Mark, did you hear, was there a title for this class? Yes. Do you know what it was? Are you talking to me? Yeah. Telling stories. Telling stories. Telling stories, okay. Okay. Okay. Stories of friendship. Stories of friendship. Stories of wisdom and stories of family maybe. Family stories about friendship and about wisdom. This morning I heard the the assembly chanting, and they said they chanted something like, the mind sage of India is intimately communicated from east to west.

[01:14]

Or did it say... West to east? West to east. From India in the west to China in the east. And then China's in the west from us, right? So it went from China to Japan and Korea. Now it's come to California. The mind of the great sage is intimately communicated, I guess for some reason, from west to east. The thing that struck me was this intimate communication. When I first came to practice at the San Francisco Zen Center, I was actually coming to get some communication practice

[02:21]

I wasn't familiar with the word intimate communication, but I was wanting some communication from a teacher. And the main teacher I met was named Suzuki Shinryu Roshi. And Roshi, the row of Roshi means old, and Shin usually translated as teacher or master. old teacher, roshi. In Chinese, they say lao shi. And when children go to school, the children go to school, in the morning when school starts, they say, they say, lao shi or zhao? Or do they say zhao or lao shi? Which do they do? Lao shi or zhao? They say, good morning. So I was wanting to meet a teacher and I feel like maybe I did.

[03:39]

But I didn't think of Suzuki Roshi as a friend. He wasn't unfriendly. I almost never was apparently unfriendly. Once in a while there are some stories about him acting in a way, which I'll tell you later. But with me, he was never unfriendly. I thought of him as friendly to me. I thought of him as what? very generous with his life, giving his life to the students and me being one of them. He seemed to be like, yeah, he seemed like mainly giving himself to students. He maybe liked some other people that weren't students, and maybe they were his friends. When I first met him, it was at a temple in San Francisco called Sokoji Temple.

[04:43]

And there was a zendo, and behind the zendo he had an office. And in the office I think he had some... I'm telling a story now. In the office he had some... Orchid. He grew orchids in his office, which was on the north side of the building. And there was also his office. Sometimes, if he went into his office, he would be there and there would be some middle-aged or older Japanese men in the office with him. And I thought that those people, those men, I thought they were kind of like Suzuki Roshi's friends. They seemed to come and hang out with them.

[05:46]

But they never came in the zendo and sat zazen with us. I didn't think of them as his students. I thought, those are probably his friends. But we in Zendo, I guess we're his students. And he seemed to be friendly to those people in the office, but I got the feeling like his real devotion was to the people in the Zendo, that that was his main thing, that he wanted to take care of the people who were practicing Zazen. And when the number of people who were practicing Zazen got quite large at Sokoji Temple, the Sokoji congregation to move out and go find another place to practice because they were overcrowding the Japanese Americans.

[06:47]

So we left Sokoji and went to 300 Page Street and started that. that practice place. And Sukhriya, he went with us. He didn't stay with his friends in the office at Sokoti Temple. He went with the Zazen people. I don't know if his friends knew that he might leave when we left. More concerned with the next generation of Zazen students than practicing in the same place as his friends. He continued to be friends with those people. He just was in a different temple, which we now call that temple, Hoshinjin, at 300. So I'm just saying, you know, the word friend was not the word I used when I thought of Suzuki Roshi. I didn't say he was my friend, I didn't say he was our friend, although I did think he was friends to some people, but I didn't think he was my friend.

[07:56]

I thought he was my teacher. I thought he was showing me the way, the way to live. And I just felt very fortunate to watch him practice and listen to him talk, and watch him walk, and watch him eat, and watch him sit. I don't know if... I don't know how deeply I understood when I was watching him that he was teaching us zazen. I don't know if I had that concept. I don't remember. But I think that's what he was trying to do in all his actions, was trying to gesture towards the Buddha way.

