We're kind of in the middle of the series of meetings. We're kind of in the middle of it. I've said quite a bit already, and I imagine I could say quite a bit more, but I don't know much. But I think I might want to say, which I think I said before, and I said last night at Green Gulch, We had a class there called Stories of Wisdom and Stories of Good Friendship. Was that the title? What did you say? You don't know. I try to keep track of the titles. And I said towards the beginning of the class that Good Friendship I say, good friendship is, I don't know if I said that, but tonight I'm saying good friendship is freedom from my all ideas of good friendship.

[01:22]

Good friendship is freedom from my all ideas, like injustice, justice, good, Evil. Friendship is not the absence of those ideas. It's freedom from them. So I just said good friendship is freedom from them. You could also say in the context of good friendship there is freedom. Or good friendship enables us to be free of all of our ideas. And since the idea of good friendship is right nearby, that would be one of the most convenient things to become free of. To become free of the idea of good friendship. Not being free of ideas is the basic definition of suffering.

[02:33]

So as many of you know, Buddha taught these four noble truths. The first one is the truth of suffering, which I don't mind saying again, the truth of suffering is not that life is suffering. Even though when Buddha says, and what is suffering? He says, well, birth suffering, death is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering. Pain is suffering. Pleasure is suffering. Then he says, in short, the five elements that are clinging are suffering. In short, clinging to ideas, feelings, emotions, colors, sounds, smells, clinging. to the various dimensions of our awareness of our consciousness, that's suffering.

[03:46]

Life is not actually suffering, but suffering arises in life when we cling to In short, because all these things, these emotions and feelings, the way that they appear to us in consciousness is as ideas. So clinging to ideas is a basic stress factor, which of course can get stressful, can become, you know, terrible fear, and then terrible reaction to fear like violence and cruelty and so on. Good friendship is freedom from clinging and therefore freedom from suffering. All the different kinds of suffering become free of by good friendship. No, birth is not necessarily an idea.

[04:53]

I don't know what birth is, but the way birth appears in my consciousness is an idea. We're consciously aware of your granddaughter being born. The way she appeared to you, that is just an idea. But I'm not saying she's an idea or her coming, you know, into your life was an idea, but the way consciousness was just an idea. That's kind of the central teaching of the great vehicle, that everything that appears in consciousness is just an idea. Now hearing that, immediately understand it. So you need to listen to it quite a bit. Actually, as I think I've also mentioned before to some of you, in one of the scriptures where it teaches that all existence that appear to exist

[06:02]

are just ideas. It says, who enters this teaching, who enters this reality that all phenomena, which means all things you're aware of in consciousness, who enters this reality? And it says, the alphas who have a lot of listening, who listen a lot. actually it says, who have been permeated with lots of listening. When you listen to the teachings, it transforms your cognitive processes. Listening is in consciousness. You consciously listen to something that transforms your cognitive process, which will eventually lead to entering into the reality of the teaching. I'll get into that more right now just to say within consciousness everything that appears is just an idea.

[07:12]

The world that appears in consciousness is consciousness. There's nothing in consciousness that's not consciousness. But a lot of these things that are in consciousness don't look like consciousness. They look like a wall, or a truck, or a badger, or lunch. Lunch does not look like consciousness. But you can't consciously be aware of your lunch. You can only be consciously aware of an appearance of your lunch. But your lunch isn't an appearance. It's actually eatable. You can't eat appearances. Maybe I'm going too far. Anyway. Okay? The problem is clinging to these appearances which don't look like appearances.

[08:22]

The appearances appear deceptively. They don't, when appearances arise in your consciousness, they don't say, I look like I'm not consciousness, but I really am. They don't tell you that. There's not a warning that says, do not fall for me looking like I'm not consciousness. They don't have signs like that. So this teaching is trying to put signs back on everything, like idea, [...] idea. And then if I say idea and you frown, then I say, who? Idea or frown? Right. Everything you see is imagination. He said, how could that be?

