Our new business is now to welcome a new arrival. Two new arrivals. One is Tiffany, and the other is baby Corwin, who is a boy of six weeks old, who is resting honor and celebrate his arrival. I wish him peace and freedom. Also, someone asked me if I wish to practice generosity but I feel like I'm poor, how do I practice? And I said, well, Look and see if you joyfully wish to offer your poverty. And if you do, then that joy of wishing to offer your poverty is generosity.

[01:20]

So there it is, that's generosity. Any questions? Yes. Would you like a cushion? Well, I've been thinking and I have a question. I'm wondering if we are so formed by words and concepts and caught up or grounded in, permeated by karmic consciousness and discriminating consciousness, and at the same time, this is a precious human life that I hear, I read about, And our task is to go beyond or get out of dualistic thinking, right?

[02:29]

And yet that's what Luke's born into. Close. But going beyond is another discrimination. So beyond doesn't actually apply. Beyond is another thought construction. What should I say then? How about be free? Be free of it. Of it. So without going, staying inside or going beyond, because those are freedom, it's freedom from beyond it, working in it. Right. So freedom may be, that's our task is to be free, but our task is to be at peace and happy, and we need to be free of it. So that's our task, yes. But it seems like since we're so much in it, and it seems to be the way our mind works, and since we're such language-bound beings, it seems like there must be something, some purpose or something in the discriminating awareness that we're going to learn from that will let us be free of it.

[03:30]

Otherwise, why would we be in it so much? Is that clear? I think so. Okay. So what I'm wondering is what, if it's the case, what are we to get out of our being so grounded in discriminating the wrongness? Or you might say, actually, we're not so and we're trapped in it partly because we're not grounded in it. We hesitate to be grounded in it. So there are beauties with we hesitate to be grounded in it. So here's another poetic image. Here's the image of a lotus blossom. A lotus blossom grows from a stalk of a plant that has roots that do not hesitate, that have not hesitated in going into the mud.

[04:35]

So we actually have trouble being grounded in the mud of discriminating linguistic consciousness. We hesitate. We like to go into some neighborhoods but not others. But the roots The roots, they embrace the mud in a vital way. They give rise to the stalk, which give rise to leaves and buds and then a flower. And I could go on. And I'll come back to that. But basically, you make this flower. But you have to be grounded in the mud. And we feel trapped in the mud. But in a way, you know, when there's a seed, when there's a seed in the mud which wishes to benefit all beings, that seed germinates and embraces the mud and enacts a flower. which doesn't, as long as the flower is there, it's connected to the mud, doesn't get rid of the mud.

[05:43]

It's not beyond the mud. It's just this wonderful thing that arises with the mud. So, and that flower is kind of free of a thought of purpose. It's just wisdom and happiness. It's a great happiness. For example, it's the great happiness of compassion. It's a very happy flower. It's a flower of happiness and wisdom. And the wisdom makes the happiness unhindered. So you could say, from the point of view of the mud, the flower is the purpose of the mud. You could say that. But the flower doesn't really think it's the purpose of the mud. The flower is free of, and the flower also doesn't say, I'm not the purpose of the mud. The flower is free of any kind of like, It's a tree of thought constructions like purpose and lack of purpose. But the root of this magnificent flower is thoughts like purpose and not purpose. So when the issue of purpose and not purpose comes up, we practice compassion towards them like we do towards a little boy.

[06:49]

And if we have no hesitation about being grounded and embracing completely and wholeheartedly thoughts of purpose or lack of purpose, we will make this wonderful thing. So I'm not saying that's the purpose or not the purpose, I'm just saying we can make a magnificent thing. We can make the thing we really want to make if we embrace all issues in linguistic consciousness. So can we say that linguistic consciousness and discriminating awareness is merely just an accident of this form that we're in, or does it contribute in some way to what it is we flower into? I would say it contributes because there's a story, this is a discriminating consciousness story, but there's a story that... early forms of life also, you know, are confined by their consciousness, like both domesticated and wild animals seem to be afraid, and domestic ones are more obviously neurotic.

[08:01]

Especially dogs, which are very sympathetic to us. We love them partly because, you know, they'll like, Elizabeth told me that now there's this website where it calls shame dog or something. Dogs actually will say, oh yeah, I'm ashamed I did that. Because I know you want me to act like I'm ashamed, so I'm ashamed, okay? I know you didn't want me to do that, but I'm sorry. And they know we like that, so they give us that, right? They're very sympathetic. Whereas cats don't say, I'm sorry. Cats are secure. Do I have to pretend like I'm sorry? I'm not really. I mean, I'm afraid of you hitting me, but I think I can get away. But other animals may not feel a pair of shame, but actually I think they... It's hard for them to be ashamed unless they've made moral commitment. And the process of liberation is partly to make moral commitment. It's hard to make moral commitment until somebody gives you a precept. So linguistic developments in evolution have allowed somehow the Buddha to send us messages.