[09:01]

And during the last year, I've been struck, and I've been striking myself and others with friendship. That the historical Buddha was also, the historical Buddha, the people called him the teacher, or our teacher. That's not probably a surprise to you, right? The sage, the great sage. But he also spoke of himself as a friend. On many occasions he said, I'm your friend. A very strong scripture called the Half Scripture. And in English it goes something like this, the world-honored one was sitting someplace, and his attendant, Ananda, came to him and paid his respects, and I think maybe walked around him and sat to one side.

[10:32]

And then Ananda said, admirable friendship is half the Buddha way. Don't say that, Ananda. Don't say that. This friendship is not half the Buddha way. This friendship is the whole of the Buddha way. And then he said, by relying on this friendship, one can practice the Buddha way. Basically, that's what he said. One can practice the Eightfold Path.

[11:36]

And then he said it again. Instead of saying, by relying on this friendship, he says, then the second part of the scripture, he says, by relying on me, as a good friend. So both relying on the friendship, first time, and the second time, by relying on me as a good friend, one can practice the way. And I heard that, when I first heard that some time ago, I was startled. And then recently I've been thinking about it again. I've been taking it sort of literally. It's a story. The Buddha told a story. Here's the story. The story is, this friendship is the totality of the Buddha way. So then I think, well, I'm going to think of the friendship and all the things in the Buddha way as friendship.

[12:44]

So now I think of Zazen as friendship. And I think of all of our relationships as friendship. But it's not what the friendship is. Just like I didn't, yeah, I don't, I don't know what the friendship is. It's an intimate communication, and I don't know what it is. The friendship is an intimate communication. And my story is that because of its intimacy and because of the way the friendship works, it is so subtle, that nothing can grasp it, can't be grasped. And this friendship actually is the way everything really is, that everything really cannot be grasped, that all phenomena lack any basis for grasping.

[13:56]

That's the way they already are, that's the way they always are. All things are basically ungraspable. You can try to grasp them, but there's nothing in them that offers you something to get a hold of. And the way things are is also called the perfection of wisdom. The way that everything is lacking any basis for grasping is the perfection of wisdom, is prajnaparanita. that this way things are is good friendship. And I'm also suggesting that the way things are is not over there. It reveals itself and is realized through relationship to the way things aren't over there.

[15:05]

And also in the teaching by Dogen Zenji called Bendo Wa, which we chant at noon service sometimes, it says, from the first time you meet a master, and then it says, without doing various things, from the first time you meet a master, just wholeheartedly sit, and then drop away body and mind. And again, I emphasize, from the first time you meet a master. In other words, Dogen Zenji doesn't just say, wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind. He says, from the first time you meet a master, wholeheartedly sit. I think for Dogen Zenji, to wholeheartedly sit is the practice of the Buddha way. And it is dropping off body and mind.

[16:13]

In other words, it's a practice of sitting where body and mind is dropping away. So no idea you have what the sitting is, is being held on to. The body and mind are sitting and dropping away body and mind. And that practice is done in meeting a teacher. And as soon as you meet a teacher, you can probably... But he's not saying wholeheartedly sit and drop a word about it. No, he says, from the first time you meet a teacher. So he's emphasizing this meeting as a context for wisdom. And he doesn't say from the first time you meet a good friend. But I'm suggesting to you that Dogen Zenji means from the first time you meet a friend, wholeheartedly sit and drop away body and mind.

[17:15]

But this meeting with a friend is also the dropping off body and mind. Yeah, so that's basically what I've been thinking about. And I just told you some stories about this meeting teacher. And these are stories about the Buddha way. I'm not saying Buddha way. I'm saying these stories are stories about the Buddha way. I don't know what the Buddha way is, but I'm telling stories about it. And someone might say, why do you tell stories? And so I might tell another story about why I tell stories. And one of the stories I would say, tell stories about the Buddha way so that you and your friends, including me, can let go of stories about the Buddha way.

