I wrote that the practice or the bodhisattva's meditate or practice on emptiness. And the Sanskrit word, this word practice and meditate are referring to is bhavana. Bhavana is related to the word bhava, which means, bhava means being, and bhavana means to become. So the meditation is a meditation of becoming emptiness. So we, in all things, are empty of inherent existence.

[01:09]

By meditating on emptiness is actually a process of becoming emptiness. To making that ultimate quality of our being realized to become it. And again, all the practices of bodhisattvas, and in particular the practice of becoming emptiness or meditating on emptiness, all of them are supported by bodhisattva vows. So while bodhisattvas are engaged in any kind of practice, for example, the practice of meditation on emptiness, but also the practice of giving,

[02:13]

or the practice of observing ethical teachings, practice of patience, or the practice of enthusiasm, or the practice of concentration. All these practices, any practices of bodhisattvas, they practice these conjoined with their vows. For example, you might be practicing tranquility, practicing concentration, which bodhisattvas practice. But the vow to benefit beings is supporting the practice of concentration. The Buddha, before realizing Buddhahood, practiced concentration very deeply.

[03:25]

And the Buddha, being a bodhisattva, he practiced concentration, but not just to get concentrated. He practiced concentration together with his vow to attain awakening in order to fully benefit the world. But some people that he was practicing with were practicing concentration but not necessarily together with bodhisattva vows. And at Zen centers in the world, some people practice concentration, but they don't necessarily practice it together with the vow to benefit all beings. And in most Zen centers, those people are allowed to stay, even though they carry out their concentration practice together with the vow to benefit other beings.

[04:29]

In some Zen practice centers in the history of our tradition and not just Zen but of Adriana and Theravada and anyway throughout the Buddhist history some teachers would not let somebody stay in their temple if they were trying, if they were doing some practice for themselves. If they found out, if the person or if they could tell that the person was doing the practice not in order to help other beings. Some teachers would tell them to go away. at the San Francisco Zen Center, when some people hear about these bodhisattvas, they have come forward and confessed to their teachers that they are not practicing meditation in order to help all beings.

[05:46]

But again, generally speaking, they've been allowed to stay and continue to practice meditation, not for the benefit of all beings, but just for their own benefit. helps them get through the day, helps them to feel more at ease to practice concentration, for example. But bodhisattvas, although they may forget sometimes that what they're doing is for the welfare of others, they may forget that. They don't change their mind and say, no, no, I really am practicing for myself first. They just say, sometimes I forget and slip back into my old pattern of practicing for myself first. But that's not my vow. That's not what I want, what I promise to do. Of course, I don't have to promise to practice for myself first. It comes naturally. I don't have to promise.

[06:54]

I do it all the time anyways. What I'm promising is I'm promising others first. And of course, whenever we really think that way, we benefit ourselves immediately. But we don't try to benefit first in order to help ourselves first, but actually we do get helped immediately whenever we really help others first, get relief from caring for ourselves first, which is our general problem. So, again, practicing bodhisattva practices, or practicing whatever kind of practice, becomes a practice when it's joined together with the practices for all beings, including yourself. Any wholesome practice can join with these vows.

[07:56]

When I first went to the San Francisco Zen Center to practice, I went there because I wanted to practice regularly. I wanted to practice meditation regularly, but I was having trouble practicing regularly, practicing in Minnesota. So I thought if I would practice in a group, where other people were practicing together or even, yeah, and when there was a regular group practice, then I would be probably more able to practice regularly. And I went there and living right across the street from the Zen Center in Japantown where it was originally, I was able, with the support of the group and the regular practice and the teacher, I was able to be regular. But I didn't go to the San Francisco Zen Center in order to help the other people at the San Francisco Zen Center to be regular.

[09:07]

I didn't think, oh, I'll move across the country to help those people in San Francisco sit because they probably had some trouble being regular. So I'll go there and I'll pray every day. I'll go to meditation every day so that they'll feel supported in their practice. I didn't think that. Most people do not think that when they go to the Zen Center. But as the decades go by, you start to realize it does help other people if you go. And they start thanking you for going, and you say, oh yeah, it helps them if I go. So then you start going, then even if you don't want to go to get their support, because you maybe feel it even before you go, even when they're not at the Zen Center, those would be good people to go and help the Zen Center. So now I go primarily because I think it encourages others, but then when I get there, they encourage me in both directions now pretty nicely.

[10:23]

So there are many good things to do in the world and I'm sure many of you do many good things. I'm sure of that. But I don't know if you do them together with bodhisattva vows. I don't know if you do them together with not trying to get anything out of it for your . I don't know if you do. But that way of practicing gets us ready to open to the truth. So there's this basic thing I'm suggesting of the way to practice with what happens. And another way to look at it is that you're practicing together with what happens in this gentle, peaceful, upright, honest way, trying to be open and practice that with everything.

[11:40]

So you're doing this for the welfare of all. So one of the early Zen stories I heard, which many of you heard about, is the story of the person going Zen is the Zen way of archery. So the man goes to the archery class and the teacher says, you pull the string back of the bow with the arrow and you just hold the bow like that. until the string is released, but not by you. You hold it until the string is released, but not you releasing it, which is the same as you watch your things until you're not doing them, or you watch your activity, I should say,

[12:46]

You watch all your activities until you're not doing them. You watch your thinking until you're not doing the thinking. You watch the string until the string is released, but not you releasing it. The teacher says, it will be like the string goes through your fingers. So this man practiced that way for quite a while. But he started to get bored with this way of practice. And he wanted to, he thought of a way that the string could be released without him releasing it. So what he did was he held it with half the strength that originally. And then he held it with half the strength of that. And then he held it with half the strength of that.

[13:49]

And finally, without him releasing it, it was released. And the teacher saw that and said, get out. So that teacher would not let him stay. And he begged to stay and the teacher said, get out. And I don't remember exactly, but I think he kept coming back every now and then a couple of years after that, trying to get back into the class. And finally the teacher let him in. And then he went back to the same practice of pulling the bow string and holding it until the string was released. And then finally one day it was released. It was like the string went through his fingers. And then he wrote a book called Zen and the Art of Archery, which led to, as you know, Zen and the Art of Everything.

[14:55]

So, yeah, this holding, the paying attention to what you're doing until you're not doing it anymore. trying to get anything from it. That's one way to put it. The other way is join your activity to the bodhisattva vows. And then you become ready to meditate and become emptiness. I mentioned earlier that two main points in the Buddha's, the teaching of the Buddha is no self, which is similar to the teaching of emptiness.

[16:06]

In a sense, the teaching that things are not self means things don't have independent self. A mountain does have a self, which you can tell it from a river. but the mountain has no self that's independent of the river. So in that sense the mountain doesn't have a self which is independent from the river. And the river doesn't have a self which is independent from the mountain. And that teaching is called the teaching of dependent co-arising. And the teaching of dependent co-arising has two parts. One is a teaching that the teaching of conditionality, that because this exists, that exists. Because this ceases, that ceases. So in particular, the Buddha taught what is sometimes called the 12-fold chain of causation.

[17:13]

And if you look in the scriptures, there are also, there's like, three-fold chain of causation, four-fold chain of causation, five... So this twelve-fold chain of causation is not found in the early teachings, but developed later. But still, there's some teaching of a chain of causation that's being put forth. And so I abbreviate the chain to have it be ignorance, karmic formations, and then or karmic dispositions and then going from there comes birth, death, and the mass of suffering. Birth depends on karma and death, of course, depends on birth and karma. Birth and death is the

[18:15]

Samsara, cyclic existence, birth, death, birth, death. And birth, death, which is based on karmic formations, based on that we have suffering. So I'm emphasizing that if we meditate on these karmic dispositions or these karmic formations properly, we will realize their emptiness. If we meditate on them, we will be more and more ready to hear the teachings of emptiness And by this meditation on karmic formations, by meditating on our stories, by meditating on our intentions, these are synonyms for the same process, we become more and more ready to receive the teachings of emptiness and realize the emptiness of our stories.