[09:24]

How would I reply to it? I would say, I agree with you. To him. High five. High five, Eric. Or maybe four on him. Anyway, somehow he's stumbled upon that teaching, and I agree with it. And then we could go on further to have a dialogue. I'm asking, here's a question for you. This is a midterm question. Do you think good friendship is a dialogue? Linda's nodding yes. Fran's nodding yes. Betsy's nodding yes. Do you all agree? Do you all think it's a dialogue? Anybody think it's not a dialogue? Okay, here we go.

[10:34]

We're going to have a dialogue with the people who think good friendship is not a dialogue. Charlie? Dialogues are ideas. Dialogue is an idea about friendships. There is a dialogue that consists of ideas. Okay, that's an idea, right? And I don't have that one, other than listening to you say it. There actually is a dialogue, but the way the dialogue appears is not the dialogue. That's the idea I give back to you. We're having a dialogue right now. I would agree with you that friendship is not literally I think it's a dialogue, because when I say it is, and literally it's not when you say it's not, then it's literally not when you say it's not. But I'm saying, not literally, but actually, it is a dialogue.

[11:34]

In other words, I'm saying, in actuality, a dialogue is a dialogue that's going on that's inconceivable. Good friendship is not my idea of good friendship. That's an idea for you. You okay with that one? Good friendship frees me from my ideas of good friendship and good friendship is an idea of good friendship. Does that work? Good friendship is an inconceivable process of relationship among all of us. The way it appears in consciousness is just ideas. So in consciousness I'm saying, I'm saying that, but my idea of the dialogue is not the actual dialogue. But in consciousness we have this little puppet show we do called practicing together. This appearance, I'm appearing to myself.

[12:40]

Appearance is appearing to interact with disappearance. And so by playing the ritual of dialogue, which is, as many of you know, Zen literature is, a great deal of Zen literature is stories of dialogue. These dialogues are ritual enactments of reality, of the dialogue that's going on inconceivably, supporting these apparent dialogues. What do you say to that? Fine. I'm OK with that. Tish? . Okay, that's what she says, and for now I'll just have that be whatever that was.

[13:47]

Now I have this robe on backwards tonight in hopes that St. Nicholas will soon be here. I wish that this wearing it backwards would be helpful to you. I've been wearing this robe to the yoga room for a long time. It's kind of worn out. I keep it in my car just in case my car breaks down and we can have a class. Whoever comes to help me. Pardon? What's your idea of how wearing it backwards might help? What's my idea of how it might? I think I might tell you what it says. And it might be relevant to your happiness and your freedom from suffering. This is about a dialogue.

[14:52]

And it's about a dialogue between a window. And guess what? What? What does a wind bell sometimes apparently have a dialogue with? Wind. This is a poem written by Mr. Dogen Zenji's teacher in China, or said by his teacher. And the name of the poem is The Wind Bell. And I kind of remember it. Yeah, I kind of remember. It definitely says windmill at the beginning. Oh, there it is. I see it now. Okay. It goes something like this. Hanging by her teeth in emptiness.

[15:58]

Or you could translate it as hanging by her teeth in space. in space. Usually wind bells hang by a tree or the edge of a house, but this wind bell is hanging in emptiness by its mouth. It doesn't care whether the wind comes from the west the east, or the north, or above or down below, but doesn't say that. No matter what direction it comes from, it sings perfectly. Ching-tong, ching-tong-tong.

[17:07]

So, the wind bell is demonstrating how perfect wisdom works. And also, I would say, demonstrates... When you come, I don't care if you come, and I don't care if it's you rather than you. When you come, When you come, I go chong. When you come, I go dong. When they come, the wind doesn't say, it's a west wind, I ain't moving. Only east winds. West winds. East winds. Now it goes with whatever comes. And it doesn't go ahead before the arrival. It's in a dialogue.

[18:13]

And this dialogue, in this dialogue, the bell rings. And this dialogue, the ringing of this bell is the ringing of wisdom. Wisdom is this dialogue. So I asked you, do you think good friendship's a dialogue? Now I ask you, do you think perfect wisdom is a dialogue? You don't have to, but I did ask you if you thought so, and I think it is. However, in that dialogue, When that dialogue is working, I also think I will not cling to my idea that it's a dialogue. But I did have that idea a while ago. And I've almost lost it now.