[18:34]

Buddhas are those who are illuminated about delusion. Sentient beings are those who are deluded about realization. But I can rephrase it. Sentient beings are those who understand their stories. who understand their stories, and sentient beings are those who don't understand their stories. They think their stories are something other than stories. So we have stories about friendship, and we have stories about the Buddha way, I'm offering are to help you become free of your stories about who your friends are and free of your stories about who your enemies are and free of your stories about who's good and free of your stories about who's not good and free of your stories about the Buddha way. You can use stories about the Buddha way to become free of the Buddha way.

[19:43]

You can also use stories about not the Buddha way to become free of the Buddha way. So, ready for these are the stories, right? And so I would tell the story that if we can understand the stories, we can understand our mind and become free of our body and mind. Is there anything anyone wishes to say at this time? Besides me, I wish to say quite a bit, but... One thing that I want to say is that it's getting pretty warm up here. Is that okay? For you guys? Is there anything anybody wants to say at this point?

[20:46]

Because I think I... I said a whole bunch already. Is there anything you want to say? Yes, friend. Do you think, or would you describe Suzuki Roshi as communicating zazen, everything he did, as not being stuck? Everything he did, the attack? What do you think? Could you hear? Would I describe Suzuki Roshi as demonstrating zazen in everything he did, as showing how he wasn't stuck in everything he did? Would I say that? Actually, I wouldn't. He was trying to show zazen in everything he did, and he was trying to show not being stuck in anything in everything he did.

[21:50]

But sometimes it looked like he was, you know, part of his friendship was to look like he was stuck sometimes. I'm not saying he was. It just says sometimes in his unceasing effort to free all beings so that they can live in peace, in his unceasing effort to show zazen, to show the mind which doesn't get stuck in anything, He sometimes seemed to show a mind which is stuck a little bit. Yeah. Once in a while, seemed to show that. And, yeah. In other words, show that this wonderful friend was a guess what? What? A human being. and not better than other human beings.

[22:58]

He wasn't saying, I'm not a human being and I'm just practicing zazen all the time and I'm not a human being. I didn't feel like he was saying that. And he wasn't saying exactly even I'm a human being but I'm better than other human beings. Maybe he sometimes even said that to show that he was a human being. Because human beings often think they're better than other human beings. It's a common thing among human beings to think they're better than some others. There may be some who never think that, I don't know. Most people think they're better or worse, something fluctuating there. But I think he didn't always show no sticking. To me, I didn't always see no sticking.

[24:03]

So I felt like, oh, well, actually, I told this story many times. Here's a story about his friendships. He was giving a lecture at Sokoji Temple and he just offhandedly almost said, I'm not enlightened. He didn't say, I wasn't enlightened. He said, he wasn't enlightened. He never told me I wasn't. That's another story. He never said, Ten Shin San, you're not enlightened. I guess he didn't think it was necessary to say that to me. He said some other stuff that he thought was necessary, but not that. But he said, I'm not enlightened. And I thought, oh. I came to find... teach me the way of enlightenment, and he says he's not. Okay?

[25:04]

You heard that story before, Sonia? Huh? And then what did I say after that, Sonia? Listen. I thought, even though he's not enlightened, he's still the best teacher I ever saw. I studied with him, even if he's not enlightened. And the next week, he gave a talk, and he said, offhandedly, not so offhandedly, more emphatically, I am Buddha. And I thought, oh, good. A story about friendship, that he would say, I'm not enlightened one week. And he didn't seem to be downcast about that. He just was kind of like... In both cases, though, I felt like he was a human being, that there's a communication that had to be between... between Buddhas and sentient beings.

[26:08]

Matter of fact, it's a communication between Buddhas and Buddhas without excluding sentient beings. Communication between sentient beings is inconceivable, and communication between Buddhas is inconceivable. It's communication between good... It's a meeting of good friends. We are actually, in reality, good friends. And our actual communication is reality, is that friendship, is the good friendship. And Buddhas are... with each other, and human beings are not excluded. It's for human beings that this communication is set up.

