So up at the top I wrote the word imagination. By that I mean imagination and I mean the world that is created by imagination. And then there are teachings which are offered to beings who live within the enclosure of imagination. And these beings, when offered teachings, their imagination, the imagination converts the teachings into images of teachings.

[01:02]

And it's possible that the imagination working with images of teachings comes to fruit as freedom from, actually freedom of images. Images can be used in a free way, and it's also freedom within, or not even within, freedom with imagination. And that freedom with imagination, from imagination and so on, then that leads to teachings. So from the freedom from imagination comes teachings, which are offered to beings who live within imagination and who will convert these teachings, which are not imagination, basically, teachings which come from freedom from imagination and which are free from imagination, these teachings then are offered again to imagination and they get converted again into images and so on, round and round.

[02:19]

So that's a proposal that beings who live within imagination can be freed and if they wish if they wish to help others they will offer their freedom which will be teachings about how to be free from imagination to other beings who have not yet become free of imagination Now, when beings are free of imagination, that's what basically complete freedom of imagination we call, you know, Buddha or complete enlightenment. Buddhas, in one story, is Buddhas do not actually, they actually don't have imagination anymore. They're just freedom from imagination, basically.

[03:20]

but they interact with beings that have imaginations, so they don't need imaginations. The beings they work with supply the imagination. So they emanate the wisdom and compassion completely free of any imagination, and as freedom of imagination, this emanation of wisdom. When the wisdom touches, living beings, they supply the imagination. So just as I proposed to you that our bodies are in this reciprocal relationship where we're offering our bodies to others, others are offering their bodies to us, we're receiving others' bodies, They're receiving our body, and the others can be living beings or the bodies of mountains and rivers and trees.

[04:27]

All these bodies are interacting with each other. From my side, I am a sensible body, a sensuous body, and I am touched by sensible things. So my body as a sensuous body is also a sensible body to you. But actually, no, the sensuous part of my body is not sensible to you. The sensual part of my body is the part of my body that receives the sensible part of you. And the sensible part of you is what the sensuous body of me receives. So I have a power to receive you as colors and sounds and smells and tastes and touches and smells. Right?

[05:28]

So your sensuousness lives within a sensible frame. your sensuousness is located in a sensible space and time, which my sensuousness can be touched by and vice versa. And out of that arises this mind. That's one kind of life we have. The other is that once this sentient being has arisen, it also... is it also calls out. It says, I'm having some difficulty with my imagination. Some things I imagine I'm unstressed about and afraid of. I may not say that to anybody out loud or even to myself.

[06:35]

I maybe just go, I may not make any sounds, but in some part of my body and mind I have trouble with my imagination. And those who are free hear that and respond to that. And they became free by listening to that for a long time in themselves and in others. By listening to the cries inwardly and outwardly of the world of imagination and listening to the teachings of those who have become free, we become free but we continue receiving the cries. When completely free, however, we do not have any imagination of the cries, we just are directly touched by them with no imagination of them. And being directly touched by them, as soon as we're touched we respond, kind of like A cartoon of this would be, if you pressed on a Buddha's cheek, indentation on the Buddha's cheek would be the Buddha's cheek's response to your touch.

[07:47]

Does that make sense? If you pull the Buddha's cheek out, the way the Buddha's cheek came out would be the response of the Buddha's cheek to your pull. But the Buddha's cheek has no concept of being pushed and pulled, but it responds nonetheless. One time, I wasn't there, but one of the students at Zen Center, when Zen Center used, the San Francisco Zen Center used to be over in Japantown. Now it had this new building. But it used to be in a Japanese congregation, a Japanese-American congregation. And when we were over there, one time, Suzuki Roshi went into the meditation hall, stepped inside and stopped and bowed. which is the usual thing to do upon entering. And one of the students told me he came in right after him, but, you know, kind of fast, and bumped into him.

