As many of you know, we are in the last day of a five-day retreat on a lovely foggy morning in the countryside of this blessed land. Now the fog's clearing. but we continue our practice. During these five days we have contemplated, we have remembered, and we have trained our minds and bodies to remember. Consciously remembering, our body remembers and supports us to consciously remember.

[01:14]

We have been remembering compassion We have been contemplating compassion. We have been contemplating compassionate beings, and we have been contemplating being compassionate. We have praised compassion. We have praised compassion as the main cause of Buddhahood and the main effect of Buddhahood, which protects all living beings in the prison of suffering.

[02:21]

We vow to live there together with all beings, to work for their protection, to be a friend, to be a supporter, to be an encourager for beings to listen to the Dharma, to encourage beings to listen to the cries of other beings and themselves. To train our mind and body and mind and body to be moment by moment mindful of the cries of suffering beings and those suffering beings appear in our own minds, as our own mental and physical experience, and they appear to us as images of others who are in this world with us, and whose lives are beyond our images of them.

[03:39]

But they suffer with us, and we're training ourselves to remember and listen and listen This has been our effort for these few days here and before. And we vow to continue this effort for the rest of our lives. Isn't that so? We chanted a verse written by an ancient teacher who brought our tradition from China to Japan 800 years ago. Almost exactly 800 years ago, the Zen master, the Buddhist teacher, the Buddhist disciple, Heihei Dogen, came back from China in 1228, almost exactly 800 years ago, and he brought

[04:46]

The practice of compassion. And he wrote this verse. And in the verse that we translated into English, it said something like, May all Buddhas and ancestors be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects. We pray for that. And may we be compassionate to all beings to free them from karmic effects. What karmic effects? The effects of not remembering to listen. Because sometimes in the past we have not listened to our own suffering. We have not been kind and welcoming and respectful of our own suffering.

[05:55]

And because of that we have a habit of not honoring our own suffering. And we also have sometimes in the past not paid attention to other people's suffering. And that also has formed a karmic habit But by receiving and giving compassion, we will be free of these habits of not listening, not giving our full attention to all beings who are suffering. and to our own. And we have said over and over how if we don't attend to our own suffering in the moment, that becomes kind of a... that hobbles us, or undermines our attempt to listen to others.

[07:08]

It helps others if we listen to our own suffering. That will help us show them how to listen to theirs. And it will prepare us to be more grounded when we listen to theirs. if we don't listen to our suffering, we might become kind of heady and off the ground and get excited. And maybe we want to listen to others, but if we aren't grounded in listening to our own moment-by-moment experience, we don't listen as well. I've mentioned before, and now I'll mention again, a lovely little scripture in the Pali Canon. It's called, I think, the Acrobat Scripture.

[08:21]

And it's about acrobats. It's about you know, a master acrobat and an apprenticed acrobat. And it seems that the... Yeah, it seems like the acrobat is a male and the apprentice is probably his daughter. She learned how to be an acrobat from her father. And her name was Frying Pan. in English. Originally it's written in Pali, and they sometimes leave it that way, but it actually can be translated as frying pan. I guess that was her nickname. And her father, the master acrobat, says to his precious student and apprenticed

[09:27]

before they do their acrobatic feat, which is some kind of acrobatic amazement that they put on using a bamboo pole. So maybe the pole is on the father's chin or on top of the father's head. I'm not clear. Anyway, she probably climbs up on top of the pole. And so the father says to the daughter, Now you take care of me, and I'll take care of you. And then we can do this. We can do this. And the apprentice says, excuse me, teacher, I think you got it backwards. You take care of yourself, I'll take care of myself, and then we can do the feat. You know, you pay close attention to what's going on with you, and then you can support me.

[10:45]

I'll pay close attention to what's going on with me, and then I can climb up on you and up the pole And then that's commented on by the Buddha who, I guess, made up this story for us. And the Buddha says, the apprenticed is correct. And how do you take care of yourself so that you can take care of others? By practicing the four foundations of mindfulness. by being mindful of your body and mindful of others' bodies, by being mindful of your breathing, by being mindful of your feelings, by being mindful of your mental states, and by being mindful of all of the little cries in your mind, all your fears,

[11:52]

all your greed, hate, and delusion. If we can be mindful of all that, if we can be mindful of our greed, hate, and delusion, then based on that mindfulness, even though we're not completely a Buddha, if we're mindful of our ordinary sentient being, then we can help others. If we skip over what's going on with us, it will make it more difficult, or we may even forget to listen, to look, and to protect and care for every living being. And if by any chance we forget to do that, Then we have a practice, which is talked about in the verse we just chanted, of confession and repentance that we forgot.