[27:11]

This communication is not for people who aren't humans. So we have this communication which is reality, and the people involved in it are humans. and they have various problems, and then there's ways of working with those problems by trying to friendship with these problems. Thank you for your question, Sonia. You're welcome. Anything else at this time? Yes. You say reality is a story? No. I'm not. I'm not. And also, I am not saying it's not a story. If I say it's a story, of course that's a story.

[28:14]

If I say it's not a story, that's a story. But I'm not saying either. What am I saying? I'm saying our actual relationship is reality. There's a reality which is our relationship right now. But our relationship, like yours and mine, is inconceivable. Our relationship, there's no way to get a hold of it. And there's no way to get away from it. But there is a way to realize it. We do have stories about it, yes. We do. I just wrote one. Yes. Steph. Can you talk a little bit about the way our conventional understanding of this?

[29:21]

Because I think, I mean, there's a part of the path that talks about cultivating kindness and compassion and sympathetic joy, and these are often considered wholesome qualities. And there are also ideas about... I'm wondering the way that that plays into this, especially with good friendship kind of being this more pervasive synonym for the whole of the way, or enlightenment, or zazen. Okay, so, good friendship is the whole, and it includes things like loving-kindness, It includes compassion. It includes sympathetic joy. It includes equanimity. All those things are involved in... And good friendship, which is not any ideas about those...

[30:31]

Good friendship is not the idea of compassion and the idea of loving-kindness. It is compassion. And this compassion, which is free of the idea of what compassion is, and this loving-kindness, which is free of the idea of loving-kindness, is sometimes called great compassion. It doesn't mean that there aren't ideas of what compassion is and what loving-kindness is in the field of living beings. There are. It just means that there is a friendship, a relationship that allows us not to cling to our ideas of compassion. And that is what real compassion is like. And that compassion then under certain circumstances, teaches people to practice compassion, to practice loving-kindness, and sympathetic joy.

[31:42]

It teaches that, but it doesn't come from the place of holding on to the ideas of what those practices are. And then when it teaches, some people hear those teachings, which are not those ideas, but they're actually demonstrating and kindness, they're demonstrating it, and people are interpreting it as their stories of what has been taught, and then the teaching just goes on to help the people who have ideas of what compassion is to become free of them. By talking, saying over and over again how important that is, getting impatient with the people who are clinging to their idea of what compassion is. and just continuing to show it from a place that doesn't exclude the stories about what it is, but has realized freedom from the ideas of what it is. And we also think maybe good friendship involves being honest.

[32:48]

The good friendship of the Buddha says, Being honest, not lying, is part of the Buddha way. And that teaching comes from somebody who has become free of any ideas of what lying is and what telling the truth is. Those who are free from ideas of telling the truth and lying teach to tell the truth. They don't teach to lie. Thank you for your question. Yes, Shane. Was that your hand, Shane? Was that hand connected to your body? Pardon? Oh, okay, great. This is it. Okay. Okay, I'm ready. I'm listening.

[33:54]

Would you stand up, please? Yes. Yes. You've got a friend sitting next to you. Yeah, I'm not sitting in front of him. Now he's sitting in front of me. Okay, congratulations. I feel like... It's designed to sort of alleviate my fear that, you know, maybe the ideas I have about you are true. So my ideas about our relationship aren't necessarily true. It's inconceivable. So I'm wondering what truth there is to be understood beyond just, like, sort of going with whatever happens because it seems, like, inconceivable and fated to happen.

[34:58]

I mean, like, Just sort of accepting everything as it is and experiencing each moment. Other than that, other than just we will continue going on and learning to accept everyone's Mistakes and successes. Well, there's a variety of understandings. For example, you can understand... So you just told a story, and I have some understanding of it. And part of the story I heard was, is there anything to understand other than the inconceivable reality? You already said something like that, did you?

