I wanted to start by going back to something that was raised at the end of the morning. And Deborah said, sometimes I don't want to think. Right? Huh? Yeah. And I... I just want to say again, in relationship to that, that when you feel like you don't want to think, that's a signal that it's time to practice tranquility. You say to just be, but if thinking is arising, and if thinking is arising, just let it go.

[01:04]

If thinking is arising and you let it go, if thinking arises and you let it go, if you do that consistently, that usually comes to root as tranquility. However, it does not come to fruit as tranquility with no thinking arising. Thinking is still arising. It's just that by steadily just letting it go, you become calm. So then you're like calm and the thinking is arising. So it's okay to just want to be, okay? But it may not be the case that you will just be. In other words, you may still have thinking arising. In other words, your minds may still be... So wanting just to be is a little bit unrealistic.

[02:06]

But wanting to become is quite realistic. And if you want to be calm, then the basic way of becoming calm is to let go of your thinking. As you know, they concentrate on something, like they turn their attention towards their breathing or something, and in the process of paying attention to their breathing, they let go of most of their thinking. They're still thinking about following their breathing, but they're letting go of a lot of other kind of thinking. Or if you turn your attention to your posture. Or if you're skiing, you turn your attention to your posture. You know, slide after slide after slide. And you're not thinking about whatever, you know, telephone numbers, work, problems. You're just concentrating on skiing. It feels good because you calm down. Does that make sense?

[03:08]

Once you're calm... as a result of giving up your thinking, then in that calm, one of the things about the calm, like, you know, then you're like, I don't know what the word is, you're kind of up for thinking. You're kind of up for wholesome thinking. You won't necessarily do it, but if somebody says, you know, Deborah, would you come skillfully make dinner? You kind of go, okay. But that's similar to what I was saying earlier, is that when you're not calm, you kind of want to go into a bomb shelter. You want to more thinking, because you just get more agitated when you think. When you're not calm and you think, often you feel more agitated. Not always, but... So that when you become calm, you open to your thinking.

[04:14]

Your thinking is going on all the time. And if you relate to your thinking, and graciously in the sense of just letting it go, giving it away moment after moment, you become calm. And then... you can start engaging in the thinking. And you'll be up for it, up for wholesome thinking. And being calm is... When you're calm... Thinking still arises so when you're still contributing to the formation of worlds, you still are thinking things while you're calm. So you're continuing to think and you're continuing your contribution to the formation of the world.

[05:16]

If you turn your attention towards your thinking, not just letting it go, but turn your attention to it. And the way of turning your attention to it isn't antithetical to letting it go. So you can still be letting it go while you're also paying attention to your thinking. But you shift from purely letting it go to kind of like letting it go, but also kind of looking at what it is. and noticing whether you're actually being honest about it, whether you're being balanced with it. And then that doesn't... So stepping back again, generally speaking, when people are calm, that does have usually a positive, causative effect on the thinking that comes up. But it's not enough.

[06:22]

You have to look at the thinking, too, in order for the thinking to really fully evolve towards wisdom. But when you're not in the mood for examining your thinking, don't. You know, basically don't. Just let it go. And again, if you're successful at that, you will want to examine your thinking because you're up for wholesome thinking. And in order to have wholesome thinking, you have to look at your thinking. It's possible to be practicing tranquility and have unwholesome thinking come up, unwholesome karma come up. But you just let it go. you're not going to, when you're practicing tranquility, you're not going to voice it, because you're concentrating on letting it go before you, as soon as the thought arises, let go, let it go.

[07:27]

Even in wholesome thoughts, too, generally speaking, you're not going to voice it. Like in meditation, you know, sitting in zendo, you're sitting next to somebody and you think, what a good person. But usually you don't turn and say, you're such a good person. So it is a good thought, you know. I really appreciate this person. But you don't turn and say, I really appreciate you. That's part of the etiquette of the zendo, right? What? I didn't understand that last word. Etiquette. Etiquette. Edited journal? Etiquette. Etiquette. Manus. Oh, etiquette. I'm sorry. So, you know, when we're sitting in the zendo, we don't do that. Such an example of a wholesome thought arises... but you don't put it into words. And also you don't write it in positive. But in some situations, you might actually tell the person, you know, I really appreciate you.

[08:29]

And that puts the wholesome thought, the wholesome story into words, which actually enhances the wholesome story. More body, so to speak. But usually when you're practicing tranquility, you just see the thought. You don't even necessarily notice that it's wholesome or unwholesome. You just let it go. Let it go. So this is what we call, this is part of our practice, is letting go of thought. All right? And again, that has a good effect. But another part of our practice is to pay attention to the actions, to give them close attention. gracious attention. That has an additional evolutionary impact on the stream of thinking. And being calm is good, but it isn't the full range of virtue, because transforming our thinking is the way to transform the thought, the world.

[09:45]

So it isn't just become calm and blissful, it's become calm and blissful and then turn that calm towards your thinking and let thinking evolve in that calm, gracious place where you're now giving more attention to the stories that are coming through than you were when you were just giving them up. Does that make sense? because it's in the evolution of our thinking and our vows that the world evolves positively. It isn't just being in a good state. It's being in a good state and then studying the stories so that the stories evolve positively and, in addition, so that the stories reveal the truth. So you finally see what we call the ultimate truth in the stories as you study the stories.