[12:59]

And by noting that we forgot to listen, that someone was talking to us and we interrupted them, that we didn't respect them, that we forgot our vow, that we confessed, I'm sorry, I forgot. I forgot and I'm sorry." And this turns the Dharma wheel. And this is an act of compassion. It protects beings if we confess and express sorrow for our shortcomings. That protects beings. And it melts away the roots of transgression. Transgression? Transgressing from what? From compassion. It might happen. It has happened. And it might happen again. But we have a practice to deal with it.

[14:01]

We have a recovery practice. A friend of mine was in the AA program for many years, and he thought that... Is it Bill Williams? Bill Wilson, right? Isn't it Bill Wilson? Yes. He thought, Bill Wilson must have heard about Mahayana Buddhism. And I would say especially the practice of confessing our shortcomings and expressing sorrow for it. That practice, my friend thought he heard about from Buddhism. And it's not just, you know, it's not just for you that you do that. You do it to protect all beings. And it also says in this verse we chanted just a moment ago, it says,

[15:09]

The Buddhas and ancestors have extended their compassion to us freely and without limit. There's been no limit in their extending their compassion. There's nobody they didn't extend it to. Even though some people don't realize that Buddhas have extended their compassion to them, Buddhas have. Ancestors have. And we pray that we do too. Because they have extended their compassion to all of us without limit, we are able to attain Buddhahood. We have a big job to do to attain Buddhahood. We have to practice a lot of compassion. But our ability to practice compassion, it depends on the fact that someone has more than once, extended compassion to us so we can attain Buddhahood and let go of Buddhahood.

[16:19]

So we're training. I think everyone here wants to practice compassion, and yet, even though we want to, we have to train at that. over and over until our body gets changed. Because our body is an animal body, and it has wonderful DNA to help us try to get stuff for ourselves. It's part of our body. It's a get-stuff-for-me body. And it gives rise to a cognitive process which has all kinds of cognitive functions to help us get stuff and also to help us watch out for danger to ourselves and our similar DNA people. We have a body which is not programmed

[17:35]

to care for all beings, for beings that are different from us. But we can train the body by consciously remembering great compassion, consciously remembering that bodhisattva vow is to be intimate with everybody's suffering. And by being intimate with each other's suffering, we attain Buddhahood. But intimate doesn't mean leaning into it, and of course it doesn't mean leaning away. We have to be upright with it, to be close and respectful. That's our training. And, again, we cannot do this training alone.

[18:47]

We may wish to remember to respect all life. We may remember it, and that's great. We may vow to remember, and that's great. But we won't be able to do that unless we're in conversation with others. unless others are invited to call us into question, to ask us what our vow is. And then after we tell them that our vow is to practice compassion, to give it and receive it. After we tell them, then they can again question us about that. They can say, oh, may I ask you how you're practicing that? And is what you just did an example of compassion?

[19:51]

Is the way you talk to that person the way you want to practice? And hopefully, we need to be questioned, and we need to help others by questioning them. And before we start questioning them, we have to question them. We have to ask them. May I ask you a question? I mentioned a story to someone in the retreat that I was a little bit more than a week ago, I was wanting to go to a gym to get some exercise for my legs. And I was going to go to this place called 24 Hour Fitness. And I'd been to the place once before, and I checked, and it was on Post Street in the city of San Francisco.

[21:02]

So I got a nice parking space on Post Street, several blocks away. And I'm kind of a country bumpkin, so when I park in the city I look all around for signs like, no parking tow-away zone. They have signs like that, and if you don't look for them, if you're a country bumpkin, you come back to your car and it's gone. And then you have to spend your life in a parking lot where they take the cars that they tow. You have to be in prison there for a long time. And practice compassion there. When they tell you how much the ticket is and how much the towing was.

[22:07]

Because you didn't look. So I did park and I looked and I looked and it looked like I could park there for two hours. And so I walked off towards where the gym was and I got to where it's supposed to be and I looked around and I looked around and I couldn't find it. So I thought, I think maybe I should ask some questions. And I saw this man crossing the street. I was about to walk. He wasn't crossing the street. He was standing, getting ready to cross the street. And I thought, not only do I want, I need help, but I also want to ask for help. And I walked up to him, but then he wanted to cross the street, because the light changed. So then I saw this woman, and I said, excuse me. And she said, yes. And I said, may I ask you a question? And she said, yes. And I said, do you know where 24-Hour Fitness is?

