Now emptiness is defined as a lack of own being or an absence of independent being in all phenomena. All phenomena are empty of independent existence. They don't have any. That's the definition of emptiness. Another unusual definition would be that emptiness is the innocence of phenomena. The innocence or the phenomena being innocent of conception. Now, a teaching of emptiness is, for example, form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

[01:21]

That's a teaching about emptiness. Form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different. That's teaching you something about emptiness. In the context of emptiness, there is no form. There is no feeling. There is no birth. There is no death. There is no suffering. There is no end of suffering. There is no path in the context of emptiness. So emptiness, in emptiness there is no form and emptiness itself is form. So those are teachings on emptiness. Emptiness appears as dependently related phenomena.

[02:30]

That's how it appears. And dependently related phenomena appear as emptiness. That's a teaching on emptiness. To ascertain that phenomena do exist dependently and to ascertain that phenomena do not exist independently are complementary ascertainments. They complement each other. They don't refute each other. That we exist interdependently, that we exist dependently, related through dependent relationships, to ascertain that complements the ascertainment that all things lack inherent existence.

[03:43]

Those complement each other. That's a teaching on emptiness. It's a teaching which might help you understand emptiness. But when you hear this teaching, like many other teachings, when you hear it, you hear it as probably a dependently co-arisen intellectual understanding. So I was talking to someone around lunchtime and he was saying that he has some intellectual understanding of things. And a correct intellectual understanding would be an intellectual understanding based on what it was about. So that the intellectual understanding would be based on something that exists. Otherwise it's not a correct intellectual understanding. But the intellectual understanding, for example, of emptiness, which you could have from what I just said to you, you're hearing about the definition and hearing these teachings, you have an intellectual understanding of emptiness.

[05:01]

But the intellectual understanding of emptiness is not emptiness. It is not the understanding of becoming emptiness, of realizing emptiness. I take it back. The intellectual understanding of emptiness is emptiness, just like various other things are emptiness. But the intellectual understanding of emptiness is not the realization of emptiness. The realization of emptiness comes through caring for your intellectual understanding of emptiness. So as a result of this retreat and other past studies you've done, you have some intellectual understanding of emptiness now. If you care for this intellectual understanding of emptiness, the selflessness of that intellectual understanding, how that intellectual understanding is also emptiness will come to you.

[06:09]

The truth that this intellectual understanding is about will be revealed to you if you care for the intellectual understanding. But you do need some understanding, albeit intellectual, to take care of in order to actually have the realization of this teaching. Also, intellectual understandings of teachings about conventional phenomena, also, if you care for those, you can have a revelation of the actual meaning of these teachings. Because the teachings are not in the words or the intellectual... the meaning are not in the words or the intellectual understanding about something. But if you care for the intellectual understanding of something or the words of something, the meaning is revealed in the caring for the words and the teachings and the understanding. And so you might have enough intellectual understanding of emptiness now just to work with that.

[07:30]

Although that will change, it might change into another intellectual understanding and another intellectual understanding. And they're all, as long as they're correct, they're all equal opportunities for understanding, actually realizing the reality which these teachings are about. So you hear the teaching. Emptiness appears as dependent phenomena. Dependent phenomena appear as emptiness. You could have a correct understanding of that, in terms of correct intellectual understanding, and just take care of that and be devoted to that, be devoted to that teaching and be devoted to caring for it. And the truth, the meaning in the teaching will be revealed through bringing your devotion to that teaching or many others. But you can just work on that.

[08:35]

Or you can just work on form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Suzuki Roshi really liked form is emptiness, emptiness is form. He really liked that teaching. There was a magazine published in Haight-Ashbury during the Haight-Ashbury era, the hippie era. They actually had a little interview of Suzuki Roshi in there, in this hippie newspaper. And in this hippie newspaper, Suzuki Roshi was talking to the hippies about form is emptiness, emptiness is form. He said, here's a Zen master, his favorite teaching is form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And these people were doing various things with that. But when I saw that, I thought, wow, what do they think when they hear that this is Zen?

[09:41]

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. In one sense, it seems like, oh, totally groovy. But another way, like, what? That's Zen? Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. This is his favorite teaching, but I thought that was wonderful that that's what he said and that's what the interviewer published, that that was the core of his teaching. I didn't really think that that was the core of his teaching, but I thought of all the wonderful places for it to appear, well, Time magazine would be good too, actually. It's kind of like not very accessible, you know? But in some sense, totally like that's... He did say that to the guy and the guy wrote it down. Somehow he's been, he was devoted to that teaching enough to sort of... When somebody asks him, you know, what's Zen? Well, form is emptiness. We say form is emptiness, emptiness is form. This interview is emptiness.

[10:46]

Emptiness is this interview. Being a hippie is emptiness. Emptiness is being a hippie. That's Zen. Or that's my favorite teaching and I'm a Zen guy. Publish that. But see, he's devoted to that. So that comes up. And maybe because you're so devoted, maybe the person feels that and they write it down and then thousands of hippies read it and the seed is planted in them. And then maybe they go to Zen Center and maybe they don't. But a lot of them did come to Zen Center. And when they got there, a lot of them came barefoot. You know, in 1966, 1965, 1967, a lot of people were walking around barefoot in San Francisco.

[11:58]

And so then they go to the Zen Center barefoot, and Suzuki Roshi says, wash your feet before you come to the Zendo. And in one sense, he just wanted them to wash their feet so that they wouldn't come into the Zendo with black feet and get all that dirt in the zendo, which they try to keep clean. That's part of it, right? Things do exist dependently. You walk in the street barefoot, you go to the Zen center and the Zen teacher says, wash your feet because they're dirty and they make a big effort to keep the zendo clean. So then this thing, this instruction arises But he's not just saying it just because it arises, he's also saying it, another reason why it arises is because this instruction is emptiness.