[19:15]

Yes? It's so beautiful. Yeah. It's written by Suzuki Roshi's son, whose name is Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi's name was Suzuki Shunryu Roshi, and this is Suzuki Hoitsu Roshi. He wrote it on here quite a while ago. I don't know if he gave me the rock, so he might have given it to me too. But then after he gave it to me, guess what happened? Guess. I'll wait. He lost it. Huh? He lost it. OK, that's one guess. Another guess? He wanted it back. He wanted it back.

[20:21]

Felicia? Is it Felicia? Felicia. Felicia, what is your guess? You lost it? Wow. Well, all those examples are, I would say, a response. That's a response. He gave it to me. I lost it. He gave it to me and then took it back. Another response is he gave it to me and I asked him to write on it. And after I asked him to write on it, he wrote on it. After he wrote on it, he gave it back to me. After he gave it back to me, I brought it. I showed it to you and blah, blah. This is good friendship. It's also perfect wisdom. And again, I've mentioned to you before that the good friendship between awakened people and people who are not yet awakened

[21:30]

the Buddhas and the living beings, the relationship between the two is called by me. The relationship between the two is called by me, perfect wisdom. By studying this relationship, we realize perfect wisdom. Does that make sense to you that working on your relationship with Buddhas might develop perfect wisdom? Does Buddha appear in the world to help people realize perfect wisdom? Does that make sense? That's one of the main stories, is that Buddhas appear in the world to show people perfect wisdom. And the way they show it is perfect wisdom. And also the way they open people to it, opening people to perfect wisdom, is part of perfect wisdom. And then they demonstrate it, and that's part of perfect wisdom. And then they help people wake up to it.

[22:31]

And then they help people enter it. That's the perfect wisdom process. But it's also the process of their friendship. Would you say it louder? Yeah. I'm saying that. And I'll say more. This relationship which is what Buddhas appear for. They appear for this friendship. This friendship has four dimensions or four aspects. One aspect is the way that we are asking the Buddha to be our friend and the Buddha

[23:39]

ask, the Buddha says, I'm here as your servant, as your friend. That's that way. We request the teachings, we request the transmission of perfect wisdom from the Buddhas, and the Buddhas say, yes ma'am. And that happens, that interaction, that that request and that response, the Buddhists do not say to us, well, they sort of do, but usually we don't say the Buddhists say to us, would you please teach me perfect wisdom? They more say, I would like to teach you perfect wisdom. And then, but if they say that to us and we don't request it, That's a different phase. The phase I'm talking about is where we do request it. Somehow they come and they say, I'm available. And we say, would you be my friend? And they say, yes.

[24:41]

And the basic level that occurs on is the level of non-perceptible request and non-perceptible response. In other words, the story is we are requesting the Buddhas to show us perfect wisdom, to show us good friendship. We are doing that our whole life. All living beings are doing that, and they're doing it with only Buddhas, and only Buddhas never hesitate and say, However, the request and the response is inconceivable and imperceptible. And it goes on non-stop. It's going on right now. Okay? And the way we're relating to Buddhas right now is we are in a state, a process of salvation right now.

[25:47]

Salvation is already going on. We don't have to make it happen. It's naturally present. It's our true relationship, but it's inconceivable. Uninterrupted, unstoppable, unthinkable, unnameable, inconceivable, incandescent, It's the salvation of all beings. That's one phase of the friendship. And it's between those who are awakened and the awakened ones. And the awakened ones are not the least bit separate from or in addition to all the living beings. So this relationship is between our liberation is the Buddha's. We are already in a state where we're in intimate relationship with liberation right now.

[26:51]

And that's our intimate relationship with Buddha. Buddha's liberation is Buddha's. Then there's other kinds of friendship. The one that, yeah, and so the other kinds, the other three kinds, are where you perceptively, where you perceive that you're making a request of, you're requesting a teaching. You're talking to Buddha, or you may feel like you're talking to a teacher, and you're saying, would you please teach me? Could I study with you? Could I be with you? And you can see that you are asking for that. You can perceive it. It may not think it's friendship, Asking for teaching. And then you look, but you don't perceive the response. But it's there. You just don't perceive it. Because it's always there.