[08:52]

And he says, Sikoreshi elbowed him in the chest. You know, like, you're kind of like, you're coming in too fast, stop that, you know. But I thought, maybe he just was bowing and you bumped him and his elbow came up and hit you. I never asked him about that, but it could be either way, right? The usual human way is, oh, he bumped me, I'm going to teach him a lesson. This is the realm of imagination. But there's another way of responding when somebody touches you and you just, they bend your body forward and your elbow goes back. And so part of you had no idea that you intended to do that or wanted to do that, but in fact that's the way the bodies interacted. Like sometimes human females who are nursing, sometimes they hear a baby cry, not necessarily even their own baby, and milk squirts out onto their blouse even before the baby touches them, the milk comes out.

[10:30]

They don't think, okay, come on out, milk. It just comes. They may not even notice it, but that's an example of kind of like the mountains and rivers of the immediate present, right there. That's going on all the time, this . So this story is that our life in confinement is constantly being offered. Our life is offered to us and then the confinement arises and then the confinement offers itself to other confined beings who make a confined version of our offering. We also have an unconfined aspect that arises, which offers itself to other beings in their confined and unconfined aspect, and they receive it.

[11:35]

But it also is offered to the liberated beings, and they respond every moment. And we can know it, which is fine, and we're usually happy when we know it, When we feel like, oh, I asked for teachings and I got the teachings, that's one realm of practice. Like you go to a teacher and you say, would you please give me the teachings? And the teacher says, yes. And you see, oh, there it is. Or you go to the teacher and you say, would you give me teachings? And the teacher says, no. And you realize, oh, that was the teaching. And that's like, sometimes people feel like, oh, how wonderful. I came for the teachings. I asked for the teachings and I received the teachings. Like that's like, I really like that. It's nice. Sometimes the student comes to the teacher and they don't know they're asking and the teacher gives the teaching and they say, whoa, I didn't ask for them.

[12:43]

How come you're giving it? Or I didn't ask for them. How nice that you gave them even when I didn't ask. But sometimes it's like, I didn't ask for that teaching. No, thanks. That's quite familiar, right? And, yeah, so there's asking and, like, I didn't get it. I didn't see I got it. I didn't feel it. I didn't notice I asked, but I didn't get it. There's not asking and getting it. And there's asking and getting it. And then there's not noticing that you ask it and not noticing that you receive it. That's the fundamental one. So there's these four basic types of sympathetic relationship between Buddhas, between liberated beings, and beings who are not yet Buddhas. And there's two types of not yet liberated beings. There's the bodhisattvas and the non-bodhisattvas. But I feel like I should apologize now.

[13:51]

Yeah, I have some apologies here. That's always fun, right? Apologizing teacher. But also, this isn't to make an excuse for myself or protect myself, just to show you that some of my ancestors also had problems. What I'm apologizing for, first of all, is that I just categorized beings. Sorry. But I'm categorizing them because I think it might help you become free of categories. That's my hope. There's a hope here that it sometimes helps beings who are trapped in categories. Categories are another version of imagination. Like, I imagine that There's the category of the men and the women in the room. There's the category of people on this side of the room and the category of people on that side of the room.

[14:55]

My imagination can do this. I can do the front room, back of the room, corner. You know, I can do that and so can probably many of you still. The day will come you may not be able to do that but now you probably can all still do a little categorizing, right? So I apologize for categorizing these precious living beings and also precious Buddhas. So there's Buddhas, free of imagination, totally free of imagination, and there's those who still are not completely free of imagination. I categorize and I kind of apologize, but I'm telling you I did that because I think it's good to become aware that we do that. So I'm showing you that I do it so you can notice that you do it. Like you might be categorizing that he's in the below or above average teacher category. But if you do, I'm showing you, I do that too, so don't worry too much.

[15:57]

And you say, well, if you're below average, maybe I should worry if I'm doing like you. Right. This is a good morning teaching. This is not a good morning teaching. So anyway, that's a category. And so I had the category of the completely liberated and the not completely liberated. And within the not completely liberated, there's two. There's another division which is called bodhisattvas and non-bodhisattvas. There's another word, the people who... Oh, and then among the non-bodhisattvas there's two categories. One category is those who wish to be bodhisattvas and those who don't. The bodhisattvas are those who wish to be bodhisattvas and have been wishing that for a while. So they've become bodhisattvas. It isn't just like once or twice, but they did it enough so that it's taking root a little bit. Okay? Okay. However, they still live within imagination.