[13:07]

And he's teaching that emptiness is manifesting as this instruction to wash your feet. He's not just getting people to wash their feet, because the Zen-do is clean. He's also teaching that emptiness is appearing as this instruction. And this instruction is appearing as emptiness. So he's teaching Zen while he tells people to wash their feet, although they didn't expect Zen to be wash your feet. They maybe expect, they come in with their dirty feet and they think Zen master is going to say, vast emptiness. Everything's empty. And he could have. He could have said that. But that wasn't what Dependently Cora rose. What Dependently Cora rose was, wash your feet before you come into Zendo.

[14:13]

and that's the way, that's what he gave them so they could see that that's how emptiness appears. So when you tell somebody something like that. When you say to somebody, wash your feet before you come to Zendo, as a bodhisattva, you do that as a gift. You give them that gift. You don't give them that to try to get them to wash their feet. But you do want them to wash their feet and you give them the gift. I want you to wash your feet. Please wash your feet. You give that to them. and you're also giving them, washing your feet is emptiness.

[15:19]

And if you give them washing your feet, you give them washing your feet is emptiness. If you give them washing their feet and you don't notice that you're giving it to them and you think you're telling them that to get them to wash their feet, then you don't realize you're giving them wash your feet is emptiness. So the teaching, form is emptiness, is a gift which doesn't exist aside from the person receiving it and the person giving it. Therefore the gift is emptiness and the giver is emptiness and the receiver is emptiness. So if you miss the emptiness, you miss the gift. If you miss the gift, you miss the emptiness. And if you miss the emptiness, missing the emptiness is emptiness.

[16:22]

The form, the phenomena of missing out on this teaching, the form of trying to manipulate people, that's the appearance of emptiness. Keeping this in mind is keeping the teaching in mind, is being devoted to the teaching, is giving yourself to the teaching. And if you're wholehearted about this, you see that all these forms, colors and so on, but all these Zen forms, like wash your feet, all these forms are empty. You see that. And this relieves suffering. And this is practicing giving This is practicing giving with wisdom which is great compassion. So you and I are giving all the time.

[17:24]

Every time you say to somebody, wash your feet, it's a gift. But if you don't practice making that statement, wash your feet, a gift, if you don't practice that, then you miss that you're practicing giving. And then you also miss that this thing you're doing is emptiness. If you practice giving, you realize giving. If you realize giving, you're ready to see that what you're giving is emptiness. And emptiness is what you're giving. So the bodhisattvas practice giving and they practice perfect wisdom. Both. And giving really is perfect wisdom and perfect wisdom is giving. And giving realizes that what you're giving is emptiness. You don't just give whatever, foot washing or a request, although you do give sometimes a foot wash or a request, you do give that,

[18:40]

But that thing is also emptiness, which helps you be more wholehearted about your request for someone to wash their feet, which is really a gift of the request to wash the feet. And then again, in the wholeheartedness, you remember the teaching about emptiness, that what you're giving, the form you're giving is emptiness. And the emptiness you're giving is the form that you're giving. So you give the thing and you give the dharma. and you're devoted to be generous and also be generous with material things like please wash your feet and you're also generous with the dharma of please wash your feet and receive the teaching of emptiness at the same time which I'm giving to you by the way I give you the request So it's before us to consider whether we wish to consider.

[19:49]

There's a Bodhisattva vow. One of the Bodhisattva vows is, well, the Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Do you actually vow to become the Buddha way? In other words, to practice everything you are as a gift? Do you vow to practice all the practices of Buddha, which is Buddha's constantly giving, but also Buddha's practicing constantly giving? Because everybody's constantly giving, but the Buddha way is to practice what we are. Do you vow to practice constant giving so that you realize constant giving? That's a bodhisattva vow. I vow to practice giving constantly. I vow to practice the practices of Buddhas constantly. I promise to do that. I'm not saying I will. This is not a prediction that I will.

[20:51]

This is a promise. A deep, dignified commitment to practice giving every moment through every action of body, speech, and thought. That's a bodhisattva vow, which some people then make a commitment to that vow and they enter that bodhisattva vow. Bodhisattva vows to practice the Buddha way means you practice wisdom, means you practice emptiness, means you practice paying attention to what's happening and you practice the teachings about emptiness concerning everything you do. Because there's a teaching of emptiness for everything you do. So in order to practice emptiness you have to practice form. In order to practice emptiness you have to practice paying attention to what you're doing. so that you can bring the teachings of the emptiness of what you're doing together with what you're doing and bring the vow to do the practice together with what you're doing.

[22:04]

So that might be clear. Is that clear? That might be clear. It's possible. What might not be clear is whether you're ready to commit to that and promise to do that And that's something you can look inside and find out. But if you don't look quite frequently and deeply, you might not see that the answer is yes, or the answer is it's not clear. You have to look to see if it's not clear, and you have to look to see if it is clear. I think you have to, yeah. Well, you don't have to. If you just say, yes, I'll commit to it without checking, maybe you do. But it's nice to look to see, well actually I said I would and actually I looked inside and that's actually how I am. I wish to commit to these bodhisattva vows to study the teachings of emptiness and to study all form because the teaching of emptiness is about all form. To study conventional, to pay attention to conventional existence and to remember the teachings of emptiness which are about

[23:17]

the relationship between ultimate truth and conventional truth. I vow to devote my attention to these teachings and apply them to my moment by moment experience, which means I vow to pay attention to my moment by moment experience. So the basic practice is pay attention to your moment-by-moment experience, and then the additional practice is to listen to the teachings about your moment-by-moment experience, namely that these moment-by-moment experiences are emptiness. And emptiness is coming to you by the kindness of your moment-by-moment experience. The liberating quality of your life is right there in your moment-by-moment experience. But if you're not there with your moment-by-moment experience, if you don't receive that, you don't receive the liberating truth. Again, it looks like that's kind of clear.

[24:26]

You have this look on your face like, that's clear. But is it? Is it clear? No? Yes? Any questions you'd like to offer? Not totally clear. Okay. If one of those hippies had, when they got the emptiness teaching, wash your feet, if they had heard it through their conditioning, like they were being forced to be controlled or forced to do it, or they weren't being respected, would the emptiness teaching change for them?

