scared of their disappearance. But what you're saying about now this case, you've learned how to let them appear and disappear and just let them be. This is like you have now entered into pretty much a state of concentration with them. And so you're pretty much at ease. But you still don't understand. But if you not only are at ease with them, but you also understand that these things that are appearing and disappearing, that the appearance is just an idea, and the disappearance is just an idea, plus what's appearing is just an idea, and what's disappearing is just an idea, then you're not only at ease with them, but you're free of them.

[40:25]

And once you're free of them, then the great function comes into play. I see Jackie was next. And then there's Kim and then there's Gisela. Yes? When I sit sometimes I have a lot of physical pain. And it feels, to me it feels like a sensation of pain. It's a feeling of pain. Yeah. I feel like a mental monster. Yeah, well, there is physical sensation. which is, in a sense, not a mental construct. But when the physical sensation appears to you, it has now been rendered into, it has been converted into an idea. It is just a mental construct. But I'm not saying there's no causal basis for the appearance of this pain.

[41:30]

I'm just saying the appearance, the way the pain's appearing, is a very reduced diminished version of the pain. The pain is a much grander affair, a much richer affair. The pain is full of life. But the idea of it is a small version of it. And if you believe that, then not only do you have an idea of physical pain, but you have anxiety about or in relationship to the pain. But the way the pain's appearing to you is just an idea. And it just comes and go, and it's ill, and it doesn't have a self. Could you speak up, please?

[42:33]

Are you suggesting... No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying that if you're free, free of the mental construction means that you're free of thinking that the mental construction is something other than a mental construction. So when you're free of ideas, it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change, it doesn't reduce the pain. If you're talking about pain, you could also be looking at pleasure. So if you're looking at pleasure and you think that what you're looking at, what's appearing to you as pleasure, is also just a mental construction. And if you don't understand that, you have pleasure and you're suffering with it.

[43:34]

You have pleasure and you're anxious. And the anxiety that goes with pleasure, when you don't understand what the appearance of pleasure is, that anxiety is very similar to the anxiety that comes with pain when you don't understand that the pain that's appearing is just an idea. But I'm not suggesting that when you're free of ideas, and when you enter into the understanding of what ideas are, I'm not suggesting that that makes the basis of the idea reduced or increased. It is free from suffering. That's what I'm suggesting. Like I said before, it isn't that the Buddha, when the Buddha was in pain in her final illness, it wasn't that her final illness wasn't as painful as other people's final illness. It wasn't that Suzuki Roshi's illness, that the pain of his cancer was less than a non-Zen master's cancer.

[44:43]

It's not like that. Some people actually had a problem. They thought, I didn't really think that it, that didn't seem that cool that a Zen master died of cancer. I thought they would die of something more chic. They didn't think it was that cool that he died of cancer. And I didn't really think it was that cool either. I just thought, this is what he was working with. And I thought, I want to watch him work with it. And I was very happy to be able to watch the way he worked with it. And he worked with it. I thought he worked with it very nicely. And I'm still meditating on the way he worked with his pain, but I didn't feel like, oh, he's getting it to go down. He's his end master. He can make the pain go way down. I didn't think he was doing that. And if he was, you know, I wouldn't be that interested. What I wanted to find out is how do you be really cool when the pain's big and be real cool when the pleasure's big?

[45:47]

And I thought he did a real nice job. Would you speak up, please? I don't know if he did, but I think that was the name of the game for him, is to find a way to deal with pain and be free of anxiety about it. Did I tell you about my friend at the community center who I said to him, oh, we've been praying for you. Did I tell you about that? Well, one of our friends said, You know, one of our members of our community, his name's Ty Cashman. And we heard a while ago that he had cancer. And so we started praying for him. And then I saw him at the community center starting about a month ago.