[23:10]

And she said, yes. And... And she explained to me where it was. Maybe she could tell I didn't quite understand what she was saying. So she said, I'll show you. So she walked ahead of me for about a block. And as she started walking, I was going to say, no, no, no. But I thought, no, I'm going to receive this gift, this big gift from this person. And she took me to the corner and she said, okay, it's right down there, just cross the street and it's right there. And I looked her in the eyes and I said, thank you very much. And she looked me in the eyes and she said, you're welcome. Enjoy. And I was actually consciously aware that I wanted to ask somebody I didn't know for help on the street.

[24:14]

But I wanted to do so respectfully, and it worked out really well. She might have said, you know, I don't know where it is, and that would have been that, and I would have probably said, thank you very much. But I thought, I need help, and also I have a chance here now to ask somebody for help. Give somebody a chance to help me. And give somebody a chance to see that I respect them, and that I'm not... And I respect them, and I'm giving them a chance to help me. I'm not above asking for help. Thank you all for helping me during this retreat.

[25:19]

Thank you for letting me help you. There's a teaching which I heard from ancient Zen teachers and before them. It's a teaching about three kinds of compassion. And sometimes it's said three types of great compassion. The first type is called... Let me do it this way. In the first type, the object... of the compassion is living beings, sentient beings per se. The second type is called observing... The object of the first type is sentient beings per se.

[26:41]

The object of the second type is objects in accord with Dharma. Looking at objects of compassion in the light of the teaching. Not just per se. What does per se mean? It means, you know, as it appears. Any other understandings of per se? Yeah. To look at beings as they appear and be compassionate to them as they appear. And also to look at yourself as you appear and to look at compassion as it appears. That's the first object. Living beings as they appear. Second type is living beings not as they appear, but in the light or in accord with the teaching. The teaching about what living beings are and how they appear.

[27:46]

And the third type is... that's the object of the second type. The object of the third type is non-existent. The object of the third type of compassion doesn't have objects. And that's called great compassion. Great compassion doesn't have objects. What is it? It is being intimate with all suffering beings, and being intimate with yourself. So intimate that you're not an object of your compassion. So intimate that the intimacy is compassion, and the compassion is intimacy. This is Buddha's compassion. When Buddha extends compassion to living beings, they're not other than Buddha. Buddha is just the intimacy with all living beings. So compassion teaches us how to be Buddha. It teaches us practicing it is the cause for realizing intimacy with all beings.

[28:54]

And this intimacy is called great compassion or Buddha's compassion. This compassion is true compassion, and it liberates all beings. So that's a story called Three Types of Compassion. Want to hear more about that? Yes. Okay, so the first type of compassion has drawbacks. The second type of compassion also has some drawbacks. The third type of compassion doesn't have any drawbacks. And it is not separate from all drawbacks. It's not the least bit separate from the two previous types of compassion and all their objects.

[29:54]

The first type of compassion is wonderful. It's a wonderful thing. I think you've all seen it. You've all seen people who practice this first type of compassion. It's so sweet sometimes. It's wonderful. But it's got drawbacks. Or, not even but, and it has drawbacks. The second type of compassion frees us from the first type of compassion. It frees us from the shortcomings. And the third type of compassion frees us of the first two types. Great compassion is intimate with the first two types and freezes from the problems of the first two types. So I imagine some of you might be kind of interested, what are the drawbacks? Yes.

[31:03]

Well, there's a lot of drawbacks to the first one. One of the drawbacks is that This first one is also sometimes called sentimental compassion. And sentimental, again, one meaning of sentimental is customary. So it's a compassion which is done kind of in a customary way, in a way that you're accustomed to. It's not an unprecedented compassion. Great compassion is unprecedented. It never happened before. It's just for this moment of all beings. But we have certain customs, certain ideas of what compassion are. And these ideas are ideas of compassion. They're not compassion. They're just ideas. And sometimes we practice according to our idea of compassion as though that were compassion.

[32:20]

And there's a drawback to that. One time I was giving a talk, and I don't know how it happened, but I found myself about to discuss love. And I realized as I was about to talk about it that I didn't know what it was. But I thought, that's okay. I can talk about something where I don't know what it is. I mean, I have ideas of love, but so does everybody else probably. But let's explore love which is real love and which is beyond my ideas. We can discuss things that are beyond our ideas. And so I did, and so I will. And I also don't know what compassion is, but I discuss it. And I'm devoted to it, even though I don't know what it is. And I discuss being a bodhisattva.