[25:29]

Or would you trust them enough that you had said it in an empty way, and if they didn't get it, you trusted them to work with that. So one question I heard was, if they came to the Zen Center and Suzuki Roshi said, wash your feet, would they think, oh, he's just like my mother? Would they? Some of them might have, and they might have left, I don't know. But a lot of them thought, Well, a lot of them thought, gee, I didn't expect that kind of comment from a Zen master. You know? Now, my mother might have said that, so I wasn't, so since my mother might say that, I was thinking, the Zen master won't talk like my mother. Some of them might have thought that. Kind of surprised that that would be the great teaching. Wash your feet. But some of them may be right about Zen and say, oh yeah, that's like Zen. That's a Zen statement. Wash your feet. Laughter But some of them might have said, no, that's just like my mother.

[26:32]

I'm out of here. This Zen master is acting just like my mother. Some of them might have said that. It's possible. But I think a lot of them were kind of like, how surprising that a Zen master would tell you something like your mother or a school teacher or a janitor. They might have been surprised. But then they might have thought, but he's really cute. You know? So I think, I think maybe, although I'm not going to wash my feet, I think I, I think I will keep studying with him. And then he, then he come again with dirty feet and he says, please wash your feet. And you say, okay. So then they start washing their feet. But yeah, they would take it in their conditioning. And some of them would be surprised. And some of them might think, well, how perfect that a Zen master would tell me something that isn't what I would think Zen would be. That's really Zen, some people would think. You know? I thought Zen would be not what I thought, and it wasn't.

[27:34]

But in a different way than I thought it wasn't going to be. So all kinds of responses could be, and some people came once to Zen Center and went away and never, didn't come back. Because given their conditioning, they weren't ready to work with this nice teacher. You know, now people say, oh, Suzuki Roshi, yeah, you got a chance to be with Suzuki Roshi and you walked away? Are you, wow. Now Buddhists all over the country, all over the world would die to have a chance to meet Suzuki Roshi. You imagine like you had a chance to meet Buddha and you walked away. Yeah, well, you know, he told me to wash my feet. How stupid. That's not like supreme Dharma. I mean, like I said, my mother could have said, my grandmother, that's not what his Buddha would say. They would say something like my mother would never think of. Right? So some people had that condition. They walked away and they missed out on further instructions like, wash your feet or, you know, whatever.

[28:42]

They missed out. They didn't see, they couldn't see. That one take wasn't enough for them to see. Oh, how kind he is to give me instruction which I can understand, you know, which is in English like, wash your feet. Rather than saying, form is emptiness, you know. You come in and say, form is emptiness. Yes. Or, you know, or like scream at them or hit them. Say, oh, that's Zen. Yeah, right. Boom, boom, boom. Oh, that's Zen. Wash your feet? No. So, yeah, some of them had trouble with it. But again, still, some did stay, quite a few, which is nice. So, but I guess the question's about me. I think I, and maybe it's because I don't understand emptiness solely, but I think I chase after people. You know, like I am a school teacher. And so if I say, wash your feet, and I find a few people not able to do that or feeling upset about that, I usually then go in with a little bit more kindness so that they know I'm not...

[29:52]

you know, that I'm not their mother or I'm not this person that they have in their mind. And then if that doesn't work, I go and live a little bit more, you know, firmness and I keep on adjusting and I'm wondering if I'm waffling and not trusting people enough or if one does, try to reach people in different ways. Like if you said something to me and I got offended and I walked away, would you just let me walk away or would you... Of course, you haven't done that. You've looked with such kindness in your eyes that it's been easy, but do you know what I mean? I do. Do you? Yeah, I do, but I find I don't know when I'm waffling and when I'm... I don't know when I'm waffling and not trusting people enough And when it's actual compassionate action to try different approaches to them. Could you hear everybody well?

[30:56]

No, you couldn't? Okay. She raised quite a bit there. So I'd like to go over what she said. There's about three parts I'd like to touch upon. One is, I heard her say something like, if I give some instruction to students, she's a school teacher, could you hear that? You can? Can you hear me okay, Tom? Okay, so she's a schoolteacher, all right? And she says that she gives instructions like wash your feet or something, and they don't seem to get it. She sometimes goes after them and tries again. That's one of the things she said. And tries to reach them. And so the key thing here is when you say to the students, wash your feet, are you saying that to them to get them to wash their feet or are you saying that to give them the gift of asking them to wash their feet?

[32:03]

See the difference? I mean, it's kind of hard for people to see because not everybody's, like, thought about this. Okay. So... I wouldn't say it doesn't matter what their response is. I would say, like, for example, one time... I was in Zen carrying the stick. In Zen we carry sticks sometimes and hit people, we used to anyway, to wake them up, help them be awake. And I was carrying the stick one time and then later Suzuki Roshi told me, outside the meditation hall, he said, I'd like to show you how to walk when you carry the stick. So he showed me how to walk when I carried the stick. And I felt like this is what I came to Zen Center for, for him to give me gifts. I didn't feel like he was trying to get me to walk that way. And I didn't really care about walking that way. I came for him to give me gifts of, for example, how to walk in a certain way.

[33:15]

But I felt like I came to get this gift and he gave it to me. The fact, I didn't think, oh, I was wrong and now he's correcting me or anything like that. I felt like I came to Zen Center for him to teach me and he's teaching me But he's not teaching me to get me to be the way he's teaching me. He's teaching me to show me how he teaches. He's showing me teaching, not showing me how to get me under control. Does that make sense? So you're giving the students the gift of their teacher, who loves them, wants them to do X. So you give them that gift to show them how you ask them to do things, not how you get them to do it. And they very well might want to not do what you said, just to check to make sure that you really were giving them a gift, not trying to get them to be a certain way. And that you'll keep giving them gifts even if they don't do what you ask them to do.