[46:49]

And I said, oh, we've been praying for you. And then after a little while he said, I remember Suzuki Roshi, some students asked Suzuki Roshi, well, what's the point of, what's the purpose of Zazen? And he didn't want to say. And then they said again, what's the purpose of Zazen? And he didn't want to say. And then they said again, what's the purpose of Zazen? And he didn't want to say. And finally they forced him really strongly. And he said, okay, it's to help you be able to enjoy old age. And then Dr. Cashman said, and that's true. But anyway, I don't know if that's the purpose of Zazen. But when you practice Zazen, in other words, when you practice Zazen and you understand that your old age that's appearing to you, the old age you know about, and some of us here know something about old age, the old age we know about is just an idea.

[47:54]

Then you are like you can enjoy it, even though it's painful. It's painful. A whole variety of pains come with it. And he said, towards the end he said, Now every day when I get up, I feel like I'm sick. But I was interested in him because the way he dealt with his sickness, the way he dealt with his old age, you know, I thought that was, I want to watch this. This is good. This is a good show. This is a good demonstration. So I don't know if he was free of anxiety, but he looked like he was working on that. He was very gracious with his cancer, I felt. I would like to be as gracious with my diseases as he was with his.

[48:58]

And he had a pretty strong disease, and he had no pain medication. I don't know why he didn't, but I don't think he had any. And he was in pain. I had a heart attack about 15 years ago, right over there in that little room. I was talking to Fu. You know about that, Jackie? I was in that room having doksang with Phu, and she was telling me about some painful situation with somebody. Some people were being mean to somebody. And when she told me that, I felt this pain across my chest. And I thought, boy, I'm really empathic. So I was kind of like, well, this is pretty good. That's what she thought too.

[50:03]

And then the empathy got kind of concentrated in like a band right across here. And it stayed kind of, it was this kind of stable, unified field of empathy. And I thought, well maybe this is something in addition to empathy. And then I said to her, maybe I should lie down. And then she wasn't sure it was empathy. She thought, by the way, that this was a teaching I was giving her. So I was lying down. And then I said, maybe you should go get Grace, the doctor, and so on. And anyway, so then things moved along through the day, and I went to the hospital. And it wasn't like It wasn't like I was thinking, well, my practice is going to make this, whatever this thing is, go away. I wasn't thinking that. I wasn't thinking, well, I'm a Zazen student, so I should be able to, like, zap this pain and move on.

[51:10]

It didn't occur to me. I just thought, okay, it looks like we're going to the hospital. Or now it looks like I'm in the emergency room. It's those doctors. It's my friends. Hi, friends. I didn't think practice was going to make this, whatever this was, go away. And it didn't. I mean it was going, coming and going, whatever it was, was coming and going. But I did think practice would maybe come to my aid and make me like be really happy in the emergency room. And it did. I was very happy there. I was happy that I was like, okay, this is the next page of my life and maybe my death. And you know, it wasn't that bad. The heart attack was not that bad. And the doctor looked down at me and says, you know, I don't think you're having a heart attack.

[52:13]

And I thought, well, it's okay, I don't mind. And then he came back and said, well, maybe you are. we can do a test, and then we'll know for sure. But there's a risk factor, not a big risk factor, but, you know, there's a risk factor. The test might cause a stroke. And I said, okay, you have my support. And they took me in and away from the part of the emergency room where I was. And I said bye to my friends. I said goodbye. Thank you so much. I was really happy and I felt like practice is really good because it helps you with this kind of thing. And even if a bigger thing comes and I can't handle that, at least it helped me with this little thing, this little heart attack, and perhaps this little death that I'm going to have in this room. But I didn't die, as you see.

[53:15]

But I was very encouraged, not by my yogic power to stop the heart attack, but by the yogic power of being grateful, not for a heart attack, but grateful to be with the heart attack, just full of gratitude for practice and for all this great friendship that I've been blessed with. I actually do not have an idea about why I'm blessed with so much friendship. I don't have an idea about it. Other than the idea, I have no idea. I do not understand why, how it works that I'm so fortunate. And I don't understand why you're so fortunate either. Okay. Kim.

