Yuki gave me this card, which was given to her around dinner time by one of the long-term residents here. The founding teacher of this place, Baba Haridas, didn't speak for 50 years. He stopped speaking in 1947. So for a long time, more than 50 years, he did not speak. And he wrote on a little small blackboard that he carried around? Chalkboard. Chalkboard. And so this member of the community also doesn't speak. Does he carry a chalkboard? Yes. So he follows this teacher's example and carries a chalkboard and writes notes to people. So I think he wrote a note to Yuki saying,

[01:03]

I've been wanting to give this card to you, right? He's been holding it for quite a while, so he gave it to her. And she was touched, I guess, huh? So she gave it to me. So now I could give it to you. So it's a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh, of Thich Nhat Hanh. Buddha Shakyamuni, our teacher, predicted that the next Buddha would be Maitreya. And Maitreya is loving-kindness. So Maitri is loving-kindness. Metta is Pali for it. So Maitreya kind of means loving-kindness. The Buddha of loving-kindness would be the next Buddha. It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual.

[02:09]

The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and loving-kindness, a community practicing mindful living. The practice can be carried out by a group, by a city, as a nation. So I heard about this morning ritual done in an African village where the leader of the village would stand outside the hut and everyone else would stand in their hut. I guess maybe the village was kind of in a circle, the huts were in a circle maybe. Everybody would step out in front of their hut

[03:12]

and the leader would, I think, call the name of the person and then everybody would call the name of the person. So I adopted that practice for our Dharma meetings. And for me it emphasizes that this is a group event, it's a community event that we're doing. And at the beginning of this year we had this Lotus Sutra assembly and in the Lotus Sutra there's quite a bit of discussion about the Lotus Sutra assembly, about assemblies of people can make things happen that one person cannot

[04:17]

or two people cannot. So it was a great assembly and we've been having assemblies since and this is another assembly. So maybe in the early days or even in some pictures of Zen temples there's a lot of emphasis on the teacher and people may not notice that there's a community, but there is a community. And so lately there's been maybe a little more emphasis on the community to recognize the importance of the assembly. Okay. Also it just occurred to me that we have these four vows

[05:26]

and these four vows we chant in English usually, but they come to us from Chinese and Japanese and Korean translations. And so the English translation is, Beings are numberless, literally, there's no I but you could understand the I, but it says, Beings are numberless who vow or vowing to save them. Afflictions are inexhaustible, vowing to literally cut through. Dharma gates are boundless, vowing to enter them or master them. And the Buddha way is unsurpassable, vowing to become it. In this retreat and other assemblies, in this assembly and other assemblies,

[06:36]

there's been some emphasis on rather than afflictions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them, a more literal translation is I vow to cut through. And the way to cut through, I'm proposing, the way to cut through afflictions is to be intimate with them. So I'm not suggesting, that's stretching the character, the Chinese character means to cut through, to cut or cut through. It does not mean, literally, it's not translated as to end, but that's the way it's often translated, to end the afflictions. So, some people are teaching to end afflictions, I'm teaching about cutting through, and also sometimes when I am reciting that vow, I unintentionally, in a way, say afflictions are inexhaustible,

[07:40]

I vow to liberate them. So, cutting through intimacy, liberation, with these afflictions, all of them, and then cutting through them, then that also facilitates saving beings and also facilitates finding the Dharma door in all phenomena. And again, cutting through them or becoming intimate with them goes with becoming the Buddha way. It seems to me that we won't be able to become the Buddha way if we are at a distance from the afflictions. So intimacy, I propose, protects beings from these afflictions and helps them cut through and become free of them.

[08:43]

And that's not the whole story. Then after that, there's all these opportunities to realize the Dharma on particular occasions. Once we've cut through the afflictions, we can really study things deeply and discover the truth in them. And again, it's hard to discover the truth if we're kind of trying to circumvent the afflictions. Circumventing the afflictions will undermine our study of phenomena and discovering the truth of them. Similarly, to become the Buddha way, we have to become intimate with all the difficulties of our life. And so, we've got the difficulties and we don't need any more than we've got. And we're called, we have the opportunity and also the call to become intimate with them

[09:47]

so that we can realize the Buddha way. And again, these are vows, four bodhisattva vows. And I mentioned earlier that when making vows, there are certain conditions which make the vow more successful or make the vow that are auspicious for realizing the vow. And one of the things is to have your vow witnessed. So, it can be witnessed by someone or somebody that you respect so that they witness it and they can help you then.

