Many of the people who come here to this temple tell me that they would like to live in a way that is helpful to other humans and non-humans and to the whole environment of this planet. They would like to be helpful. They would like to learn how to be helpful. And this includes for many people that they would like to learn how to be helpful.

[01:03]

This includes for many people that they're not sure how to be helpful or what is helpful. Like, is brushing your teeth helpful to other people? Some people aren't sure. I'm not sure. But although I'm not sure, I actually do think that if you brush your teeth it's helpful to me. I appreciate it if you do that. And the dentists also would appreciate you doing that and the dental hygienists also would appreciate it. They're not worried about not having enough business because people are taking good care of their teeth. Even if everybody takes good care of

[02:07]

their teeth, they'll still have people who are having dental problems. Maybe later it'll postpone the work a little bit, but basically it's a good thing, I think, to take care of your teeth. But part of the problem is that if we switch from brushing our teeth in order to help other people, if we switch from brushing our teeth in order to help the dentists, the dental hygienists, and the Zen students, to being concerned for how brushing teeth is going to help us, then it's kind of like things shift and it almost isn't helpful

[03:08]

anymore because it makes us unhappy to be brushing our teeth in order to make ourselves happy and cute. This is a perspective that's been circulating for quite a while in this world, in various circles of meditators. In other words, that brushing your teeth while being concerned for your own happiness is unhappy. Brushing your teeth while worrying about your own teeth, worrying about your own looks, worrying about your own mortality, it's unhappiness and it doesn't help other people. But brushing your teeth as an expression

[04:13]

of the wish to help others, as an expression of trying to learn how to be helpful to others, this is happiness. It's a happy brusher to practice that way. Another way to put it is that taking ourselves too seriously is unhappiness. Taking other people too seriously is also unhappiness. But the taking other people too

[05:17]

seriously has its roots in taking myself too seriously. If I don't take myself too seriously, I don't take others too seriously. And too seriously in both cases means in a way that's not helpful. We have big words like samadhi and wisdom or concentration and wisdom, practices and states that help us find out how to be helpful.

[06:18]

So this year I've been emphasizing the practice of samadhi or sometimes translated as concentration. And the etymology of samadhi is to bring together, to gather, to experience the togetherness of our experience. And wisdom, wisdom is really the way things are. By practicing samadhi, by coming together, by realizing the togetherness of yourself and what you know, which is, for example,

[07:27]

the togetherness of your awareness right now and what you're hearing. Or if you're seeing other people in the room right now, the togetherness of you, the seer, and the people you see. The togetherness of you, the knower, and the people you know. This is samadhi, this togetherness, this one-pointedness of your awareness and what you're aware of. Developing this one-pointedness of mind, appreciating it more deeply and more deeply and more deeply, entering into this togetherness, we're ready, more and more ready for wisdom, more and more ready for the way it actually is happening, the way life is happening right now.

[08:33]

And when we're ready for the way life is happening right now, we are in the mode of being helpful to others. In order to enter into the samadhi, the concentration, by which, or through which, or in which, we are ready for reality, we are ready for wisdom, we are ready to just be how things are happening. In order to enter into this samadhi and this wisdom, you have to sort of warm up, with exercises to help us not take ourselves so seriously. And as we warm up in not taking ourselves so seriously,

[09:36]

we come to more and more subtle ways we take ourselves seriously, which we warm up more by letting go of those, too. So, to make a long story short, I'm finding it helpful, I'm finding it helpful to others, which then seems to help me, to use the word play or playfulness for concentration, for Buddha's concentration. Playfulness as a word to help us understand what it's like to not take ourselves seriously and enter into the one-pointedness of mind,

[10:45]

the togetherness of our life. But it's not so easy to warm up, sometimes, because we have these habits of taking ourselves so seriously. So, A little example of that is, this morning, I couldn't help but be aware that I was

[12:01]

supposed, I was, I agreed to give this talk, to come in here and talk with you, and then also my little friend, who calls me granddaddy, came to visit last night. He also calls me Rebby. We don't know where he got that. Maybe he's a reincarnation of my father. Anyway, he stayed over, and I thought this morning, maybe his grandmother would take care of him, but he chose me.

[13:07]

Now, I had some help dealing with this contingency, because I was going to talk to you about samadhi, about playfulness, as a way of entering into the mode of helpfulness. So, he offers me opportunities to play, to give up any sense of self-importance about giving this talk, that I should be prepared, that I should have something to say, that I should give a good talk, because it's really a big deal whether I give a good talk or not. The world would little note, nor long remember what I say, but it may never

[14:17]

forget if you learn how to play. That would be really what's important, not what I say. But still, although I had that help, knowing that teaching which I give to myself, this morning while he wanted to play, he wanted me to go play baseball with him. So, he was climbing all over me, going through drawers, throwing things all over the room, while I was contemplating this talk, reminding myself to let go of this talk. So, for quite a while, half an hour, hour, I just played with him, and occasionally I touched a book and he said, No reading. Now, many Zen masters would have said the same thing. If a Zen master is going

[15:27]

to give a talk, a talk to help people, a Zen master should give away any attachments to books, which have instructions about how to help people. The main thing about Zen is give away your books on self-help, and give away your books about helping others. Could that be helpful? It's understandable that people are not so happy in certain areas of our country right now, because they invested their hard-earned money in various business enterprises and mutual funds, and now their money has, their worth, their retirement stuff