[10:50]

Whereas just letting go of the stories you may not realize. And after you realize the ultimate truth by studying your stories, that's the beginning of the full, what do you call it, the full wholeheartedness practice. And then you continue to think, but now your thinking is even more beneficial. It's coming from having seen the truth. So once again, calm down by giving up your thinking, then look at your thinking and study your thinking graciously until the truth is revealed. And then after the truth is revealed, from there, go back to thinking under the auspices of hearing the true Dharma or whatever. So it says, you know, I vow to hear the true Dharma. Upon hearing it, no doubt will arise, nor will I lack in faith.

[11:54]

And upon meeting it, I will renounce worldly affairs. and maintain the Buddha Dharma. So after you hear the Dharma, after you hear the true Dharma or see the true Dharma, then it will be quite easy to maintain the Dharma once you see it. And then everybody's, then the whole world is transformed. That's the program. But those karmic hindrances have accumulated, so it's hard to do this project. So part of what makes it hard to do this is that because of karmic hindrances we're not calm enough to actually do the practice of studying the karma in the need. So we have to sort of be patient with that and confess, you know, I'm unskillful, blah, blah, and there's lots of karmic hindrance, blah, blah, and you do that not by yourself, Like somebody said, this is not something to do at home by yourself.

[12:57]

You don't do it by yourself, you do it with Buddhas and or teachers and fellow practitioners. It's okay to do it a little bit by yourself, but mostly, he said, do it before the Buddhas. Reveal and disclose this karmic experience before the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Yes. Two questions. Do this in front of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas? I mean, to do it in Sangha? Yeah, you might as well invite the song too. But you don't necessarily have to go over to the Zen Center to do it.

[14:02]

You can do it in your home, but you sincerely invite the Buddhas. And sometimes it helps to sit in front of a statue or a scroll and offer incense and bow. Then you start to feel their presence. And then you feel like, I'm not doing this alone. But if you are in a sangha, you can also do it with a human teacher. But don't just do a human teacher. Feel like the Buddhas are there with you and the human teacher. You're the merrier in this case, because you're inviting people to a practice event. This isn't an unwholesome thing that's happening here. This is a good practice. So invite the Buddhas. You're happy to come. And if you invite them, you'll start to feel it. You'll start to sense that they're there. And again, when you invite them, it isn't that you invite them and they come right at the moment you invite them. In the act of inviting you to that dinner.

[15:07]

They've just been waiting for the invitation to see you. Then you realize they were there. That's one of the practices they want you to do. When you sit in meditation, that's actually an invitation, but if you don't realize it, you're missing out. That's actually an invitation by doing that practice. And it's also an offering to them. So you're inviting them, you're making offerings to them, you're paying homage to them when you sit. And when you practice... If you don't feel that, though, then you might feel, oh, my God, I'm all alone here. It might not feel good to be there sitting all by yourself with your evil karma. But it's better, although it's not so good, it's better that there you are with your evil karma in your lap than there you are with your karma in your closet. It's still better that way. But don't do it by yourself. Bring it out of the closet, put it up, and invite everybody to come and look. You invite the Buddhas, you don't invite necessarily children who will be horrified.

[16:19]

Invite the Buddhas. They're not going to beat you up for this. They're going to say, good confession. Or, do you have something more to say? So, yeah, not everybody should come to the confession. Buddhas, okay, they're no problem. Bodhisattvas, no problem. And some teachers are okay, too. But some people, you know, are not ready to hear. They aren't skilled enough to hear. But you can say, oh, my ancient twisted karma in the Sangha, that's no problem. Because everybody's... Usually, after we say that, nobody holds that against the other people. I heard you say that this morning. You said it too. That's right. You said beginning. You've been greeting me since the beginning of time.

[17:21]

It's the first time I heard that from you. So the generics, the specific probably, you should do with the Buddhas and a trusted teacher that won't beat you up for it. Does that make some sense? Yes. Since you invited me to confess, I'm going to do it. I invited you to confess? You did. Just like, yes. With all my friends. After sitting in Docusan with you yesterday, well, in Docusan, you said to me, And I'm paraphrasing. I'm not sure of the exact words. You need to meet the Buddha. Yeah, I probably did. And then I must have got because then you said you look shocked or something to that effect.

[18:28]

And I wasn't really aware of it. I think I sort of pushed it away. Pushed away that whatever that fleeting feeling was and went somewhere else immediately. And within a short time after that, I began to feel dizzy. Were you still in the room? No. It was after I left the room. And then I didn't come to Zazen after lunch because I was... The room was spinning, so I just, you know, laid down and then sat up for a while until suddenly it was gone after about a half an hour of sitting quietly in an easy chair. And it disappeared as quickly as it can. I came back and it's like the second period of Zazen. I connected those two events in my mind.

[19:38]

I don't know if there was cause between this sort of need to meet the Buddha and my world is spinning. And sitting in this last period or so, I was having all sorts of weird fantasies. And they involved sort of horror film, you know, grade B horror film stuff with power planes going on in mind, falling into the power of this evil goon. It got pretty weird. I just wanted to say that out loud because it was very strange sitting there by myself. The Buddhas, I don't think, had come to us at the time.

[20:43]

I tried to invite them in. You were sitting by yourself? Well, I was here in the London. Other people were with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I managed to do a great fantasy by myself. But you weren't by yourself. And I was scared. You said you were by yourself. You're right. All those people were with you. Right. But, you know, I wasn't turning to David or Lisa and saying, I'm having a strange fantasy and I need to check it out with you. That's the etiquette is we don't usually turn and tell people we're having a fantasy. I was making plans to do it later. Go talk to the evil guru. Tell him your fantasy. Leave the people on this earth alone. Don't tell him your fantasy.