[36:02]

Yeah. There are other things. Stories don't appear to be inconceivable reality. They seem to be reality in a conceptual form, which is nice. So you just did something, and I interpreted what you did as if you had some understanding of what you said. So you can understand the inconceivable reality, but you can also understand conceivable reality. And conceivable realities can be helpful to guide you to understand the inconceivable. But once you understand the inconceivable reality, you've understood enough to liberate all beings. That is the Dharma which liberates beings and maintains the way. But it doesn't exclude understanding stories. I'm confused about... What about conceivable reality?

[37:15]

It prevents my immediate understanding of anything. Do I have to sort of wade through conceivable reality for long enough that I'll just get a better and better perspective on inconceivable reality? No. If you wade through conceivable reality, conceivable reality. If you wade through conceivable truth long enough, you will become free of conceivable reality. That's what you'll become free of. You won't get any better grasp on the inconceivable. You'll get a better... You'll become more willing to not try to grasp the inconceivable. you'd be willing to leave it as an ungraspable thing. But the way you test and develop your ability to not grasp anything is by working with what you can grasp.

[38:21]

various conceivable phenomena. And you can kind of feel, you can kind of notice that you are grasping sometimes. You don't always notice it. That's part of the friendship, is that sometimes a friend helps you notice how you're holding on to your conceivable truth. But you can sometimes notice for yourself, you know, I really do think I'm right, and I really do think everybody disagrees with me is wrong, And I really feel stressed about that. It's to be the only one in the room who knows what's happening. But that's what I think is going on. And I feel bad about that. And if you go through that exercise enough times, you will change. who no longer grasps that he's right, even though he still thinks he's right.

[39:26]

He doesn't grasp it. And he's fearless, because he's not grasping anything. And he's not grasping being fearless, more fearless. And he's so fearless, he's perfectly happy to be afraid, if that would help. because his fearlessness and his non-grasping is full of great compassion. It's just exuding great loving-kindness and compassion, which was always there. But I have a story that you're full. You don't need any more than me right now. Is that right? Yeah, I feel like I need to let more out there. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yes, Jim. Here's a story. Yeah. To what extent to conceive and to grasp are inconceivable and ungraspable, but except they're not the same thing.

[40:38]

Grasping and conceiving are the same thing? To some extent. I would tentatively grasp those two as being basically the same type of miraculous human mental activity. And there's a teaching which says, if you study that process, you can become free of it. We're not trying to eliminate that or abandon that. We're trying to work with that so that we let go of it. because other people may still be involved in it and we don't want to go away from those who have not yet released it because of their good friendship. We want to hang in there with the process without getting caught by it. So that's why we might have another class even though basically

[41:47]

Now you have it. But it can be exercised. And I have some stories, more stories. I have some stories from my life. I have stories from the lives of people who lived a long time ago. It can be looked at as exercise to see if we can tell these stories and study these stories with a mind that doesn't abide in them. Which in my mind doesn't abide in the stories, or in the understanding of them, or not understanding them. Like some people say, I don't understand that story, and they don't abide in that. So they become free of the story. Somebody else says, I don't understand it, and they abide in it. So that's a problem that they don't understand. But they're the same problem that the person who abides in thinking that she does understand the story.

[42:50]

Yes, what is your name again? My name is John. When you speak of Suzuki Roshi and realizing friendship, I can see the story that I tell myself. Teacher, when you talk about good friendship, I switch to a different story. It feels like it's less formal, more the social friendship that I don't associate with the teacher. Is the word good necessary when talking about friendship in the way you're talking about to realize it? I would hesitate to say that it's necessary.

[43:59]

But on the board there I wrote kalyana mitra. Mitra means friend and kalyana means beneficial or admirable or good. So the Buddha didn't say that all people who consider themselves friends with other people, that those friends are necessarily going to be the Buddha way. But for the relationships where the people are working on freeing each other from grasping, do we have to call them good? No. We don't even have to call them friendships. And we don't even have to call them student-teacher relationships, or teacher-teacher, we don't have to call them anything. But we can call them something, and then see what happens if we call them something. And one of the things that happens is you say, is the word good necessary? No.