[16:38]

is much smaller. So, it makes sense that they're unhappy if they were saving that money with a concern for their own happiness. We have this strange teaching that to lose money is enlightenment, and to gain money is delusion. Isn't that strange? Now, most people, if they have some money, well, many people, if they have money and the money grows and gets bigger and bigger, they experience this happiness, and then when they lose money, they feel sad or have some problem. Have you known any people like that? How do we play with a person like that, being a person like that? How do we warm up to not taking ourselves so seriously

[17:45]

when we're losing our shirt and our shoes to a playful world? Most of us know how to hold on to our shirt and our shoes, right? And we know that that's not a lot of fun, usually, unless you're just tugging back and forth as a game, a game which you're not trying to win. But, you know, like also this morning, he was like, he took off his pajamas, he took off his pajamas, and then his grandmother came in and said to him and me, what's this? And he didn't say what it was. Then she said, it's a tank top. And he said, tank top. And then she threw it to me and said, put it on him. And so I tried to put it on him. He said, no! How do you get that shirt on this guy without trying to get the shirt on him?

[18:55]

So part of me feels like, I don't want, I'm not going to overpower this sweet little boy. Another part of me feels like, well, somebody's got to get the shirt on. But if you just try to like gently put it on it, he just keeps taking it off. So, you know, I couldn't get the shirt on. I got it on actually backwards. But then when I tried to turn it around, he took it off. Now, I don't know what his grandmother did, but she came over and she got the shirt on. I felt a little foolish. I felt foolish, you know, for, I don't know what. Maybe he wanted to be the pure grandfather, you know.

[20:04]

Avoiding any power struggle with my grandson. Looking for what's the playful way to get, what's a playful way to play putting the shirt on? It's not really playful just to play the game of getting the shirt on, because playfulness includes, samadhi includes, maybe what's helpful is not to put the shirt on. It's possible. Unlikely, of course, but possible. Usually you should get shirts on these guys. That's one of the nice things about being grandparent is you can grope for playfulness. You don't have to say, look, forget playfulness. I just got to get this guy dressed. And he has to be overpowered maybe sometimes. That's just the way it is. When you're the mother or the father. But also part of the practice could be that you admit, okay, I confess.

[21:18]

I played the game of overpowering this kid. I just put the shirt on him. And maybe he went along with it somewhat. So where's the balance between boldly putting the shirt on and patiently accepting the situation? Where's the samadhi? Where's the way of putting the shirt on together? Including, including that he's saying no. Just like when he eats, you know, you offer him food, he says no, and you move it closer to him and he opens his mouth and eats it. He says, I had enough. Now I want, doesn't say now I want, he says enough.

[22:23]

And then he says, apricot. Then you say, well, after another bite, apricot. And he says, no, and then he opens his mouth and eats it. Where, you know, where's the, where's the samadhi? this building is building. So that people could come here and play.

[23:28]

Building this temple so that people can come here and enter into the one pointedness of mind is actually also playfulness. So you coming here right now and sitting in this room, making, you are making the arrangements for yourself and others to play. So it is not, it is not possible to play if I take myself too seriously. At least it's not possible at that moment.

[24:35]

However, if I take myself too seriously and admit it, then there can be, then there can be play, then there can be samadhi, then there can be entrance into the way things are and being helpful. So a big part of learning to play is again to confess that you're not being playful. That you're stuck someplace. That you're holding on to being a nice grandmother or an effective dresser. A protector against thermal degeneration. I particularly, you know, I've been seeing some Chinese,

[25:40]

some Chinese people relate to children and they're very, very concerned about thermal regulation. They really pack their kids. It's from an ancient tradition of living in a cold climate and not necessarily having central heating. They really wrap their babies and their young children and themselves. And then also in the summer they're really concerned for getting the clothes off so the kids don't get too hot. Constantly concerned with the right amount of packaging of the body for thermal optimal experience. Optimal thermal experience. But generally speaking, when I look at these people addressing these young people and themselves, they seem really worried and unhappy.

[26:43]

They don't seem to be enjoying this wrapping and unwrapping. How do you find the balance between you are concerned for keeping this child warm or yourself warm in a playful way? In a way that remembers that the one being wrapped and the wrapper, or that the wrapping, the one being wrapped and the wrapper, that they're together. While I'm talking to you, where's the place? Where's the way? How is it for me to be aware of what's going on inside me right now?

[28:01]

And at the same time, be in touch with and honor what's going on with you. I see so many faces. Sometimes they're mostly smiling. Sometimes they're non-committal. Sometimes they look like they're trying to figure out what I'm saying. Many different faces. For me to admit that I don't know what's going on with you, maybe you would agree that I don't know what's going on with you.

[29:04]

Now, in some realms, maybe I do know what's going on with you in a way that you would agree I know what's going on with you. For example, I think you're all in this room. Do you agree? It's hard. It's hard to find agreement. I feel like you're all in the room except for one person doesn't agree. Do you agree? Do you agree? Doesn't anybody want to say no? Anyway, you find with me some common ground. Something that's not just my imagination or yours. The room just became a little brighter. Do you agree? It's an external reality. I'm not in control of the lighting.