[19:37]

And then in the emptiness of our stories, there are no stories in the emptiness of stories. And where there's no stories, where there's no karma, there's no ignorance. Where there's no ignorance and no karma, there's no birth, there's no death, and there's no suffering. And then to meditate on this together with the bodhisattva vows is to become this, is to become the cessation of karma, the cessation of ignorance, the cessation of birth and death, and the cessation of suffering.

[20:52]

But still, I said earlier, the point of this realizing the cessation of suffering is not to... And some people feel Buddhism is to end suffering. But I'm saying that actually, or to be liberated from suffering, but I'm saying to practice compassion. And ending suffering or realizing the cessation of suffering is a great tool for those who practice compassion. Not the goal, but a very useful tool. Now again, more warnings before starting to look at the teachings of emptiness. So one of the things is that we should have three qualities.

[22:03]

One is that we, I should say, not that we should, but we need three qualities for these teachings. One is we need in these teachings. And I can imagine you think, well, how can I have faith before I hear the teachings? So I guess you have to have faith before you hear them. You have to have faith. Somehow you've heard enough to know for bodhisattvas. You have faith in being a bodhisattva. You have faith in practicing compassion. You think that that would be good and you've heard that these teachings and these realizations aid the practice. So if you wish to hear the teachings of emptiness... you understand that they're needed, or you trust that they're needed.

[23:12]

Part of the reason for this is not also to try to get people to believe in something, but I would say not to tell people about something that's very important that they don't believe. We don't want to tell people about these teachings and have them reject it because they didn't want to hear them in the first place. So I don't know if I should go on or not. Do you want to hear these teachings? What's the first quality? I think we need to be clear that when we talk about emptiness, we're not talking about utter non-existence. We're talking about a particular type of... We're not saying that Susan doesn't exist and Jerry doesn't exist.

[24:31]

We're saying that the independent existence of Susan and Jerry doesn't exist. It's that kind of non-existence we're talking about here. or like we say, we don't say there's no house, there's just no golden house. And the next point, which is kind of similar, is to acknowledge that action, karma, stories, which have consequence, and relationships, and functions occur even though all these things lack inherent existence. So you need to actually assert yourself that phenomena lack inherent existence but they do exist

[25:42]

They lack inherent existence. There's no existence of inherent existence, but they do have dependent existence. And they exist in that way. And there are activities, there is and functions can be established relatively, not ultimately. Relatively, with certain dependencies met, things exist, but not ultimately. Could you pass this out, please?

[26:52]

So now maybe we could recite this Heart Sutra. So Greg is asking about whether the birth and death refer to birth and death moment after moment or whether they refer to, well he said lifetimes. If I can, I'd like to have that question in parentheses, okay, and come back to it.

[28:09]

All right. The birth and death are discussed in the scripture which we're about to recite. Extra copies of it? No? Well, I have some extra copies here. Also, I would suggest that we chant this rather than reading it. As a group, they stop at punctuation marks. So I would suggest that you recite it and just keep reciting until you run out of air.

[29:15]

Not even until you run out, but just don't stop at the punctuation marks, if possible. And then we'll have a continuous chanting of it. Heart of great perfect wisdom sutra. Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva, when deeply practicing jnaparamita, clearly saw that five aggregates are in the spirit, All suffering Shariputra form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form.

[30:18]

emptiness, emptiness itself forms, sensations, perceptions, formations and consciousnesses are also bhakti-sariputra. are marked by emptiness, they neither arise nor cease, are neither vile nor pure, neither increase nor decrease. There is no form, no cessation, perception, no formation, no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no sight, no smell, no tear, no taste, no touch.

[31:27]

Object of mind, no realm of sight, no realm of consciousness, there is neither. nor extinction of ignorance, old age and death, nor extinction of old age and death, suffering, no cause, no cessation, no strength, no knowledge, Satsang with Mooji There is no fear far beyond all imperturbities.

[32:28]

One realizes nirvana. Buddha's a past, present, and future reality. Paramita and the Bhyatena surpass complete perfect enlightenment. Therefore we, the Prajnaparamita, Mita is a great miraculous mantra, the great mantra, the supreme mantra, which leads to probable mantra. moves all suffering, and is true, not false. Therefore we proclaim the Vajjna Paramita Mantra, the mantra that says, Vajjna Paramita [...]

[33:36]

May our attention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Ten directions, three times. All honored ones, bodhisattva, mahasattvas. Wisdom beyond wisdom, maha. prajnaparamita The Heart Sutra, one of the things it shows is how emptiness functions and also how things kind of lose their function in emptiness.

[35:17]

In other words, we can't find any things So one of the ways you can see emptiness functions is that emptiness is the object of perfect wisdom. That's what perfect wisdom is looking at is the emptiness of phenomena. It looks at phenomena and sees their emptiness. and bodhisattvas are meditating on becoming this emptiness. And meditating on emptiness removes, purifies us, purifies us of all dualities, purifies us of all clinging and removes all obstruction.

[36:27]

And also because of that, there's no fear. And relying on this perfect wisdom, so the perfect wisdom is purifying and also it is that which we practice and attain unsurpassed enlightenment with it. And in emptiness, in the context of emptiness, we can't find anything. Because things, but what we're seeing is their lack of independent existence. So we can see things still, but we can't find them. Because we don't know, we see no way for them to have a beginning, an end, or a middle. Us, they're not them. They're not in here, they're not out there, and they're not in between. Therefore, we can't find anything. So in that context, there is no birth or death.

[37:33]

There is no ignorance. There is no suffering. There's no passion. But again, it doesn't say that there aren't those things. It's just that we get a relief from those things, and we get a relief from finding them. And based on this way of being with things, we can help them most fully. And the Heart Sutra starts out by speaking of this bodhisattva. This version of the Heart Sutra starts out speaking of this bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, who is the bodhisattva of infinite compassion. So we have a bodhisattva of infinite compassion who is practicing prajnaparamita, which means he's practicing or she's practicing meditation on emptiness.

[38:38]

And she's actually meditating also on the five aggregates. She's looking at beings She's looking at forms, colors, smells, tastes, feelings. She's looking at karmic formations. Being able to see forms and feelings and conceptions, details, of karmic formations. Here it says formations. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations and consciousness. So the bodhisattva of compassion by vows, eating by vows, sleeping by vows, thinking by vows, studying thinking by vows,

[39:48]

doing all this together with all beings and for all beings. For all beings, together with all beings, by all beings, of all beings. That's how the bodhisattva practices meditation on beings. So we're meditating on beings and also meditating and remembering that we're meditating on beings together with beings. We're meditating on unenlightened beings, unenlightened beings, and together with enlightened beings. We're meditating on enlightened beings, together with enlightened beings and unenlightened beings. We're meditating on Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and we're meditating on unenlightened beings. formations, consciousness, colors, all these things we're paying attention to. And in fact, those things are happening for us all the time.

[40:52]

In every, you know, in one minute of ordinary life, you're going through lots of all this stuff. And bodhisattvas have trained themselves to remember, to think, all the time that they're doing this practice, that they're living and practicing together with everyone. So Avalokiteshvara is someone who is really highly trained in this way of being. who probably forgets occasionally like the rest of us, but notices the forgetting more than any of us have ever noticed. So actually innumerable experiences in a space where most of us would notice one and notice innumerable slips where most of us would notice none.

[41:55]

This bodhisattva is both successfully involved in the practice and also noticing lots of shortcomings as a result of great training. And this bodhisattva is supposedly in this sutra we're being told that this great bodhisattva is based on experience. the kind of experience which we have, the great Bodhisattva is meditating on the kind of experiences we have. And this Bodhisattva sees the emptiness of these experiences. And then it says in your translation, by seeing the emptiness of these experiences, what happens? What does it say? What?