[17:03]

They're not completely free of imagination, but they're becoming free of it because they've been taking care of the wish to liberate beings from imagination for long enough so that there's some fruit coming. Not complete fruit, but they're starting to get some ease and they're starting to get more and more courage and enthusiasm and consistency. and they're like becoming an inspiration for other beings who live within the imagination. And again, those other beings are two types. One are the types who have not yet thought of wishing to live for the welfare of all beings, and those who have thought of it, but haven't thought of it long enough to... They're still not quite... convinced. Their faith isn't strong enough yet. Anyway, that's the relationship.

[18:03]

And between those two, there's four kinds of relationships. One is the basic one, which is pre-conceptual or pre-perceptual. There's no perception of it, but it's where we and the Buddhists are actually constantly, intimately working together in freedom. where the Buddhas are sending us the teaching, we're receiving it and saying thank you and sending it back to them. Thank you very much. But it's not mixed with perception. It's an inconceivable process of liberation that's going on all the time. But it has not yet risen into the realm of perception such that when we don't perceive that the Buddhas are helping us, or we don't perceive that we're asking for guidance, we actually think we're not asking for guidance and actually think they're not helping us.

[19:04]

So we sometimes say, you know, we actually not only say, but we really believe, well, that wasn't helpful. You just did something that wasn't helpful. We said that to sentient beings, and we could even say it to a bodhisattva. So really, you know, we're living at a level where everybody's helping us and we're helping everybody. Because the Buddhas are helping us because we asked for it and they said, okay, so that's happening. Plus that fact that that's happening with us and the Buddhas, that resonates to the other beings too. And that's the Buddha's activity is, I asked for help, the Buddha's helped me, and that helped you. And you asked for help and the Buddha's helped you and that helps me. We're actually, that's not... That's the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. That's not mixed with perceptions. You could have a perception of it, and people sometimes do, and they're very happy about that. They see, like, oh, God, I just saw Buddha's helping everybody, which is, you can imagine some people see that, and if they did, they would be very happy, and they are usually very happy.

[20:14]

Occasionally they feel like it's just too much, I'm out of here. But That's not it, though, that's a perception of it. The actuality of it, we say that which can be met with recognition or perception is not realization itself, because realization is immediate. There's no way to get outside of it, fortunately. Even if you imagine, you know, it's not happening and it doesn't really get you outside, you cannot escape Buddha. You cannot escape wisdom, but you can be distracted from it. By what? By imagination. Karmic consciousness is giddy. It distracts us from the karmic consciousness version of the teaching and it also distracts us from the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. but not, doesn't really do anything. It just, we just are in this dream world of not everybody is helping me all the time and I'm not helping everybody all the time.

[21:16]

Have you ever seen that world? Those people, if they get in power, it's going to be terrible. And I actually, that's more than just my imagination. And saying that, I realize I'm not free of my imagination. And if I was free of my imagination, I could help the other people who are in these horrified imaginations. That's what I want to do. So that's an apology. Here's another apology. This one's coming from Nietzsche on behalf of all of us. He says something like, That for which we have found words or a word is something that's already dead in our heart.

[22:17]

In the act of speaking, there's always some contempt. Got some frowns on that one. So anyway, that's an apology. You know, it's apology for me acting in such a way as to sponsor you to find a word for what I'm doing and then to think. When you find a word for what I'm doing, whatever the word is, at that moment, the thing you found a word for, I don't know what it is, but reb, as soon as you find the word reb for me, then that's something that's dead in your heart. The actual new rib, you haven't found words for it yet. That's not dead, but you haven't found a word for the new rib. For the mountains and rivers of the immediate present rib, you don't have a word for that yet.

[23:19]

I'm enjoying my voice, which has changed recently. Can you hear it okay? You finally grew up. I've never been so insulted in my life. I mean, I've never been so complimented in my life. I mean, that was an apology. I'm finding words, and when I find words, then I'm talking about something that's dead. When I say the mountains, rivers, and the immediate present are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddha, I've just found these words for the path of the Buddha that's dead in me. However, the actual thing is still alive. It's just that I haven't found words for the actual living thing. Another warning is from a Zen text called the Jewel Mirror Concentration.