[30:20]

And neither are you, right? None of you made that happen. I didn't make it happen. And yet, it's beyond our control and we can share it. It's called objective reality. Just for this group, but for now it's an objective reality because these are our playmates. But each of us has an inner sense of what's going on. And our inner sense is just our inner sense, just our own fantasies about what's happening here. In order to play, in order to realize samadhi, in order to realize what's happening and be helpful, I propose to you that we need to be in touch with what's going on with ourselves. In ourselves, our own fantasy of what's happening here, we need to be in touch with that.

[31:22]

And simultaneously, simultaneously, we need to be aware of some objective reality, some shared reality. We need to know both. And basically, the samadhi, or playfulness, the way we enter into reality, is knowing both of these. Knowing our inner reality and shared reality, we enter the space between. Or rather, we give up, we don't grasp either of those. We recognize them, we're in touch with them without grasping them. That is the samadhi which is right now in the room.

[32:25]

It is the way we're together right now, which is surrounded by our shared reality and our individual sense of being together. It's neither of those, but it lives between them. And if we can be balanced, aware of both and balanced between them, we are in the state of play. These words are offered right now. And this balance is very fragile and easily disturbed. And that fragility is the fragility or precariousness of our intimacy.

[33:31]

I'm saying now, I'm about to say, that there is an intimacy in this room. There is intimacy between each of us and among all of us. And this intimacy is the place from which each of us can help other beings. Each of us can be a vehicle from this intimacy, this precarious intimacy. This intimacy is constant. It's always present. It's just a question of whether we are intimate with it. And we are intimate with it, so it's just a question of whether we resist it. And how do we resist it? We resist it basically by tensing up and grasping either our own version of what's going on

[34:41]

grasping our own version of what's going on or submitting to the shared reality of what's going on. Those are the two places where things are not so precarious, not so frightening. As a matter of fact, we go to those extremes of our own version or the group version. We go to those extremes when we're afraid. When we are afraid and tense, we go to those extremes and then we alienate ourselves from the intimacy which is currently and constantly going on. We alienate ourselves from the concentration and wisdom of the Buddha, which does not come and go. It comes every moment with us all being together. And it comes every moment with us feeling separate.

[35:49]

And it comes with our shared reality of our separateness and our inner reality of separateness. And it comes with our sense of the relationship between our shared reality and our inner reality. Our inner reality and our shared reality. All that happens each moment and the way all of that works together and the way all of that creates our experience is always the case. And that's called Buddha's wisdom. It's immensely vital, dynamic, which means changing. But not just changing, but changing in an interrelated way. It's changing in a way that we change each other and are changing each other. Just like someone's leaving the room now, that changes me.

[36:59]

If she comes back, I'll change again. Did any of you who saw her leave change? No? Okay. Stayed the same back there? What? Nothing happened? It was a non-event? What? I can't hear you. What? What? What? How are the people feeling back there about me asking you this question? What? Changed? Oh. Not surprised? The thought crosses my mind, this setup, you know,

[38:13]

this setup of somebody sitting up in front, talking to a lot of people, facing that person, it doesn't seem like, it seems like a tough situation to play, to feel the oneness. I just admit that that's the way it seems. And part of what has encouraged me and made me into a person who sees the virtue and merit of playfulness is the stories of the ancient Zen teachers, some of them. One of them in particular went into a hall like this and had a big staff and started swinging it at the people in the hall.

[39:16]

Now this is a person, this is a person who supposedly is like, for more than a thousand years has been venerated as a person who really wanted to help people and who people said, he really helped me, big, big, big, big time. A very helpful person, a person who lived more than a thousand years ago who was greatly appreciated by millions of people as a beneficent being, he comes into a hall and swings a big staff at the monks. Doesn't actually hit anybody in this particular story. But anyway, they don't move, these monks. And he says to them, hey, she's coming back. Welcome back. Hi. I've changed. Wow. So did she. She's dancing.

[40:19]

Look at that. Great. Can't help it. I changed. Did you? How did the people in the back feel? Were you happy to see her? Oh, look, now the kitchen's leaving. Bye bye, kitchen. We're changing again. Oh, my heart hurts. I'm losing the kitchen staff. I'm not going to say don't go. And I'm not going to say go. I accept you going. Bye. Do you accept them going? You want lunch. So anyway, the monks don't move. They don't leave. They don't run out of the hall. What happened to those monks? I don't know. We don't know exactly. Were they paralyzed in fear because of this oversized Zen master swinging a stick at them?

[41:22]

Were they paralyzed in feeling like Zen monks don't get scared, so they shouldn't run? Were they like thinking that they're going to behave with it? They think, hey, I'm calm. This isn't bothering me. I'm a Zen monk. What were they doing? Anyway, they didn't move and the teacher didn't like it too much, it sounds like. He says, if you people travel like this, how will you have today? So he tried to play with a big group of people, and I guess they didn't want to play. How will they have today? And he says, you are a bunch of dreg slurpers. In other words, you're drinking the dead teachings of the ancestors. You're acting like you think you're supposed to.

[42:24]

You're being good monks or something like that. You're being what you think is a good monk. You're taking yourself seriously as great Zen monks or lousy Zen monks. How will you have today, you dreg slurpers? And then he said, don't you know that in all of China, there are no teachers of Zen? This setup, you know, of the teacher coming into the room and teaching the students, that's not really how Zen is taught. Zen is taught in the mode of us forgetting about teacher and student in the teacher-student setup. Forgetting about grandfather and grandson in the grandfather-grandson setup.