[21:43]

Blush. Anyway, you did tell me and you told us in this situation, it's okay to tell us. So thank you. And what I meant by you need to see Buddha in order to become Buddha. You don't need to see Buddha if you don't want to become Buddha for the welfare of the world. But in order to become Buddha, you have to see a Buddha. You have to meet a Buddha. You can't become Buddha by yourself. You have to be together with another Buddha. And there are other Buddhas, according to this tradition, to be met. And there's ways to open up to them. And one of the ways is to invite them to your confessions. And, you know, you might just think, I'm just here to confess, and then suddenly the Buddha says, well, we could also talk if you want, after you're done. Wow, great. I heard I needed to meet you.

[22:44]

Yeah, so a confession might turn into an enlightenment. Because it's a dharma practice. So confession can be a dharma door, right? Dharma doors are about to enter. So everything you're doing could be a dharma door. So you could hear the two dharma while you're confessing your karma, your stories. Did you? Did I hear the dharma? I don't think so. Not that time around. I might be beginning to right now. But it can happen. So be ready. You can hear the dogma. You might hear the true dogma at any moment. Would you like to? And if you would, then you should be ready for it. Now. May I ask another question?

[23:46]

No. Is that all right if she asks another question? Yes. Where's Carol? That's our kid. Okay. Thank you. That little formula you were giving a few minutes ago, I got letting go of thinking, And when you get into a calm place, examine it. And then I thought I heard you say... Examine in this calm, gentle, upright environment. Don't examine like, oh, I'm trying to get something, you know. Don't try to prove that your thinking is true. Be upright. So that's the mode of examination. Yes? And then I thought I heard another step in there that also involves thinking, but I didn't quite catch it.

[24:52]

The next step, when this becomes thorough, is the step of revelation. That's where you meet the Buddha. Dharma is where you see the ultimate truth of these stories. You see the ultimate truth of all these stories, that there's nothing about these stories that reaches reality. that these stories are about something that they don't reach. You see that. You see the emptiness of this. But they have no substantial existence independent of what they're about. And what they're about is not reached by them. You see the truth of this. This is the ultimate truth. seeing the buddha seeing the ultimate truth okay then after that the next step is then you go back thinking again or vowing but it's coming now from having seen the truth so now you're vowing and thinking is under the auspices of having heard the dharma so now you really can easily

[25:53]

do all the practices that you used to be trying to do pretty, were kind of hard, you know? You do them once in a while, but not all the time. Now you can do them coming up closer and closer to all the time. Okay. Because you've seen the truth. So that was the formula. And then you continue this, in some sense, post-enlightenment. for a long time to make a Buddha. So Bodhisattvas have got to the phase of understanding emptiness, and then they practice for a long time after that, doing thinking and vowing a long time after that to transform the world more and more and more. So they're working there in life. I like the lightweight, the middleweight, and the heavyweight. I'll be real happy if I make it to the middleweight.

[26:56]

Yeah, you will. You might even be happy. You just start studying your stories. When you calm down, you start to feel happy. Just calming down is nice. Because then you feel like, okay, then you're up for dealing with your life. You're open to your karma. So then you start studying your karma. Not necessarily right away, but you start to feel it. Even before you know it, you'll feel it. And then to see the truth is then not only good and encouraging, but it's liberating. And then from a liberated position, you keep working. Come back to samsara and generate more virtue to make Buddha appear in this world. Now let's see, who hasn't... Jim.

[28:01]

The old lady, I guess. Maybe you are. What is your age? Gonna run to that moment. Excuse me for eating while we go. Please. I had a cup of Red Zinger for the first time in a while. I'll tell you guys, Rev remembers when Red Zinger was invented. And it has a lot of memories for us. Anybody in the red seat? There is some out there. It's recently come to my attention that I'm getting to be an old man.

[29:06]

I'm older than Mark. I'm certainly older than anybody else here. I'm certainly more beat up than Mark. Anybody can see that. I don't know. When Reb and I met our first Zen teachers, at about the same time, although Reb, I think, was a few years younger than me, everybody who went to see those wanted to be a Zen master. Everybody. There were people who came for a day and left, but the ones who stayed for a week certainly thought they wanted to be Zen masters. Thought they already were, actually. One good of course, believe me.

[30:09]

But now, 40 years later, if you know about the Zen Center in San Francisco and about the Zen Master, you might think that everybody who went there back then has become a Zen Master, but it's just not true. Out of 400 or so, or 600 that I saw there, half a dozen are real Zen teachers. Maybe a few more than that from San Francisco. But those were the ones that put up with the blood, sweat, and tears that it took to actually be up here and lead a Sashim. Because I will tell you, present company accepted every Zen master is a pain in the ass and it's not an easy road to follow in their footsteps.

[31:17]

I was talking to an old adversary from the Zen Center days last week for a couple of hours on the phone. And he was telling me some things about Philip Caplow that he didn't like. He's a Zen teacher now. And I just realized there were completely different things from the things that I didn't like about Philip Caplow. I mean, I bet if you talk to another half a dozen people who spent time with him, Each one of them would give you a picture of a different pastor that they didn't like. So one should appreciate God here. You can imagine Suzuki Roshi turning to the other patriarchs and saying, see, I told you.

[32:39]

Amy, would you like to come up here? Oh, just sit. I went to my room after lunch to take a shower. So before I went to the shower, I turned my little air conditioning unit on. And you can set it to go for an hour. So I did that. Went up, took my shower, came back. When it was still on, I said, oh, it'll go off in an hour, you know, when the hour's up. But then I thought, oh, well, why don't I just turn it off now? And I did. But I've sort of reached for my remote to do that. Sort of felt like, oh, that's paying homage to the Buddhas.