[45:02]

And also the word friend isn't necessary. I'm bringing up this word which hasn't been necessary until I brought it up. Things are going fine until I brought the word up. But I hope that bringing it up will be beneficial. Thank you. Yes. In relation to that question, the good friendship as opposed to just friend, because the question was about the social feeling of friendship, so it made me think of Sibudi and friend, which was more like a social friendship statement as opposed to traditionally how it's used as good friend. Do you see what I'm saying? I don't know if I do. What I'm saying is, sometimes, while it's not necessary that the word good, friendship, those two words together, is used to mean a kind of spiritual friendship within the Buddhist tradition.

[46:12]

Yeah. And that without the good, not that the good is required, but that without the good, it just is a situation of... Do you mean to the Buddha, or do you mean... What's his name? I thought it was Sabuti, but maybe it's not. No, it's... It's... It's... Puta... No, um... From the exposition of the elements. That's what I meant. From the exposition of the elements. Yeah. And I don't know if the term in that story was Nietzsche. I don't know what the term was. But Kathy's referring to a story where somebody met the Buddha, didn't know they were meeting the Buddha, and used a kind of informal term for friend. Because the person didn't think that they were talking to Buddha.

[47:14]

And then they found out, as the Buddha was talking, they read what they were talking to, and they let the Buddha finish what the Buddha was saying, and they said, I'm sorry I addressed you in this less-than-respectful way. Yeah. Puttasakhi? Yeah. Putta, what is it? Pukasati. Something like that. That person addressed the Buddha with this less respectful... Pukasati. Pukasati addressed the Buddha with this less than respectful way of talking to a teacher. Because he didn't know he was the teacher. So there's... I've often said this too, that in one of the Indian scriptures... A monk asked the Buddha, who are the bodhisattvas? So one meaning of bodhisattva is people who aspire to realize awakening for the welfare of all beings.

[48:27]

Another meaning of bodhisattva is people who aspire long enough to become that aspiration. by taking care of that aspiration, one does become a bodhisattva. Bodhisattva doesn't have this great vow, but when you first have the vow, it doesn't mean that you have yet to become a bodhisattva. So anyway, the Buddhas ask, who are the bodhisattvas? And the Buddha says, only the Buddha can see who the bodhisattvas are. And then I think Mahakasyapa says, then we probably treat everyone as though they were a bodhisattva, because we don't know who the bodhisattvas are. And the Buddha said, yes. Treat everybody as though they're a bodhisattva. Buddha didn't say, treat everybody as Bodhisattvas. His students said, maybe we should do that. And Buddha said, yes. So this is something we could try for a while.

[49:33]

Try it for a week, shall we? Try to treat everybody you meet as someone who has cultivated the great vow of the Buddhas. and has become that vow to some extent. Not completely, but has really treated people like that. Harder than that way. As though they were that way without grasping that story. I've never regretted myself opening to that possibility when I meet someone. You know, somebody, I don't know what, And you kind of go, oh, they're going like this, but this might be a bodhisattva. So I probably should

[50:35]

And part of being respectful is, I shouldn't grasp my idea of what this means. You know, what level of understanding this is. Simple. What the expression on their face means, what the posture... I shouldn't grasp any of that. That was part of being respectful. Because this might be a great teacher. So that monk was not doing that. Even though the monk was meeting the Buddha, the Buddha was not saying, this person might be the Buddha. He was going to see the Buddha, and the Buddha came to see him, but he said, well, this isn't the Buddha. The Buddha is Dhamma. And the Buddha was, but there's the Buddha. And then he said, oh, I met my teacher. And also he was honest. The Buddha said, who's your teacher? To whom do you wish to become a student? And he said, I wish to become a Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha.