[43:33]

Now, some of you don't have grandchildren, so it's easy for you. So then a monk comes up and says, what do you mean there's no teachers of Zen in all of China? What about all these places where people are being guided on the way? And then the Zen teacher says, I didn't say there's no Zen. I just said there's no teachers of Zen. Where are you going, Daniel? I'm going to meet the Zen teacher. Unfortunately, it's scheduled at the same time. Oh, great. Have a nice time. Thanks for the talk, though. You're welcome. Any questions?

[44:44]

Have any questions about how to play? Do you have any expressions of how to play? There's something that just occurred to me, and that is we have a class here on Monday nights, and it's called a Koan class. And Koan could be translated as public case or public example. And what are the public examples of? They're public examples of Zen people playing, or I should say being successful at playing. So the story I just told you is one of those public examples of a Zen teacher trying to play with her offspring,

[45:54]

with her children and grandchildren, swinging big sticks at them, seeing if they can play, and saying, come on, you drag slurpers. So in that class, we try to play. But still, in that class, people have trouble playing sometimes because there is in the class some concern about, for example, what we're knowing about what we're doing. Some people feel like, I don't know what's going on. So we have to, in that class, establish a shared reality, like, okay, we're in the room together. And some of the people in the room think, inwardly they think they understand what they're doing. They understand what the story is. They understand, I don't know,

[46:56]

they understand what the story we're discussing is. Other people think they don't understand, and some other people do. So we have to, like, you know, we have one more class this summer, so tomorrow night I hope we can establish, you know, do some people understand? And if they do, we can find out that they do. We can ask them to tell us if they do understand. And those who don't, they can say they don't, and then we can understand. Yes, we got these people who do and these people who don't, and we all agree. And with the people who don't, we can check them out pretty easily. And then people who do, we can check them out not so easily. But we can try. To me, it's not so much that everybody in the class is objectively established as understanding the story we're studying, the public example. It's not so much about that. But if everybody does understand, fine. If half the people understand and half of them don't, fine.

[47:59]

We'll just get that clear, okay? The other side is, everybody's got their own inner sense of what's going on in the class, which includes that they think they do or do not understand. But thinking that I understand is not a shared reality until we do some work. Now again, in that class, some people think the teacher understands. It's a kind of a common assumption that the teacher understands the case, even though he may be pretending like he doesn't. It's just he's being playful. He understands the case and he's playful, which includes that he can say, I don't understand the case. Where some of the students, so-called, they think, well, when I don't understand the case, that's a reality. That's true. That means they're clinging to their own inner version. Can they say, okay, I don't understand the case and see if they can establish that in the group

[49:02]

that they actually objectively do not understand. Can they establish that? We can see if some people can do that. But again, although I shouldn't say that's not important, it is important to establish our shared reality on certain things and it is important to know that and it is important to know your inner sense of how you're doing in this class, studying this public example. These are both important, but they're more like the conditions under which we establish the letting go of both. We have to have those to let go of both. When we let go of both, we enter into the playfulness and then we are having a public example of this in the room, a public example of creativity. We are acting out creativity. But it does take some work and so maybe we didn't do enough work here, yet we don't have time maybe this Sunday,

[50:03]

this morning, to do enough work so that you people all have gotten clear about what you have to let go of so you know where to jump and how to test to see if you're… Oh, there he goes, he's doing it pretty good. That's it, he did it again. He's out of control. And so in a sense, I guess I'm suggesting to you that I invite you to consider if you're making an effort to make the arrangements to play, which means making the arrangements for one-pointed concentration by which you can be ready for reality. Are you making those arrangements?

[51:04]

Are you in touch with your inner sense? Are you checking with others and coming to agreement about shared reality? Are you setting up those kind of play fields for yourself? And then are you getting ready to jump in between and enter the intimacy, the precarious intimacy of the immense vitality of creation, where we wake up. Are you doing that? And if you are, great, please continue, and if you aren't, please consider making the arrangements. So in our koan class, that's what we're working on, making the arrangements for this concentration, for this samadhi, in which we can enact and realize the activity of the Buddha, enact the helpfulness. And sometimes we have these classes and we're doing this, and sometimes people feel... I find out later that some people during the class were thinking things like, this is silly,

[52:06]

or I don't know what's going on, we're wasting our time, this is stupid, this is scary, this is shallow, this is profound. People all have these different takes and sometimes they express them and sometimes they don't. That's part of what's going on. And we encourage people to express, to get it out in the open, not so that it's what's happening, but to set up the conditions for us to realize what's happening. Now we usually have question and answer, so I guess we will have it later, so that some of you can go and have some tea and muffins.

[53:08]

But part of me feels, you know, it's hard for me to let go of the whole group and the great challenge of each of us according with the intimacy that's in the room right now. So I guess I would... I guess I pay homage, I pay homage, which means I praise and I want to be in accord with, I want to be in the lineage of, I want to be in the family of, the intimacy of us right now. This is what I pay homage to, is the way we're intimate right now.