[33:27]

I want to be a bodhisattva. How about you? I want to be a bodhisattva, and I don't know what it is. And actually, the funny thing is that To me it's kind of funny. It seems funny to me that I really aspire to be a bodhisattva and I don't know what it is. And actually I suggest to you that being aware that you don't really know what you're aspiring to, will help you realize it, especially if you want to realize being a bodhisattva. If you have an idea of bodhisattva and you think that's what it is, that will interfere with you becoming a bodhisattva. However, it won't interfere with you becoming self-righteous. I want to be a bodhisattva.

[34:29]

Great. And this is what it is, and that's right. And I know what it is. So now I can be a self-righteous aspirant to bodhisattvahood. But to be a bodhisattva includes being open to that. I want to be something that I think is most wonderful, and I don't really know what it is. I mean, I know it has something to do with the word bodhisattva, and so on. It has something to do with a lot of things. That's part of the reason I don't know what it is. And again, that's ironic, and it's kind of funny. It's a richer practice to realize that. But sentimental compassion, dear as it is, it kind of thinks it knows what compassion is.

[35:37]

It's still sweet that you want to help me, you want to help her. That's so sweet. It's so great. Maybe someday you can try to help her without thinking that what you think is help is what help is. And what you think she is, is who she is. I hope that you get to that point sometime. But for now, it's really sweet that you want to help somebody who you think you know who she is. Also, another customary understanding of compassion is that she's the compassionate one. I'm the one who's receiving the compassion. And this is the compassion. That's another customary thing. And that has drawbacks. And the drawbacks are that it's stressful to adhere to this dualistic understanding. And it also depletes our energy because we're using our energy to hold up artificial distinctions and to attach to I'm practicing compassion to that.

[36:56]

And this is compassion, rather than Moving on to the next kind of compassion, which is to examine the first type of compassion. According to Dharma means you examine what you're doing, you question what you're doing, you realize that you don't completely understand what this is. The first type of compassion is An illusory appearance of a being is helping another illusory appearance of a being with illusory compassion. But the first type, we don't recognize that. We don't acknowledge that. We think, I'm a real sentient being like this who's helping a real... sentient being who's like that, and I'm also... This is what compassion is. This type of compassion drains us.

[38:03]

In a given moment it drains us a little. It won't completely wipe us out in one moment. But if you're really into this and you do it over and over during a day, you know, you'll basically collapse, or you'll run away. And so beings who practice compassion this way, if they're really into it, they run away from the people that they're devoted to. It's called, we now call it burnout. They have a new word, it's called, is it called compassion burnout? What's the term they have now? Compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue, yeah. Compassion fatigue. I remember in physics class one time, they had this wire and a weight on it. And then they add a little bit more weight to the pan, and the wire's holding it, and they add a little bit more.

[39:05]

And then this thing happens is that the wire gets fatigued, and the wire breaks. because it got pulled on and pulled on and pulled on. It got tired and it broke. So the sentimental compassion gets tired and it breaks. And we even think that the beings are draining us, are taking from us. But they're not. It's our understanding that's tiring us out. So again, another aspect of the first type of compassion is probably trying to get something. We want all beings to be safe and protected and happy and free. We want that. But if you try to get it, you start to pull on it, and it breaks.

[40:09]

But to want it without trying to get it, you can keep wanting it forever, because you're not draining this great aspiration. So the first type of compassion has the problem that it... I see some people looking at the Zoom screen. What's going on on the Zoom screen? Something strange? I was just seeing who was there, and they are looking at you. They're looking at Glenn Duvall... Or you're looking at the... No problem? Are they okay? They look good. Okay. Thumbs up. Everybody okay in the universe? They're laughing. They're laughing. So should we just turn the Zoom screen around? Oh, but then you won't, yeah. I'm fine. You're okay? You had enough? Okay. Now look at me.

[41:11]

Yeah. I was thinking, they can't see us, they can't see our big crowd here, so... There are a whole lot of us here. What does it do to you? You said, they can't see you, and you said, that's something to me, what did you say? I just wanted them to know that there are a lot of us here. Would you turn it around so that people can see these people? Oh yeah, just turn that around, you don't turn that. Okay. Ah, they're happy to see you. Oh yeah, look who's there. How does the phrase go? Wish you were here. That's the first time.