[42:57]

Suffering is relieved. Seeing the emptiness of all this is suffering is relieved. Our earlier translation says, saw that the own being of these aggregates was empty. It says their own being was empty, which he calls the empty of own being, empty of inherent existence, and was saved. The earlier translation sounds like the person who was meditating was saved. which is true, but we try to emphasize in this translation that it's the suffering of the meditator, but suffering is relieved by seeing emptiness, the insubstantiality, lack of inherent existence of our experience. That relieves suffering. But this sutra doesn't mention that the, which is, you might say is obvious, but this sutra doesn't mention that the being that they're talking about is a being who has these great vows.

[44:23]

This is not telling you what the vows of Avalokiteshvara are. Other places they might be told, but this sutra is a very short one. So we have this bodhisattva who practices these great vows and because of these great vows, wholeheartedness in the practice. Because of the great vows, whatever you do for the welfare of everybody is pretty interesting. But if you're doing a certain kind of work just for yourself, well, not very interesting. Maybe for a while, like if you're washing dishes just for yourself, maybe some people can do that for a long time. But you just might not find very interesting whatever they are for you, whatever your problem is.

[45:27]

But if you knew that what you're doing, this thing that's not very interesting for you, was for the welfare of all beings, well, okay, I'll do it. Matter of fact, I'd love to do it. Help everybody. If buttering bread or washing dishes or counting cars go by on the freeway or delivering mail or selling stamps or almost anything, if you are doing it for the welfare, it starts to be more wholehearted. And almost anything that you just do for yourself eventually gets hard to continue. So this bodhisattva is really intensely practicing, deeply practicing attention to what's happening. And when she gets tired, she rests.

[46:28]

So you're going to have a nap time now. Everybody take a nap. Go ahead. Close your eyes. Take a nap. Okay? Power nap, yeah. Everybody have a power nap. But when you take the nap, do it for the welfare of everyone. Do it for the welfare of all. and do it for the welfare of Buddhas. Okay? Ready, get set, rest. Yeah, so that's it. That's the end of the rest period. Now, back to work. Yes? I would be happy to. I'll have to scream, but... Open the windows.

[47:39]

Open the doors. Elizabeth? Yes, Elizabeth. Oh, Elizabeth, come up, yes. I thought you'd never come. Elizabeth told a joke. Want to hear it? Yeah. What was the joke, Elizabeth? Bless me, Father. She said, bless me, Father. All right. My question is... My question is this. We talked at lunch about how there were some comparisons between the process and old-time religion. She said there were some comparisons between the process here and old-time religion. Good. She actually said Catholicism, but anyway. Ready? Give me that old-time religion. Give me that old-time religion.

[48:43]

Give me that old-time religion. It's good enough for... I've got a question. Elizabeth forgot the question. Okay, so say I'm practicing. I want to be a better person for me. I want to be more concentrated. I don't want to hit anybody on the highway. I want to do a better job. But basically, it's for me. I'm just being a devil's advocate. Good, thanks. Because I would never do this. That's so kind of you to act out this. So I'm just trying to be a better person. I am affecting everybody. Without maybe the intention of it, I am affecting. You say without the intention of affecting people, you do it. That's right. I'm just trying to be a better person. But also if you try to be a worse person, you affect everybody.

[49:46]

Yeah, and it might be for the better. And it might be for the better. Exactly. And if you don't have the intention to affect everybody, you affect everybody. If you do have the intention to affect everybody, you affect everybody. I affect everybody whether I intend to or not. No matter what my intention, I affect everybody. In other words, your intention has consequence, whatever it is. But you just said if you did have intention or you didn't have intention, you're affected. No. If you don't have intention, that's an intention. Oh. All right. If your story is I have... No matter what you do, you affect everybody. And the thing that really affects people, most of all, is your intention. Because you care and you're not indifferent. Actually, you do care and you're not indifferent. Even if you think you don't care and you are indifferent, you're actually in a delusion.

[50:49]

And that delusion has a different effect. That story that I don't care has a different effect than the story I do care. But my fingernails don't have as much of an effect. evolutionarily or morally don't have as much effect as my intentions. My fingernails are not an action. My story, my intention, is the basic evolutionary action, is my intention. And every moment I have an intention, every moment I have an intention, every moment I have an intention, and every one of those intentions has consequence. Good intentions have consequence. Unskillful intentions have consequence. They all have consequences. And you agree with that, right? Yes, but there's this old Italian saying that no good deed goes unpunished.

[51:50]

That's a Jewish saying. No, no. It's a Russian saying. It might be Swedish. It's Swedish, actually. You betcha. Anyway, so if I feel somebody's projection, you know, you walk in a room and somebody goes, you know, you feel the projection coming at you, and then you don't take it up right, but you kind of, you know, it hits you, we fall into their story. No, you don't fall into their story. You fall into your story. You don't fall into other people's stories, I don't think. So your story in the upright position isn't solid enough to take on the projections. You're coming at you. Your uprightness isn't strong enough to be maintained in the face of some stories.

[52:53]

Could you talk about that? Yeah. Because I think we talked about, I love you. And I think about what he went through and how he stood upright. Yeah, he was upright a lot. You know. Yeah. And what that takes to get to that point. So, first of all, working from the front to the back, what does it take to get to that point of being upright in the face of almost any story? What's the answer? Practice. It takes practice at being upright to be upright in more and more challenging stories. And part of the practice of that you're not upright with some stories. If you were able to be upright in a lot of stories, all those uprightnesses would be conducive to further uprightnesses. But if you never got any difficult stories to you, then still you probably would need some eventually for your uprightness to be fully developed.

[54:10]

And having these difficult stories come is part of the opening to all beings. Like some people are pretty upright, except that they limit the stories that they're exposing themselves to by staying away from certain situations. So that's kind of not upright. But then because of that type of not upright, they do pretty well with the situations they run into. That's why Bodhisattvas want to open up to wider and wider situations so that their uprightness doesn't become, you know, too parochial or something, we might say. Right. I mean, but, okay, my intention is to send love to the universe that I cannot be with. You know, I mean, they may kill me or whatever, and I, you know, I just don't really, I'm not ready for that. But another way to put it is, I have trouble being upright with.

[55:16]

Yeah. Some people that are killing them, they can be upright with people who are killing them. Right. Or trying to. Like you said, Desmond Tutu. Yeah. He could be upright with people who are on the verge of killing him. But some other people, they can do that, but they can't be upright with somebody who's giving him a massage. Right. You know, they're kind of like, oh, no, don't stop. No, no, don't keep. One more, just more. Different people have different patterns. But the point is to open up. But you want to open a little bit more and more. You don't want to just go, shh. I think, yeah, it's recommended that you don't take on too advanced a story. Yeah. That is good. Because sometimes if you take on a story that's too advanced or way too advanced, then the story that comes with that, the lack of uprightness could be way too advanced.

[56:20]

And might throw your practice of uprightness into retrogression. Right. Like, I'm never going to be upright again after that one. You know, I was thinking of working in the prisons and I'm just not ready. I'm not there yet. Yeah, and some other people... Yes. Or some people don't mind the prisoners, but they have trouble with the guards, and other people have trouble with the guards, but not with the prisoners, and vice versa. Some people have trouble with the security clearance. Different people have different problems. Some people just freak out at paperwork. Some people don't. So each of us... where we have not yet learned how to be upright... And if they're way, way out there, we probably should wait and not take one that's way advanced, but take one that's a little bit advanced, a little bit hard, but not so hard that it will set the practice back. But the main thing is, again, not to be selecting your own difficulties, but just sort of be open and see what comes.

[57:29]

Because usually what comes is just about right. But if you go looking for stuff, you often actually choose things that are too easy because you get to choose, this will be really hard for me. So you go choose something that actually is your choice of what's hard. But what comes is often just about right, but it's good also to be practicing together with everybody, including other people who are doing this practice so that Elizabeth I think that may be a little too advanced for you. Why don't you do a little bit more tranquility practice before you try that? So it isn't just you saying, I think that's too much. Or it just isn't you saying, I should push myself into that. You consult with other people about what you're getting into. That helps a lot. Question. You talk about karma. What about your family's karma? People have died. Is this effective? I know there's no birth, no death, but I mean, does it affect the other, the dead people in your family, the karma?