[27:53]

But you don't see it. It's always there. friendship. There's always teaching and being responded to. Sometimes you can't see either. That's the basic one. Sometimes you can see one of them. Like, I'm asking for the teaching and she's not giving it to me. There's many Zen stories, lovely, where there's a student who goes to a teacher and she says, please teach me. And the teacher says, responds and they think the teacher's not giving them what they want. And then sometimes after this goes on for a while, the student says, I've been studying with you all this time, you said you'd give it to me and you didn't give it to me. And the teacher says, oh yeah, no really, I've been giving it to you the whole time. And the student says, well how? And then the teacher shows them and they go, oh. That's one style. The other style is

[28:54]

The student doesn't think they're requesting. They're requesting, but they don't see that they're requesting. They're walking. And somebody comes up to them and says, yes. Or, may I help you? No, I didn't ask for any help. I don't need any help. And this was many Zen stories where the student doesn't think they're asking for the teaching. I didn't ask for that. And then later they realized that they did ask for it. And the other example, which is everybody's, most people, easy to accept, where you think, I asked for a teaching and I got a response. And last night I told a story like that in the class. And I also said in the class that earlier in the afternoon, around six o'clock, I was I think I was brushing my teeth, and I was thinking of a dialogue that I had with Suzuki Roshi when he was sick.

[30:07]

In September of 1971, he was diagnosed with liver cancer, and when he came back from Tassajara, from September he lived only to December. And during that time he was able to do less and less other than just breathe and eat and so on. So for a while he could go to the Zen door, but he gave no more Dharma talks and no more doksan, you know, no more like, Ding, ding. Come and meet the teacher. And that wasn't going on anymore. But he was around in the building. He was in 300 Page Street building. And he was the director of the building. And I had assigned myself the room next to his. So I was in a good position to see a lot of him.

[31:10]

But I don't think I oppressed him with my presence. I was just right there in case he needed me. I came to understand that he was receiving shiasu massage and moxibustion treatments. So I asked him, I requested to be in the room when he got those treatments. I made a request. And I knew I made the request. And he responded by saying, OK. So through the fall, while he got those treatments, I was in the room sitting next to him. I was sitting like here, and he was lying sort of where you guys are, getting these treatments. Day after day, I just came in and sat there. And also, when I said, may I be in the room, I said, I won't talk.

[32:11]

I won't ask any questions. I just want to be there. And he said, OK. But yesterday, when I was thinking about that before the class, I was astounded that I asked for that opportunity. And I was astounded that I even thought of it. I mean, I don't think of myself as a person who has very good ideas, but that was a great idea. for me to be able to be with him like that in his last, I didn't know how long he was going to live, but it turns out that I got to be with him because he used to be, I could be with him in the zendo, in the dining room, but that was all called off. It was such a great idea. I was surprised. Where did that great idea come from? but I was astounded that this not very smart person came up with such a great idea.

[33:20]

And then I didn't come up with the idea, but I expressed it. And who did I express it to? I didn't express it to my friends and say, I was thinking of, I went right to the, to this person, and I asked him. And I don't remember being the least bit afraid or feeling presumptuous, because I was just going to be there, you know? And I was there anyway. I was right next door anyway. So I said, can I come inside the room? And he said, yes. And then we did that. And that relationship, is he the Buddha? Some people say, yeah. Some people, no, no, he wasn't a Buddha. He was pretty good, but he wasn't a Buddha, somebody might say. But really, there really is between a sentient being and a Buddha.

[34:23]

I can't see it. What I can see is this famous Zen master, who wasn't so famous at the time, but now has become a big famous Zen master in the West, Suzuki Roshi. You can see that, and I could talk to that, but I really was like a little sentient guy asking for Buddha to be with Buddha. And that's sort of a resource for my life and your life. That now has become part of the transmission of Buddhadharma through him, that I would ask him that and he would say yes. He could have said no, that would have been also a dialogue, but he didn't. And then one day, I told my wife this last night, I said, I was astounded that I asked him for this.