[33:59]

Were you happy? Uh-huh. Thank you. Keying off with Amy just shared with us. I'm still having a little bit. about the first Bodhisattva precept. First vow of Samantabhadra? Yes. The one of paying homage to all the Buddhas all the time? Yes, because you've been using paying homage interchangeably with thinking about the Buddhas all the time. Yeah. It's one aspect of thinking about them all the time. So one way to think about them is to think about

[35:09]

to think about and promise to pay homage. So like when we bow here to the Buddha, there's a thinking which is leading you to bow, right? So there's a thinking which produces the physical movement of the bows, but you're also thinking, I'm paying homage to Buddhas right now. Why are you thinking that? I'm talking about day-to-day living. Right, I'm just saying that's one example. Oh, okay, yes. And then, like Amy was going with turning the air conditioner off, she said, oh, that's paying homage to Buddhas, right? That's the way she said it, but you could also say, I want this to be paying homage to Buddha, or this is, you know, look up, okay? This is paying homage to Buddha, this is paying homage to Buddha, you know, I'm just, I'm just, this is paying homage, I make what I, I want to make what I do, this is

[36:19]

This is paying homage to Buddha. I want. It is. Like Manny said, oh, this is paying homage to Buddha. Oh, this is paying homage to Buddha. That's one side. The other one is, I want this to be paying homage to Buddha. I want this to be paying homage to Buddha. I do. I don't want to be taking a break from my homage practice. I want it to be. And also I promise to be that way. I promise to think about Buddha all the time. So I'm talking to you, but I'm thinking of Buddha. And because I think of Buddha, I talk to you in a different way. But there was a couple minutes before Amy hit that button that she was just processing the world, and then... Yeah, she was kind of surprised. She wasn't aware that she was paying homage to Buddha, kind of, right? Before that, you weren't. I guess I could have left the air conditioner on instead of paying homage to Buddha.

[37:25]

Yes, you could. But also, she was partly saying I'm paying homage to Buddha by saving energy, too. Yeah. Now what if you're doing something unwholesome? Actually it does say in there, in the text it says that you pay homage to Buddha while in the midst of the virtue of body, speech and mind karma. It does say in the midst of wholesome karma. That's for sure. There's no problem there, right, that you're doing something wholesome and then you would say, while I'm doing this wholesome thing, I pay homage to Buddha. But I would say, for your consideration, at least tentatively, even if you're doing something unwholesome, if you pay homage to Buddha then, that that would be good too. But of course, no problem when you're doing something wholesome. Someone else might say, like I heard this story in the Christian context, should you praise God while you're smoking?

[38:33]

And the answer is no. No, no. Should you smoke while you're ...? No. Should you praise God while you're smoking? The answer is yes. So if you're praising Buddha, don't do unwholesome things. But if you're doing unwholesome things, should you praise Buddha? Some people would say, yes. And that will help doing unwholesome things. Which will lead also, if you praise Buddha, then you would also say, well, then I probably should confess it too. Right. And you should probably confess it to who? To the person I'm praising. Confess to the people you praise. Confess to the Buddhas. And also, I was talking this morning about this thinking, you know, how could you do all this thinking? So it's the kind of thinking that blows the circuits of thinking, when you're thinking of not just thinking of, okay, every moment I'm going to pay homage to Buddhas, every moment I'm going to pay homage to all the Buddhas.

[39:39]

And then not just that, but every moment I'm going to praise all the Buddhas, and every moment I'm going to... And not just all the Buddhas now, all the Buddhas of past, present, and future. And I'm also going to be aware of how extremely numerous and how omnipresent they are. And then you go on to all these other practices which you're supposed to be practicing moment after moment. All ten of these you're supposed to be practicing moment after moment. You're supposed to be confessing and repenting while you're simultaneous with doing all this good stuff. Thinking is that. You know, it's inconceivable thinking. It's so wholehearted that you can't do it. But still he's saying you should think this way. And tell you in all these different ways all the time.

[40:43]

And what's that like? You can get a feeling for it. It's really, really wholehearted. And it burns up, I would say, all kinds of unwholesome... other kinds of unwholesome... burn up in the radiance of that kind of... So I wrote up here, not thinking, thinking, and non-thinking, right? So not thinking... is the kind of thinking that some people, some Zen masters do. But how do you do... You do not thinking by non-thinking. And non-thinking doesn't mean not thinking. It means a kind of thinking that's gone beyond itself. And how do you go beyond it? By thinking. So you're already doing the thinking. And if you take care of this thinking properly, you start to go beyond it. And when you go beyond thinking, you try, you know, there's not really any thinking anymore.

[41:49]

It's inconceivable. But to do this kind of thinking that leads to non-thinking does require quite kind and calm. So that's why we practice tranquility and kindness as a warm-up, as a preparation for dealing with our thinking so that our thinking turns into wisdom. Well, you asked us to explore whether or not we're comfortable with these vows, just explore, try to understand them. And it seems way beyond me right now. I'd spend most of my time repenting.

[42:50]

Are you ready for that now? I'm sorry? For the repenting now, are you ready for that? I'm locked into trying to think too much in practical terms. I'm sitting at my desk, my computer. I'm trying to meet a deadline or trying to get some document written or something. And I can certainly buy into, okay, I'm going to have an attitude where whatever I'm doing during the day, I'm going to try to do my very best, I'm going to try to be as wholehearted in everything I say. And so here we go. Okay, that's good. But the notion of, you know, thinking, okay, I'm going to draw this box.