[42:17]

And it's sweet, it's dear, it's immature, it's naive, and it's a start. But we need to become free of it. And the usual way to start becoming free of it is to call it what it is. Namely, it's sentimental. It's the customary way. It's practicing compassion according to what you think it is without questioning it. It's unexamined compassion. Unexamined by myself, and also it's not compassion where I'm saying, please question my compassion. It's not like that. but it's still sweet. The second type is to examine the compassion and listen to Dharma teachings about what's going on here. Namely that we are ignorant beings who are practicing compassion. We don't know what it is,

[43:20]

And when you don't know what something is, you can study it and learn about it. Even though you may always be ignorant, you keep studying and [...] exploring and exploring and exploring and investigating, and you can experiment. Like, you're looking for 24-hour fitness, you don't know, you're kind of having trouble, and you think, I think I'll do an experiment. a compassion experiment. I'll ask somebody on the street a question. This is the second type of compassion. Well, I don't know what compassion is, but I'm going to do an experiment now to explore it. At that moment, I was primarily concerned with that experiment, not with finding out where the gym was. I wanted to see what would happen if I asked for help. I gave this person the gift to give them a chance to give me a gift.

[44:21]

I did an experiment. The second type of compassion examines the first type. And it mentions that the beings we're trying to help were orienting towards images of them and ideas of them. Just a few blocks from the place where I asked this woman where the gym was, Zen Center, the San Francisco Zen Center, wasn't far from this place. And just a few blocks from there and just a couple blocks from San Francisco Zen Center, I was walking one day and there was a man lying on the sidewalk. And I knelt down to him and I said, Do you need any help? And he said, No, I'm fine. Thank you. That was good for me and good for him. So the second type, we investigate the situation.

[45:26]

We investigate what's going on inside of us. We investigate our fear, our pain, our confusion. We investigate our state of mind. We don't skip over it, but also we question it. And also we ask other people to question it. And then we help others. We recognize that we don't know who the person is. We think they look like they're suffering, but we don't assume that they're suffering the way we think they are. and we don't assume that we know what compassion is. But we want to practice it. We realize that what we're looking at is something that doesn't have any inherent existence. The person is not... The appearance of that person doesn't have an inherent existence.

[46:28]

There's no inherent existence to the appearance. And we keep that teaching in mind as we practice kindness and compassion. And we do the same thing with what we think is our compassion. We turn the light of Dharma on it, and we become free of the drawbacks of the first type. The drawbacks of the second type is that we're kind of kind of stuck, in a way, in the freedom from the first type. And it can cause us to be a little bit separate. It can cause us to not fully engage if we abide in awareness that what we're working with is an illusion.

[47:31]

So we have to go beyond the second type, which freezes from the first type. We need to be free of the second type too and become more intimate with illusory beings so that we can become intimate with reality. which includes that we're living in ignorance. We need to be intimate with the ignorance, which strikes me as we need to be humble. And sometimes when this teaching is presented, the first type is called sentimental great compassion. Great compassion. And the second one is called great compassion as great compassion in accord with the teaching.

[48:38]

The first two types are also great compassion. But they don't realize it. But they are actually part of great compassion. All of our attempts to practice compassion are never separate from Buddhist compassion. But some of them have drawbacks. And we can do these types of compassion, you can act compassionate in a customary way, And if you understand the teaching, you can use the customary way, you can use the illusions of what people are, but not be stuck in them. Otherwise, if you practice the second type, you might dissociate from what you're working with, which is an illusion.

[49:43]

What you're working with looks like a permanent living being. a real living being. And that kind of view, if you believe it, it helps you really kind of get into it. But once you realize that it's an illusion, you might kind of like dissociate. But it's possible to really use it and know it's an illusion and know it's impermanent and still really not get stuck in that view and therefore be able to be more energetic and more devoted once you know that what you're devoted to is an illusion. But there's a possibility when you realize that the compassion you're practicing is not real compassion, that you might be less interested in it and want to go do some real compassion, which will be another illusion. And then, again, if you lose interest in it because it's not real compassion, then you don't practice it wholeheartedly.

[50:57]

That's nihilism, where you take impermanence literally, you take selflessness literally, and then you have another kind of problem. So I pray, and some of you have heard me pray before, that the Great Assembly receives stillness and silence. I pray that during this retreat we have received stillness and silence. I pray that the Great Assembly remembers what has been received.