[09:09]

The Buddha is sending messages to dogs and cats too, and they can receive some education. It looks like some of them do kind of get the picture of compassion. They kind of are with the program, but the subtleties of attachment and delusion that they're involved in, it's hard for them to understand them without somebody telling them in such a way that they get some kind of linguistic way to deal with it. So our linguistic development is, as I wrote up there, for us, it is very much our type of confinement. But also it is the way we use that very articulate dimension of our karmic consciousness, of our linguistic karma, we use that to release consciousness. So, yes, so the development of this problem has made it possible for there to be liberation. But that's our mud. Our mud is a mud that if you embrace it, it can liberate you.

[10:11]

The mud of other beings it's not clear that their mud can make up lotus flower. However, we can help them evolve to a point where they will be able to somehow receive teachings and do practices. Well, this is just a follow-up. Would someone who was enlightened or who had become liberated... like the Buddha, for example, would the Buddha see the mountains there in the same form that we see them now? My understanding at this point is, the understanding which I am studying right now, is that the Buddha's completely transform the seeds, the permeations of karmic activity, they completely transform it into wisdom. So there's no basis for karmic consciousness in the Buddha. They only have wisdom. However, they use the karmic consciousness of sentient beings to see the mountains the way sentient beings do.

[11:14]

So the sentient beings say there's some mountains over there, the Buddhists say. They can see it through the sentient being. But they don't themselves have, and they can see through all sentient beings. They can see the mountains the way all of us do. They can see the mountains the way rabbits do and coyotes do. But they don't have their own karmic consciousness anymore. The basis of karmic consciousness has been completely transformed into the true body of Buddha. So they see the mountains as they really are. They are the mountains the way they really are. And the way the mountains really are is that the mountains and waters of the immediate present, that's what the Buddhists are. The Buddhists are the mountains in their fullness, the way they interact with ultimate truth. That's what the Buddhists are. And that also means the Buddhists, and we also, in our reality of our life, we are in this intimate relationship with the real mountains that are our physical bodies and there's no mountains aside from our physical bodies in intimate relationship.

[12:20]

But the intimate relationship between our body and the actual mountains gives rise to a consciousness which makes an image of the mountains and thinks that the image of the mountains is the mountains. It's like, you know, baby and her mother in this intimate relationship make a life and then the life imagines that idea of its mother but the mother is not a baby's idea of the mother mother is much more complex and a big thing than the baby's idea of the mother and my little my little granddaughter she she likes her gram her mom her mom says she likes her mom and she goes like this the baby goes like this And her mom says she knows how to get her mom to appreciate her, even at that yummy age. These little gestures. She likes, my mom likes that, and I like my mom. But her mom is not her idea of her mom.

[13:21]

For example, at a certain point, when the mom goes out of the room, the child thinks the mom's gone. I mean, like there's no mom. That's not true, but that's what they think. They think the mom is how the mom appears to them. So even little kids are mistaken. So the mountains actually are the Buddhas. And we are the mountains too. But if we don't understand that we're the mountains, then we're missing out on how the mountains are the Buddhas. But it isn't just that we're the mountains, also the mountains are us. Because there's no mountains without our bodies. There's no mountains like that, like those, and there's no sort of mountains pre-conceptually either. Everything arises together. Buddhists are how everything arises together, and then they send this message that that's the case.

[14:24]

Was that so even before humans existed on the planet? Yes, that was so. However, before there was life on the planet, this planet didn't need Buddhas to appear in a form that living beings could relate to, because there were no suffering living beings. And imagining that the world was a certain way of believing... I mean, before there were living beings... Living beings are the sufferers. Reality isn't suffering. But when living beings arise, they have this wonderful capacity to imagine things and then misconstrue their imagination for the life which gave rise to the imagination. And then the life sort of suffers at the expense of believing the imaginary constructions. And somehow then that causes Buddhas to arise.

[15:27]

Buddhas arise because of sentient beings. There's no need for Buddhas Buddhas are the corrective or the medicine for the universe when it makes life and life gets off track. Buddhas aren't just reality. Buddhas are reality with compassion. Before there's suffering beings, we just have reality. Before suffering beings, there's just wisdom. They're just the way things are, and there's nobody separate from the way things are. But when you have life, you have this wonderful ability to imagine separation, so then you have suffering, so then wisdom has to. as to care for the suffering, and that makes a Buddha. And then they actually can appear in the world if necessary, and it is necessary, because we have to have some way to orient towards the instruction, the medicinal instructions of the Buddhas, of the compassionate ones who bring us reality. So if there's no living beings, there's no suffering.