[10:49]

Support your vow. Another thing that helps the vow is that you understand that it matters whether you follow it or not. So, we chant these vows sometimes in an assembly like this, but sometimes to do it in a more thorough way of making the vow and then having the witness or the leader witness ask you again if you wish to continue to practice the vow and saying it three times so that it's clear that you have made this commitment. So, that's part of the practice for us to think about how we do that. And many of you have already done that formally, but those of you who have done it formally

[11:56]

also sometimes do it repeatedly, like I do it over and over with people. So, that's something to consider about. And some of you are considering whether you want to formally make vows and have them witnessed and be questioned about your commitment in the assembly. I'm just sort of putting that out for you to contemplate that activity of making a vow with the support of witnesses, which, again, supports the realization of the vow, usually. Many people do appreciate these vows,

[12:57]

and they do practice them, and you can go quite a ways in that way, but then you can go farther when your vows are witnessed. Also, as part of the witnessing process from ancient times, at the time of making a vow and being witnessed, one gets a new name, a name that hopefully is a name to help you in practicing the vows, and you get a new robe, too. And then you also get a lineage document of ancestors who have also made vows like these and had their vows witnessed and have become also witnesses for future generations. And then to consider all this and notice that maybe no preference and no expectations,

[14:02]

yet wishing to go through the process. Shall I go on with something else, or do you want to talk about that at all? Yes, Paul? A few moments ago when you were talking about the four refuges... The four vows? The four vows, which I like to chant, although I have not done it formally, in taking Fu Kai, and you removed the I, you know, you removed the I, and I felt like, no, no, don't take that away from me, I like that part, that makes it for me. So I acknowledge that. It made perfect sense what you said, but boy, did not feel like saying, no, no, don't take that I away. That, for me, I think is one of the important parts

[15:09]

of making those vows, is not saying, oh, lots of people are doing this, it's bringing it in. Thank you, yeah. Yeah, I was kind of literally translating it, and there's no Chinese character there for I, but they do have a character for that, but not using it. And some people have also said, they feel like if you don't put the I in there, somebody might, again, feel like, yeah, everybody's doing that, I'm not on board with that, so thank you. We do usually say I, but in this case I was playing with the language and literally not adding the word, which some people say is understood, some other people would say, we need these people to realize that they're committing as people. Thank you. Jenny?

[16:22]

Interesting, I thought that you didn't say I to not emphasize the self. Not meaning that we don't try, but we take things. Not taking the self out of it, but we still allow us to do it. Yeah. And earlier tonight, I was talking to someone, and I think she said, in referring to the major bodhisattva, the ten major bodhisattva precepts, which are, I usually would say, the ten major precepts are not killing, not stealing, not lying,

[17:26]

not misusing sexuality, not lying, not intoxicating others or intoxicating self, not slandering, not praising self at the expense of others, not being possessive, and not holding ill will, and not disparaging the triple treasure. That's one of the versions of the ten major bodhisattva precepts that we use in the Zen Center precept ceremony. But the person said to me something like, she practices these precepts, she recites them, she honors them, she wants to practice them, but the way she told me was something like, I vow to not kill. Is that how you said it? I vow not to kill. I vow not to steal.

[18:29]

Yeah. So, that's an example of another way to put them. I vow not to kill. That's one kind of a statement of the precept. But another statement of the precept is the precept of not killing. In this case, the original also doesn't have the word I in any place, it just says, precept of not killing. It doesn't say, don't kill. It's a teaching about not killing. It's not so much a prohibition of killing. And I would say, it's teaching compassion in the form of not killing. It's teaching compassion in the form of not stealing, rather than teaching the precept as don't kill. So these are different ways of looking at it,

[19:31]

different ways to think about it. I vow to not kill. So, precept of not killing. The precept of not killing, for me, is a little bit more like, we're receiving a precept, and we're committing to something called not killing. But we're not necessarily committing to not kill. We're more committed to not killing, to the precept of not killing. Not that I'm not so involved there, except that I'm committing to this thing that I'm not so involved with. In a way, yeah, to mix the self in with the situation,

[20:34]

the precept is not to mix the self in, and personally to practice that precept. If I don't kill anything today, that doesn't mean I understand the precept of not killing. In a way, you know, I wasn't consciously aware of killing anything today, but I don't know if I, I'm not sure about if I really practiced the precept of not killing. I'm considering whether I practiced that precept. Yes? One of the ways that I think about not killing, too, is not... One of the ways that I think about not killing is not to kill someone else's enthusiasm, for example,

[21:39]

or, yeah, not to discourage somebody, so it's not like literal, like, did I slay a dragon today, or did I eat meat? But there are lots of ways to do harm. Yeah. I felt like Shania Twain. Pardon? I felt like Shania Twain with the microphone. Yes? One of the ways that I understand not killing is that each being, including animals and plants, they carry life, so, and that life is sweet, is tender,

[22:44]

and be attentive, be attentive to that tenderness that is inherent. Yes. And I think that would apply to all these precepts, to be tender with living beings, and slandering living beings doesn't seem like a tender way to speak, and putting myself above others doesn't seem like a tender way to speak, and lying doesn't, and speaking disrespectfully is not tender. Speaking disrespectfully is like killing, too. Yes.