[52:13]

What has been received? Stillness and silence. Buddhas and ancestors freely extend stillness and silence to us. They give it to us. I pray that we receive it. I pray that we remember it. It's been given to us. It's been given to us. It's given to us. I pray that we remember that. This stillness and silence, there's plenty of room to receive it. You can do it while you're jumping rope or cooking breakfast. It's not additional work. It's just something that's been given to you, and you can receive it while you're being quite active. You can also receive it while you're sitting in a meditation hall.

[53:22]

I'm proposing. This is a prayer, and in the prayer is the proposal that this stillness and silence is being given to us, all of us. Then the effort comes with, and there's effort in receiving, but then the next effort is to remember that. I don't think we're too busy to remember that. when you're driving a car, you can remember it. When you're parking a car, you can remember it. When you're getting into a car, or out of a car, you can remember, oh, silence and stillness. So, I pray that it keeps being given and received, and I pray that we remember it, we train our mind to remember it. Then I pray that we practice it, Then I pray that we transmit it.

[54:35]

It's being given to us by reality, and reality is represented by the Buddhas and ancestors. They're reality representatives. They give us the reality of stillness and silence. We receive it, we practice it, and then we transmit it. In other words, We give it back. In other words, silence and stillness is something we receive moment by moment, and we can remember that and be mindful of that moment by moment. We can practice that moment by moment, and then we give it back to all beings, but also give it back to Buddha. Buddha gives it to us, and we give it to Buddha. When Buddha gives it to us, when we receive it, The moment of receiving it, we give it. Do you get that? So there you are.

[55:39]

You receive stillness, and you're still, and your stillness is then given back to the Buddhas. Back and forth. I pray for that. Someone said to me that he sees Zazen, he sees our practice as the grace of Buddha, as Buddha's grace, as Buddha's gift. So, another way to say it is, I pray that the Great Assembly receives Buddha's grace, which is silence and stillness. I pray that we receive Buddha's grace. But again, Buddha's grace is mutual.

[56:46]

Buddha gives us Buddha's grace, and we give ourselves to Buddha. Buddha gives herself to us. That's Buddha's grace. And we give ourselves to Buddha's grace. So again, we're not in a fixed position. We're not just the receiver of Buddha's grace. And of course we're also not just the giver. We are the receiver and giver of Buddha's grace. And then again, the same thing with compassion. I pray that we remember... I pray that we receive Buddha's compassion. we remember it, we practice it, and that we give it. We give ourselves to compassion and we receive compassion.

[57:51]

Buddha doesn't own compassion. We don't own compassion. We don't own it, but we receive it and we give it. And I pray we remember that, that that's reality, that we're receiving and giving. Buddhist compassion. In other words, we're receiving and giving zazen. We're receiving and giving stillness and silence. In the midst of the prison of samsara, the prison of suffering, that's where we practice. That's why we practice receiving Buddhist grace and giving Buddhist grace. That's why we practice receiving what we don't own and giving what we don't own. And in this prison of birth and death and all kinds of suffering, where we're listening to all beings, we also need to receive breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and sometimes snacks.

[59:22]

So thank you to the kitchen for making this delicious food so we could have enough energy to do this really hard job of receiving Buddha's compassion and giving Buddha's compassion. It's really a hard job. But if we want to, we can practice it. And also, if we want to, we have to do this hard thing of eating. The people who are visiting us via electronic support.

[60:24]

Earlier in the retreat we were talking about how the Buddhas are, you know, living in this prison of suffering, and in this prison of suffering, which is on fire, they turn the wheel of Dharma. And then I mentioned that somebody told me that they're living in, like in a cocoon, they're wrapped in a cocoon of all suffering beings. And then we talked about butterflies. Butterflies have to eat too. And caterpillars have to eat. And butterflies actually drink their food. They drink mostly smoothies. Nectar smoothies, and then they also drink water.

[61:31]

They don't chew their food, they drink it. And so we have to keep eating, and so that's part of our practice. Before enlightenment, we have to eat. And then after enlightenment, we have to eat too. So thank you for feeding us during this retreat. It's been a lot of work to eat your delicious food. but not nearly as much as the work you've done to give it to us. And we have received it, and so we could practice this week. And I congratulate this wonderful community on having this place to practice and take care of this place to practice. giving Buddha's grace and receiving Buddha's grace.

[62:38]

Well, that was my little offering to you at the end of this retreat. And if you want to call me into question now, I'm here. I am a questionable being. I mean, I hope I'm questionable. I hope you feel welcome to question me. And remember that I'm questionable, and everything I say is questionable. Yes? Are you hungry? Am I hungry? As a matter of fact, no. But I will be when it's lunchtime.

[63:59]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_91.46