[24:29]

And it says, to relegate it, For example, it is the path of the ancient Buddhists, enlightenment, perfect wisdom. To relegate it to literary depiction is to relegate it... No. To depict it in literary form, yeah. To depict it in literary form or just to... depicted in literary form is to relegate it to defilement. And then I wrote, it – you know, just to depict it – it refers to the mind and body of enlightenment. but many ancestors have depicted it in literary form, but they realize they've relegated it to defilement in order to help people.

[25:33]

But also it says just to depict it. If you depict it in literary form and you say, okay, sorry, then you haven't really relegated it to defilement, you just defiled it. I defiled it, but just temporarily. So I'm sorry. Wait. I did this because I thought it might be helpful. Okay, here's another teaching. It goes like this. Buddhas manifest a body and awaken living beings. So somebody said that. And one interpretation of this is that It means that awakening sentient beings is itself the manifestation of the Buddhist body.

[26:36]

When living beings are awakened, that's the Buddhist body, and Buddhists manifest that body as awakening beings. The Buddhist body isn't quite manifested until we wake up. Buddhas are, yeah, they're not manifested, really. They're free of the manifestation stuff. They become free of the process of manifestation. By practicing kindness and practicing the teachings with manifestations, they become free of manifestations which depend on imagination. But when their teaching touches us and we become liberated or awake, then the Buddhas are manifest. They are manifest as our liberation and our freedom. That's a manifestation of there are Buddhas. This is being proposed to you.

[27:42]

And then there's instruction, in the midst of awakening sentient beings, don't pursue manifestation. And then, seeking manifestation, don't look for awakening. So now I mentioned, you know, that the Buddha's body is in the awakening of sentient beings. So do you look at, where's the awakening of sentient beings? Innistrad? Where is it? That would be the manifestation of the Buddhist body. Everywhere? Everywhere is a pretty good location for it. But maybe going a bit far. So, somehow, be careful.

[28:48]

The Buddhas are manifesting a body which is our awakening. So how can we receive that without looking for where is it? Is it in the face of the people who are frowning or the people who are smiling, or both? Where is it? So some people say neither, some people say both, blah, blah. May I remind you that I said at the beginning, do not think you are separate from Buddha. Now I add to that, don't think you're the same as Buddha. Neither identify, no, don't turn away from Buddha and don't touch Buddha. Understand that in the midst of awakening living beings, that Buddha's teaching

[29:53]

is totally experienced. Well, it seems reasonable, but what's the point of saying that? I think, well, maybe I could say. Sometimes we think that in the midst of awakening sentient beings, Got sentient beings waked up. You might think there's something more to Buddhadharma than that. That you've got the people that are awakening and then there's the teaching that awakens them. But the teaching that awakens is not something in addition to them being awakened. The teaching that will awaken us is not something other than us being awake. Manifesting the Buddha body or the manifesting of the Buddha body is not something in addition to us awakening.

[31:19]

Can you sense the mind trying to grasp something there? Is there a possibility to listen to that and tolerate it? Just be patient with the uselessness of that? Part of the situation of being in carnal consciousness, part of being entrapped in imagination, is the imagination of something being useless, or the imagination of something being a waste of time, or imagination of something being boring. Such images arise in the mind of sentient beings. They are not prohibited in the practice to think those thoughts.

[32:36]

It's okay, it's acceptable, it's welcome. It's welcome. You can also think, this is really a useful, this has been a useful blah blah. This is really helpful. Think that too. And people might not think, they take practice patience with, this is useful. Because this is patient, this is useful is not necessarily uncomfortable. Unless you're really advanced and you think, oops. But this is not useful. I can't use this teaching. This is... I can't use the thought, I can't use this teaching, this teaching is useless. This is an opportunity for the teaching. Teaching is for thoughts like, this is not useful, this is not helpful. This is like, this suffering is, I don't need this suffering.

[33:41]

This is not a helpful suffering. I'd like to trade it in for a different one. So those thoughts are the kind of thoughts that occur in the realm of imagination, and the teaching is there to say, oh, this is an opportunity to be generous with the thought, this is useless. This teaching is useless, and there's a teaching which says, when you hear a teaching that you think is useless, then say thank you. And say it until you really mean it. Say it until you're like overwhelmingly grateful for what's being given, which you call, by the way, useless. It's okay to hear a teaching that you think is useful and do the same thing for that too. Say thank you for that until the gratitude is really big and joyful. But there's an art teaching which says do the same with the thought this is not a useful practice.