[58:34]

I can't hear you. Does it affect the practice? Does it affect the karma in the people who have died? I mean, can you affect the whole system by your practice? Do you think that? And how would you know that? I mean, is there any way to know? Okay, can you hear me okay? So she's concerned about, you know, well, can you affect the whole system? Your family. Can you affect your family in the past and in the future and in the present? Can you affect yourself in the past, in the present and the future? Okay. Yes. And how would you know, she said. Okay, so that's the question.

[59:35]

I'll take care of that. I also want, you can stay if you want. The other thing is, when you come into a room, people have projections on you. I think I would suggest the following, what do you call it? the following agreement about what certain words mean. I would suggest that we use projection for what we think about people and interpretation about what we consciously think of people. So when I come into a room, people are interpreting me. And also people are projecting on me. The projections are that they're not aware they think about me. And both of those things I pick up, she said, unconsciously. I pick them up unconsciously and sometimes consciously. So mostly unconsciously I pick up what all of you are thinking about me when I come in the room.

[60:37]

I pick up your conscious and unconscious. I pick that up mostly unconsciously. Because my unconscious is much, you know, much more of what I'm operating on. And partly I pick up on the conscious. I have a conscious take on your conscious and unconscious rendition of me. So you have an unconscious rendition of me and an unconscious rendition of me. And both of those are affecting me. And affecting you and affecting everybody. The pattern of your unconscious rendition of me is your unconscious karma, your unconscious intention in relationship to everything else in your mind. And then you have a conscious story about it too, which I would call your interpretation of me. All of it's affecting me, all of it's affecting you, and all of it's affecting everybody. I look at these patterns, for example, when I look at my past and meditate on my past and become upright, gentle, and harmonious with my past, in other words, my story of my past,

[62:04]

I might see other ways of being with that story than I could see in the past. Namely, in the past I wasn't upright, honest, gentle or something like that. In the past I didn't realize I was practicing with everybody back then. Now I'm meditating on how I'm practicing with everybody. When I turn back to the past and practice with the past the way I now practice perhaps in the present. Now it is the past change, but moments between that past I'm looking at and the present, which I didn't even look back to, many of those change too. My whole history changes if I look at my history in this way. My history changes, my family's history changes too. When I look back at something that happened between me and my uncle, and I now go and look at it in an upright, gentle way, and I also maybe say, what could someone have done to help me then?

[63:28]

Now people are helping. What could someone have done to help me then? And I say, well, someone could have asked me how I felt. Someone could have drawn my attention to how I felt. I was feeling like somebody asked me how I was feeling. So my inattention and my lack of support to even pay attention, nobody was helping me pay attention, and I was not really paying attention very well. And as a result of not paying attention very well, I thought some other things I wouldn't have thought of if I was paying attention. And I think if you take it a step further and you understand the person now, you know, you understand how they grew up and you understand how they got the way they were, and that's why they impacted on you, I mean, it does... Yes, and also about me, that I look back at my experience and how I wasn't able to see it when I was a little kid,

[64:31]

And as a result of not being able to look at it, I made up certain coping stories, some coping mechanism, you know. Like one story I was thinking of that's real important for me is one time I was playing with my girl cousin and I punched her in the stomach playfully, not wanting to hurt her and knocked the wind out of her. And you know how kids get the wind knocked out of them? And when it happens to you, you don't breathe again, right? And when you're looking at your cousin, you don't know if she's going to ever breathe again. So I wanted her to breathe again. My uncle comes in and sees that, and then he says, if you ever do that to her again, I'll kill you. And so I think, oh, can't play with girls. Hope for that. Don't play with girls because if you play with girls, you knock the wind out of them and they get killed. Now, that's not true, but that's a story I made up. I made up that story because I was there all by myself, five years old, you know, with threat of death.

[65:40]

Like, don't play with girls. If someone had come to me and said, how do you feel? I would have said, well, I feel terrible. I didn't mean to hurt her and now my uncle is threatening to kill me. If someone had just asked me that, I think that would have been the end of it. I wouldn't have made up that policy. So when I go back ...way of addressing to it would have eliminated that policy, then the whole story changes. Plus a whole bunch of other things like that change too, without even looking at them. So your awareness now, as you take care of what's happening now differently, your history changes backwards, not to mention... So you can change your past by the way you take care of the present. Now most people are familiar that if you take care of the present a certain way, that will affect your future, which is also true. But also if you take care of your future, that can change your present. So all these partitions of your mind are actually fluid and you ordinarily would think.

[66:43]

And relaxing with what's happening tends to make a lot more possibilities in past, present, and future. And not just for you, because everything, even in the present, the way you take care of the present affects the past and future. It also affects everybody else. So you're changing your whole family's history, too. You're changing the history of all beings. So Buddhists change the history of the whole world in their mind when they wake up. But they still realize that not everybody's on board for this tremendous potential of being aware and treating things in such a way that you realize that nothing's really substantial. Things don't have to be this way. This is just one manifestation of infinite possibilities. which are manifested, were manifested because of a certain tightening of these abilities, manifested certain things to happen, but that's not the end of the story.

[67:44]

Because whatever happens has consequence. And then when you're into the consequence and you deal with the consequence differently, when the consequence is different, then the original event is different. So if you do something that you want to be good, that makes it not so good. Right? If you try to help somebody and they tell you it hurts you, well then, you're not so sure it really was so good. Right? But then, that's not the end of the story because that has a consequence. As you start to open these things up, you realize that there's no, you don't have to get stuck in this process because the process isn't really stuck. It's only struck because of mental projection onto the situation. And we do do that stuff, and we're not trying to avoid that we do this stuff, but care for this process in such a way as to realize that we are affecting everybody and everybody is affecting us.

[68:47]

And that's the reason why none of these things are fixed. Now you have to practice good and avoid evil in order to wake up to this. Practicing good and avoiding evil is not just to practice good and avoid evil, but to realize that there's no substantiality in the whole process. And realizing that, then compassion is unimpeded. Before that, if you get tightened around good and evil, if you're practicing you're tight around it, you don't open up to the unobstructed compassion. But this example that Liz was bringing up is just one way to look at how attention and particularly gracious, generous, upright, honest, and also with the intention or the vow to open it up, how this actually saves the whole world and how it saves the whole world and how if you don't do it, you're still contributing anyway.

[69:55]

But your contribution will be different depending on how much you love the emptiness of the situation and how much you're committed to love the situation. So you have to love the situation first in order to have the energy to see the emptiness. The emptiness is what saves but also the emptiness purifies the loving. So the loving makes possible the realization of emptiness and emptiness makes possible the purification of the love which then leads to more realization of emptiness which leads to more purification of love. So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying to accept what happens because you don't know what's going to happen. I'm not saying you don't understand me correctly, but I would just edit what you said. And letting me edit what you said is part of accepting what's happening. So, you said if you accept what's happening, and then you said because... But you don't have to have that because.

[70:56]

Just accept what's happening. And accept means not just love, but be generous with it. Don't just accept, but make it a gift. So not just I accept you, but I make my acceptance of you a gift to you. And a gift to me. And I make you a gift to me. So more than just acceptance, make it. Make it a gift. But also be upright in your giving. Don't lean into your giving. Be relaxed with your giving. Don't be tight around your giving. Don't try to get anything from your giving. Bless you. I heard you say in all of those words, take care of your future and it will affect the present.

[72:16]

Whatever affects your future, it will affect the present. How do you take care of your future? I thought you took care of your future by taking care of your present. You do. The way you take care of your present affects your future. But the way you take care of your future affects your present. And the way you take care of your present affects your past. And the way you take care of your past affects your present. People generally speaking are aware that the way you take care of your past affects your present. That's why they take care of their present, because they think the way they take care of their present will affect their future. In other words, this past will affect another present. But I'm saying it goes in both directions. So caring for the present will change the past, and the way you care for the past can also change the past and change the present. It goes all these different ways. So you have past, present, and future. You, every moment, have a past, present, and future. So the way you take care of all three is important.