[35:29]

And then one day, the masseuse, a Moxibustion guy, got sick. And so he couldn't perform his work on Suzuki Roshi. I also told people that he didn't take any pain medication. And my wife said, do you think maybe the moxibustion was for pain? I said, I didn't think of it, but maybe it was. Anyway, the guy said, well, you can do it. You've been sitting there watching it. You know how to do it. And he was right. I had been watching. I wasn't thinking, well, I'm watching and I'm going to do the massage and I'm watching, so I'm going to do the moxibustion. I wasn't thinking that. I wasn't thinking I was getting the transmission of how to take care of my teacher. But he said, you've been watching. You do it. And I did it. And then while I was doing it, he gave me some further instruction. And I also watched that

[36:32]

that when the guy put the cones on him, and then he would take them off when Suzuki Roshi winced. So I put him on and watched until he winced, and then I took him off. And the massaging also, he gave me feedback. So I did it. And my wife said, well, how did you know what points to put it on? And I knew because there were marks on his back where it had been before. So it was actually this. He had a chart on his back where to put them. Dialogue. When I look at that relationship at that time, I don't see any like preference about what direction the wind was coming from.

[37:38]

There wasn't like, I hope he doesn't die. There wasn't that, that wasn't going on. I wasn't saying, I hope he dies. I wasn't saying, I hope he's not in pain. I wasn't doing that. I was just being there with him. And he wouldn't say, how come you never say, I hope you don't die. He didn't say that to me. He just let me be there without doing anything other than be with him. That was our dialogue. What? I don't know. You mean how long? You mean how long was I in San Francisco at that time? Four years. And you really weren't wishing he wouldn't die? Nope.

[38:43]

I wasn't wishing he wouldn't die. And I wasn't wishing he would die. And I was crying, but not when I thought I would cry. I would cry these strange times, you know. And usually when I'd cry, I would say, why am I crying? I mean, you could say, well, you're crying. But I didn't know that that was why I was crying. I remember one time I was looking at myself in the mirror and I just started crying. I said, why are you crying? I was surprised that I was crying. And I didn't like, the reason you're crying is because I don't know why I cried when I cried. I don't know why I love you like I do. I don't know why I got to be with him. But I do, and I did. I don't know why though. And I'm proposing that this is what's going on all the time.

[39:48]

But if we don't practice this, you can hear about it, but you don't realize it. Even if you believe it, unless you practice it if you believe it and don't practice you don't you don't really believe it if you believe it you try it you live your life like this so it feels like um Right. By the way, I wasn't sad. That's part of what's surprising.

[40:50]

I wasn't sad. These tears were coming and I wasn't sad. I was happy to be with him. I was happy to be with him the whole time. I was happy to be there and I still am happy that I was there. And I can't even, like I said, I cannot understand how I'm full of joy that I got to be with him during that time. I mean, wouldn't you be happy if you could be there with him? Wouldn't you love to have been there with him? I knew I was fortunate all along. I was not sad. I'm sad about some other things, but not sad about being with him. A little bit of time in this kind of relationship where I really could ask maybe other people I could say, could I spend some time with you? But I wasn't that conscious with other people.

[41:54]

Like, say, it's like, I don't know. Can I talk to you? I didn't usually say that to people. Sometimes I'd say, let's go to the Zen door. Usually we didn't say that. Usually we'd just go to, the bell rings and we'd go. Sometimes we would do extra sitting and I would say, want to do some extra sitting? Sometimes we young people did extra sitting over above what the group did. But I didn't say to them, could I sit with you? But with the teacher, I think I would ask, can I sit with you? And I wouldn't actually, I did not actually go to his house, to his room and ask him if I could go into his room and sit with him. regular Zazen. Does that make sense? There were the regular community sittings and that's when I sat with him and that's where everybody sat with him. Does that make sense? We had these sittings we did together and we sat together and we got to sit with him and other wonderful teachers.