[51:42]

And the Buddha says, have you ever met the Buddha? And the monk said, no, I haven't met him. And the Buddha said, would you recognize him if you saw him? He said, I would not recognize him. And the Buddha said, oh, would you like to hear a little Dharma talk? Yes. Yes. And then the Buddha started to speak to him. And after quite a few words, he saw who it was. By listening respectfully to this person, he realized it was the Buddha. So this is a good exercise for us to work on, potentially. The Buddha said, yes, it's all right if you do that, if you treat everyone that way. Yes, you're welcome. I've heard that I cannot hear the Dharma of insentient beings with my ears, but that I may hear the Dharma of insentient beings with my eyes.

[52:58]

given that all beings possess Buddha nature, whether it is possible for me to see the Dharma in the teaching given out by those beings that are beheading other beings on video. How can I do that? Generally speaking, what we're seeing and what we're hearing, generally speaking, is the cries of living beings. We're generally seeing and vocalizations of beings who have not completely understood.

[54:08]

And so what they're doing is, in a wide variety of ways, they're crying out in pain. People who are being cruel to other people, their cruelty is a cry for help. People who are talking in an unkind way to people, their unkind words are a cry for help. And bodhisattvas are listening to those cries. Some people are speaking gently and carefully and sweetly which is wonderful. But they're also crying out for help. Generally, they are. Some bodhisattvas are talking that way. Some buddhas are talking that way. But they're not crying out for help. They're demonstrating the sound of freedom. Generally, you're listening to people who are suffering and people who are being cruel are crying out from delusion.

[55:14]

Right. If we learn to listen to people who are being kind, who are crying, people who are being cruel, who are crying, if we listen to that way and we train our listening to be wholehearted, we will hear the Dharma. And when we hear the Dharma, we may be able to help the people who are doing cruel things. So people who hear the Dharma... Like the Buddha saw a person, saw people doing cruel acts. And the Buddha heard their cry, listened to their cries, and heard the Dharma. And from that hearing of the Dharma, the Buddha showed his friendship to these people. And the demonstration of her friendship sometimes turned the people out of their delusion and ended their cruelty. So I have to listen to the cries and listen to the cries until I hear the Dharma.

[56:15]

When I hear the Dharma, then I will be able to be more helped than I could before I heard it. Listening to the cries before I hear the Dharma is still helpful. It's still more helpful than not listening to the cries and think that this person is not as good as me, and then me being cruel to them. and I'm not. To listen to them, to try to listen to their cries is more helpful than to be self-righteous in regard to them and be cruel to them, which they already know how to do. They don't need my help. But listening has to be trained to turn from listening to hearing the Dharma. Then we continue to listen But we have other facilities besides listening that come from hearing the truth. So... So it's possible that someone who's being terribly cruel... ...to help them realize that they do not want to do that.

[57:24]

They're only doing it because they're so frightened and so... ...they're so violent because they're afraid. And so a bodhisattva that came into contact with someone who was being very cruel would not have a concern about whether or not that person could hear the Dharma that the Bodhisattva was trying to alleviate their suffering with. And so whatever happened would be what happened. I wouldn't say that they're not concerned. They do want the person to hear. but they're not discouraged when people don't listen to them when they're trying to give them a precious gift.

[58:28]

They're not discouraged. And they're not afraid. And they also are open to the possibility that this person is a bodhisattva. That this person is a bodhisattva appearing to be someone who's doing a great cruelty. And can they then open to that possibility in this case? And that takes a lot of training to open to that. Then you can open to the Dharma. If you can't open to the possibility that someone who is being cruel is a bodhisattva, then you cannot open to the Dharma. The truth is much bigger than that amazing thought. You have to open your heart pretty widely that someone who appears to be cruel is actually somebody who's teaching you to get over all your ideas.