[73:20]

What's all in the present? Not really, no. I still don't get how in the present, if you're in the present, wherever you are in the present, Let's put it this way. You are not actually present time. You're not confined to present time. So you're all simultaneous. You're all simultaneous, yeah. But you do have a present. But present isn't, you know, present isn't really you anymore than your past is you. You have a past present. That's all. And taking care of all of them is important, but you're also cut off from past, present and future. You're independent of them and you have them. You're independent of them and you have them. Like we say that autumn is the future of summer.

[74:24]

We don't say autumn is the past of winter. But the winter is the future of autumn and summer is the past of autumn. Summer has a past and a future, but it's independent. Autumn has a past and future, but it's independent. Autumn is, you know, like this. You just keep coming back to form as emptiness and emptiness as form. It's fine to come back to that, and that's not all. Come back to it in a gentle way. Gentle with formless emptiness. I don't want to be. I mean, I just confess I don't want to be. If you don't want to be, then we're going to be gentle with you. I mean, I want to be, but I'm conflicted. Just remember, Paul Page, I don't know, but that's what it says.

[75:26]

Thank you. You're welcome. Would you introduce yourself to her, please? I was struck by the same thing Elizabeth was in your afternoon comments, or at least where Elizabeth started. Sure, I'll say that again. I think I was struck by the same thing that Elizabeth was in terms of the beginning of Roshi's comment. And what came up for me was...

[76:26]

Well, just a few days ago in the San Fernando Valley, two guys in two different cars apparently got angry at each other. And then this road rage of violence. I guess they were in a battle for who would get back at whom for cutting whom off or whatever. And the result was, I think, two kids killed. And... I think that they forgot to practice Zazen that morning. And I was relating it to that notion of students practicing only for themselves. And I was wondering if that's actually even possible. It's not possible, but people dream that. That's what people think. You can't practice for yourself because everything you do affects everybody.

[77:31]

So all your practices are for everybody but not everybody thinks of that and therefore not everybody realizes wholehearted practice because you can't You actually are living wholeheartedly, but if you don't think about how you're practicing for everybody, you won't experience, you won't realize your wholeheartedness. That's why you have to think about how you're practicing with everyone to balance your thinking that you're not practicing for everyone. because you're thinking that you're practicing for yourself or just for a few people, closes down the possibilities of your life, which means it cuts you off from emptiness. Emptiness is what shows you that you're not closed in. But if you have a story that you're practicing by yourself and you don't practice with that story,

[78:33]

then you will lean into that story. And even if it's a story you're practicing together with everyone, if you lean into that one, that will also be a problem. But for warm-up purposes, think about practicing together with everyone. And for warm-up purposes, confess that you think you don't practice. Don't just let it sit there. Bring it out in the open. Here's a story I'm practicing for me. Put it out there in the open and get everybody to look at it and, you know, make a bonfire of it. Make it... That story can liberate you if you take care of the story that you're practicing by yourself. The story liberates you, but if you care for the story that you're practicing by yourself, which is strangling you, if you care for that story, you will realize you're not practicing for yourself. You're practicing for all beings. You'll realize it if you take care of it. Because you are practicing for everybody.

[79:40]

We are practicing for the whole universe. So, let's see. Like Bruce said, Dogen says, there's this expression, genjo koan, or the realizing the koan, the realize the universe. Realize the universe. You and I, each of us, is the universe realized as us. You are the whole universe realized as Craig. You are living for the whole universe. And the whole universe is living for you. That's what Zazen is supposed to be. And if you think you're practicing just for yourself or a few people, then confess that, get it out in the open and realize, no, I'm practicing for everybody. That's reality. That's the practice.

[80:43]

It's the practice for everybody, with everybody, of everybody. I'm doing the practice of everybody, with everybody, for everybody. And I do sometimes think I'm doing the practice of one person for one person. I sometimes slip into that, have that story. But if I care for that story properly, I won't fall into it. And if I don't fall into it, I will be released from that story and open to the story of that you and I are not the universe, we are the universe realized by you and I. We are limited beings who are the realization of the entire universe. Always. But we're not always practicing that. We're not always remembering that. We're not always open to that. Therefore, we get into leverage. We get into, you talk rather than I cut you in.

[81:46]

You know, whenever anybody cuts me off, I try to remember, that's my grandson. If he cuts me off, I say, go ahead. Actually, last night, I was talking on the cell phone and he jumped on me in the parking lot and almost knocked the cell phone out of my hand and I yelled at him. I said, don't do that when I'm holding the cell phone. I lost it for a second there. I didn't know that this was the realized universe as him jumping on me and almost knocking the cell phone onto the cement. So I confess that and get it out in the open. Okay? Then we can recover. Get it out there. Every moment where you forget this is the realized universe. This is the universe realized as my sitting now with all beings.

[82:53]

So it always is that case, but we have to practice that, otherwise we get out of touch with it. Risk of road rage, etc. Right? Anything could happen, always, and bad things have a better chance manifesting if we lose on the fundamental point. Thank you. You're welcome. And here comes Jack. I think I have a fairly simple question. Is that your story?

[83:58]

When I hear you saying that we should try to remain upright in circumstances that are distressing to us, but what do we do when we encounter someone who we think is really doing harm? Let's say that we know a person is going to go and do something that we see as really harmful. Do we simply accept that, or how do we deal in our everyday lives with people that we find are harmful? So I see, I see, he says if you see somebody, I'm going to change what he said, if you see somebody and you think that they are being harmful, might do something harmful, then how do we practice with that? And so I'm suggesting when you see someone person or an animal or a truck or a landslide, whatever. Anyway, when you see something and you think it is or might be, then I'm saying to be gentle with it, to be upright with it, to be honest with it, and to be peaceful with it.

[85:10]

And then you will not just be dealing with this thing, but you and Buddha will be dealing with this thing. So if you are not this way with this dangerous person, you will be less able to have a compassionate response to them. And compassion can oftentimes, not oftentimes, it potentially can disarm the harm. It doesn't always, because even Shakyamuni Buddha sometimes couldn't disarm harm. Sometimes it just wasn't in the cards for even the Buddha, the historical Buddha. The conditions weren't such that he could disarm the harm. But a number of people did disarm the harm. And there's many stories of success and failure on disarming harmful situations in the traditions. If we're, though, in a position to challenge or cross that person... Challenge them?

[86:19]

Is that appropriate? Yeah. Challenge, challenge. Well, the person's a challenge in the first place. Everybody's pretty much a challenge. Everybody's a challenge to being compassionate. All people who aren't enlightened are objects of compassion. But some of the unenlightened people are very challenging objects of compassion. And sometimes to challenge them is very helpful to them. Some people who need compassion have not been experiencing challenge recently. I mean, they weren't noticing that they're being challenged. So sometimes challenging them is very, very, very helpful. Like, I challenge you I have a challenge for you. We'll oftentimes snap them out of their sleepiness. I have a challenge for you, Paul.

[87:23]

Does that help? So challenging can be done tenderly, gently, flexibly, uprightly, peacefully, and honestly. I have a challenge for you. Like the story of a person I knew who was an Aikido teacher, a Western Aikido teacher. He was in Japan. He was on a bus in Japan and this big apparently drunk and belligerent got on the bus and was threatening to harm the people on the bus. And the bus stopped and the little old man got on the bus and challenged the big guy. by saying, Hello, sweetheart, how are you? He challenged him. And the guy broke in. His wife just died. So his wife died, he got drunk, and then he's going around town trying to beat somebody up to distract himself from his pain.

[88:31]

This guy could see, this is my grandson. How are you, sweetheart? Maybe it was his grandson. But that love, belligerence, and snapped him out of it. So yes, challenge violence, but challenge it gently, because generally speaking, violence to violence just enhances it. Being symmetrical with violence usually doesn't bring benefit. Implementing violence with sweetness and love can just be a wonderful, wonderful story. But you have to be practicing this on a regular basis to be able to apply it in, you know, challenging situations. If you wait to start practicing until you're in a situation where you feel threatened and violence coming towards you, it may not be possible to start at that time.

