again and again, I remind the great assembly, enlightenment is living in stillness. Living in stillness is enlightenment. Enlightenment is Buddha's pivotal activity, Buddha's essential activity. Buddha's essential activity is to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. The activity of freeing all beings

[01:01]

so they may dwell in peace, is alive and living in stillness. Your practice of stillness, you practicing stillness, your practice of enlightenment is identical with the practice of stillness of others. in stillness you and all beings have the same practice and the same enlightenment and the same freedom and peace.

[02:18]

So I also say over and over, I pray that this Great Assembly and all Great Assemblies receive stillness Remember stillness. Practice stillness. Experience stillness. And transmit stillness. receiving stillness is transmitting stillness. Stillness is being offered to us every moment of life.

[03:25]

So there is the active practice of receiving it, receiving the transmission of freeing all beings so they may dwell in peace, and remembering this transmission Many people say, I can't free all beings. The freeing of all beings is being given to us in stillness. The freeing of all beings so they may dwell in peace is being offered to us and transmitted to us face to face. We don't do it by ourselves.

[04:42]

And we have the opportunity to receive this transmission and to transmit it in stillness, by stillness, And it is a great challenge to accept, to receive stillness. Because receiving stillness means receiving your current experience, which may be full of anxiety and pain, fear, and even perhaps anger and greed. No matter what your experience, in order to receive what is being offered by the Buddhas, as the Buddhas,

[06:07]

for all sentient beings, we have to receive whatever is our current experience. We have to receive it completely. If we are not completely open, if we do not completely exert our present experience, we are not receiving stillness. Fully. It is fully receiving stillness that is living in stillness. Fully receiving our phenomenal experience this moment, we are receiving stillness remembering stillness, practicing it and transmitting it.

[07:09]

And this is how the bodhisattvas always, have always and will always liberate all beings so they may dwell in peace. standing or sitting, walking or reclining, may we receive stillness. Listening to the teachings, studying the teachings, expressing the teachings, may we remember stillness. Therein is the life of awakening.

[08:11]

In this stillness you are receiving stillness and transmitting stillness. You are receiving your own experience completely, and you are also receiving all living beings. And you are also giving yourself and being received by all living beings. This mutual inclusion of ourselves and others is alive in stillness. It is reality of the Buddhas. And we need to train to be able to receive whatever we feel and whoever we meet.

[09:45]

And to remember that we pervade everyone we meet and every experience that's given to us. We have to train because we have habits of shrinking away from stillness or being distracted or confused about how to be still. For example, we may think we have to do something to be still. But of course, we do not have to move to be still. and we do not have to not move to be still. But we do need to be completely ourself.

[10:59]

Every day we have the opportunity to receive the practice of stillness. and remember it. And once again, it isn't that I just remember it for my own liberation and peace. I remember it for all beings. Because remembering stillness here is exactly, is identical with remembering stillness there. Here and there. depend on each other, cannot live without each other, totally pervade each other. But my job is to be totally here. And your job is the same. And my being here is your being here.

[12:05]

And your being here is my being here. So I thank you for being here so I can be here. You are here so I am here. And I am here so you can be and are here. And yet you have a job to do. to be here totally, to feel whatever, to think whatever totally, including the feeling that you'd like to feel something else, that you'd like to be somewhere else.

[13:09]

feeling that impulse to be somewhere else completely, you're here. Feeling the impulse that I want my pain to go away, feeling that completely, I am here. And still. And enlightenment is living in the stillness of wishing I was somebody else. or if not somebody else, another me, a different me, a better me, a more comfortable me, a more awake me, a more calm me, a more patient me, a more compassionate me, a more ethical me.

[14:35]

I may think all those thoughts. It's possible. And when I think any thought, I pray that I can receive stillness and remember stillness with that thought. So that even when I have the thought, X, horrible X. I receive stillness with horrible X and then horrible X becomes not horrible X. And here is the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. This is the pivotal art of Zazen.

[15:43]

whatever I'm thinking, if I'm thinking wholeheartedly, it's thinking which is not thinking. This is the pivotal art of the Buddhas. And it requires wholehearted, total exertion in stillness of this moment for the welfare of all beings. This teaching has been offered for quite a while in human history, and today it is offered again.

[17:07]

And we have received it. I don't know if we will remember it, but I pray that we will. I pray that I remember this teaching, And I pray that you do too. And if you remember it, which would be great, I pray that you practice it, which would be great. This practice of receiving stillness and remembering it transmits it. And this is what saves all beings, this practice. in which the pivotal, essential, necessary practice of all beings, of all Buddhas, with all beings, all beings with all Buddhas, this practice is alive.

[18:13]

May we take care of it today without end. May our intention equally stand to every...

[18:36]

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