[43:52]

I just did that for all the Buddhas. And I'm going to do this next thing. And somebody wants this and wants something. And I'm going to meet this person. I'm going to deal with them, thinking about the Buddhas, you know, as they're talking, you know, explaining their problem to me or whatever. You know, just the information processing of trying to think About my intention as I'm doing my intention. And then I, you know, in relation to that I think about teachings in Zen where when you're doing something, put everything into it. Everything. Power arranging, you know, all the arts, all the crafts, your work, you know, be your work, be what you're doing. I can say that if I take that approach, if that's my intention, my attitude about what I'm doing in life, then I'm Buddha.

[45:01]

But I think you're Well, you know, I guess I'm trying to test whether or not that's what you're saying when you're suggesting that we think about the Buddha all the time. Okay, so what does make sense to you is that when you feel like you're being wholehearted about something, that you can see how that maybe is paying homage to all Buddhas. Yes. Okay? That makes sense? So I agree, yes. Okay? So that's fine, that part. So what more am I talking about? I'm talking about that if you were... I'm talking about this. If you're juggling three balls and you're doing it wholeheartedly, that seems to be paying homage to all Buddhas.

[46:02]

that you're totally here doing this. You're concentrated. You're giving yourself to this activity. Okay? This is paying homage to all Buddhas. I say, yeah, right. And actually, it's true. Actually, what we're doing all day is paying homage to all Buddhas. And when you're feeling wholehearted, you feel like, yeah, You know? You say to somebody, maybe say to somebody who's juggling some balls, you know, kind of wholehearted, they feel kind of wholehearted. And even if they're not a Buddhist, you might say to them, are you paying homage to all Buddhists? And they might say, are you paying homage to Jesus? Yeah. Are you paying homage to all beings? I'm not paying homage to them, but I'm totally supportive of them. So in that space, if they're able to talk to you in that wholeheartedness, they probably would agree to almost any good thing you suggest to them. Now what I'm saying to you is, can I throw you another ball?

[47:05]

Now, if you said yes and I threw you the other ball and you incorporated it, I might say to you, give me a break, okay? And I might say, nothing. I just let you juggle four. You had three before, now you have four. And then you might say after you get used to this, I'm still feeling wholehearted. As a matter of fact, I feel good. And this also feels like being wholehearted this way seems like paying homage to all Buddhas. I was juggling these balls. I was turning off the air conditioner. I felt wholehearted and I thought, this is paying homage to Buddhas. Okay, now, while you're juggling four balls now, would you please now also turn off the air conditioner? You say, I'm not ready for that, okay? Ready now? Yep.

[48:12]

Throw me the remote control. Now I've got four balls and a remote control. Okay. Equally wholehearted as before? Yep. Okay. Now you're ready to go from wholeheartedly juggling all this stuff to making this juggling practice, this wholeheartedness, and you say, nope. How about now? Nope. How about now? Okay, toss it to me. Toss it to me. Okay, now do it. Okay, now I'm also, I also see a way to make my homage paying also an offering to Buddhists. paying is a perfectly good offering to Buddhas. Now you're doing that too. More and more balls. You were wholehearted, you are wholehearted, but and you are paying homage to all Buddhas.

[49:15]

This is your implicit nature. Because your thinking is, you know, not in accord with your implicit nature. Your thinking is, I can be wholehearted or not. But sometimes you feel like your thinking is like you're juggling three balls. Well, now I feel like my, you know, first inning juggler, now I feel like I'm pretty wholehearted. My thinking says, this is wholehearted. I can't really think I'm not wholehearted right now. It would be a lie to say I'm not wholehearted. I just learned to juggle three balls. This is like I'm totally engaged here. And I can see now that this is like Zen. And Zen is like Buddhist. But then I throw you another ball, and you feel more wholehearted. And another ball could be pay off to all Buddhas on top of your wholeheartedness. And your wholeheartedness grows. I thought I was wholehearted before, and I was right, I was, but now I feel it more.

[50:17]

Okay, ready for another ball? Not yet. When you are. Now I'm ready. Okay, now you're doing five. Now you're doing six. Now you're doing ten. And the bodhisattva spirit is not like, okay, I'm doing ten, that's it. The bodhisattva spirit is, I will eventually do infinite balls. Of course, now I can't even do three. Infinite ball, I'm not like saying, there's going to be an end to this practice. That's what it says at the end. For each one of these practices, it says, I will end this practice when certain things that don't end, end. I will end this practice when I come to the end of all being suffering. When I come to the end of all being suffering, then I'll end this practice. But since these things don't end, I'm not going to end. In some things, it says, even when those other things which don't end, end, I still won't stop. So we're doing this exercise now. I completely agree with you that when you hold something like your work, making your boxes, which for you is like juggling three balls, for some people who know how to juggle three balls, they wouldn't be able to do your job.

[51:31]

They would have to take as long for them to learn your job as for you to learn to juggle three balls. And now you're juggling your work, and you're kind of, you're wholeheartedly doing it, and I say, okay, could you now open to the possibility that this is offering, this is paying homage to Buddhism, you say. Yeah. Amy, you know, she's trying to take care of the ecology of the building, you know, struggling with all this stuff, you know, trying to serve all these people, diets and stuff, and take care of it. She's juggling all these balls, and she's also trying to take care of her room, okay, And in that wholeheartedness, she says, yeah, this could be paying homage to all of this. Wonderful. So you're right. But it can expand. There's no end to it. It's not like, okay, I got that down. No. You can add more and more practices and more and more thinking. Okay, Mark, you're thinking. It takes thinking to juggle these balls. Now, when you get really good at them, you feel like it doesn't take thinking anymore. Gone, right?