[89:32]

So do it, try to do it all the time, and then you may be able to continue it in these shocking, you know, very high energy violence scenes. That would be our hope. Not to mention the other ones are lovely too. To be able to practice it in the more gentle situations is fine too. People can get in trouble in those places too. You can help there too. Any other comments at this time? Hello? I'm just wondering if you could illustrate your point about infinite possibility that you were discussing earlier.

[90:37]

Illustrate it? Illustrate it, yes. Maybe not literally. Well, like, again, you know, one time I was... I think my grandson lived in Chinatown when she became a mother. So during the first year or so of my grandson's life, he lived in Chinatown. And so I used to take him out for walks in San Francisco Chinatown. There was a park right around the corner from his house. In that park, most of the kids, he's actually one-fourth Chinese, but most of the kids who played in that park were 100% Chinese, and most of them were really nice to him and kind of led a big brother, big sister attitude towards him.

[91:39]

accepting and protective of him. And then the park was right on, like, not Grant, but maybe Stockton or something like that. Real busy market street, you know, there in Chinatown. And he wanted to go on the street. And I, trying to practice with him, to not be, you know, I tried to be relaxed and gentle with him rather than just overpowering him, you know. Tried to be gentle with him But he really energetically wanted to go into the street and I didn't want him to go into the street. So I tried to find some way to be gentle and be upright, you know, not be leaning way into, not leaning into the story of him not going into the street. Or in other words, not leaning away from the story of him going into the street. to be upright with the story of him staying on the sidewalk and be upright with the story of the street and getting hurt.

[92:41]

I was struggling with that. It was really hard. Because, of course, I could just be rough with him and have one possibility, namely, my possibility. And his possibilities are being limited. Like, he doesn't get to go in the street. He's stuck on the thing of not going in the street. So I was trying not to be that way, but I was having a hard time being wholehearted about being gentle and upright with him and honest too about, I don't want you to go in the street. I do want to go to the street. He does, you know. And finally I got him to, you know, join my program of not going in the streets. So then he started going in the opposite direction of the street, which was into the shops. So there's a street, a sidewalk, and on the other side is the shops, which are a little bit less dangerous for him, but more dangerous for the shop.

[93:43]

So now I'm protecting the people in the shops from him. So it's the same thing again, how to be gentle with him and upright with him and upright with my story of him not harming the shop situation. Okay? So that particular day was really difficult for me. And I wasn't opening to all the different possibilities because I wasn't really, I didn't really find the place of real tenderness and uprightness. But later I thought, when I started to consider to bring the Bodhisattva vow together with this practice, I thought of, oh, how about doing this practice with him. Then I was able to be more wholehearted about it. So then I thought, Well, rather than just my story of him not going in the street, I could join his story of going in the street. And we can go in the street together. Not him going in the street and get killed, but us going into the street together and him seeing what it's like in the street, but me with him.

[94:45]

So then I thought more like together we're doing this. And then a lot more possibilities come into play. infinite possibilities of fun in the street. And then him saying, let's get out of the street. Let's go back in the sidewalk. But then when we get the sidewalk again, us together, then much more possibilities arise. Does that give you a feeling for that? But when I was thinking of it, I was trying to do this practice But not with him, and not with everybody. And that made it real difficult for me to find myself. Because he's just basically testing it, but he's also testing the proposal, I'm doing it by myself, which is limited. So the practice of doing it together with everybody, with these quality balances, the situation gets much more rich. Including still the possibility of us getting hurt in the street or him trashing the shop. That's a good illustration, thank you.

[95:52]

Thank you. What's your name again? Justin. Justin. Anybody want to offer anything else at this time? Are you able to hear better now? And here comes Joel. Looks like Joel's coming. Well, I want to start with a confession, which is that forgiveness can be really hard for men. And I can really, when it really hits me, I mean, most of the time I'm fine. But when something really grabs on, very hard for me.

[96:54]

And so I just wanted to start there. And all the things, great things like gentleness and uprightness, I mean, they're gone, you know. But what you're saying seems very helpful. I mean, this idea of the present changing the past really got to me. I mean, in that context of forgiveness, that, like, you know, I mean, like, even like, let's say I could forgive right now. That still leaves all this junk. But maybe indeed it doesn't. There's something, like, it changes the stuff. I don't know. I don't know where to go with that, but I just... Well, one thing I said before I say it again is go back to your past and ask what would have been helpful, what could someone have done in that situation that would have helped you?

[97:56]

Well, it's very clear. I mean, exactly what you said. How do you feel? Which didn't happen. Right, and then look at the event with someone asking you how you feel and see how the event looks different. Look at, like if... Like in my case, if I'm back there with my uncle telling me that and somebody comes in the room who didn't come in the room, but somebody comes in the room and says to the five-year-old boy, how do you feel? Right. And I imagine myself saying how I feel, then the history changes. Absolutely, sure. And then you could even take the person out of it. Yeah, so the person wasn't in there. Imagining the person there makes me feel different about my uncle and different about me and different about my policy. And then my whole history with girls changes. I feel different about all the girls I knew the whole time. I have a different perspective on every, not practically every experience I had been for the next...

[98:59]

And in other cases, in between there, not necessarily about girls, but about various situations where something happened and I didn't look to see how I felt and nobody asked me how I felt, but I go back and ask myself that question and in seeing how I felt, changes, the event changes. I feel different about what the people said and what I said once I can express myself. If someone's mean to me, and I say I feel like you're mean, that's a different event from what they're just mean to me and I think that, but don't say it. But don't notice it. If I could wake up in all those past difficult situations, they're turned from being bad situations to good situations. they turn to enlightening situations, which not only does that situation changes, but it enlightens a whole bunch of other situations. So it becomes a good event from an unhappy event, which will have unhappy consequences of lots of policies which weren't necessary.

[100:07]

So those policies drop away too. And they aren't necessary now. Or they tell me that any policies I have left over can also drop away. So then that event changes my present. So I imagine a different way of dealing with the past. The past changes, and then the past changes my present. Infinite possibilities, more or less, how to open them up from their tight, circumscribed destinies. Yeah, the fluidity. The fluidity, because things are fluid. Things are fluid. We make stories about things that aren't fluid because you can't grasp a fluid story. But we like to grasp things. We're afraid what happens if we can't. We make graspable stories, which is we're doing that. We should accept that. But if we treat our graspable, non-fluid stories properly,

[101:09]

The fluidity starts to be revealed and the fluidity then makes everything that was possible before is still there, all those bad possibilities. But even the good possibilities are still there too, but they're not constricted good possibilities, they're not good destinies and bad destinies. But there are destinies, we should recognize that, but if you're gentle with your destinies, the destinies are not destinies, they're opportunities for realization of infinite So if you could go back to some tight little good or bad destiny and realize infinite compassion in there, then they're all good. And that's the Buddha. Infinite compassion, great compassion. Work on this stuff. You have to get the bad examples out in the open and look at them past, present, and future. And forgiveness is not something you do by yourself.

[102:12]

So you have trouble with forgiveness, and you always will if you think you're doing it by yourself. Yes. When you open up to the Bodhisattva vows, a lot of possibilities are going to start unfolding that weren't there when you were doing it by yourself. Sure. Which you never were, but you thought so. Yeah. So you bring the story of I'm doing forgiveness. You brought the story, I have trouble with forgiveness. Now also bring out the story. practicing forgiveness by myself. Put that out in the open and we can become free of it. Keep it back there and that story, which doesn't sound that bad, me having trouble practicing forgiveness by myself doesn't sound that evil, but that can destroy you if you keep it back there. Bring it out. You just did. Keep bringing it out. Thank you very much. You can both come.