[34:46]

This is a boring practice. This is a frightening practice. This is a sick practice. This is a terrible practice. This is an abusive practice. Do the same thing with that. Welcome it with tremendous graciousness. And then be careful of it. Then move on and practice the precepts with it. Don't try to kill abusive, lousy teachings. Don't try to kill boring, useless teachings. Don't try to take the life away from them. This teaching should be, you know, desiccated, enervated, and eliminated. If you think that, then practice generosity towards that way of thinking, too. But basically, whatever comes is the Dharma, so practice generosity towards it, and then be careful of it, Don't try to kill it.

[35:48]

Of course, you wouldn't try to kill way above average teachings. Probably you wouldn't, unless you were a teacher and your teachings were not as good as that. You might say, oh, well, that's much better than mine. Let's kill that one. So I still have the best teaching on the block. Don't try to take what's not given. Don't try to get something different to deal with. Don't steal. Don't misuse sexuality in relationship to this useless teaching. I'm just talking about don't do various types of addictions in relationship to this useless teaching. The teaching's useless, but I have some addictions which can soothe me in relationship to a useless teaching.

[36:50]

I think I'll go use them. And I can't do much about the teaching, and I can't get away from it because I'm trapped in this room here. But I can do some other things which entertain myself. Maybe I'll get through it. Don't lie about it. Don't say, Oh, I think actually it's a good teaching. You know, it really is useful. Don't lie about it. Admit you think it's useless. And don't intoxicate yourself around it with taking stuff into your body to intoxicate yourself, to soothe yourself with a useless teaching. I just was telling somebody, in the early days of Tassajara, which is a place sort of northwest of here, up in the Las Padres National Forest. Does Las Padres National Forest come all the way down here?

[37:51]

So up there in the northern, more northern parts of the forest, there's a place called Tassajara where they have a Zen monastery. And in the old days, things were more wild. There are people and... One of my Dharma brothers, on one of our days off, he told me he went up into the forest and smoked some marijuana. We were told not to smoke marijuana at the monastery, or alcohol, but he got some marijuana, went up into the mountains and smoked some, and then he came back. We had evening service, and during evening service we'd chant this Dharani, for the, you know, for great compassion. It goes, namo karatanno, tora ya ya, namo oriya, bodhi-yogi, che chi tora ya, puchi sattva-bhogya, moko. It goes like that for a while. And maybe the first time you go there, you think, maybe this is cool. But anyway, day after day, one might find it boring.

[38:55]

Like, I didn't see any great compassion come when we were chanting that. I was just waiting for dinner. Anyway, this guy came back, and he went to the service, and after he told me, boy, this chant was really interesting tonight. Darshan Dharani is really cool. So anyway, don't smoke marijuana during your lunch break, even though if you did, you might think this afternoon's talk would be really great. Come back, you know, go cold turkey and just listen to it with gratitude and no intoxication to make it more interesting. Try it. And then, don't slander the below average or the boring or the useless teaching. Don't slander it. Don't praise yourself at its expense, you know, like, I could give a better talk than that.

[39:59]

Don't do that. It's okay to say, I could give a good talk, Don't put mine down. If you put yours up and put mine down, that keeps you trapped in your imagination. If you don't put yours above mine, that liberates you. Even if I give a great talk, if you don't put yours above mine, I'll give you a better one. Don't do that. That keeps you stuck in your story of better and worse. But also don't kill the story of better and worse. We've got a story of better and worse, okay. Welcome, now that you welcomed it, be careful of it. Don't be possessive of this is a boring whatever, this is a boring retreat, this is a useless retreat, don't be possessive of that. Or this is a great retreat, don't be possessive of that either. Welcome great retreat, okay fine.