[52:33]

It seems to be effortless and without any thinking. But no, it's not true. There is thinking. He said, music is calculation without thinking about it. At first he did the calculations, and he got so good at it, he wasn't thinking about it anymore. So when you juggle balls, there's tons of, there's an immense amount of calculations. But after you get doing it for a while, you lose track of it. When you're learning it, you see the calculation. But when it turns into art, you forget it. That's the non-thinking part. You think and think and think until it goes beyond the thinking. And then when it goes beyond the thinking, then we throw you more thinking to go beyond non-thinking. Does that make some sense? The metaphor that you're using of juggling balls, is it pretty much in getting more balls tossed at you to juggle?

[53:35]

I interpret that to mean you basically roll with the punches no matter what comes at you in life. If you can stay upright and Not stay upright either, be upright. Be upright. Because you don't get to stay. Whether... Rolling with the punches if you stay. If you're drawing boxes or... He's rolling with the punches and keep coming upright, coming upright, coming upright. And being gentle, rolling with them. Don't fight them. Don't turn with them. Be flexible with them. Yeah. Whether it's a death in a family or anything that comes at you in life, the idea is to offer it up to the Buddhists. Not so much offer that, but offer the practice that you're doing with it to the Buddhists.

[54:41]

The supreme thing to offer is to do Buddhist practice with these things. And Buddhist practice is to roll with the punches. to roll with the punches. Don't punch back. Roll with the punches. Turn with the punches. Dance with the punches. That's the Buddhist practice. Not punch back. And then when you practice, then you can also say, okay, Mark, now you're able to do this. Could you also make that, could you make that, what do you call it, tax-deductible donation to the Buddhists? And you say, I think I could do that too. I think I could, I'm doing this and I think I could see it as a gift too. Yeah. Well, you do it because you want to meet the Buddhas, because you want to meet the Buddha. Yeah, and when people are first learning your kind of job, before they know, before they can, before they, like the other Mark said, he's learning music, at first he just had to do all these notes and tip this stuff on, then after a while you didn't think of it anymore, right? When he's first learning that stuff, he can't be wholehearted when he's trying to learn.

[55:44]

I mean, he doesn't feel wholehearted. When you're learning your job, you probably didn't feel wholehearted, but once you learn it, when you learn it to juggle, you throw the ball and you drop it. It doesn't feel wholehearted. Or you throw it and hit yourself in the face. It doesn't feel wholehearted. It is. It is, it [...] is. But you don't feel it. You don't think so. You think you're stupid. You think you can think, I can't even throw one ball and catch it. I hit myself in the face. And you do two and you can't, you know, and finally you can do two and you drop them and drop them and drop them. And you can do... And you drop them and drop them and drop them. And finally you can do three. And after a while, you start to feel, wow, you start to feel the samadhi. And, you know, you start to feel calm and flexible. But when you're first learning, you can't do it. And when you get a new job, a new challenge, you are wholehearted, but somehow we have to exercise to find it. We are wholehearted, but we have to practice to find it.

[56:48]

And people who are throwing one ball up and hitting themselves in the face, the Buddha looks at them and sees they're just as wholehearted as the person who's juggling eight balls. Do you understand? You are wholehearted, but when you practice, you don't know it. When you first start juggling, you know, if a master juggler was looking at you, you're doing one ball, you know, the master juggler maybe had tears in his eyes to see your wholeheartedness. But you can't see it. They can see it, but you can't, because they understood that when you understand wholeheartedness, you can see it in others. But if you don't understand it, you don't see it in yourself, and you might not see it in others. But as you get more and more skillful, you start, because of exercise, the effort you make, you start wholeheartedness. So then you say, oh, I'm wholeheartedly making these boxes, and this can be, I feel good about this being homage to Buddhas.

[57:51]

Which is true, that wholeheartedness is homage to Buddhas. okay so why not say so and think so because when you're wholehearted you can open to more but before you reach wholeheartedness you think i got enough props i can barely do three balls don't ask me to do more okay we're not going to force you into the next stage but then after a while you get comfortable and relax say okay throw me another ball Well, we can't handle it. Is that why we say we need to repent and just try another effort for next time? I can't take another ball right now. I'm not skillful enough. Well, but that might be okay just to say, I don't feel skillful enough. That's kind of like, you don't necessarily have to repent that. Or maybe you could say, well, I repent that I don't have enough faith that I could do that. So I repent my lack of faith that I could take another ball right now.

[58:55]

So that would be okay. But then you have just taken another ball, the ball of repentance. You just let another practice in that you didn't notice. So this is really not about, this is about realizing our true nature. This is this type of teaching. It's about realizing our true nature is that we are. You know, there's infinite Buddhas in every particle of our body. We're supporting the whole universe. The whole universe is supporting us. We cannot avoid being wholehearted. There's no other way for us to be than wholehearted. But for most of us, it's relatively implicit. And we need to exercise that explicit. And when you work at your job in a concentrated, wholehearted way, you're exercising, and then you can feel like, yes, I sincerely feel that I could make this homage to Buddha, I could make this an offering to Buddha.

[59:56]

I make my practice. This is my practice here at work. I feel good about it, and I offer this to the Buddhas. And I also use this as a need to say, I want to be like the Buddha. I want to even be more wholehearted. Carol, you haven't come up, have you yet? I have, yes, the first day. You came the first day, okay. Please just give me forgetting. Anybody else who hasn't come up to visit? Oh, Ben. Ben. Ben and Lisa. Lisa number one or two. Two Lisas, right?