[42:57]

But I didn't go to his room and say, could I sit in your room? Does that make sense? Some people wanted to and that was really weird that they wanted to. But I didn't ask for that. But when he was sick and he wasn't in a zendo anymore, something inspired me to say, could I come and sit with you in your room? And he said, yes. I was not sad about that. I was happy about that. I felt, wow. And I watched the dharma right there. I watched the dharma of the teacher dealing with his pain. I got to see how he did dealt with not all day long and other times his wife would invite me in and we'd have tea I got to watch him die he let me and other people see him die he let other people come in too but I asked sometimes he invited me and sometimes he invited people but I asked and he said okay I was happy and I'm still happy I'm not happy that he died

[44:05]

I'm happy that he lived. I'm happy that he came. I'm not happy that he went, but his coming, when I became abbot, I said, he came, he stayed to teach us, and he left to teach us. It's all teaching. I'm grateful for it all. I'm not sad for anything other than my own lack of attention. Like one time he said to me, I'd like to give you a little talk. Things which I don't usually talk about, you know, to the group. So I went in and he gave me this special talk. And during the talk, I was mostly asleep. And I was so sad and ashamed that this great opportunity was given to me by this one and I was not able to stay awake. And he kept talking. He didn't say, wake up, Tenshin-san.

[45:07]

He just kept giving the talk. And I didn't say afterwards, did you mind that I was sleeping? I think I was too ashamed to ask. in the opportunity, but he didn't say to me, bad boy, how could you sleep when I'm giving you this precious thing? Didn't say it. I don't know what he was thinking. But that I was sad about. If he offered me a chance and I missed and I turned it down, I would be sad about that. But at that point, I was blessed by not turning away from the offerings he gave me. And I'm not sad about that. and the tears perhaps they were tears of joy I don't know what kind of tears they were but they were great and they were amazing Well, you know, I brought my hearing aids.

[46:23]

I'm going to put them on now. I thought maybe I could try these out. My wife gave me her old ear hearing aids. And I hesitate to use them because when I'm wearing them, it's hard for me. Hearing aids, is that okay? Okay. I thought maybe I could use them at the yoga room. I hesitate to use them because when I'm wearing them, I think I'm talking too loudly. If that happens, yeah. Not quietly because my correct amount of volume is probably... Okay, now let's hear your question again. How was he? My observation of him was that... How's that?

[47:40]

Enough? Okay, my observation was, how's that? Just about right? Sounds really loud to me. But it's okay? Towards the nose, they say. All right. My observation of him with the pain was he seemed to be his usual self. He did say once, I feel like I'm being tortured. The way he acted, to me, looked like his usual self. When the mocks and busting things burned down, he would wince. There was a little wincing in relationship, but that was also probably a signal to the therapist. And I wasn't with him all the time.

[48:43]

He seemed to be normal, his usual self. He didn't seem to be, what do you call it? He wasn't giddy and like, you know, he wasn't like overdosing on painkillers. And kind of like, he wasn't like that, and he wasn't depressed. He was like, he was like our little Buddha. That's what he seemed like to me. I couldn't tell any diminution in his presence and his teaching. The new abbot of Zen Center, Richard Baker, told me he felt like Suzuki Roshi was starting to a little bit lose it towards the end, not be quite as present as usual. Am I speaking okay now? But I didn't notice that. To me, he seemed pretty consistently himself. But as I said, he wasn't taking any pain medication other than maybe the moxibustion and the massage.

[49:52]

He thought he might live quite a while longer than he did. And I thought so too, maybe. We thought we might have a few years, but we only had part of September, October, November, and a little bit of December. I think it was like maybe in June or May, he was giving a talk in the Buddha Hall of the Zen Center. And he said in the talk, he said, things teach best when they're dying. And I felt like, and I wasn't sitting right in front of him, I felt like he went like this, things teach best when they're dying. And I don't know if everybody in the room felt like that.

[50:55]

Later I thought, when I was a kid I used to watch TV, ...show, which was sponsored by Quaker puffed wheat and Quaker puffed rice. And the ad said that these cereals were shot from guns. They were like, you know, roasted, so they puff up and pop. So the ad said that they were shot from guns. And then they would show the cereal being shot out of guns. But I noticed that if I sat right in front of the TV, the serial would come right at me. But if I hide, the serial would go over to me at the side. No matter what direction I was facing the screen, the cannon would always shoot at me. The talk was like that, I think. I don't think he was looking right at me, but it felt like he was going to.