[16:27]

So Buddha's mostly about living beings who are suffering. That's mostly what it's about. It has some other aspects which are interesting, but they're mostly in service of basically taking care of living beings who, without wisdom, they suffer, and when they're suffering they do all kinds of... they cause additional suffering if they don't address their suffering properly, which causes more suffering, but eventually everybody will finally get the picture, So some people think that the founders of AA in the United States actually had a little bit of exposure to Mahayana Buddhism, although they don't mention it. It's very similar in the sense that you can't get out of addiction just by addiction. Somebody has to tell you, use your addiction to get out of addiction. Don't think that addiction is going to get you out of it,

[17:30]

Somebody has to tell you that. And so addiction isn't all that gets you out of it. Somebody has to tell you how to use it to free yourself from it. So it's very similar. Somebody's telling us we have to treat our addictions, our delusions, with compassion. Somebody has to say that to us who's free of addiction, who's free of delusion. We have to learn how to do that from somebody who's become free. That's what they call higher power, is that what they say? Higher power is somebody who's not exactly higher but free of the power of addiction. They send us instructions which we interpret in our addiction form and become free. But there would be no need for these teachings if there were beings who are addicted in the midst of life. But there are. So there are these teachings. Some people are a little worried about what would happen if everybody got enlightened. Would that be a problem if, you know, everybody was a boot?

[18:41]

That's the next retreat. That's coming up in three weeks. Okay. No pressure. Anyway, I sort of said this before, that this sympathetic reciprocal relationship between our sensuous body, our powerful sensing body, and the sensible environment, that reciprocity, is what perception is. That's the structure of perception. But perception doesn't know itself. Perception, like, makes up a story about what gave rise to it.

[19:44]

It thinks that the sensible things, you know, well, the sensible things did give rise to it, but it sees the sensible things. But it doesn't see the relationship of the sensible things to the sensuous things. It sees one side of the reciprocal relationship. It sees one side of itself. Does that make sense? Perception sees one side of itself. Perception has two sides. It has a sensuous bodily side and it has a sensible body side. And it sees the sensible. It makes sense of that. But it doesn't see the relationship by which this wonderful relationship has arrived to it. That relationship is our real life, is our whole life. Our relationship, our body's relationship to all other beings is our life. But that relationship gives rise to a mind which thinks that the sensible part, which includes other beings who are sensuous from our perspective, it thinks that that's the part it sees and that's the part it knows,

[20:55]

But it doesn't know the relationship to give rise to that type of knowing. And that relationship to give rise to our life is imperceptible. And we are assisting other beings to be born, and they are assisting us to be born. We're doing that all the time. And there's this expression which Carolina reminded me of, which describes what's going on in Zen meditation. where in Zen meditation you actually enter into the realization of this imperceptible mutual assistance. Imperceptible mutual assistance. You enter into the way the mountains and waters make you and the way you make them. You enter into that. But it says, you know, it talks about how all beings in this imperceptible mutual assistance realm, how all beings are assisting each other and contributing to each other's liberation.

[21:59]

The way we give rise, love and support to each other and the way others are giving to us, you know, that is the Buddha way. The way Buddhas are giving us teachings and we're receiving them and saying thank you and asking for more, that actually is the Buddha way, but it's imperceptible. The way we're assisting the Buddhas to be Buddhas and the way Buddhas are responding to us, helping us become Buddhas, is imperceptible. And yet it's saying, in the practice, in the meditation of the Buddhas, that's actually where they live. And it says, however, all this does not appear within perception. Another translation is, this isn't mixed with perceptions. It's actually not. This is how all perceptions are interacting. This is how all perceptions are created and how they interact. So I have a perception of Paul, and I say, Paul, do you have a perception of Paul? And he says, well, yeah. So that's a perceptible version of our discussion of our perceptions.

[23:04]

We can exchange perceptions. But the imperceptibility of that exchange is not perceivable, even though that exchange gives rise to perception. That imperceptibility of mutual assistance is realization. It's immediate realization. It's enlightenment. And so we can realize it. We can enter it. We are living in it. We can realize it. We can understand it. It just isn't like an object of ordinary knowledge. It's not object of anything. It's realization. Realization isn't about it. Realization is it. It is realization. This is realization. It's just that you don't get to recognize it. And again, you can recognize it, and when you do, most people are pretty happy about that.

[24:06]

That recognition is not the thing itself. And one translation of that situation would be, if that were the case, then practice and enlightenment could look at each other. Now, practice will go, oh, there's enlightenment, enlightenment, oh, there's practice. But in this tradition, they don't look at each other, they're the same thing. Buddha's realization is Buddha's practice. It isn't like Buddha's sitting there, oh, oh, this is a great realization. That's not the way it is. It's more like Buddha's practice with everybody, that's the realization. When you can practice with everybody, In the same way everybody's practicing right now, that's realization. But you can't perceive that. Yeah, Buddhas can't either. They don't. They are that. That is their realization. And that's, you know, inconceivably wonderful.

[25:14]

And, you know, unstoppable and unhindered and unending, ungraspable, inconceivable, etc. Yeah, I could. But it might be nauseating. Just a whole bunch of other stuff that are totally ungraspable. and boundless. So is the reciprocal relationship between Buddhas and sentient beings the Buddha Some people said yes, and one person went like this.