[60:59]

Yes, I was incorrect. You told me number three, which I didn't understand. Yes, Ben. I don't really have too much to say because I do think that some of this does seem more advanced. And so I think I've sort of felt that it was better to let people for whom this teaching is really striking a chord. ask questions about it than for me to back up and say, well, I don't want to go there when there are other people who are really benefiting from it. I don't have too much more to say about that. Okay. Could I say something? Sure. I thought I heard you say something like, there's some aspects of this that seem too advanced for me. Correct. Well, there's some aspects of this that are too advanced for any of us. I'm in the same boat in that regard.

[62:03]

Yeah. Sometimes I've been ungenerous in thinking that while hearing you speak. But I have appreciated many of your teachings, and so I've thought that one of the things to do would be to try to be upright and generous as possible in the face of teachings that didn't seem to speak to me too much. Yeah. I think that would be very good. That would be a good contribution to the world, for you to be that way with teachings and with ones that do. Both kinds. All kinds. I think that would be good. To some extent, and see, I don't know how generously or ungenerously I've thought this. Well, What do you do when you're faced with teachings that you find uncomfortable or that don't seem to be speaking to you?

[63:10]

And to some extent, I feel like you've probably answered the question in talking about the being upright. For example, you talked about if you thought someone was your best friend, but someone said, take it another way, what you would do with that. But it's also hard not to get into, well, what would you do with this specific teaching? What would you do with that specific teaching? Well, in terms of like texts, you know, I generally have practiced and I generally recommend practicing to open to the whole ocean of the sutras. Open to them all and go into the ocean and open the text and read for a little while but if you don't feel engaged or inspired, don't push yourself too long.

[64:15]

That's what I have practiced. I go visit, I check it out, and if I don't pretty much start to come alive with the text, I close it and maybe go to another text or do something else. I did my study just now. That's enough for now. But I also go back to those areas that were not engaging or not inspiring, where I couldn't be wholehearted, I go back again. And I open it again. But I don't keep pushing myself and pushing myself. This is my way. I don't keep pushing myself and pushing myself and get totally disgusted with these stupid Mahayana texts or whatever, or these stupid Theravada texts or these stupid Zen texts. Oh, these koans are so ridiculous. I never did that. Some people maybe do. I think they do. And they hate Buddhism. They hate Christianity.

[65:19]

Because they push themselves into these sacred texts that they're supposed to be loving. But I didn't do that. But I do open to them. I do say, hello. And if they don't say hello back, I say, hello. Hello. I'm spending my time on you. And I close it. But I go back. And [...] the day comes when I open it up and says, thanks for coming back. I'm sorry we didn't respond, but it just, you know, you weren't wholehearted enough before. We had to try, this is your way of opening the book 25 times and now we're ready to put the show on for you. So I've had books come really alive or teachings come alive. Originally were flat by going back to them over and over.

[66:25]

Now I do, generally speaking, choose the ones that I've heard good news about, you know, So these Bodhisattva precepts, these Mahayana precepts, these Samantabhadra precepts, recently now they've really come alive for me than ever before. Although I've known them for decades, right? But I keep going back, keep going back. And I keep going back for various reasons. I'm drawn back. So that's what I do. And the same with people or problems. I try to keep going back to them. But I don't push myself real hard. I don't get rough with myself. That's my way. And, you know, there may be another way which I should open to called pushing myself real hard. And I should maybe open to the way of don't open to anything and don't even go look at anything. The teaching of, you know, just close down and don't pay attention.

[67:26]

It seems sensible, but for example, when you're in a setting like this, the teacher might keep coming back to you and say, you didn't open this? Let me try it one more time. The teacher might, yeah. And with a slightly different situation, it would seem on some level in that you don't have as much choice to close the book on that. You know, I can think... But you don't have to open the book if you don't want to, in this case. You can just sit there. If somebody brings a suture to me, it's different. So if I go to some place... But I think your basic approach is that when it comes up to you, that you try to be upright and generous with it. And I was taking an example to the thing. I'm going to the teacher, and then I don't go any further. In this case, I think, and especially with me, kind of especially with me, I think a lot of people have problems with me because they wind up in a room, for example, and I'm in the room.

[68:41]

And I'm making a lot of noise. And some people say, with other teachers, I can just go to sleep. But it's hard to go to sleep when you're talking. So there I am, kind of stuck. And some people, you know, I said, well, you can leave if you want to. If it gets to be too much. Because I think I am kind of, I'm more irritating than some teachers. Well, I guess I would ask you the question. You keep using the you, but have you had this experience of a teacher who was like that? And maybe it doesn't matter, but... I've had a teacher who occasionally would do something which was hard for me to, like, accept as a teacher, yes. But when teachers are boring, I've all just... I have no problem. I know how to deal with boring teachers. I just go to sleep. Early or... Literally go to sleep.

[69:45]

I'm almost always ready to take a nap. If I'm with a teacher who's giving a talk that I find very interesting, I just go to sleep. That's why I usually go to sleep. And even with Suzuki Barshi, I sometimes would go to sleep. Perhaps you have a very fortunate nature, too, though. I do have a fortunate nature, it's true. I could see where sometimes I would, and not always, but sometimes I'd go, this is where I sleep, or this is where... And maybe sleeping is a form of... Argue is actually great. Occasionally I would argue with the teacher, but I think arguing is wonderful. Teachers love that. Real teachers. I welcome that. Not to say I'm a real teacher, but I welcome that. And I think real teachers welcome that.

[70:46]

So that's good. But I sometimes maybe not wholehearted enough to argue. Well, but you can also argue half-hearted. Not even wholehearted enough to argue half-heartedly. Sometimes. But sometimes I have wholeheartedly argued with teachers. But that's when I'm interested. Those are the great moments in my practice, is when I've argued wholeheartedly with teachers. That makes sense. And with some of those teachers, there have been moments when they've offered something which I had trouble accepting as teaching. But that isn't necessarily the moments when I argued. Because I could accept a teaching and still argue. I said, that was a great teaching, and I would like to argue with you about it. In other cases, I would think it would be sometimes a teaching, I would accept it as a teaching theoretically, but I actually couldn't open to it.