[54:17]

You're welcome. Could you speak up please? I'm interested in hearing you talk about the transformative aspects of pain and maybe post-traumatic stress and if I think it relates to pain in the way that you're describing, so that instead of going, you know, instead of going the direction of putting on stress, you know, to relate to pain in a way that... The Buddha gave a teaching about pain. The Buddha's first truth was the truth of pain. And the Buddha didn't exactly say that pain's transformative, but the truth of pain is transformative.

[55:29]

So what the Buddha taught was a way of relating to pain so that you can see its truth. So I guess the basic teaching which I'm suggesting lately is to try to help encourage yourself to listen to pain, to listen to the cries of pain inwardly and outwardly, to try to listen to that and try to listen to that and try to develop a continuous listening to pain because the cries are pretty much probably coming all the time. And to develop that listening power and learning how to listen to pain, then you can teach others who perhaps need some instruction about how to listen to pain. And I think trauma may be pain that's so strong that people just can't listen to it.

[56:34]

They just close down. And then the transformative function of listening is not available because the pain keeps coming up and they keep not listening to it. So I don't say pain's transformative. I say listening to it is transformative and developing better and better listening, more and more open listening. then you can hear the truth that's there, the truth of the pain that you're listening to. Hearing the truth, then there's freedom. That's the basic thing I would say about it. And if you can't hear any pain, it might be good to tell somebody about it, and then maybe they can help you find some.

[57:39]

Now I know from what you told me that you're aware of some pain and you're up for listening to it. And you'd like to go and listen to the pain because you think that might be helpful. Is that right? Yeah. So you're not one of these people who said, I don't even know where there's any pain. I remember what comes to my mind is back after 9-11, Donald Rumsfeld said that now Americans are afraid. He said, that's not right. There should be no fear. Donald Rumsfeld, it's like he wanted to make America a place where nobody was afraid. And I feel like that's like just he wants to make a state repression of what's going on with people, to make a country where people say, well, there's nothing to be afraid of.

[58:43]

So when you come out of your house and you walk down the stairs, you don't have to pay attention to where you put your feet because, no problem, you're not going to fall down because there's nothing to be afraid of. So I'm just saying, good friendship is to listen to the pain look at the pain, smell the pain, touch the pain, taste the pain, think about the pain, and train that to be wholehearted listening and smelling and touching and tasting and seeing. And then you open to the truth, and then you can show people how to find the truth and hear the truth and become free, not just of pain, but free of suffering, even if there is pain. Again, like Suzuki Roshi, I thought was pretty good with his pain. The stories I've heard of the Buddha, she was very good with her pain.

[59:45]

I would like myself to be good with the pain that's coming to me. If I stay around with you guys, I'm going to get pain. And I'm going to get older and older and have problems that I haven't had yet. Tomorrow I'm going to have different problems than I've had before. And I would like to practice with these things in a way that I felt joyful and show other people how to do it. As long as I'm doing that, maybe it's good for me to be around. and you're a younger person so maybe you don't have so much physical pain so maybe you want to go someplace where people do have physical pain to help you learn how to deal with it and be gracious with it and compassionate with it so that when yours comes you'll be able to practice that way with yours and show people how to how they can practice with theirs.

[60:49]

Does that make sense? No? Do you have some question? I think if there's somebody there who knows how to open to what they don't know how to open to, if you can, you don't have the same thing, but if you've had or even you sense You could open, for example, to your inability to help them while they're not daring to open, and you can't get them to open, then you could deal with your pain of watching them being unable to open to their pain. That would be your work.

[61:50]

If you can open to your pain, whatever it is, then you can show them what they need to learn to do. But they won't necessarily pick it up right away, because they may have to have many lessons of you showing them, I'm here, I have pain, and one of my main pains right now is that I want to help you, and I don't see that I am, but I want to stay here with you because I want to show you what I found of staying with my pain. I really found a good thing. I found a way to work with my pain so that I'm not closing down anymore, and I'd like to be with you while I'm working on my own. And sometimes people pick it up quite quickly, but sometimes it takes them a long time to notice what you're showing them. And then again, after they notice it, they might think, well, that looks great, I'd like to learn that. But then they have to learn it. But at least now they're daring to think of the idea of opening to this huge thing, which in the past they were kind of like, this is too much, I've got to close down.