[26:20]

And ones that said yes, they're okay. Now the ones who are going like this can ask questions. So I'm telling you that the reciprocal relation, the sympathetic resonance, the reciprocateness between Buddhas and sentient beings I mean, in other words, there's no Buddhas without sentient beings, and no sentient beings without Buddhas. And that actual relationship, rather than just a statement of the facts, that relationship is the Buddha way. The reciprocal relationship between the mountains and us, which means it's in the immediate present that we have a reciprocal relationship. in the presence that we have names for, that's the dead presence, then the mountains seem to be there on their own without us, or we think we can walk around without the mountains. That's after the fact of our relationship. Do you have a question, Joel, that you'd like to express?

[27:21]

And the question, Perry? Yeah, I think my thing about the reciprocal, well, my gesture. Your perception. Okay. Was about reciprocal, and I think it could be a word thing, that reciprocal implies two. Reciprocal implies two? I could see that you could see it applies two, but it also could imply one, since it's reciprocal. It's just a circle. Because there's no Buddhas without sentient beings. They're not really two. They're not two things. They're not really two. And to say that one is making it kind of conceptual. A reciprocal is kind of free of one, too.

[28:22]

Because, you know, it's not stuck in one because you could say, well, it seems like two. But not really two because you can't have one without the other. If you can't have something without another thing, in a way, they're not two. But you couldn't discuss that if they were just one. So they're not one and not two. One could say. Yes, one could say. And it's like right back to the beginning. It's in Mind Beginners much. It's right back to the beginning of the beginning. Yeah, not one, not two. Now that I'm here, can I ask you another question? Sure. Okay, when you're talking about someone Asking, do I really aspire to this? Do I really aspire... Somebody's asking themselves that. Yeah. Like, to be the mountain to such a degree that I'm right at the toes of the mountain, where the water is. Yes. Like, I know someone for whom that's very difficult, whom I love very much.

[29:28]

And I want to try to help her. You do? I do too. Me. You have a lot less trouble. It is difficult to embrace the whole mountain. It is difficult. If you know somebody, let's help that person. They need help. We need help. We need encouragement to embrace the whole mountain. Yes. Yes. And so... What can we do to help this person? That's my question. And how to help? Well, the main thing is you embrace the mountain. That's the main thing. You do it. And you make it look workable and attractive. Yeah. And don't tell somebody else to do it generally unless they beg you. Yeah, that's... Buddha doesn't force this upon us. Buddha gently says, well... Where are all Buddhists born? Well, that's where they're born. And now you've heard it, but I'm not going to force you to keep going down to the bottom of the mountain.

[30:32]

Oh, I just want to go a little halfway. Is that okay? I'm here with you halfway. Right, I think it's the aspiration that's there. The aspiration, yes. But there's a lot of terror which is justified in this case. Well, it's all justified. There's all causes and conditions which make it so. Since the causes are there, it's justified. And we should be kind to it. Yes. We should be kind to it. And if we're kind to it, that's us embracing our mountain, which is this appearance of terror in another's. yes right so we embrace that's our moment so we embrace that right and they see that we're not afraid of their fear oh and so they say oh he's i'm still afraid of my fear but i'm trying to get rid of my fear but he's not hmm that's that yeah that helps a lot he's not telling me to stop being afraid of my fear he's letting me be afraid and he's not afraid of me being afraid even though

[31:37]

I'm sure he would like me to be free of it, and I'd like to be free of it, but he's not rushing me to get over it. And he is totally embracing my fear. Maybe I'll try that sometime, but not now. And that's okay. And I want to see if he can tolerate that. Me? Yeah, it's hard. I want to see if he loves me enough to let me keep waiting until I embrace my fear. He seems to embrace it, but I don't want to, and I want to see if he can wait for me. That would be really cool if he would. Yes. I'm going to wait for quite a while to make sure he loves me. There could be traps there for me. And you can show your partner that you can embrace those traps if you wish to embrace those traps, because there are traps on the mountain. There are slip canyons and abrupt, dangerous places.

[32:46]

And then there's earthquakes and volcanoes. Yeah. Well, there's nothing much to do but embrace the mountain, earthquakes, volcanoes. That's the Buddhist office job, embrace the mountain, all the way to the tiptoes of the mountain, and attend the birth of Buddhas, and keep it up, keep attending the birth of Buddhas, or working towards the birth of Buddhas. We're here to make Buddhas, not to make me into a Buddha, to make Buddhas, which are not separate from me. I, who am now suffering from Buddhists, am happily devoted to making Buddhists. That's wonderful. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. Thank you.

[33:49]

You're welcome. I have a personal question to ask you. Well, please come. Well, I don't know either. No, it's about you. It's a personal question about you. Yeah. Which you may... The other one is asking it. Okay. You're personally asking it. So, if that's the case, bring your person. Oh, hello. Hello. Who are you? Green, Carolina. Club times. Who are you? Power. I'm a lover of imperceptible mutual assistance. I was just wondering, on the paper, the calligraphy you gave us, you have the whole works written there. And I've forgotten, what names did Suzuki Roshi bestow upon you?