[71:54]

In other words, I didn't really, I wasn't up for the vow. Dharma doors are boundless. I kind of felt like, no, this isn't the Dharma door. There are moments like that. But I think when I'm arguing with the thing, I feel like, well, this is a Dharmador. Thank you for your contribution. I also want to say that there's a story in Dogen's writing. He quotes, he said, a monk asked an ancient master, when things are coming at you from all directions, intensely, I would say. When things are really almost overwhelming you, how should you respond? And the teacher said, give up trying to control. He didn't say give up control. He said give up trying to control. And then he said, everything that comes at you is the Buddha Dharma.

[73:00]

But, you know, If we're trying to control, we don't see that everything's coming. And most of us are trying to control some of the time, at least, or most of the time, probably, and sometimes non-stop for periods of time. Then we're trying to control, oh, this is soto-zen, so okay, this is mahayana, all right, but this is not the dharma. This, whatever, this uneducated, street person. This isn't the Dharma. Even though Zen masters are being street people. But this is not one of them. This is too stinky. But also, even when things aren't coming at you from all directions, it's also good to give up. But that wasn't what the monk asked. He could have said, well, things are coming at you from all directions at once.

[74:07]

When balls are being thrown at you from all directions at once, what should you do? Give up trying to control. When one ball is coming at you, what should you do? Give up trying to control. You can still catch it without trying to control. It's fun. It's wonderful to catch the ball. And it's also wonderful to miss it. But what's really wonderful is to catch it without trying to control. Those are the great moments, like, shoop. Wow, it just happened. When I was first practicing judo, I was playing with my teacher. And usually in front of the whole group, he was going to show a thing or two with me as the person he was showing it on. So we were playing, and I thought, you know, I'd been trained to fall. You know, it's the first thing they teach you in judo. So I was getting ready for him to throw me, and I was getting ready to fall without getting hurt.

[75:11]

So anyway, here we were playing, and I was wondering what he was going to do. And then he started to do something or other, but then this person he would throw him, and he fell very nicely. And I don't know how that happened. But it did. And kind of the other students went, oh. And you know, he didn't seem to like it that much. But it was a great moment in my life because I was not him. He just put himself in a position that I couldn't resist. He offered and I was just like, oh, I guess I should do that thing he taught me. But he was about to throw me, and I was going with what he was doing. And the process of what he was doing, basically he threw himself, which is the principle of Judah. But I wasn't trying to control. I really wasn't. Except to the extent that I wanted to fall without getting hurt.

[76:15]

I wanted to do that. So that's... Please come up, Donna. No, no, come up, please. Please, Donna, please. Don't be half-hearted. Just pay your dues. I just wanted to know if you should let the balls hit you or if you should try to avoid them from hitting you, or is that... It's fine to try to avoid them without trying to control them. Because they would hurt. Huh? They would hurt. They might be soft balls. I have some juggling balls that are very soft. They wouldn't hurt unless somebody threw them at you really hard. And I hit myself in the face with them a number of times and it didn't hurt. But I think that we have this ability to move your head out of the way without trying to control it. Catch a ball without trying to control.

[77:17]

To dance with somebody without trying to control. But we also can try to, when we're dancing with someone, we can try to control them. You know? And when we're catching a ball, we can try to control our hand. We know how to do that. Control your hand into the right position. But really good baseball players do these amazing things. Their hand up into the... But their nervous system is performing this thing. The conscious person cannot pull this off. It's much too complicated. And a massage therapist is trying to give a good massage, but they're not trying to control. It's like they're trying. Yeah, they're not trying. And they're not trying to give a good massage. Oh, they're not even trying to give a good massage. A good massage therapist is not even trying to give a good massage. It's just that their hands interact with the person and this good massage happens. which they want to have happen, but they're not trying to control their hands and the patient into the situation.

[78:22]

So I think you can move your head out of the way from the ball, and sometimes not. You can get hit in the face with the ball without trying to get control, and you can get your face out of the way without trying to be in control. Both ways are possible, and you can also get hit in the face while trying to control and miss getting hit in the face. But the trick is to give up trying to control. Give it up. And then you start opening to that. You open to see that everything's done. Continuing trying to control, we close the door. Not 100%. Sometimes something gets through anyway. Like... Oh, I get it. You know? And in fact, that's what sometimes has to happen to us. Try to control. Try to control. That's monastic.

[79:24]

You know that movie Groundhog Day? So he's going through the day, right? He goes through the day trying to control the outcome of the day, right? With this girl. Trying to control his... The day is coming to the end. He's almost got... He's been trying to control all day, right? Trying to make things go the way he wants them to go with this woman. What does she do? At the end of the day, she slaps him. She says, no, this is not... And then they have a series, and you see like five of them or something, or ten, right? But then they have several scenes where just his face, look at his laugh. You just see the last minute. I don't know how many of those there were. But usually it's about a thousand, you know. That's monastic practice. Slap, slap, slap. This is not it. And finally he gives up trying to control, right?

[80:27]

And just starts being of service, but not to control. And then he doesn't get slapped because he gave up. And the Dharma door opens. Okay. Okay? Thank you. You're welcome. Have we just added a vow? Balls are infinite. I vow to juggle them all. It's okay. You can make the list longer. It's fine. Shall we return to our sitting practice?

[81:04]

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