[34:20]

That you'll keep asking them, but not keep asking them to get them to do it, but keep asking them to show them again for another example of how you're being generous with them. So you do keep reaching out to them and keep giving them gifts, but not to get them to do it. I say things to people, I ask people to do stuff, but not to get them to do it. But it's like people come to me and say, would you ask me to do something? And I say, yeah, would you do that? And they say, you know, whatever, no. But before they asked me, I didn't particularly want them to do it, but when they asked me, I said, well, yeah, would you sweep the floor? But I didn't say that to get them to sweep the floor. I said it because they asked me to tell, asked me to do something. So I asked them, and then they like do it or they don't. So if you even let go of the not, they don't do it. What? You can let go, they don't do it without anger or any of those other emotions.

[35:21]

Correct. Or if the emotions come up, you can just look at them until they let go. Right. And also, if you ask them to do something and they do do it, you're still concerned, did they understand that that was a gift? Or did they do it because they thought I was manipulating them and they're afraid of me or whatever? Or to please me, yeah. So that makes it more complicated. But in your heart anyway, you look to see, are you actually asking somebody to do something as a gift? Like I ask you, I'm asking you, please consider whether you wish to Make commitments to the path of welfare for all beings. I ask you to consider that, but I didn't say that to you to get you to do it. I said it to you to give you a gift that somebody asked you that question. And if you don't do what I just suggested you do, it's just job security for me. Because then I can give you that gift again and again until you do it.

[36:25]

And I'll keep doing it, but not to get you to do it, but to show you that I'll keep giving you that gift forever. And you see that. And then you're seeing, oh, form is emptiness. You gradually will see that. That I'm giving this thing to you because it's emptiness. I'm really giving you the teachings of emptiness, not the teachings of wash your feet. But, in fact, if your feet are dirty, or if you ask me if there's anything you could look after, and I say, well, yeah, you could wash your feet. Is there anything I'm overlooking? Well, yeah, you could brush your teeth. Is there anything I'm overlooking? Yeah, you could stop leaning against the wall, et cetera. Gifts are just coming all the time. And also manipulations can come all the time too, but manipulations are coming from things are not empty. Things are substantial. And you can move them around and get them under control, since they're substantial.

[37:27]

And since they're substantial, you better get them under control. That's not the Buddha's teaching. Things exist independently, so get them under control, because otherwise they're going to run over you. They're dangerous and harmful because they're out there separate from you. That's not the Buddhist teaching. That's what most people think. So you give people the gift of, first of all, you give them gifts. That's the first way you start to open them up to formless emptiness. And in fact, giving them gifts is in accord with formless emptiness. Washing... doing the homework, cleaning the schoolroom, cleaning up after themselves, washing their feet, all that kind of stuff is examples of form, is emptiness. And if you give those things to them, they start to get ready to realize that these forms you're giving them, these requests you're giving them, are gifts and actually they're emptiness.

[38:34]

So you do keep going after them, but not after them to get control of them. You go after them because you love to give them gifts. And you love to give them gifts because they give you gifts. Because their little faces come, their beautiful little faces come, and they give you gifts, you know. Leslie, Miss Leslie, we love you. We want to be like you. They give you gifts, so you give them gifts. If you can see that. If you can't see they're giving you gifts, then it's hard for you to give them gifts. Not impossible, but if you see that they're giving you gifts, it makes it easier for you to give them gifts. And they're not just giving you forms. When they give you a gift, they're not just giving you a form, they're giving you emptiness. Emptiness. When you practice giving, that means you know this thing I'm giving you is insubstantial, no problem. Here, have an insubstantial thing. There's no skin out my nose. Here, have this, have that. When you give, you kind of understand that what you're giving doesn't have independent existence.

[39:42]

So you're not going to lose it. It's not going to go over to the other side. There's no other side over there separate from you. You're giving to yourself. You're giving to those who support you. Okay? Yeah. I have another question. With wholeheartedness, just in terms of giving a gift to myself, then like when I want to be wholehearted and I'm not, can't I give myself the gift of appreciating what I am in that moment? You know, like I'm grumpy or I'm sad or I'm... Exactly, exactly. If you're not wholehearted, Give your unwholehearted self to your unwholehearted self. Yeah. That's very generous. Okay. And then the next... You can be generous with yourself when you're not generous. Yeah. You can be generous with yourself when you're not wholehearted. And being generous with yourself when you're not wholehearted, you will become wholehearted. You are wholehearted.

[40:44]

So I should say, be generous with yourself when you think you're not wholehearted and you get over that delusion that you're not wholehearted. Yeah. And so were your students. Yeah. That works much better. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. And then the next question, last one, is when you're sitting. Oh, do I get more? No. When you're sitting. It's just that the line that separates this question from no more questions. Okay? That line is part of truth. Oh, okay. Okay, that's not good. Arbitrary is better. This is arbitrary. Okay, when I sit in terms of being generous and I try to be upright, I'm invariably creating tension in myself. So... Very good question. Somebody gave... When I sit and try to be upright, I invariably create tension in myself.

[41:47]

Okay? Yeah, so... Okay, so may I say something? Yeah. If you sit as a gift... You sit not to control yourself. You sit not to get yourself to sit upright, but you give your sitting as a gift. You give yourself upright sitting as a gift, not to control yourself in your sitting upright. Okay. Then you sit upright. Yeah, and then this is a sharing that somebody, I guess Charlotte Selver told me that let the earth support you when you sit. And every time I say that, it's like it releases. Those places tend to release. And then I realize, okay, there's just, the earth is supporting me and I'm breathing. That feels better. But then I get caught with... There are little places that are tense, and I can get caught in trying to release them or in just sort of breathing into them.

[42:55]

Or do the same thing with those tension points that you do with what you think of yourself being half-hearted. Be generous towards your tension points. Not to get anything except the joy of practicing being generous towards tension points. Just like be generous towards other people's attention. You see somebody's attention? It's easy to tense up when you see their attention. But you can also go, I give your attention to your attention. You can do the same with your attention. Be generous towards your attention. Sounding like, okay. Because I was getting mixed up when you said about the archer, you know, letting go and releasing that way as opposed to holding. The archer is supposed to stay tense until they are generous with the tension. Okay. They're not letting go, but they're being generous with their tension and then it's letting go.