[51:57]

...when they're dying, and I went, I kind of went, why is he saying that? What does he mean? I didn't think, is he telling us that he's dying? I didn't go that far. I just said, whoa, what's this? But I kind of knew. I kind of knew he was saying, enjoy me while I'm here. And this isn't going to go on forever. Don't miss out on this. I'm here to relate to you. And I also said last night, around that time, I said he was going to go to Taos Har and I said, I'd like to go with you. And he said, okay. I said, but maybe I shouldn't because I'm the director of the building and I have responsibilities. And if I go, other people would like to go too. And it's not fair if I go and they And he said, oh yeah, right.

[53:03]

Well, maybe something will work out. And he went, but I didn't go. I'm really glad I didn't. But there, you see the, there it is. Because I think it would have been too much self-indulgence. for me to put myself ahead of the other students who also would like to go and have them take care of their responsibilities. I was again blessed with the ability to go if I wanted to. I could quit my job. Other people were not... I just didn't feel like it was his way. And the year before... Good night, Elena. The year before... The year before... Something happened the year before.

[54:07]

Yes, I did. Thank you. And he gave a talk. And in the talk he said... blah, blah, blah, my disciples, blah, blah, blah. And when he said my disciples, I thought, I wonder who his disciples are. And I kind of thought, I wonder if I'm one. So after the talk, I said, I didn't say, am I one of your disciples? I didn't even want to ask him. I was interested in whether I was or not, but I didn't want to ask him. What I wanted to ask him was, who are your disciples? He said, well, I don't like this, but my mind does think like this. There's two kinds of students at Tassajara. Am I talking loudly enough? One are here for themselves, are practicing here for themselves. The other are practicing here to help others.

[55:19]

My disciples are the ones who are practicing to help others. And then I thought, oh, OK. So now I can check out whether I'm practicing for others or not. Because that would be his disciples. If I wasn't practicing for others, if I was practicing for myself, he still would be kind to me, probably. Seems like he was kind to everybody, but still there's a difference between those who are doing his work and those who are not. His work is helping others. His work is good friendship. His work is perfect wisdom. Same thing. Perfect wisdom is helping others while being free of any ideas and helping.

[56:21]

It doesn't mean you don't have ideas, like, I think Kathy's other, kind of, but she's not separate from me, and I don't have to attach to the idea that she's other or that she's Kathy. But I do... I don't mind, but I do mind grasping it. I do mind. Thanks, Kim. See? I couldn't remember what I wanted to talk about. Oh, yeah, I did. And that's what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the previous year at Tassajara. Thank you. So if you guys keep helping me, this is going to work out pretty well. I won't be able to do this by myself. Yeah? I was curious that you said that your tears weren't, you didn't necessarily attach a reason to your tears.

[57:31]

I didn't know the reason and I didn't feel sad. And is that having an emotional response to something? To say? It's not about something. It's not about an idea of something. Well, you could do that, or you could say, my idea of what I'm doing is just an idea of what I'm doing. Like my idea that I'm crying is just, all I'm seeing is the idea of crying. And in this case, actually, I was like okay with that to some extent because this is by the way, by this, it was crying but it wasn't my usual idea of crying. I was surprised. But when you're crying to remember that what you're aware of is just an idea and it's not, it's not what, I should say it's not the reality.

[58:43]

then you can be free of your idea of it. And then you can cry and laugh and do neither and realize perfect wisdom. It's not like when you're crying, that's kind of a... be a good friend. Or when you're crying, it's kind of a hard time to dialogue with Buddha. Or that you have to cry when you're talking to Buddha. It's not like any of that. You always are in this communion. But if you cling to your ideas, this doesn't look like communion, or this does look like communion. This is, I see, this is it. If you grab it, then you kind of, you don't exactly lose it, you just distract yourself from it. The actual communion, I cannot get a hold of it. But it doesn't mean I don't have some idea. Like, I think communion is happening right now. I think I'm in one of those Zen stories right now.

[59:49]

I think I'm talking to Buddha right now. You can think that, but don't grab it. You can also check, do you think I'm in love? Are you grasping that idea? I think I am. How does that work? I feel ashamed, or whatever. I feel ashamed that I'm defiling this wonderful love, not by the idea of love. You can have . But to grasp the idea of love as love is slander. Slander is slandering love to say that your idea of love is love. or to grasp your idea of love as love, that slanders it, defiles it. Of course, not really, but for you it does. So you can learn to catch yourself at that.