[54:13]

This is the most important thing to me which I want to say to you, which is the same as saying I pay homage to Buddha. The way we actually are together is Buddha. And I pray that we all may enter into this intimacy that is here right now, which none of us can grasp and none of us can get away from. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way being. Thank you.

[55:52]

Could you leave the door open, please? Okay. Okay. Okay.

[57:01]

You can sit over here if you want. Thank you. Is there anything you'd like to discuss? Yes, yes, and yes? I was trying to get a little clearer this idea of the space between objective reality and subjective reality and shared objective reality

[58:05]

and non-subjective reality, and then the space in between being where you want to reside in a balance. And it seems like almost any conversation is a sharing of some reality of time. And also the objective reality, there's this feeling that there's not much objective, so much is subjective. Now maybe that's because I'm not balanced and doing that way. And so I'm not sure what the question is, except I feel a little unclear about that picture. You're unclear about the picture of objective reality or external reality and internal reality? You're unclear about that picture? Well, that abstraction is not difficult, except that...

[59:07]

You have trouble having a concrete sense of it? Perhaps it also wears... What's in the middle? What's in the middle? The situation of being in the middle and balancing it and letting go of both of those. So you're not clear about the basic situation of the inner reality and the shared reality or in between the two and how to let go. Is that what you're saying? Yes, except that the objective reality it seems always subjective. So that's maybe the little... The objective always seems subjective. It does always seem subjective. So right now we just did a little bit of establishing a shared reality by you expressing yourself and me checking with you and getting some confirmation of what your question was. And in addition to you making a statement

[60:11]

that you feel like... In the case of an experience of an objective reality or shared reality, it seems like it's always subjective. But that's part of the situation is that there's a subjective sense. For example, we can agree, perhaps, that this is a cup. We can agree that this is a cup. We can also agree, perhaps, tentatively. All these agreements of external reality are very precarious. They change all the time. But tentatively, for a moment, we agree on what your question was. But when we agree on what your question was, and everybody can share in that maybe now, each of us has a different take on that shared reality. It feels differently to each of us. So that's the subjective side.

[61:13]

There's an inner reality about our shared reality. And each of us has a different way. And we can say, we can tentatively say, this cup is a fact. A fact of this cup. And you may not know, but there's tea inside, which I'm not going to drink. I didn't drink all of it. And some of you can see there's some left. So these are facts. We also have some sense, maybe some shared reality, about what's appropriate. Maybe most of us think it wouldn't be appropriate for me to hit one of you hard in the face. Probably most of you share that, right? I guess. I mean, it's hitting you personally in the face, not somebody else. So I have that sense, and I'm going along with that. And also, for example, also that it wouldn't be appropriate for me to bite any of you hard.

[62:13]

I kind of assume that none of you really want to bite me hard. Or I also have the shared reality that you should let me know if you want me to bite you. You don't have to tell me if you don't want me to. I won't, without asking. So that's a shared reality, that I won't bite you without your permission. But each of you have a different feeling about this policy of not biting you without permission. So there's a subjective element. Our experience has a subjective side, a personal fantasy side, and a shared side. All of our experiences have that. Okay? And many of us are able to tell the difference between the two. So maybe if we spend some time here, we could introduce, this is Lynn Forrester. Is that your name? Yes. This is Lynn. And we could have some understanding

[63:15]

that we're going to say this is Lynn. Okay? We agree on, at least we're going to call her Lynn, and you'll go along with that? Yes. Okay, so that's a shared reality. But each of us has a sense of who Lynn is. And we can all be, each of us can be personally creative with the fact of Lynn. We can constantly imagine new things about Lynn. Like we can think Lynn's nervous, or happy, or scared, or angry, we can do all that without checking with Lynn. And in fact, even when we sort of basically agree that's called Lynn, that's called Lynn, we share in that arrival that we're constantly, inwardly, fantasizing about her. Now we can also vocalize these fantasies and check with her whether there's any shared reality about them. But even if we get confirmation,

[64:16]

we can tell the difference between the fantasy and the feeling of the confirmation. The feeling of the confirmation is very much close to the feeling of this thing being a fact rather than a fantasy. This is going on all the time. A healthy person is aware of the two and aware that they're different and aware that they're related. And the awareness of their separation and the awareness of their relationship and keeping track of that, which is sort of necessary to be healthy. Keeping track of that is also stressful. It's very dynamic and it's hard to keep up with it and keep them balanced is somewhat stressful. That's why we need to loosen up, not let go of them, but loosen up with them so that we're not so stressed by keeping track of these two realities. As we get more and more relaxed with them, the stress level goes down. As stress level goes down,

[65:17]

we can get more relaxed. And as we get more and more relaxed, we let go of them so we don't keep the external reality and we don't put it aside. We don't cast it aside. We don't hold it. We don't keep our inner fantasies and we don't cast them aside. They're both popping all the time. That's normal. Being in touch with them is not so common. To be in touch with both of them in a balanced way is not so common. Most people are leaning one way or the other and really unhealthy people are way over on one side or the other. To be over on the fantasy side is called schizoid and sometimes to the point of being diagnosed as schizophrenic. To be over on the other side is another illness which is you're overly compliant, overly conformist to shared reality. Like, you know, this is a cup, [...] this is a cup. I'm not going to bite you, I'm not going to bite you, I'm not going to bite you. So holding to either side