[59:29]

Right. Then you can open that much, and then you can open to the Dharma. Right. And here, the people in the room, some of the people in this room, maybe some of you feel like, well, that person's not a bodhisattva. I mean, it's a nice exercise, but I know that person. Try this week to see if you can just try it. See if you can just remember, and then if you can remember. to look at this person as though he's a great bodhisattva, then can you actually do it, if you can remember. And see if you notice any resistance, like, that person was easier to consider that with than this person. Please do that and come and tell us next week how you did it. Please do it. Yes. You can do it too. I'll start now. If you'll excuse me. Is listening that opening up?

[60:32]

Listening is not necessarily opening very much. I think listening is a little bit open. One story I'll tell you is that sense organs only operate when they're open, when they're at rest. When sense organs are working, they're not open. Then after they finish their job, they rest, they're open. So when we're listening, at the beginning of the listening, we're open. But that opening can be total or partial. So we train the listener. So like I'm listening to you, and then while I'm listening to you, I'm opening to this person who's talking to me too. This could be a really great friend. This could be the Dharma, you know. So we train our listening to be more and more complete. So it's totally what's happening when we're listening, commenting on what we're hearing.

[61:43]

But that takes training. And when we think we're looking at a voice actor, we might say, OK, I'll listen to this person before I make some criticism of them, and appraisal of how good the message was. So listen. Train the listening, and then you can hear. Is that enough for tonight? Okay, the story is about a Chinese monk. Chinese, my pronunciation of Chinese is not very good. Saying his name as Desha. So how would you say virtue monk?

[62:48]

D-E-S-H-A-N. [...] Basically, Deshan comes to visit another teacher, and the teacher's name is Guesha. And he goes into the teaching hall, and he walks from east to west, and west to east, and he says, he walks in with his traveling clothes on, he doesn't even take his traveling clothes off, as you know, so that he can enter the hall with usual politeness.

[63:52]

So in a kind of somewhat crude way, he enters the hall rashly and walks back and forth and says, Nothing. No. And then he walks out. So the teacher's in the hall, he walks into the hall, He says, nothing, no one, and walks out. When he gets to the monastery gate, he stops and thinks, maybe I shouldn't be so crude, so impolite. I'll give him another chance. So he goes back into the hall and changes his clothes into his more polite clothing and pays his respects, bows to the teacher. And then when he's done bowing, he picks up his bowing cloth, which we put down when we bow.

[64:54]

He holds up his bowing cloth to the teacher and he says, Teacher! And Guishan reaches down for his whisk, his ceremonial whisk, which is nearby. And before he can lift it, Guishan yells at him and walks out. And later that day, Guishan says to the head monk of the monastery, he says, is that newcomer still at the monastery? And the head monk says, no, after he did that thing, he left the monastery. And Guishan said, that young fellow someday will climb a solitary peak, and he will revile all the Buddhas and insult all the ancestors.

[65:57]

That's the story in the booklet record. But there's a bigger story around it to help you understand how that might be a case of intimate communion. might be a case of friendship. Because it doesn't sound like friendship. It doesn't sound very friendly. But it's in here as an example of bodhisattvic activity. It's in here as an example of friendship. Great bodhisattvas of Chinese Buddhism. So next week I'll... I'll enlarge the context of this bodhisattva, Darshan, to give you a feeling for a good example of the inconceivable function of the Buddhadharma.

[67:09]

OK? So I feel that you have been... And I would encourage you to look at your listening and consider whether it was wholehearted, whether it was total. Or was the Dharma heard? And I vow to this week, from this time onward, to try to remember to look at all of you as though you might... I'm not looking at you as though you are a bodhisattva. I'm not putting you in a box, okay? I'm not saying you are a bodhisattva. I'm saying I wish to look at you as though you may be a bodhisattva. And pay my respects to you because you might be.

[68:15]

And I hope I never do grasp you as a bodhisattva. But just continue to be open to that you might be. And respect that potential that you might be. I vow to do that. So it's going to be quite a week for me. Thank you very much.

[68:36]

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