[34:55]

The first name, you have two names, right, that he gave you? And is that the second one or the first one? And what are the two? Well, that's an interesting question because you said it was a personal question. It's about you personally. Yeah, you could say that. So the first part of the name... The Chinese characters are pronounced by the Japanese as ten, shin. And ten means heaven and shin means truth. So it looks like it says heavenly truth, which it does. literally, heavenly truth, heavenly reality. But when I was ordained, at the day I was ordained, he said, Tenshin means rev is rev. So the first meaning of Tenshin is, my wife says in Chinese, they use that to describe kind of a genuinely or sincerely naive child

[36:02]

You know, like an adorable, naive child. So, you know, like a child, you say to somebody, what's this? And they say, it's a hand. So, as you said, tenjin means rabbit's rib. But if you look it up in a Buddhist dictionary, tenjin means ultimate reality. So it means both just things being themselves or like a naive child. And it also means ultimate truth. It means being yourself. And then the second part of the name, Zenki means, one translation is total dynamic function. And it's referring to the total dynamic function. So when you are completely yourself in just that, that is the total dynamic function of the universe.

[37:09]

When the mountain is completely the mountain, that's the total dynamic function. Or, I like the translation, the whole works, because it embraces colloquial and standard English. In colloquial English, the whole works means everything or the universe. In standard English, the whole works is a sentence, which means the whole works. How does the whole work? It works by you being completely you. The whole doesn't work by you being partly you. If you're partly yourself, you haven't realized how the universe is like going to a lot of work to make you the way you are right now. And it's no mistake that you have these pains today, and yesterday you had a different set, and tomorrow you're going to be sunshine bright. The way things work is, you know, the whole universe makes each thing the way it is.

[38:20]

And if you resist that, you're resisting the way the whole works all over the place. It isn't that the whole works in Santa Barbara but not in L.A. or vice versa. It works completely everywhere. And the job to realize that is to be completely yourself, which, as you know, is very difficult because, you know, we have preferences about whether to be total here or a little bit, maybe partly, halfway down the mountain. So that's my name. And in a way, it's personal, but it's actually, you could also translate it as when you're completely who you are, you're totally impersonal. You transcend being personal, you become the whole works when you completely accept being this ordinary person that you are moment by moment. And moment by moment means a new one all the time.

[39:21]

It isn't like you do it once and you're over. You have to keep doing it with the new arrivals. the new, fresh arrivals which ofteners imagine to be older than the older ones, the previous ones. So it's really a new person each moment who is often considered to be older and older and older and older. But it's actually a fresh person each moment. At the moment of your death, you'll be a fresh dying person. Oh, and somebody told me that the Celtic people had a practice of putting a newborn baby on the chest of someone when they were dying. Isn't that a lovely ritual? Bring the newborn baby to the grandmother. Well, I think a lot of grandmothers would like that, a newborn baby on her chest. Wow. let the newborn baby experience her grandmother or maybe great-grandmother these days.

[40:30]

So my, yeah, my new granddaughter has, her name is made from two great-grandmothers. One was alive and one is gone. I don't know if my daughter will bring that girl. She won't be a newborn probably to bring the new girl to meet her grandmother. She has met her and, and, uh, And when the granddaughter, when the great-granddaughter was seen by the great-grandmother, the great-grandmother became very healthy, very alive, and was totally concentrated on this newborn. Like, there was no, there was no, there was no problem at that moment for a while. I don't know how long she could keep that up. She was very alive to see this new generation. What's her name?

[41:32]

Her name is Francesca Link. And if you want to, she has a blog. She's very nice. And her blog is called FrankieLink.com. And you can see her whole life. And a picture of me got in there recently. Yeah, so she's, her father is a, what do you call it, a photographer, so, and her mother is too. So there's almost daily pictures of her from near birth to like yesterday. A couple days ago she had her giant's cap and her giant's shirt on. Thank you. I'm glad you're a lover of imperceptible mutual assistance. We're all lovers of imperceptible mutual assistance.

[42:33]

Oh, really? We are. That's who we're in love with. Our love is totally in that realm. That's where our love is. But you can't see it. You can't perceive it. So we've got to be nice to it. If you're nice to what you can perceive, you will enter the realm of imperceptible mutual love. It's hard work to love all perceptions. Because some perceptions are so awesome, you know. It's these things like, You know, volcano, you know, like, how do you love the perception of a volcano? It's not easy. And I also just want to mention that this path of being compassionate to all perceptions, to all mountains that appear to us as perceptions,

[43:34]

which takes us to the realm of the mountains of the immediate present, that practice is hard. And if you try to do it by yourself, it's hard. And if you do it with others, it's hard. But if you do it by yourself, you won't be able to do it. And if you do it with others, you will be able to do it. But both cases, it's really hard to welcome all your perceptions, to say welcome to every perception of every person and every feeling and idea you have about yourself and about them. It's hard. And that's why in the way to be successful is to do it together with all beings. But that doesn't make it easier, it just makes it successful.

[44:38]

It can't be done. You won't be successful if you try to do it by yourself. And many people say, you know, do you need a teacher in buddhism and i say well maybe not the beginning but you know and if you stay at the beginning forever you won't need a teacher but to complete complete the course you're going to need a teacher and matter of fact you're going to need a lot of them and actually a lot of teachers you know fine so you need everybody that was easy to say Thank you for coming in person. Thank you for inviting me. You're welcome. Any other questions in our remaining time together you care to offer?