[66:24]

is really squelching our vitality. Our real vitality is being a human who has these two sides, being in touch with both, letting go of both and entering the play space which is very vital, very precarious. The precariousness of the balance and the precariousness of the relationship and the dynamic of how these two are related and changing all the time, that's very alive. And that very aliveness is, if we can face that aliveness, if we can open our body and mind and heart to that aliveness, we can stand to face creativity, we can stand to face how things are. But it's like, what is it, like I just thought of the image when I was a kid one time, I used to hop trains, you know, this train yard, and when I was twelve years old I used to go jump on trains. And I started by jumping on trains that were sort of parked. So the train was parked and we'd see the engineers

[67:26]

get up in the engine and we'd get on the train that we thought was going to go and we'd get on the train and we'd ride the trains. And it was fun and we did this in the winter because if you jump off the trains in the winter you jump into the snow in Minnesota. And it's not, you know, it's a cushioned fall. So we did it mostly in the winter. And one time we were hopping the trains but we tried it with a moving train. We stood next to the train track and the train went by and I just reached up and grabbed the ladder on the side of a boxcar and it threw me in the air, flipped me in the air and threw me down right next to the tracks. And there was incline next to the track, I almost rolled under the tracks, but as you see I didn't. But then I learned, you know, you don't grab the train from standing. You don't grab a moving train standing. And then shortly after that I saw this movie. It was called Picnic starring William Holden and some beautiful woman. Huh?

[68:26]

Who? Kim Novak, yeah. William Holden. And William Holden, the first scene in the movie, does anybody remember the first scene in the movie? Well, guess. A train's going by and William Holden's standing there in a very nice leather jacket which I was wearing at the time. That was part of my uniform. It's a brown leather jacket and he had this nice brown leather jacket and the train was going by and he went over the train and started running alongside of it. And then he grabbed those ladders on the side of the boxcar and then he went up on the train. So you've got to run alongside of it when it's moving. So with reality you have to sort of like get up to speed. Reality is very dynamic. It's not like sitting there and going ehhh. Reality is like boom, [...] boom. It's like your heart, you know. It's like your digestion. It's vital. And you can't walk in there flat-footed. You've got to like loosen up, relax,

[69:29]

you know, get, okay, here's the track and over here is this kid who wants to be a movie star, you know, and who's going to do this exciting thing but there's this fact, this train, these tracks, it's a fact, you know. Now get between the two and start moving, start warming up and then you can, you can enact, you know, you can enact the process of boy and train moving and fly through the air with the train. It can happen but you have to warm up. So you have to walk around warming up all the time and you have to keep yourself warm and if you're not warm you need to confess, I'm cooling down, I'm getting solid, I'm getting stuck, okay. And if you just keep confessing that you're tightening up, either you're tight and you're holding on to both or either side, you've got to like confess it, confess it, confessing, confessing, you start to listen up and enter the space between. The space between, you do not have, you may have an inner sense

[70:30]

of the space between but that's not the space between. You may have a factual description which everyone can agree on about the space between but that's not the space between. The factual description and some people's internal sense might sound exactly the same because if some people study some descriptions of what it's like in the middle that they found in the scriptures and they can check, see, yeah, that really is the way it is and my sense of it is the way it is but that's not the way it is, that's just your sense of it. The in-between space you can't grasp, it is our intimacy, it is our life, it's our vitality, it's very energetic, very dynamic, ungraspable, creativity itself. That's the way we really are all the time. Okay, yeah, great. But we have to warm up to it, we have to get ready for it. It's unreasonable to think you can jump in but sometimes people do jump in and then they become frightened because it's so dynamic

[71:31]

and so precarious and then they tense up and then you go back to some extreme. That's part of the deal, that's going to happen. Also when I was a kid I used to go to this amusement park and at the amusement park they had this like, it was a disc, kind of a conical disc and then you get on the disc and it would start turning and as it turned people would fly off the disc. And excuse me, but I went and sat in the middle of the disc. I think I sat someplace else and flew off a few times but then maybe I noticed that the people nearer the center stayed on longer. Everybody could stay on when it wasn't moving and as it started moving the people on the periphery, generally speaking, would vary according to the kind of tennis shoes they had

[72:31]

or the stickiness of their little hands but basically the people on the outside went first and as you got nearer to the center the people stayed on longer but the person who stayed in the center no matter how fast it went you could stay there up to the point of getting dizzy and saying, please stop this thing but if you want to get off all you got to do is move away from the center and then you're thrown out. So it's like that. To be in the center you can live there. It's very dynamic. You're always on the verge. If you tilt one way or the other move a little bit you're thrown out. That's where we actually are right now. All the time we're always at the center of the universe. Each one of us is at a center of the universe. There isn't one. There are infinite centers. But most of us need to train ourselves gently, patiently, boldly, courageously, generously, carefully,

[73:33]

and playfully to live at that place between the two which you can't grasp but it's where you are already. It's the way you are and it's the way you are together with everybody else. So there is wisdom which you can't have but you're living it. You're being who you really are. Yes? Hi, what's your name? Sherry. Sherry? This is Sherry. You said quite a few things this morning, earlier on, and right now that have really struck me. And one of them, a couple of them being don't take myself too seriously, to let go. Excuse me? May I say something? Yes.