[41:05]

Now after you welcome the great retreat, the great teachings, Okay? Now be careful. Don't be possessive of the great teachings. I saw some people taking notes. I don't forbid that, but don't take notes to get possession of the teaching. Take notes as a way to give them away, as a way to become free of the thought, that was a good teaching, I'll write that one down. It's okay to write it down, but be careful. Don't try to be possessive of it. Or write down, that was really the most useless thing I ever knew. I never heard anything so useless. Well, that may be useful. I can tell people about that. Look at this teaching. This guy actually gave me a useless teaching. Look at it. Amazing. Isn't that useless? Part of the reason I'm offering this is because I have this imagination that some of you think this is a useless teaching.

[42:05]

So I'm trying to give you a way to cope with the thought. I don't want you to get trapped by the thought, useless teaching, boring teaching. I'm fine with thinking that though, really. It's okay with me if you think that, but I don't want you to be trapped there, so I give you ways to not be trapped by that thought. Generosity and now ethics. And another thing is don't harbor ill will towards below average teachings or above average teachings. Some people, like I say, they actually get angry when they go to a talk, especially if they're Dharma teachers. If they go to a talk and they hear a really great teaching, they get angry. They get jealous and angry that the person gave a much better Dharma talk than they could. I even know some teachers who get kind of irritated with their students giving better talks than them. You know, like I heard this one great Buddhist scholar said, he's better than me and he wasn't happy about that.

[43:07]

I don't know if it's right, but his student was really brilliant, but he seemed to be a little uncomfortable that his student was more brilliant. If you live a long time, your students, you know, will be still able to talk, and you won't. So are they more brilliant? We don't know for sure. But anyway, you're just drooling, and they're still, you know, they've memorized the text, and they still can remember them. So in a way, they can do things you can't do. But are you unhappy about that? It's a sad thing if you're unhappy that your students are kind of like, they still talk, and you can't. So anyway, don't harbor ill will is another way to be careful of useless teachings and, of course, excellent teachings. And the last one is don't disparage the triple treasure of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Be respectful. You don't know what is and isn't the Dharma, so be respectful. You don't know what is and isn't Buddha, because what's Buddha?

[44:11]

It's the liberation of beings. And what's the Sangha? It's happiness among us. Don't disparage that stuff. That's the way to be careful of useless teachings and boring teachings and excellent teachings. And then move on and be patient with your imagination about what's going on. These are teachings which have been transmitted to us and which our minds make images of and then you can make words about them And as soon as you make words about them, then there's something that's dead in you. But still, you got it. And you can work with it. And you can get over the words about it and enter the actuality of these practices where you deal with your imagination in this compassionate way and you're ready to calm down with your imagination and enter into the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. which is right in front of us all the time, except not front or back or right or left.

[45:20]

It's just here, right now, available. We have to be kind to the distractions from it, otherwise they'll work as distractions rather than as doors. The distractions from the immediacy of our life of freedom are the doors to the immediacy of our life, but we have to do the practices in a somewhat diluted way for a while. But they work, even if we use a diluted version of them. Please come. Please sit down. Thank you for coming so far.

[46:24]

You didn't run away? No, you didn't. I would like to find out... You would like to find out, could you speak louder when you speak? Sure. Sing. I would like to address the question or the... person's imagination who was sitting before me, she talked about... Can you hear her? I would like to address the imagination of the person who talked before me. She said she was sitting there. Yes, I'll tell you. Was it Judith? No, who was it? It's all right. Who was after Judith? Susan. She was addressing the sounds, the vibration, I'm thinking. And so... Because I heard from you a lot about words. Yes. I'm someone who practices vipassana, and I'm thinking about the senses that you were talking about, and the fact that sometimes the same kind of slamming the door would provoke emotional distress and suffering, and sometimes it won't.

[47:38]

It depends on your state of mind. And so if I'm thinking about someone like Helen Keller, who did not have vision or she could not hear, I would like to find out a little bit about the senses and the energies that we have in our bodies and outside of our bodies and how that compares with everything that you've talked about. You've talked about a lot of words, a lot of imagination, the state of mind, the Buddha, all that. So I also started, or I also said that the imagination the ability to imagine, that power of our mind, that's a power of our mind, okay? But the mind that has that power is a mind which is nothing in addition to our sensuous body responding to the sensible world.