[63:00]

But you can't close down on it, of course, because all this energy is going there. And now that's causing all kinds of stress and pain. So that's the main... The Buddha does not, as I mentioned yesterday, the Buddha does not reach down and control people's pain. The Buddha doesn't go up and say, Taking your pain away, taking your pain away. It doesn't pull people out of the pain. The Buddhist works on herself, understands herself, and then shows people how she understands herself and shows her what a person looks like when they understand themselves and that's transmitted to the person and if they start doing the same practice they will become free just like the one who is free became free by the same process. That's how the Buddha helps people. The Buddha doesn't go up and turn the pain off. Doesn't turn off her own, doesn't turn off other people's.

[64:02]

She brings these practices and these teachings to the pain. And then she does that so that other people can learn how to do this with themselves. And when they learn how to do it with themselves, they can teach others how to do it with themselves. Yes, it's true so. A lot of what you're talking about tonight could be termed as wisdom practice or like inquiry. Yeah. How does that sit with just sitting and body and mind dropping off in terms of practice? Just sitting and body and mind dropping off is wisdom practice. Do you have more questions about that?

[65:07]

I'll probably say this again towards the beginning of Sashin. Someone said to me, I thought I heard you say something about the way Bodhidharma taught concentration practice might have been a little different from the way other people teach concentration practice. He said, what did you say about it? I said, oh yeah, Bodhidharma taught to concentrate the mind, to tranquilize and stabilize the mind without any contrivance. You heard that teaching? Yeah. So that means you're sitting. and you're practicing concentration, but you're not doing anything to get concentrated. You're not trying to get concentration.

[66:12]

As a matter of fact, Bodhidharma is saying, please become concentrated without doing anything to get concentrated. And you say, is it okay in the meantime if I follow my breathing? And Bodhidharma would say, fine. The Buddha might say, actually, I'm breathing too, and I noticed that I'm breathing also. So it isn't like when you're not trying to get something, you don't notice your posture and your breathing. It's just that you don't use your awareness of your posture to get concentration. Just like you don't take care of your grandchildren to get concentrated, you take care of your grandchildren because you want Take care of them because you love them. And you take care of your breath because you love your breath. And you take care of your posture because you love your posture. Not like your posture.

[67:12]

Not hate your posture. You want to take care of it, but not to get anything. To take care of the upright posture without trying to get anything is the way to develop concentration with no contrivance. Developing concentration with no contrivance is just sitting. You're sitting, but you're not sitting to get concentration. You're sitting to be concentrated without using sitting to get concentrated. And that's dropping off body and mind, and that's That's the practice of the Buddhas. And that's the same practice everybody's doing. Actually, everybody is practicing concentration with no contrivance. But they may be distracted by trying to use some contrivance to get concentrated.

[68:17]

That practice feels a little different, sounds a little different than the kind of inquiry type practice that you've been talking about tonight. Well, tell me an example of inquiry that I've been talking about tonight. There's a teaching that mind and object are not separate. But, oh... myu-yu appears separate to me right now. There's myu-yu over there, and there's the appearance of him over there, and the appearance of the subject over here. It's interesting that there's this teaching, and yet this appearance is something different than the teaching. There's an engagement with that which feels different than tranquility with no contrivance. Yeah, I can see that that would sound different.