[74:34]

I don't want to go on record as telling you not to take yourself too seriously. That would be too much. Go ahead. I'm in agreement with that. Well, go ahead and take yourself seriously. It's fine with me. But I'm just saying that I'm not telling you not to take yourself seriously. I just say that if we do take ourselves seriously, we're miserable. That's all. Yeah, no, I'm in agreement. Absolutely. I'm in agreement. I know you're in agreement but I just don't want to go on record as telling you I don't want to prohibit you being miserable. It's okay with me if you're miserable. I'm not going to take you seriously either. Okay? It's okay that you're not miserable now. I don't mind. Just as I was right to go into the problem and show you how miserable I am and ask you to fix it. Right. So should we move away from the center and get in some trouble now? Probably move back and forth.

[75:38]

Okay. Yeah. So it's play being in trouble. Play being in trouble and play moving through it and out. Okay. Yeah, right. Right. Yes, but it is about this business of play and how to bring that into a situation that is presenting in my life. More and more as I work and do the work on the interior and find, yes. I don't want to stop you Zip. I just briefly mentioned do not bring the play in. That's not playful. Okay? Don't bring the play into the situation. Be in the situation first. Okay? So first of all we've got to be in the situation. The situation. So first of all let's talk about being in a situation. As we get more and more into the situation we'll be able to find the playfulness there. It's going to distract us from finding the playfulness if we go look for it. Okay? So playfulness and samadhi.

[76:39]

Concentration. If you're devoted to developing concentration you do not seek concentration. Being devoted to concentration and not seeking concentration is concentration. Being devoted to playfulness and not seeking playfulness is playfulness. I'm totally devoted to playfulness and I'm not seeking it. So I'm here. I'm dealing with this. Okay? Now, tell us the situation. Anyone. You're very clever. Clever? Uh-oh. Sliced right through. This is what's happening. More and more I'm sinking deeper and deeper to a place of living from the seer that sees phenomena. That place of awareness. Not the rising and the falling of events, situations, feelings, thoughts but the substrate. What stays constant.

[77:42]

And through this not only is there a tremendous sense of peace and a stillness and quieting of my mind, of course. There's also how shall I say an empowering me to be more in life in a different way. Good. And this is quite beautiful and I cherish and I'm so deeply grateful for the people in my life and this environment. Is she in your life? Well, Susan has been very helpful to me. Oh, good. Thanks, Susan. Yes. Now the problem. This is where I, I guess where I'm getting stuck. That's what I'd say. Where I get pulled into trance, back into the trance state. I have a beautiful teenage daughter who is in crisis and it's on and off for a long period of time. And Susan advised me just sit with the feelings.

[78:46]

Don't try to fix it. Don't reject. Don't embellish, attach and make a huge story. No, just sit with the pure feeling. At first I thought, no way. That's too scary. You know, I'll cry and the zen will disrupt the energy. Everybody will freak out and run out of the room. All the reasons why I shouldn't. That would be great. If somebody could come in here and have such a thing that everybody would run out. That sounds like Wong Bo swinging his staff. I've got a little childishness there but anyway, I did, I did finally, I think, surrender and allow this to come forward. Just move into grief and loss and the whole shebang and then no words and then there was underneath the despair and the hopelessness that vast peace. It was there. I came. But, you know, the situation is ongoing and it's like testing and testing

[79:48]

and challenging me to stay on center. And when I'm with my beautiful daughter who visits three times a year from boarding school on the East Coast, when I'm with her, I'm centered and I'm in a state of peace and also a mom, too. But when she leaves to be with her father and there's this break, it's like, I, you know, it all just rushes in. You know, all the stuff, the story, you know, not just the feeling but the story. It's like, I don't have any problems. Me. That's the story? No, the story. That's not a story? You missed a story. You missed a story there. The story is I don't have a problem. It's a short story, but... What does it look like?

[80:51]

It doesn't look like anything. Again, things looking like something are like the way they look inside. Things look a certain way inside. That's your inner fantasy. And they look a certain way externally. That's the way you can agree on with people. We have an agreed-upon vision of your daughter, of your relationship with her, and your inner sense. The playfulness is letting go of those two. It doesn't look like anything. It doesn't look like anything. Creativity doesn't look like anything. Creativity is the way things that look like something happen. Creativity is the way looks happen. Playfulness is how you enter into the way things happen. They're not what happens. Playfulness is not what's happening. It's the way of not taking what's happening seriously. So dropping a cup is not the playfulness.

[81:56]

It's how that happens that is the playfulness. So when you're with your daughter or not with your daughter, those two situations are not in themselves playfulness. Those are creations. Those are events. And you have your inner sense of the event and a shared sense of the event, hopefully. That's part of the deal. But how the event actually happens is open to you when you enter into not taking it seriously. Which means you let go of your inner sense of reality and the shared sense of reality. So relinquishing that grasping is not exactly what playfulness is like. It's just the price of admission. To playfulness. It's the price of admission to creativity and wisdom. Wisdom is about creativity.