[48:44]

So, this is a very good question because it sounds like that you think the mind is something other than the body. But there is no mind other than the body. The mind is not just the body, but it's the body interacting with the sensuous world. So when the power, when the capacity to be sensitive to, for example, mechanical waves in the air or water, that sensitivity interacts with that natural force, That interaction, and it's not just that one's touching the other, they're doing it to each other. There's a rapport between them. That rapport is mind. And mind arises from that. But after mind arises, it has... But you have the expansion and contraction on the split of a second.

[49:52]

The expansion and contraction are mental constructions. The mind can imagine expansion and contraction. No, because our breathing is an expansion and contraction. You said no, and what does no mean? No what? No what? Oh, sorry, my thought is that the breathing is also an expansion and contraction. Right, and I'm saying expansion and contraction is the body's imagination of breathing. Breathing cannot think expansion, contraction. The imagination is aspect of the body. The body has the power to make images about, for example, breathing. And one of them is in and out. Air doesn't think in and out. Air doesn't think when I come into the body. When is the air breathed? Is it breath out there, or is it breath only when it touches my body and goes through me?

[50:59]

When it comes back out, is it still breath? I'm not saying which it is, I'm just saying that the breath doesn't actually go around thinking I'm inside or outside of a body. But when the air touches a human body, That touch gives rise to a mind which can think inside and outside, inhale and exhale. But the inhale and exhale, which you pointing out sounds mental, that imagination is a function of the body. It's not a floating imagination. It wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the body. And I'm trying to actually help you see that your imagination is physical. And your body's not something in addition to your imagination. It's just that you're, in a way, your imagination is the aspect of your body in relationship to other bodies that tricks you. It's a trickster. Your body has a tricky side, which is your body can imagine, for example, through imagination, that it's separate from mind.

[52:07]

Your body can imagine that it has boundaries. But the body doesn't, the organs don't actually imagine by themselves that they have boundaries. They don't do it by themselves. The eye doesn't by itself imagine that it's separate from the things it sees. The eye can't do that. The body has to be touched by something in order to think that it's separate from something. But when it gets touched by something, we have what's called mind. And the mind can imagine that what the eye is touched by is separate from it. But of course it couldn't be separate, otherwise it wouldn't be touched. So the mind needs imagination to conjure up the sense that it's separate from what it's seeing. If it's separate from what it's seeing, it wouldn't yet be seeing it. When they touch, the consciousness arises, and then the consciousness that arises can say, that's separate from this. And that's a trick. It's not true.

[53:11]

Stay here a little longer. Please. It's not to blame the body or the mind, it's just that they're partners. The body sponsors a mind which says, I'm separate from your body. The body sponsors a mind which thinks mind is something other than body, but they're not other. The body spawns as a mind which can think that there's a boundary between this body and this body. But it's not that I'm saying there is no boundary, I'm just saying the boundary, the boundary, the boundary is an interface. The boundary is the interface, it's not a block, it's not a wall, it's a door. I would like you to see that the boundary between your body and other bodies is a surface of change and exchange. It's not something that's blocking us from pertaining to each other.

[54:18]

But I wouldn't have this mind if it went from this body and this body. Your body and my body make it possible for me to imagine a place where we can engage. But when there's your body and my body, there's a mind. If there was just my body, there would be no mind. But there isn't just my body, there's my body and your body, so then there's my body, your body, and minds. And minds imagine boundaries, and the boundaries is where we can communicate and change each other. So your question has, I think, demonstrated to me anyway, that we think that the mind is something other than the body. When I talk about mind, we lose track that I'm talking about the body's mind. Because we use words all the time. Because, yes, and we do. So how can we use words? How else will we be teaching? Exactly.

[55:20]

How can we use words in such a way as to liberate beings from words? We can try to be silent into it. It's good to be silent in between. And in fact, there was some silence there in between. There is. So there's words which say, it's good to notice silence. And If I know there's a silence between, I will eventually be able to hear while I'm talking, even without an in-between, because in-between is just thought construction.

[56:33]

that there is silence coexisting. But you're making comments all the time. People hear because you were talking about being a teacher. You make comments all the time. But it's also good to remember and be mindful of silence. Silence is a great asset. It is present. The mountains and rivers of the immediate present are silent. They're not talking. And they are still. How do we enter that? By taking care of our speech. The language which separates us from immediacy, if we practice compassion towards it, will be the way to return to the immediacy where there's silence and stillness. So we do rituals of silence and stillness. We sit here quietly, not moving, not talking.