[69:33]

If you were involved, as you said, engaged with such thoughts, that would be what you would say sounds like insight work, right? And what you were saying about myo-yu, you could also say the same thing about pain. So that's insight work. I agree. And it sounds different from concentration practice that I was just talking about. And the insight comment would be that the difference between the two is also just an idea. Right? That would be more insight work. And also a teaching which I didn't mention, but now is a good time, is that in, well I sort of did,

[70:53]

We were talking about pain before, but we could have been talking about myoyu. So what do you do when myoyu appears? So there could be that. What? So this is kind of, I did kind of talk about this already, but we're talking about pain before, I think, right? Justin was talking about pain, how to work with it, remember? And then working up to this insight work you're talking about, remember? You've heard this pain is just an idea. How do you understand that? When you understand it, I said, you've heard the teaching now, which you just demonstrated, and you're engaged in it, which is fine, but you don't understand it yet.

[71:58]

And you can keep working with it. Just like you can keep breathing, you can keep working with this insight work. You don't have to stop it entirely, but you might want to stop it for a little while, or you might want to use the insight work So there's pain, insight work, and myo-yu. Okay? These are three things that you could try to understand how all three are just conscious construction only. That's what you want to understand because that's what's going to liberate beings. But you don't understand it, as you just said. So how do you understand it? Well, then you go, now you come back and take another run at it, so to speak. Okay? One, two, three. Be generous to this kind of, this teaching. Be generous to this kind of teaching. You're engaged with it, as you said. But are you generous? Well, just maybe I am, maybe I'm not. But I'm going to go back and I'm going to concentrate on generosity with this teaching.

[73:01]

I'm going to practice generosity towards this insight work. Because maybe I'm doing the insight work with some kind of gaining idea. So I'm going to practice generosity towards this teaching. Now I'm going to practice ethics with this teaching. I'm going to check to see, again, am I trying to get this teaching? Do I think this teaching is better than other teachings? Do I think I'm better at this teaching than other people are at this teaching? Do I think, and so on. I'm going to practice the ethics with this teaching. Now I'm going to practice patience with this teaching. Now I'm going to practice diligence. In other words, I'm going to remember I'm practicing these practices and I'm trying to understand the teachings that myu is conscious construction only, because this is the bodhisattva's path to liberate all beings. And I really want to stay focused on that, and I want to be concentrated on that, and I want to be relaxed with that.

[74:07]

I've fired up my energy now with enthusiasm, and now I practice concentration. But it would be nice to practice concentration in this way without a contrivance because that would be in accord with the thing I'm trying to understand. So that way of practicing concentration, although it sounds different than the insight, it actually is the way to practice concentration that's in accord with that insight. But now let's say you've gotten concentrated, plus you've gotten concentrated without trying to get concentrated. This is a very high quality concentration. This kind of concentration is ready for this insight work. And without this kind of concentration, which does sound different from the insight work, you don't enter the insight work. But with this concentration, Now, and with the work that you've done before of this teaching, now the teaching is in a different world.

[75:09]

It's in the world of a concentration which was realized with using no contrivance. In other words, it's a concentration which has been trained to not get anything, which is ideal environment of friendship in which to realize these wisdom teachings. And then with this concentration, now the teachings are still there. And the scenario you were just told could arise again. But now it would be an environment where you can actually enter into the reality of that. But instead of this insight work, it could also be pain or whatever. So the concentration description does sound different, and Bodhidharma's way of teaching concentration was very close to Bodhidharma's way of teaching wisdom. And Suzuki Roshi's way of saying wholeheartedly sit without trying to gain anything is a concentration instruction, but also it's a wisdom instruction at the same time.

[76:18]

Okay. You're welcome. Is that enough for tonight? Is that enough for this year? Thank you for your great friendship and your great wisdom, your great generosity, your carefulness, your patience, and your diligence. May we realize Buddha's way. May we realize Buddha's wisdom. May we joyfully and unceasingly work to free all beings so they may live in peace. And puish, too. I have a poem. Yes, you may.

[77:26]

Did you say this is a poem written on the 15th day? Or 18th. Oh, yeah, that's after the 15th. Okay, perfect. So you want to say a little bit about after the 15th? Okay, please stand up and sing your poem. The wooden woman sings. Now let's watch and see if the stone man gets up and dances.

[78:05]

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