[43:58]

All right, thank you. And that's also form is emptiness. Tension is emptiness. Tension is emptiness means tension is not tension. That's, you know, infinite possibilities around tension. And if you're generous with your tension, you start to open up to the wholeheartedness and generosity towards your tension. Then you realize, oh yeah, well, tension, among other things, is not tension. And it's a lot of other things besides not tension. It's infinite things. There's no limit on it. Again, any limits on it are just arbitrarily drawn. There's no non-arbitrary limits to your tension. Your tension is the mountains around Santa Barbara and the ocean. Your tension is those surfers out there. Your tension is all things. You can draw a line and say, my tension is not those surfers. Okay, fine, but that's an arbitrary line. And if you're generous with all this, all these things are emptiness, all these things have unlimited, uncircumscribed surround.

[45:10]

One other thing I wanted to mention was that someone said, did you say that something like, I'm supporting everybody and everybody's supporting me. And I said, that sounds like something I would say. And that actually is the Buddha way. The Buddha way is you support everybody and everybody supports you. That's the Buddha way. That realm is the realm that Buddha's practicing. They support everybody, everybody supports them. And he said, well, what about if you're cruel? At that time when I'm being cruel or you're being cruel, are you supporting everyone and everybody's supporting you? And I said, what did I say? Yes. No matter what you are, everybody supports you to be that. And no matter what you are, you support everybody else. And if you don't understand that you support everybody else, then you're at risk of being cruel.

[46:19]

If you don't understand that you're supporting everybody else and everybody supports you, and most people do not understand this. They've heard it. They have some understanding. Some people never even heard it. But those who have heard it, some have no understanding of it. They just heard it. Other people have heard it and thought about it and had some understanding. But very few people have really thoroughly understood this teaching. Not thoroughly understanding it is the Buddha way. Becoming it is the Buddha way. So I'm proposing to you from this teaching that no matter what you do, this is the way it is, and if you don't understand it, you're at risk of being frightened, violent, and cruel. You're at risk of that. Until you understand this, we are at risk of that. When you do understand it, you're no longer really at risk of being frightened and violent. You won't be frightened and violent and cruel when you understand this teaching.

[47:25]

And when you understand this teaching, you will continue to support everyone, and everyone will continue to support you, and everyone supports you to understand it. And in your understanding, you support everyone. But before you understand this, people are already supporting you and you're already supporting people, but you don't understand it. Therefore, you're relatively at risk. And the relativity is how deeply you've understood this teaching. If you hadn't heard this teaching yet, you're quite at risk. And if you've heard it more and meditated on it, you're less at risk. But we are still at risk until we thoroughly understand this. So we are supported by beings and we are supported when we don't understand that we're supported by beings. And we're supported by beings to not be happy if we don't understand this.

[48:30]

Beings want us to understand this And we want to understand this because it's not good not to understand this. I mean, it's contradictory to reality, and there's some pressure on us to understand this. We're being pressured to enter this understanding. And in that pressure situation, we sometimes will do really unskillful things, and we'll feel really unhappy about it, and this is part of the pressure. But you can see people, or even now, most of you can see people who you know you support them and you know they support you. You kind of can see that. You're very happy about that. And because of that, you always be tender and gentle with this person because you totally support them and you know they support you and they don't understand it. And they're cruel. They're cruel.

[49:34]

and violent because they don't understand this and you can see that they support you and you support them and they don't see it and you're happy with them. You're unhappy that they're violent but you totally love them and you know that they love you and you know that they don't understand that and that hurts you. But you can clearly see that you are supporting them. You can see a lot of other people are supporting them. Sometimes you can see And you can see they don't see it. Or you can also see other people are supporting them and they don't see other people are supporting them. And you can see they're unhappy to not see that other people are supporting. And you are happy to see that other people are supporting. And it hurts you to see that they don't see it. You already see that to some extent, right? So we need to deepen this. That goes along with this. That's part of the Bodhisattva vow to bring that perspective and also be honest when you don't see it.

[50:39]

When you say, I can't see that this is supporting me. I just don't see it. Okay? That you're honest. Now try to be upright with that. Don't try not to lean into that. You know? I think you're not supporting me, but I don't want to lean into that. I don't want to believe that you're not supporting me, but I do have that idea. It's kind of up there. It's coming up. You're not supporting me. But I'm so happy I'm not leaning into it. I just have this idea that keeps popping up. You're not supporting me. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Now it's gone away. Great. Bye-bye. And now I have this story, you are supporting me, you are supporting me, but I'm not going to lean into that either. Don't lean into the truth either. And then you'll see, oh, not only is this story coming up, but the story is now parting and now the reality of your supporting me is done.

[51:40]

Because I didn't lean into you weren't supporting me and I didn't lean into you weren't supporting me. Now, Leon, does it make more sense? Yes. Any other? Yes, Alice. Definitely. You're welcome. Thank you. I'd like to explore a little bit more the emptiness of self, of not-self. Well, the emptiness of self, explore not-self. My own experience has been that both on and off the cushion I can watch my sense of self arise. I can see the clinging to praise or aversion to blame or whatever and watch that sense of self arise. And it seems that the sense of self, the belief that there's a permanent self is one of the last things that we give up right before enlightenment or that is necessary for enlightenment.

[52:43]

My question is, why? Why is it so difficult? for us to let go of our sense of self. What are we afraid of? Is it a habit? Supposedly it takes lifetimes. Why can't we let go of this and see the emptiness of it? Actually, this reminds me of another aspect of something I mentioned earlier, which was as we meditate on our stories, or even our story of the teaching of emptiness, and we are upright and gentle with our story of our intellectual understanding of the teaching of emptiness, as we care for it wholeheartedly, the intellectual understanding starts to get maybe a little worn thin, you might say.