[60:54]

Anything else tonight? Linda and Fran. I can see you too. Much better. Just kidding. When I say practicing, yeah? It seems like that is excusing something. Yeah, and he said at the beginning, yeah, but he said, I don't like this. I forced him into it. For my sake, he slandered it. I couldn't handle the non-slander. Because the non-slander was like, who are his disciples?

[61:58]

I was just a little guy. Couldn't stand it. Roshi, would you please slander me? your disciples and tell me who they are. And he said, oh, I don't like to, but okay. So you're right. It's not really real. It's not really real. It's not like practicing for others is just a delusion. No, no. Practicing for others is a reality. Or isn't it practicing for others? Well, it seems like you'd have to say more, like, we aren't together and we're not separate. You can say more, but that's just... But this is slander of reality, and the reality is we are helping each other, and others are helping us. That's reality. It is a different idea, but it's also true.

[63:03]

You are living for me. That's reality. Your life is for me and Margie, etc. There's nobody who's not doing it. That's right. What we just did there. But we... Yeah, and... What's this? What is that? What is that? What is that? Are you slapping me in the face? Are you slapping me from a distance? You can come up closer. Go ahead. Oh, wow! Linda, I didn't know you were so strong. the Buddhas deign to come down and slander so we can have something to deal with.

[64:11]

And then we make our ideas of what they offered, and then they say, well, that was just an idea, that was just... Fast forward, and I gave it to you because I think you needed something to look at. But what you can see is not it, but I still gave you something to look at, and now that you've looked at it, I'm telling you, don't grasp that. But they have to offer us something like a Zafu, a Zendo. Thank you for slapping me. In my case, it was just right. Was this?

[65:14]

Oh, Fran. Hanging by his mouth. Actually, I think maybe another translation would be a mouth. A mouth hanging in emptiness. A mouth. Yeah, maybe that's better. A mouth not hanging by its mouth. A mouth hanging in emptiness. The wind bell is a mouth. Yeah, kind of upside down. You could say... Anyway, it's a vocal... It's a singer. It's a song... It's an orifice for songs. And this orifice for songs, this mouth, you could also translate it as opening.

[66:17]

An opening in space. Yeah. when the wind touches the wind bell it moves it and then inside the wind bell there's a chime which hits the wind bell and then out of the mouth of the wind bell but it's the song it's giving the wind bell doesn't think well today I'm going to sing in a cavern in a canyon it doesn't think that it's like I'm available for you to play prajna tunes, here I am. Or loony tunes. Whatever. I have no agenda of what this song's going to be. This song's going to be in response to what touches me. So the Buddha doesn't think, well, today I'm going to teach this.

[67:18]

Quietly in space, and somebody says, may I... hang out with you? Yes, you may. Or, not right now, I'm eating lunch. But the Buddha wasn't sitting there thinking, well, today I'm going to tell people that I'm eating. That's going to be my Dharma talk. No. Buddha's just sitting there, and somebody says, can I talk to you? He says, I'm having lunch. I'll talk to you later. So this wind bell does not have agenda what song is going to sing. The song is in relationship to which direction the wind comes, how strong it is. If there's no wind, the Buddha doesn't say anything. Yeah, thank you. That hanging by the mouth is... I think this is a better translation is a mouth hanging in space.

[68:24]

a speaker in space, and then it doesn't care what the request is, whatever direction the request comes, it says, welcome. If the wind blows at once, it would be silenced. If it came all directions at once, equal strength, the wind belt wouldn't move. The wind belt doesn't say, I'm going to move this way, I'm going to move that way. The wind's from the west, I want to go west. No, wind from the west, I guess I'm going east. We go over to the east. And how far we go, nobody knows, but here we go. And then we come back and gong. As you know, in Buddhism and other traditions, bells are big deals. They're singing good friendship. Thank you for whatever happened.

[69:31]

And I could say, and you could say, but that would really be just a story. believe but I'm grateful for whatever what it was thank you very much oh and our friend Charlie is gonna be performing a tribute our night in in Mill Valley California at the at the at the Sweetwater Charlie's a really good trombone player.

[70:16]

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