[103:19]

I mean, come on. Come on. Yes. I sit on Paul Page. I will. Thank you, Paul. Wherever Paul is. Hi. Can you tell me your name again? Yes. This process that you just were discussing with Joel, is that what it is you do on the cushion during an inquiry meditation? Is that the time, too? Again, on your cushion you can do two types of meditation that I spoke of. One way of meditation, you're just letting go of your thinking. Right. The other way of meditation, you're caring for your thinking. So the caring for your thinking also applies to your tranquility meditation. You can do it there too. But in tranquility you're not really taking care of your experience, you're more like letting go of it.

[104:24]

You're not really taking care of your thinking. Right. You're mainly emphasizing letting go of it. Correct. But usually, once you're calm enough, then you can now start taking care of whatever's happening. as you're sitting in meditation. Practice this way. And then whatever is there will start opening to the truth rather than just being an opportunity for calming down. Calming down is good. And then again, but also even when you're practicing tranquility practice, you still can remember that you're doing it for balance. which again, you know, if you're practicing tranquility and you're being unsuccessful, but you're doing it for everybody else, you're still happy. Because much more important than getting calm for yourself is that whatever you're doing, you're doing for other people, all other people. Once you realize that once you're happy practicing tranquility for the welfare of others, you do calm down.

[105:28]

Yeah. But you also practice that way when you're doing this insight work of opening to the teaching. So, insight work, my tradition's been almost totally the tranquility kind of meditating, so I've been struggling with trying to, with wanting to do the insight work and wanting to broaden my practice and I noticed that there are some thoughts that sometimes it's there's random thinking and I'm wondering if there's a time during the inquiry meditation to direct my thinking towards specific questions about say loneliness or say or specifically on emptiness or maybe specifically on my vow bodhisattva vow

[106:29]

So focused at the point of inquiry more would seem more meaningful. Focusing on random thinking about my grocery list, which comes up too. Okay, so if you have a thought If you would like to take up some topic, some teaching that you would like to meditate on, that's fine. So what teaching would you like to meditate on? You'd like to meditate perhaps on the teachings of emptiness. You might want to do that. And the way of caring for those teachings would be the same way that you'd carry for... But when you look at the teaching, you're going to be looking at some cognitive representation of the teaching which you've heard.

[107:35]

So you're going to have a story of the teaching. And the story of the teaching might be, this is the teaching, and I would like to look at this teaching. So that's the story you've got in that moment. And then you might have that story again. Here's the teaching, which is similar to the teaching I was looking at a while ago. To continue to look at this teaching. So you're actually looking at your experience, which has a story of looking at a teaching. And you care for that story the same way you care for the story of going shopping, or helping someone, or hurting someone. Or a story that someone else is hurting someone. So you're constantly, your mind's creating a cognitive version of your relationship with the world, and sometimes your relationship with the world is that you have been studying or hearing about certain teachings,

[108:38]

are actually thinking about those teachings. You are thinking of those teachings plus you have a story of I am thinking about those teachings. And then this way of caring for that story of thinking about the teachings will take the stories, for example, about the teaching of emptiness and you will hear the truth of the teaching of emptiness will appear to you if you care for your story of the teaching of emptiness. So if you take a part of the Heart Sutra and meditate on part of the Heart Sutra, avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, practicing deeply the prajnaparamita, you can meditate or you can meditate on and saw all five skandhas are empty. You can meditate on that. Or you can meditate on saw or five skandhas are empty. You can meditate on that. So this is a story about, and you can meditate, I'm meditating on this. And then you can think, oh, I'm meditating on that.

[109:42]

I'm meditating. And then you can think, well, actually, maybe we can go from I'm meditating to meditating. See how that goes. Or you can study and you can watch the story, I'm meditating on the teaching that all five aggregates are empty. And you care for that, and pretty soon you realize, oh, the I is not necessary. There's just the meditating. So then you might meditate on that. Okay, now you've got the story, the I isn't necessary. Now there's just five skandhas are empty. Five skandhas are empty. My experience is empty of independent existence. Look at that story. And you're caring for it in such a way that suddenly the story goes, hello. And you actually hear the truth that the story was about. The story about the Heart Sutra is based on the truth of the Heart Sutra. The story of the Heart Sutra, because each of us has a different story of this Heart Sutra.

[110:46]

And each of us has a different story of the Heart Sutra every moment, plus each of us has a different story from other people each moment. So when you read a teaching, you've got the teaching there and you understand it and then you care for it in such a way that it peels away the curtain of the teaching that you were looking at and shows you the actual teaching. And that's, you could do that kind of meditation. And you could do it according to, just you know, and just see what part really gets you and just and work on that and you know have a story i want to work on that and what you're working on is your version of that but that's but that's the version you do have just like you have your version of your relationship with the grocery store or with your friend you have your version you have you do you have to be responsible for that and accept that you have a story if you care for your story of your friend you will realize the emptiness of your story of your friend

[111:50]

You will understand the Heart Sutra as you meditate on the story of your relationship with your friend. You will understand your relationship with your friend if you meditate on the Heart Sutra. Because it's all part of the same thing. Because it's all connected, yeah. Thank you. Amit? Well, I've been thinking about this for quite a while. You've been thinking about? You mentioned about the compassion, having infinite compassion. It's just the main goal, not ending the suffering. Not being liberated from suffering. But you could say, well, the point of compassion is to liberate suffering, but it's really...

[112:56]

not just to liberate suffering because compassion is operating even when suffering is not being liberated. So that compassion is really the point. However, compassion wants people to be liberated from suffering. Is that the result of compassion or not? Is liberation the result of compassion? Yes or no. No, not always. No, because sometimes you totally love someone, you're being completely skillful, you have no obstruction to caring for them, but they're not ready to be released. And they kind of want to see, will you keep loving me even if I don't get released? And you say, yes, I will. So Buddha couldn't get everybody to come on board with compassion. But the compassion was there and it was unhindered. No matter who it was, it was completely there for the person.

[114:01]

Now that will be conducive to the other person becoming free, it's true. But that's not the end for that person, because once a person is free, then they practice compassion. I tell it for yourself. So you have, I mean, no matter if you're liberated from your own suffering or not, me feeling the infinite should just help me live with my own suffering, right? That should be a result. Oh, yeah. When you feel, when you have great compassion, you're not suffering anymore. But the point of your great compassion is not that you won't be suffering anymore, but you aren't. You can't be perfectly happy except that you're also in pain because other people are suffering. That's your compassion. Okay, well, let's get to the second question. So you feel compassion. You can feel compassion. Okay, all the questions that I'm hearing and then some other groups, it's just my anger, my forgiveness, and then all that, which are also... So you feel, for example, compassionate for the poor, for the hungry, right?

[115:05]

So you can feel compassionate for them and then do nothing, just meditate for them. Or another thing, just a plan of action, you do something. Or you see injustice to yourself or to your family. So you can just be upright about it, you can be gentle. purified, like, you know, you can see some part of it is just myself that is reacting to this, and some part of it, it is injustice, then I don't see anything that, okay, how would you react to those situations? Like I'm saying that this great compassion and this meditation on emptiness, so if you have compassion for people, okay, If you feel compassion for people, most people who do not understand the truth, although they feel compassion for some people, for other people they don't feel compassion. Okay, what would you do? Let me say a little bit more. So that's why we meditate on emptiness, because when you become emptiness, then your compassion becomes unhindered.

[116:07]

Okay? Now you're saying, well, what do you do? But what I'm saying is in order to actually wholeheartedly meditate on emptiness, you need to practice bodhisattva vows. Now I haven't gone into the bodhisattva vows yet, but one of the bodhisattva vows is you vow to save every person. And that means you vow to interact with every person. So that means you have to do something with them, like go dancing with them, go shopping with them, go to the hospital, go to the jail. go to the football game. It means you're actually with people and you vowed to go with all people. You vowed to go into the streets of Chinatown with your grandson. You vowed to go into the parking lot with your grandson. You do all these things because of vowing to go with everybody everywhere. So they do a lot. So what if you see injustice and how do you deal with that?