[45:47]

Any feedback? Any statements? Any endorsements? Our welcome. Please come. I'm having a real hard time with imperceptibility. I was doing okay until like half an hour ago when I was imperceptible. And you were having perceptions of okay for a while? Yeah, a lot of it. And now you're having perceptions of not okay? I'm having a lot of those, yes. Okay, all right. So those were your perceptions. Yes. Well, we're here to help you with these perceptions of not okay.

[46:57]

If the Buddha way is imperceptible, or has this imperceptibility as an aspect of it. So when you asked everybody, is the Buddha way the same as the conceptual mutual assistance... Did I say that? No, I don't think so. I think I said, is the reciprocity of sentient beings and Buddhas the Buddha way? And some people said yes, and Joel went like this. And I went like this. So I said, is the reciprocity of sentient beings and Buddhas the Buddha way? And I would say... Yeah. And then I would say, is that reciprocity perceptible? I would say no. You could say, oh, that Buddha helped me, which, you know, you have a perception of it, but fundamentally it's operating whether you see it or not. It's like, again, you know, your mother... She exists even if she's gone out.

[48:00]

Right, and also it's possible that the baby would, you know, have some perception. but not perceive her mother even though her mother is there giving her milk. She doesn't perceive her mother, but that feeding is going on even though she doesn't perceive it. Or, you know, the baby could, maybe her mother is sick and she could be receiving some kind of other form of nourishment for a while and not know it. She's being assisted imperceptibly. She's perceiving who knows what, but she's now perceiving the way she's being assisted. Is she later, perceiving that she was assisted or is this all happening? She might later perceive that she was, but her perception of the way she was assisted or nourished is not the nourishment. Yes. That's her story. I was nourished back then. That's not the nourishment itself. It's a perception.

[49:01]

And she says, thank you. Thank you for the nourishment. But the nourishment itself isn't perceptible. the nourishment of the relationship between living beings who are not yet awakened and are suffering and those who are awakened who are free that relationship is the buddha way even if they are not perceiving it it's the buddha way yes and they cannot perceive it they cannot you cannot perceive the reciprocity It's imperceptible. Actually, it is the structure of your perceptions. And you cannot perceive the structure of your perceptions. You cannot perceive the pinnacle arising of your perceptions. You will never be able to perceive? Or you just aren't now because of, or I'm not now because of my delusion?

[50:04]

You will never be able to perceive it. However, you may be able to perceive that you'll never be able to perceive it. Yeah, okay. That you can perceive. You can get, oh, I get it. I'm never going to be able to. Never going to. Okay. Is that the nature of perception, then, that it is imperceivable? It's imperceptible. Imperceptible? Perceiving is perceiving. Perception is perceiving, but not perceptible. And that's because of the interface of like the ear, the hearing, and the what I heard. Yes, right. It's the actual process by which the perception arises is not graspable by perception or by anything else because the different parts depend on each other. None of them exist without the other parts. You can't get a hold of one part by itself, because the ear isn't really an ear unless it's functioning. A non-functioning ear isn't really an ear.

[51:04]

It's a power that's not being used until it's touched, and it still isn't yet really functioning until it gives rise to an awareness. So the awareness doesn't hear, the sound doesn't hear, and the ear doesn't hear. The awareness of sound is a consciousness which is nothing in addition to the sensitivity and what is sensible. But the dance between the sensitivity and the sensible is experience. But it isn't that the experience experiences, because experience isn't something in addition to the sensitivity and the sensible. Most people don't think that colors know colors. the Buddha teaches, right? Colors, don't know colors. But a lot of people think, I know colors. Well, they don't. Babies do not see colors for several months. Either girl or boy babies, they don't see colors.

[52:06]

Seeing of colors is an experience of colors, but it's not something in addition to this interaction. There's I... that's sensible and interaction that's the awareness it's not just it's not one of the other and you can't get a hold of any part without the other because color without being sensed is not color color isn't out there all the physicists agree now there's no color out there color only exists when electromagnetic radiation touches certain sensitive tissues in certain beings so even touching humans doesn't necessarily make color A lot of men are quite more frequently colorblind than women. So colors don't necessarily make colors in men, males. But they often do, fortunately. And you don't even need to see colors to be a good painter. Or a good dog.

[53:08]

You can't get a hold of color aside from the electromagnetic radiation. Most people know that. But the electromagnetic radiation doesn't have the color. You can't get the color by the eye sensitivity. You've got to have some sensible. That isn't enough either. It's the way they interact that makes the color. But the interaction, you can't get a hold of that other than the two things that are interacting. So you can't get a hold of anything there. It's not perceptible. but it is realizable as our life experience of colors, except after the color arises, we then have a mind which then makes a story about it, and that's what we know. And we can perceive our story, but not what caused the story. Yes, we cannot perceive what caused it or how the things that caused it work together to cause it. We cannot perceive that. It's not a perception. However, we can realize it. And it turns out that realizing it is peace, fearlessness, and great joy, and courage, and all kinds of other good things, when you realize it.