[57:36]

Meantime, we don't yet necessarily completely hear the silence. There may be buzzing going on in the head, but it's a gesture towards silence and stillness. It's a remembrance of the immediacy, which if we do over and over, we wonderfully sometimes fall right into the immediacy of silence and stillness, even if there's no sound happening. So when we sit still, there's still sound happening, and then sometimes we find the silence. And then we find the silence, we find it even, you know. One of the first times I found stillness was when I was moving my hand through the air with incense in it, and I realized I wasn't moving. Before that, I was sitting still a lot, but the place I really understood more deeply what stillness was when I was actually moving my hand through the air supposedly, and putting incense into a bowl, I realized that there was no movement.

[58:39]

But it struck me because I had spent so much time being still in a way that I thought was still, and I thought that that way of being still contradicted the stillness of movement. So we're working on that, and I really appreciate your question. Thank you. I want to give you one more teaching before lunch. This teaching could be called, you know, I kind of feel like it's a huge teaching, but I also call it a little tiny teaching. Really, I think it's kind of huge. Here's the teaching that some old-time Buddha said.

[59:47]

The mountains and rivers and earth are born at the same moment as each person. All Buddhas are practicing together with each person. All Buddhas are practicing together with each person. That's the teaching given by ancient Buddha. So, we are born together with the mountains and the rivers and the great earth. Every morning, every moment we are born together with them. Or anyway, when we're born, we're born at the same time that they're born.

[60:48]

This is not what people usually think. Also, and we're born together, and the other thing is, all Buddhists are practicing together with each person. That's the kind of thing Buddhists are, is they're practicing together with each person and not necessarily just each Buddhist. They're practicing together with each Mormon and each Muslim and each Catholic and each Jew and each atheist and each banana slug. Buddhists practice together with all beings and with each being. That's... Together! Buddhists do not practice alone. They practice together. And since they practice together with us, we cannot get away from practicing together with them. We can only get distracted from it, unsuccessfully, in terms of being happy. We are not going to be happy if we think we're practicing separate from all Buddhas.

[61:53]

It's not going to work in terms of happiness. Now if someone were to say, well, could I be happy if I didn't even think about it? Maybe. Just don't think you're apart from Buddha. Don't think you're apart from Buddha because this teaching is saying you're not apart. There's quite a bit of further discussion about this teaching because... People do doubt it, so I'll talk to you more about it after lunch. I just thought I'd offer that to you and see if you can still have lunch. I don't want you to have indigestion, but I thought it'd be good to offer it to you before lunch so that you can ingest it with your lunch. You're born together. at the same moment, born at the same moment as the mountains and the rivers and the great earth.

[62:59]

You're not before or after. All the Buddhas are practicing together with you, because that's the kind of practice that they have. If they don't practice together with you, they're not Buddhas. They could be great beings, but Buddhas are practicing together with each of us. So that means we're practicing together with Buddhas. OK, is there anything else that you'd like to mention before we have a little lunch practice? How long would you suggest the lunch break be? Well, oftentimes people like an hour. Does an hour seem good? About right?

[64:02]

Anything else this morning besides checking lunch schedules? Yes, Alice. Maybe just to say that Joe brought lunch soup for us outside. Are you the original Joe? I am. Elizabeth told me that when she was a kid she was on a special diet. And she had never eaten a pizza before and someone took her to the original Joe's and she had her first pizza forced upon her. I also want to mention that because of my being deeply impressed by the teaching that all Buddhists are practicing together with each person and that

[65:26]

the mountains and rivers and the great earth are born at the same moment as each person. Because of that teaching which I have been contemplating for a long time, which I've been listening to and looking at and writing out for a long time, because of that When my grandson was old enough to walk and talk, he sometimes would propose excursions that he wanted to go on with me. Adventures into the woods around in the valley where I live. And he would propose the excursion and he would say, he would reach up with his hand and he would say, let's go together. And when he said together, that was the end of it. That was like whatever he would do, I would go with him. I must go together. It must, that's my commitment, to go together with each person wherever we go together.

[66:49]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_89.17