[117:10]

Well, if you see injustice, you know, like let's say I see I have a story that so-and-so is being unjust with you. This is similar to the question that Jack brought up. I see someone being cruel to you or unjust to you. So then I go up to the person and I say, could I have dinner with you? And they say, no, no, I've got to go keep doing this to this person. I say, no, not for a second. They say, okay. They say, see you later. I'll come back and be unjust with you later after I finish dinner. But maybe they'll never come back. So if I see a situation, the bodhisattva vow is when you see... People in road rage, okay, fighting with each other or whatever, you vow to engage them. Engage them. Embrace them.

[118:12]

You're not being practical. Like in Sudan, like, you know, they're killing people. If I was in Sudan... Talking to people, right? So it's not just like you invite some people to dinner. It's just more fundamental. No, it might be that you invite people to dinner. People eat in Sudan. Some people do eat there. Especially the warlords are eating. So you actually would invite people to dinner. The Cuban Missile Crisis, have you heard of that? That was averted by people having a drink together in a bar. People got together and talked. And that conversation led to them, those two people, going to their bosses and telling their bosses what they found out in the conversations and the bosses calling the war off. Together in a bar in Washington and had a talk. So having... Drinking helps. Yeah, having drinking is very good. Yeah. So getting together... can sometimes stop a war or sometimes get somebody into people where they weren't going to feed them.

[119:26]

And as you get in there in a situation and you engage it, that's what the bodhisattvas, they promise to do that. But what it looks like, it could be that they take a hold of the person and throw them through the air. They say, good morning, darling, and the person stops beating people up. It could be things. Bodhisattva has vowed to do whatever will be helpful. It could be anything. Sometimes they cut their arm off. Sometimes they take a boat. Sometimes they give money. Sometimes they say, do you think it's okay to pet on a first date? Do you know what pet means? They do many things, but they're flexible, you know, and they're fearless because they practice, because they meditate on emptiness and are afraid of people.

[120:27]

So when they're not afraid, you can see all kinds of possibilities of doing things with people. You're not trying to control them. And then they snap out of their hate. But even the Buddha sometimes couldn't do it. So it doesn't mean you can do it. But it definitely is action. Because what we're meditating on is action. We're meditating on action. Our stories are action. You're meditating on action, and because you meditate on action, another kind of action comes. You're acting all the time anyway, but if you meditate on action, action will be more and more helpful. That's my proposal. And, you know, I have... I'm very happy about this proposal. I don't regret practicing this. I'm not saying I... But whenever I practice it, I think, this is a great practice. And it's completely traditional and it's completely difficult and easy to forget.

[121:31]

But it's... It is a central practice to give close attention. And this type of attention, this gracious attention, to all your actions, what you're doing every moment. So from now on, as long as you live, you're going to be an active person, but I don't know how much you're going to be able to pay attention to that. So that's what I'm trying to help you do. I'm inspiring you to pay attention to it and also remember it's easier for you to pay attention to your action if you remember that you're practicing together with everyone. and for everyone. If you're just paying attention for your own welfare, that gets uninteresting fast. But if I pay attention to my practice for you, and I feel inspired and supported by you to pay attention to my action, once I'm paying attention to my action, I can also pay attention to your action. But if I don't pay attention to mine, I don't really pay attention to yours.

[122:35]

I mean, I sort of see you, you know, you're... That's what I see, right? So then I want to do road rage at you. But if I watch my own action, I don't want to do road rage. I want to do road generosity and help everybody else get where they're going safely. That's what I want to do. I really do. I hope we all drive safely and carefully. That's what I want. when I watch my stories in the proper way. And again, if I watch my stories in the proper way, I will see the emptiness and then I will see all the possibilities to wish you well and to engage with you well, which I don't see when I think my stories or my life is separated from yours.

[123:37]

into the situation to clear away obstructions to wholehearted compassion Brett I'm wondering if translations if the word emptiness has other main If there were other main or common words that were used instead of the word that we use in English as emptiness. Do other people use other words in translations? If you look back into the original language of the sutra. Void. The word emptiness I heard is a kind of, what do they say? It's a fullness, like something that's full, but partly, but full and empty. Like a swollen thing. Kind of swollen. Core is empty.

[124:41]

Because it seems like we go from emptiness to talking about associations. And if I think about associations or linkage or the, I guess, the dependency or dependent origination of things, then this makes sense to me. But I just get stuck on the idea that empty... I guess makes sense, I don't know. Well, uh... You were saying your wife likes... Yeah, my wife likes interdependence. If I put interdependence or link or association in here instead of the word emptiness, it makes more sense to me. Right. So the emptiness is trying to point out that the process of interdependence is such that it has no substance in it. You can't get a hold of it anyplace. So if you have interdependence and substantiality into it, then you need emptiness so you don't do that.

[125:45]

That is still sort of a block, right? Another way to put it is that interdependence doesn't seem to purify our vision the way lack of... So interdependence is true, but the lack of self purifies. So you can look at interdependence and not see it clearly and appreciate it, and that's good because you're looking at the truth, but you're looking at it in an obscured way, namely through your story. So another word for emptiness is innocent of conception. So when you look at me, you can see our interdependence maybe, but you still have some concept of it. But if you see emptiness of me in our relationship, you realize that your images of it are not there. And that purifies you of approaching me through your images of me. Does that make some more sense?

[126:50]

Yes. So the dependent co-arising doesn't serve, it's a fundamental teaching, but it doesn't have a purifying aspect the way a lack of inherent exists. There's something about the negativity that purifies, whereas the interdependence isn't about purification, it's about embracing. And the emptiness purifies our way of embracing our causal relationships. Okay. It's a somewhat different function. And one is the ultimate, and the other is not the ultimate, but once the ultimate has been realized, then you go back to the other one and really understand it from the ultimate. Right. Because emptiness is not actually, you know, it's nothing. It's a certain kind of nothing. And some people talk about emptiness as though, some people say that emptiness is sacred or precious, but it's really not.

[127:52]

It's a purifying agent, but the thing that's wonderful about it is when you see it, you have this great wisdom. It's the wisdom that's the wonderful thing. The emptiness is what you look at when you get purification of the compassion, which is good. And the compassion is really our actual interdependence. But we need emptiness to purify our misconceptions or our conceptions of our love. It seems to be getting close to something or other. Leon's pointing to a watch. What does that mean, Leon? Okay, anything else in the last five minutes to four? Four vows, okay. Yes. So, yes, Alice.

[128:54]

Okay, Alice, speak. I'm ready for you to speak. I just want to say a few things about the end of this day and about Donna, because some of you will be here tomorrow. Donna's a Sanskrit and Holly's a Genocidal. On the basis of generosity, the registration fee that we did was to cover all the expenses for holding the retreat. to probably help with granting the call and the parking permits. And of course, that's an expectation down to the bank. And so we come to you for free and to accept faith from the generosity that we've been given to come here. In a way, this is a chance for us to participate in this great connection that people have talked about, because the group that you spoke with in his last retreat, who did generosity, allowed him

[129:59]

What the NLCD gives you is the progress, so that you can go to this next retreat, and this next retreat, I'll test it here, and learn more about the balance, and you're really scanning this huge web out, to support the recognition of these wonderful people. I'd like to thank Jill for the great soup and bread. Thank you. And you're welcome to leave all of your cushions and sitting paraphernalia and anything like that here in the hall. We'll be locking it up. We'll come back at 9 o'clock. We'll start at 9 o'clock. Please keep your parking tickets.

[131:01]

How many people did this with that? Just a couple. Okay. I think we're all right. We have enough permits for those who are coming this time. Do the ones we have on now work for tomorrow, too? Yes, they work for both days. And then finally, there's a list out on the table with a CD of the teachings, all of their gracious words, making you look forward to them. You can keep them, but I thought maybe you might want to pass them back. I'll pass them out again tomorrow, and then you can take them home after the retreat's over. If you take them home, you might forget to bring them back. So there's many kinds of Bodhisattvas.

[132:20]

You read one this morning. Here's another very popular one and its beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. The Buddha way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. That's a very well-known one and You could all make up your own, too, and make your own personal one. Please do. But we could end like this. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

[133:13]

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