[82:57]

Wisdom is being creativity. This was so magnificent. I really believe I have some attachment to suffering through this situation. Yeah, good. It's good to admit. So part of the way we settle in is by admitting we're attached to our inner, for example, our inner sense that you're suffering with it. Right, right. So, again, with my story of my grandson, it doesn't seem like a tremendous crisis about getting his tank top on, but basically that situation of getting his tank top on is going to be probably amplified with hormones someday. You know? And instead of tank top, it's going to be crash helmet. Or, you know, being sober while driving. These kinds of things. How do you then interact with that in such a way as to protect beings?

[84:00]

One of the main ways you enter into it is by admitting your own clinging. If you admit your own clinging, you admit how... So basically, when you're clinging, you're disqualified from benefiting the situation. But when you admit your clinging, you become released, and you can then enter the process again. So... There's hope. I don't know about hope, but there's reality, and it's right under your nose. Available. There was one person before you... Yes, Jo? Yes, that you've addressed. Okay, good. All right, thank you. Hi. Hi. You were going to explain happiness. I certainly couldn't find any happiness when I was in those Koan classes. It was really...

[85:01]

It was really what? It was really serious. Serious. I'd gone in thinking it was... You were feeling... ...legal. Yeah, well, were you feeling serious in the Koan class? Were you feeling serious? Scared serious. Yeah, a lot of people feel scared and serious in the Koan class because they think, oh, you're going to go in there now, and there's this case, and what's at stake here is, do you understand, and will anybody find out whether you do or don't? And if you don't, will you be kicked out of the class, or people think less of you? There are high stakes there, right? So people are scared in the Koan class. And some people come anyway. A lot of people drop out because they get so scared because they think, I'm not going to understand, and he's going to call on me and ask me what I think, and then he's going to laugh at me. You stupid drink slurper!

[86:03]

You read that answer in a book, didn't you? So people are really scared, you know? So that's why we're trying to get playful in the Koan class so people aren't so scared to say, you know, I think the Koan means this. What? What? He said, if you travel like this, if you respond to me like this, how will you have today? How are you going to have today? Yeah! How are you going to have today? You're responding to me in terms of like Zen history or something, or Buddhist teaching, right? You're trying to be a good Zen student. So if you do that, how are you going to deal with me and what's happening today? That's the problem. Well, the basic question that I was asking is how to be playful with anything.

[87:07]

That's right, that's the basic question. To ask you and you would answer, and that's what I'm trying to do. You want to know how to be playful? Are you seeking that? Yes, and don't ask me to go over there. Stop! Now, when you told me not to ask you to come over here, was that playful? Yes. It was? I don't know how to answer that because if I say yes, I'm going to have to go over there? No, you already answered. You said it was playful. Yes, okay. Okay, so you already know how to play.

[88:09]

You don't have to come over here. That's way too simple. Is that playful? Was that playful? That's way too simple. Was that playful? It was? Was it? When you said it was way too simple, was that playful? No, that's so serious. Yeah. So you see, we have shared reality. You had an inner fantasy that that was way too simple. A lot of people have this devil in their ears saying, this is too simple. Buddhism's got to be really difficult. Right? A little devil saying that. Or Buddhism's got to be simple. So when it's this way, it's got to be simple. When it's this way, it's got to be difficult. Anyway, but then when you said that, then when you got a shared reality called, I thought that was serious too, when you said that, this is too simple. I thought that was kind of serious. Kind of like, oh, too simple. And that's part of Koan.

[89:10]

Koan is a, what is it? It's a term, it's a legal term from China. The Koan was what the judge said about a case. It was a judgment. So it's a public judgment too. So part of the Koan thing is like, this is too simple. That's part of what makes it scary, makes it like, if you make a mistake here, you're going to get beat up. So that seriousness is part of the game. So ready to come over? No. You're not even serious, are you? I, I, I was just, I was just, I wasn't serious, no, I was just, I'm not, I'm going to actually, for fun, I'm going to go along with your instruction of don't ask me to come over here. Did you say don't ask me to come over here? Yeah. So I'm asking you if you're ready to come over here. Oh. You're, you really make it harder, harder.

[90:11]

That's why I gave you the instructions in the first place, so I wouldn't have it be so hard. That's why you did what? That's why I gave you the instructions for don't ask me to go over, so I wouldn't feel like I had to know the answer when you asked me something. Do you feel like you need to know the answer when I ask you something? I'll let you see what I feel like. Yeah, good idea. Check it out. Check it out. Go inside and find out. I feel like I have to, I have to grow up and it's scary, or I have to understand something, and I always like it when I go, when you always ask me to go up there. I always, I... I'm going to sit on something there. Am I going to have to sit real close? Can I just sit there? You can sit wherever you want. I'm going to get closer.

[91:21]

Okay. What do I do that makes you want to call me over? Does it seem like I have to be taught so much? Are you asking me... Yes. ...if it seems to me... Yes. ...that you have to be taught so much? Uh-huh, that you think she has to come over here. No. She is. External... Internal fantasy? Oh my God. Unconfirmed. Unconfirmed, okay. You want to try another one? No. Do I feel like you need to be, not need to be, but do I feel like it would be good to invite you to be like a child? Do I feel like that would be a good idea to invite you to be like a child? Uh-huh. Yes. Do I feel like I want to say to you,

[92:22]

don't be afraid to be a fool? Uh-huh. Do I want to say that? Yeah. Yes. But that doesn't mean that it changes what is. No. No, I'm not changing what is at all. I'm trying to invite you into what is. Okay.

[92:37]

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