[53:51]

And the intellectual understanding of this profound teaching kind of starts to give off some indication that maybe it's going to drop away. So then we're going to have this teaching of emptiness which we have now been sort of wrapping in our intellectual understanding. Now the intellectual understanding is almost ready to drop away because we've been taking such good care of it. If you take really good care of things, they drop away. Or another way to put it is, if you take really good care of things, you see that they drop away. Actually, things are dropping away all the time And if you care for them very well, you see that they drop away. But as you get close to, like, seeing that they're ready to drop away, to see that your intellectual understanding of the teaching is going to drop away and then there's going to be, like, the teaching sitting there, you get scared. Because you're going to lose control.

[54:54]

Because your intellectual understanding gives you a little grip on this teaching or this situation. So it can be a situation, but also it can be a Dharma teaching. And when you first come there, you want to get a hold of it. But as you really practice with it well, one of your rewards for practicing with the teaching well is that your intellectual understanding kind of gets ready to go away for a while and leave you with the actual teaching rather than your intellectual version of it. But that's scary because you're going to lose control plus also you're going to be faced with not really knowing what this teaching is but just actually like diving into it. So with studying yourself too as you actually study it and find out about it there's a possibility that your understanding of the situation is going to drop away and you're going to actually meet your real self. your dependently co-arisen self.

[55:56]

And as that starts to dawn, it's very unfamiliar and you get scared and then so you want to go back. So I think, you know, Alice is a life science teacher, life science professor, so I think that the self is a deeply evolved adaptation of living beings. Very deep. And now we're trying to develop this other way of seeing our life, we're trying to develop that. But we have this long-standing, powerful method of grasping what's going on as a self, as an independent existence. And it's been very adaptive in a lot of ways. Generally our imagination has been very useful but this particular aspect of it has been also very useful. But many other aspects of our imagination are just plain useful, they're not harmful. But this one is useful and harmful. But it is somewhat useful.

[56:59]

So it's just really deeply ingrained, plus as you start to let go of it you enter into a very unknown unusual terrain, which again, we start to feel afraid when we go into some unusual place. So there's a big resistance to going into this new place. That's why we have to be very, very wholehearted and generous and upright and gentle, otherwise we won't be able to tolerate the transition. We have to open to giving a lot of support and receiving a lot of support in order to dare to go into this new territory. where a lot of our usual comfort food is not going to be available. We have to get some new comfort food that doesn't reinforce our old comfort food to make the transition into this new way of being where we actually will get a break from grasping things as a self. Sounds like uprightness includes fearlessness.

[58:01]

Uprightness includes fearlessness, yes. And generosity is the first practice to become fearless. In the joy of generosity, fear drops away. Now, not all fear drops away, but most of it. The final fear drops away in wisdom. When you actually see that there's nothing out there separate from you, when you actually see that there's nothing like that, then there's no hindrance. Like it says in the Heart Sutra, Without any hindrance, no fears exist. And those hindrances drop away from practicing generosity and wisdom. Thank you. I have a question.

[59:09]

It starts to occur to me that emptiness is this very highly interactive agency that's allowing me not to lean into the stories, like not to lean too much into the truth, not to pull away. Again, you say emptiness is a highly interactive agency. Yes, it's true that that's what it is, but if you look at it that way, then you're shifting over to saying emptiness is a process, which it is. Emptiness is interdependence, highly interactive, highly interactive. But emptiness is also that this process doesn't have any inherent existence. So there's this tendency to shift from emptiness back over to the pentacle horizon. OK. It's just part of the balancing act.

[60:14]

So I begin to see in the preliminary kind of meditation on emptiness that as I shift back and forth between the story If I don't see the emptiness in the story, I get stuck in the story. I don't really see the emptiness. If you don't see the emptiness of the story, you're stuck in the story? Well, not quite. You could have a story and be upright with it and not be stuck in it, but not yet see its emptiness. If you see its emptiness, then you definitely would not be stuck in it. That's true. But it doesn't mean that if you don't see the emptiness in the story, that you will be stuck in it. You can actually conduct yourself in a way that's really not stuck in the story before you see the emptiness of the story. Once again, if you see the emptiness, you will not be stuck. You can't be stuck. Because in seeing the emptiness, there's no story.

[61:16]

But before you see the emptiness, you practice not being stuck in your stories. You practice being upright in your stories, not leaning into your stories, not leaning away from your stories, being gentle with your stories. This way of being with the stories, then the stories open up and you see the emptiness. Once you see the emptiness, then you've got Buddha in your face all the time. Buddha's saying, don't. Fall into it. Don't get stuck. Come on, sweetheart. Let's go. Let's move on. But before that, you conduct yourself with your stories in such a way that you do not fall into them. Being that way with them, you're starting to be the way you would be if you saw their emptiness. Okay? Not manipulating things is the way you would be with them if you saw their emptiness. So when you give up manipulating things, you start to get ready for emptiness, wherein you would not manipulate, because you can see that that's not possible.

[62:19]

You support things. You support things, you support things, you support things, not try to get them to be some other way. You wish them to be happy when they're not happy, but you still support them when they're unhappy. Plus, they support you. So once again, I think that actually you can be with your stories, be with your karma intimately, not leaning into it, not getting stuck in it, and that gets you ready for emptiness. Once you see emptiness, then you naturally, spontaneously won't lean. But you still continue that same practice, but now coming from wisdom, and previously it's kind of coming from training and compassion. Does that make sense? Very much. Thank you. So I was thinking about form.

[63:44]

Sorry. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. And I was wondering if you could comment about the forms in, say, in a typical Zen setting where there are the robes, there are the bows, there are the bells, there are all these things. And it seems like It's easy to get just caught up in the form and not, for me anyway, to not understand what is behind that. Just if you could comment on that, it might be helpful for me. Okay, did you hear that? I already did, but I'll say it again. So I was carrying the stick, one of the Zen forms. One of the monks carries a stick in the Zendo, traditionally. And then the teacher gave me feedback on the forms. Okay? So that's a form. But the point of the form is not... The point of the form is to actually surface any leaning into it that there might be.