[54:18]

Buddhas have realized it, and they're like, You know, they could put on a really good show. That makes us kind of like, I think you'd be able to do that. I mean, most of us, when we see what they can do, we say, that looks like a great thing to do. Plus, I think it would really be fun. You know, I'd like to try it. Like, when I heard of Hawkman, the way he could behave, I thought, that's a good trick. I want to learn that one. Like juggling, you see somebody juggle, I want to learn that. You insult somebody and then you praise them and they respond the same both ways. I'd like to learn that trick. Like you insult them and they just spin around and say, hello. You praise them and they just spin around and say, hello. How do they do that? That's totally cool. And they're happy. And they're not defensive. They don't need to be right. They don't need to be wrong. And they don't even need to love. They just do. Because it's so much fun for them. And nothing stops it. Oh, I want to learn that one. And also I notice a bunch of people who don't know how to do it.

[55:22]

So not only would I like to learn that, but it would really be helpful because these people were so miserable because they don't know how to say thank you when they get slapped. It would be nice for them to learn that because they do get slapped quite frequently and they don't say thank you. So not only do they slap, but they're miserable about it. I would like them to be able to slap and say, hey, thank you. That was totally cool. Do it again. Oh, we missed. We missed. You didn't get me. Ha, ha, ha. Turn the other cheek and then duck. Again, I often use that Woody Allen story, you know, about when he got it, when he was playing the part of a robber and he got put in jail. You know that story? Yeah. And you don't know, do you know? No. I don't know. You don't know? No. So he gets put in jail. He's a kind of incompetent robber, so he gets arrested. And he's getting indoctrinated into the prison program.

[56:23]

And the head guard, is that called head guard? It says, I'll just do it kind of Minnesota style. If you follow the rules here, by the way, you see these guys behind me with all these weapons and instruments of punishment and torture. See them? These big muscular guys who look really just, you know, they're dying to use their equipment. They work for me. If you follow the rules, they will not be needed. Things will go pretty well for you under the circumstances. But if you don't go along with them, I'd rather not say what will happen to you. It wouldn't be good, though. So any questions? And Woody Allen raises his hand and says, Do you think it's okay to pet on a first date? Do you know why I told that story?

[57:28]

I don't. I don't know why. I was trying to pull it into imperceptibility, but I failed. I was imperceptibly assisted to tell that story. When you're in prison and you're being threatened with violence and you're in the realm of imperceptible mutual assistance, you can come back with humor and fearlessness. Maybe your hand shakes a little bit, but you're not afraid of your hand shaking. You can come back with who you are and be ready to live no matter what. And you can show the other prisoners that they can be that way too. And that's really kind of like pretty funny, the whole, this terrible situation. It's funny that we get caught by it, but we do, so we laugh and then we get uncaught and that's pretty great. And we'd like to learn that and be free of these tight spots that our mind perceives.

[58:36]

All the time there's this imperceptible wonderful assistance where we're constantly being liberated. But we don't see it because it's not perceptible. And we're kind of addicted to perception. And if we accept our addiction to perception and are kind to it, we become free of our addictions to perception and somehow let the imperceptible support us to do Zen poetry. Like you think it's a pattern of first date is a Zen poem. You can finish it later. So all this wonderful poetic expression comes from this place of the Buddha way where the Buddhas and the sentient beings are dancing together and liberating beings and being liberated. The sentient beings liberate the Buddhas, of course, and the Buddhas liberate the sentient beings. But the way that's working, if you're holding on to your perception, you get kind of left out. And if you feel left out, then be compassionate to feeling left out, and that will take you to not being left out.

[59:43]

The place you're not being left out right now, the place you're being totally not left out, and the place you're totally including everybody, that's imperceptible mutual assistance. In the realm you can perceive, you may feel like, well, I'm generally pretty included here. but not completely, not totally. Some people here, I think, don't completely include me and don't take me home and take care of me. That's my perception. Fine. I could be that person myself, so... Yeah, and if you totally embrace that person, you'll realize that's just a perception of yourself. You're actually not that way. You're actually... all the while that you're dreaming of being partially accepting of yourself or others, all the while you're in this imperceptible, reciprocal relationship with the Buddha way, is not being hindered by your perceptions. Or my holding on to the perception.

[60:51]

Or you're holding on to them. It's not being hindered by them. Thank you. Or I'm very glad for that fact. I am too. Because I can feel myself holding on. I'm glad for that teaching, and I would really be glad... for the realization of that teaching. And then I would be even more inspired to keep singing it more. Singing? We're going to have some singing after this? That was a song I just did, didn't you hear it? I missed it. I'm sorry, can you do it again? No, I can't do that again, but I'll do a different one. Thank you. Thanks for your encouragement. You're going to have some amazing singing coming up. And thank you for letting me not sit here for making me sing with you. Oh, you shouldn't have told me. Well, I can come over there. If I could walk.

[61:53]

Maybe I would be able to for a while longer. Or I should say, again and again. Any other questions? Final feedback. Offerings. Yes? Did you want to make an offering? You're smiling. Thank you. I was wondering what you would say to this question. Could you come up here? Thank you. I looked over there and she was smiling so I thought maybe she wanted to offer something. kind of just like a big general question. That's fine. What would you say is the point of imagination? What's the point of it? Yeah. What's the point of imagination? Well, here's a story. Want to hear a story about that? One story is that we are, the way our nervous system is built is that it just naturally categorizes

[62:57]

So, for example, take the retina. And the retina has, I don't know, does it have a million cells in it? Maybe. You know the retina? The old retina? I think it has like a million cells in it. And it has like maybe 100,000 or, yeah, maybe 100,000 or 10,000 nerves coming off the cells. So there's less nerves coming off the retina into the optic nerve than there are surface cells in the surface of the retina. That means that on average, 10 cells or 100 cells or whatever get fed into one nerve. So that nerve is kind of like a category for a bunch of cells. Each one's different, but they all get put into the so-called category of that one nerve. So the nervous information that comes from that sensitive surface gets put into categories and fed back to the brain.

[64:03]

So the brain receives categories of our experience. So we're kind of built for categorizing what's going on. Actually, things are more complicated and richer But there's some usefulness in making them into little information packages. And other sense organs are built like that, too. So part of what we do is we're set up to categorize the input from the world into our sensitive body. So we have these powers of sensitivity, but we also have the structures for categories. Categories are like ideas. Like, for example, women and men is like a category for a lot of different types of beings, and old people and young people, and so on. These are categories which we use. So there is some usefulness. I'm not saying usefulness. There's something about the way we're built that makes us inclined to making images. But the other side of it is that images or ideas

[65:07]

deplete the complexity of the information. And some images, you know, most images are, they really, they reduce the complexity of the situation by making it into this image which stands for a whole bunch of different things. Like I have images which I could draw, well I could go up and do it, but let's just say I could draw a picture, a very simple stick drawing, and I would say to you, who is that? Maybe I'll do it. Let's see if it works. It might. Who is that? If I drew it more, you would agree with me more that that's Lincoln.

[66:16]

That picture, that image, stands for this wide variety of things that were this person, Abraham Lincoln. This image, you say, well, that's Lincoln. You don't know because you didn't learn that language, right? That's right. Yeah. So that's part of the point. That's the name, William Gentleman. Yeah. Yeah. And he, yeah. So as an example of that, the kind of like a, oh, I could, excuse me, I should have gone and put a beard on. Yeah. I would make it. I would make it. So. So we're sort of built to make images. And therefore, our power to do that is our imagination. And then it turns out being able to do that made us, we could have Mozart, and Bach, and spaceships, and Thomas Edison, Newton, and Einstein.

[67:31]

the Wright brothers, the imagination makes possible all these technological advantages over other animals, so then we take over the world by our imagination, so there's reinforcement for us to keep using our imagination, even though it actually comes up from our body. But a lot of suffering comes with it, because we believe our imagination, even though we know we're using it to create stuff, then we forget that we just dreamed it up. And we get stuck and suffer and then even argue with each other. People fight over different images. And so now we need medicine for this imagination. And we've got it. But I think this is part of the story of why it comes up and why it gets reinforced. Because imagination can be very, very beneficial if it's used well. And if you learn how to be kind to it and free of it, you can use it even better. So some artists are really nice people, too.

[68:38]

But some are not, because they're caught by their imagination, even though it's functioning quite spectacularly, they also don't understand what they're doing. So they're caught in suffering. Some do. But the Buddha was an artist who understood the process of art. and was free of it, and didn't cling to it, and so he was happy and creative, and he made this great teaching. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. And that's just a story. And I want to say to you that I offered this topic and I was, and I thought, it's a pretty far-out topic.

[69:42]

I wonder if anybody will come. So I'm glad you came, and I was kind of taking a chance to offer something to me pretty far out. Not the usual title for a retreat, the mind of monks. I thought some people would think, what? I asked Elizabeth for feedback, and she said, wow. And I didn't say, you think it's all right. I just went with, wow. But I appreciate that you dared to come to such a strange thing, the body of liberation and the mind of mountains. I thought, well, that's too far out. I wanted to go there with you, and I did, and I'm glad you came with me in this kind of adventure into a different kind of imagination. I think we use the imagination in some pretty wild ways, and I'm glad we did.

[70:45]

But I was a little bit wondering if anybody would come with me on this adventure, because I didn't know where it would go. And I still don't know where it went, or where it's going to go from here. But thank you for accompanying me on this wild ride of the of the imagination, hopefully to the land of real peace and freedom. We hope you can come again. Well, if you come, I'll come. Hey, hey, hey. By the way, you would think that we, we, we, we should be here. We should be here. Bravo. Bravo. Oh, I'm blue now.

[72:47]

I'm one. A flower is made in many places, but you've got to listen for our music. And our music is great. I'm just a kid again. Don't do it again.

[72:58]

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