[64:52]

So you have the form and you have a particular way of doing it so that people can see if they're like attaching to the form. And then... the people you're practicing with can come forward and maybe help you see that you're like treating the form as though it were a substantial thing rather than emptiness. So he put these forms, these Zen forms out there, to test and realize if we see the emptiness of them. If you see the emptiness of the forms, then you give them to people as gifts. The teacher gives and teaches the forms as gifts. So you can test the teachers to see if they're giving gifts or giving you forms to control you. And you can see if you're receiving the gifts or the forms as gifts or whether you're receiving them as things to conform to and get control of and prove you're a good monk. And it's not that difficult sometimes to find out that you're doing them in a controlling way.

[65:56]

And it's also, when you're experienced, not so difficult to see the difference between someone who's doing them as a gift they just got given. Like in my story, I didn't have any trouble seeing that Sukhoreshi gave me a gift. I didn't feel like, okay, now he's got me under his control and I'm going to keep myself under control. No, I thought, oh, he just gave me a gift of a way of doing this. And, you know, actually, to tell you the truth, I pretty much forgot what he said. But I felt the giving. And so some people, some seniors and practitioners give people these forms but they don't realize they're giving them. They think they're telling these people what to do so that they get these people under control. They're giving these forms as a way to get people to do stuff rather than giving these people gifts of things to do. And if you turn it one way, you can fortunately be caught and busted for it by yourself and others.

[67:00]

If you turn it the other way, it's wonderful to use the forms to realize emptiness rather than to use the forms to realize substantial independent existence and control of an empty, constantly changing life. So these Zen forms are very much for that purpose, to realize form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And usually people do not realize it. Usually people hold the forms in a controlling way. Because that's their general approach to life. So they do the same with these forms. But these forms are just set up to expose people like that. And they do. And then hopefully some people are kind to these exposed grippers and controllers who are now using Zen, you know, in the same mode. Are you happy? I am. Yeah. So we have a position at Zen Center in Japanese.

[68:07]

It's called Ino. And it's a Chinese way of saying a Sanskrit position in Indian Buddhism called, it's called karma dana, a position in the monastery called karma dana. And the way the Chinese and Japanese say, Chinese say weina and the Japanese say ino. And I see various inos And sometimes the position is translated as disciplinarian. Because that's the way some people understand it, that they're disciplinarian. But disciplinarian can also be, the word discipline comes from the word dociere, which means to teach or educate, like a docent. The disciple comes from that which is conducive to learning.

[69:08]

But disciplinarian also can be understood as somebody who's trying to keep people under control. But the Sanskrit says, karma dana says, giver of karma, giver of tasks. It's the person who gives you gifts of things to do in the practice place. And I tell these people that are in this position because I see them trying to control people into these forms. And, of course, when they're doing this, the people, and they're having, it's, you know, it's very unpleasant to see them trying to control these darling people and see these people afraid of being in or out of control. They say, please remember, you're giving people gifts. Like, here, would you please ring the bell? Not to get them to ring the bell. And I have to say to the Inos, if you give this person the bell ringing job and they don't want to do it, and then you give it to somebody else and they don't want to do it, and nobody wants to do it, I say, it's okay with me if we don't have any bells.

[70:13]

If nobody wants to do this lovely job, let's just not ring the bell. And then if people don't hear the bell, they won't come to Zendo. Let's deal with it. But don't try to control the monks. Just give them gifts. I actually do that in practice. And it makes a big difference. And some people just can't stand it. They say, I got to get these people under control. I can't stand that the bells won't ring, you know. So if I'm in a position of leading the practice, I say, it's okay. I'll deal with it. Blame it on me if nothing goes right according to your idea. but something really much more wonderful than the bells being rung at a certain time and the monks going to the hall will happen. People will become enlightened. People will love each other. People will be generous with each other. That's what this place is for. Not to get all the little Zen monks lined up in the proper position at the right time, completely under control.

[71:17]

That's not the point. But it looks like that from a certain perspective, and some people are trying to do that. And we're trying to be tender with those who are trying to control the other people. We don't be mean to the ones who are being mean. We don't be rough with the ones who are being rough. We don't try to control the ones who are trying to control. I mean, hopefully we don't. That's our bodhisattva vow. We support the ones who are trying to control, and we support them by saying, you know, your position is really giver of gifts, not giver of tasks, not controller of tasks. Okay? How are you feeling now? You okay? Okay, now I'm going to pass out the Heart Sutra.

[72:24]

Now this time you can keep it and take it home with you if you want. And on the back is these verses for arousing the Bodhisattva vow. So is that okay if we give these to people as a gift? Now we're giving these to you not to control you, I don't expect you to ever recite this again. I hope you do, but I don't expect it. Can you ask one question? Yes, you can. I now suspend the commandment of coming up here. You can now ask questions from any angle, from any position. It's like free-for-all. The form has been suspended. School's out. Leslie. If you're not lucky enough to give people the practice of controlling people so that they can see they're controlling, yeah?

[73:39]

Now, there's no such situation where people are in control. There's a situation where we have the shared conventional reality that people are in control, but that's a conventionality. It's really empty of control. They're taking it seriously. They're taking it seriously, yeah, right. Well, like, again, so you're in a position, you're actually in a position where you can give your students jobs which look like they're trying to control something, like you could give them a cleaning job. Well, let's just start with the people that you feel you can give this job to. You can give your students cleaning jobs. Now, you don't see it as to control the cleanliness level of the room. You see it as a gift to them of sweeping or whatever. And then if they start getting into control, you can go over to them and show them that they don't have to try to control the cleanliness of the room. Now, with someone who is hierarchically superior to you in an organization like a school, if they're trying to control you and everybody else in the school, you can try to practice not trying to control them out of their controllingness.

[75:01]

You can be generous towards them. And if you're generous enough towards them and they feel that, eventually they will dare in that warmth and generosity, they will dare to see what it'd be like to relate to somebody without trying to control them. Just like some of these people who at work are trying to control, some of them when they go home and they meet their daughters and sons and wives and husbands who are generous towards them, they lighten up a little bit on the controlling thing when they get home. Because they feel, oh, these people are supporting me and loving me. They aren't trying to control me. But if they go home and they feel like everybody there is trying to control them too, then they control back. So yeah, the way of weaning people from the delusion of control is to be generous towards them while they're still into the delusion of control. Be generous with them.

[76:04]

Don't try to control them out of it. Be tender with them. They'll feel that tenderness. But you're also teaching them the form which they're trying to control. And the form of trying to control, you're teaching them that form is empty by your generosity. When you're generous with a form, again, you are kind of teaching that the form is empty. If someone's trying to control, they don't understand form is emptiness. If they did, they wouldn't try to control. They would just practice giving. They would lovingly practice giving. But if somebody doesn't understand form is emptiness, and emptiness is form, and therefore isn't being generous, or even if they don't understand, and some people don't understand it but are generous, and those people are getting ready to understand, and even if you don't understand completely, if you practice generosity with those who don't, you're teaching them the Heart Sutra. you're teaching them to get ready to give up trying to control.

[77:07]

You can't open to emptiness if you're still trying to control. Like somebody, an elderly man left before lunch and he said, what about surrender? I said, well, giving up trying to control is surrender. Being generous is surrender. So be generous, surrender, give up trying to control. Not give up control, give up trying to control. And if you meet somebody who's trying to control, give up trying to control them. Like a lot of people say, well, we're not going to change our ecological policies before the United States does. If the United States would be generous about this stuff, the rest of the world would eventually follow. But if the boss doesn't, it's pretty hard for the other people not to. But bodhisattvas go ahead and surrender even before the boss surrenders. And eventually the boss will feel that love and the boss will surrender, trying to control.

[78:11]

If we're surrounded by love, we'll surrender trying to control. If we're surrounded by other people who are trying to control us, we'll probably just try all the harder to control. Unless, in our past, we have hung out with people, bodhisattvas, who have not tried to control us. When we were bad, they didn't try to control us into being good. They practiced, they loved us when we were bad. They loved us when we were bad, and they loved us when we were bad. They loved us when we were bad, and they loved us when we were bad. They were generous when we were bad, and when we were bad, worse, they were generous with us again. And that generosity and love, finally we said, okay, I had enough. Now I'm going to practice being generous and loving. And then, with that kind of background, then when we meet people who are trying to control us and other people, we are generous with them. Somebody has to teach us how to be generous. Once we've seen it, then we can teach others. Somebody has to teach us how to surrender trying to control.

[79:17]

Once somebody's done that with us, we can learn it and do it with others. So if you've seen enough of this, practice it on the people who haven't seen enough. If you haven't seen enough, go someplace where you're going to get instruction about letting go of trying to control. Okay? That make sense? Very good. How you doing, Shirley? Good? How you doing, Maura? Huh? You good? Lisa, did you want to say something? Do you want to come up here or do you want to speak from there? I was just going to say that sitting there and listening to this discussion, it always strikes, well, it doesn't always strike me, but it struck me right now. Of course, why would I hang on to my wanting to control people?

[80:20]

Like, that just doesn't make any sense. You feel like it doesn't make any sense, but that's kind of what Alice was saying. How can we hold on to our... Right. Because it's a strong habit. That's the only reason why it makes sense. Exactly. And yet I know, well, I have this story that as soon as I go out of this room, somebody may say something to me and I'm going to get into this power struggle. Yeah. So you have that story, and if you take good care of that story, when you get out there and that does happen, you'll be more ready for that story. Say, oh, now it's happening. Hey, this is the power struggle I said would happen, and now it's happening. Wow, there it is. But I'm kind of like upright with it. It's happening. I'm still in the power struggle. But I'm kind of like, because I confessed that it would probably happen when I was at the retreat, now it is happening. And it's like, I kind of feel like everybody in the retreat is here with me. Just like before I said, I'm going to be in a power struggle. Now I'm in the power struggle, but I feel all these people around me.

[81:22]

So now we're upright with this story. It's still a power struggle. But there's some uprightness with it and some gentleness with it. And here's another one, but there's some uprightness. And the more you can be upright with these power struggles, the closer you get to seeing that this power struggle is not a power struggle. It is a love fest. And not lean into that either. A love vest. It's a love vest. Well, and also what you said about role models to help me understand that it is a love vest and it's not this kind of messy power struggle. That can be hard to find role models. Role models are rare. Before you see a role model, role models are rare. Once you start seeing them, you start noticing more.

[82:23]

But you do need some role models to find role models. So if you see any, that's good. You'd be grateful that you've seen some. And remember them. Think about them. Think about the role models. Think about Buddha. Not that you would do the same thing as Buddha, but you would do the same thing Buddha did. Do the same practice, but your way will be different. So, yeah. And including that your role models, it says, before these role models were role models, they were just like you. Before Buddhas were Buddhas, they were just like you. But they practiced in a certain way when they were like you. Namely, they confessed, they were honest about, I'm caught in a power struggle. They admitted that. They noticed it and admitted it and they were gentle and upright with it and then they evolved positively. That's the role model of how to practice when you're caught by a power struggle.

[83:23]

And it seems to me that as I'm able to open my mind or see, I don't know, there's a shift that does happen and I can see role models more and more. Yeah. And when you open your mind, when you're in the middle of power struggle, you can see other possibilities. When you see the emptiness of the story of the power struggle, you see infinite possible other versions of this story. You do have this one, but you see the emptiness of this, so you see infinite other ones, which aren't the one that's happening now, but you know they're there, so then you don't grasp this one, because you see all the other ones are contributing to this one. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Magic and miracles and wonder and bigness and space. But you have to take care of the not magic and not miracle of this power struggle. You have to be kind with the power struggle, which you don't see the miracle in it now, but you have to care for it in such a way that if you open to it, you open to the miracles around it.

[84:35]

If you open to it, you open to infinite possibilities. But if you close to it, close to the emptiness... But then if you do, you confess it and then you start opening it. Okay? Thank you. Would you like to end by chanting the Heart Sutra? Yes. Huh? Shall we? Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra.

[85:21]

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