[23:45]

Now, I'd like to say a few words about some description, or some, yeah, some description, some story about what we call Zazen, or sitting Zen. And so the Zen people, when they're sitting, that's sitting Zen. And one of the esteemed ancestors in the practice of Zen sitting was a Chinese person, and the name of that person was Medicine Mountain, Yaoshan. And Yaoshan was sitting. Yeah. He was sitting.

[24:52]

And there's a couple occasions where he was sitting, and one of them was when he was still sort of hanging out with his teacher. He was sitting, and his teacher saw him sitting and said, Oh, what are you doing? Sitting there. And again, what are you doing? In other words, what's your karma while you're sitting? In other words, what are you thinking? But he didn't, the teacher didn't, I don't think the teacher said, What are you thinking? But I'm just reminding you that thinking is a definition of karma. The teacher said, What are you doing? And Yaoshan said to his teacher, I'm not doing anything at all. Which again, brackets.

[25:57]

There's no karma here at all in this sitting. There's no thinking here. And then the teacher said, Well, is that idly sitting? Are you sitting idly? And Yaoshan said, If I were idly sitting, I would be doing something. And the teacher said, You say you're not doing anything in this sitting. What is this not doing anything? And Yaoshan said, Even the ten thousand sages don't know. So, I don't, and his teacher was very happy about that, that response. That's Yaoshan.

[26:59]

And he, I don't think he was saying that there's no thinking going on. I think he was saying that what he's really doing there, no one knows. What that is. Even though he's an ordinary person who's sitting there thinking, that's not really what he's emphasizing. What he's emphasizing is great compassion to whatever thinking is going on. And no one knows what that great compassion is. But that's what he's devoted to. So he's sitting, great compassion. And if you say, What are you doing to somebody who's sitting, great compassion? The person might say, I'm not doing anything at all. Great compassion isn't doing anything. Intimacy with all beings isn't doing anything. It is not doing liberation.

[28:06]

It is liberation. It is not doing protection. It is protection. So I'm rhapsodizing on that story. But the basic story is, What are you doing? I'm not doing anything at all. Is that idly sitting? If I was idly sitting, I would be doing something. Okay? You say you're not sitting. What is this? And he didn't say it was nothing. And he didn't say it was something. He said, Even the 10,000 sages don't know what it is. But that's what's going on here. That's Yashan. Then later, Yashan was sitting again. And a monk came up to him and said,

[29:06]

What are you thinking when you're sitting? Again, What kind of karma is going on when you're sitting? And Yashan said, Thinking, not thinking. Or karma, not karma. The kind of thinking that's going on here is thinking which is not thinking. And the monk said, Well, how do you think not thinking? Or how do you have this thinking which is not thinking in your sitting? And Yashan said, Non-thinking. Which is a different character from not thinking. There's a character which means thinking. And there's a character which means not and thinking. And there's a character which means

[30:07]

sort of other than thinking. And I propose to you that the other than thinking is great compassion. Which is not the thinking that's going on. It's beyond the thinking. But it's right there with the thinking. And with this compassion for the thinking, we realize that thinking is not thinking. We realize that karma is not karma. We realize freedom from karma. Which is the prison. The prison is the prison of karma and karmic effect. That's the prison. And by practicing great compassion with the generator of the situation, the thinking, we realize that thinking is not thinking.

[31:10]

We realize that karma is not really anything at all. And even the 10,000 sages don't know what it is. And therefore, we realize freedom in the midst of great compassion applied to the generator of the prison of karma. The generator and maintainer of karmic consciousness. Thinking. And this description, and this is a description of this Zen ancestor's meditation practice, which was thinking, not thinking, non-thinking. And the ancestor Dogon, this was his favorite description of so-called Zen practice. And it's a story about one of his ancestors.

[32:17]

So he likes stories, sort of family stories about the Buddha way. I don't know if anybody ever asked the Buddha, what kind of thinking is going on when you're meditating? But I imagine the Buddha might have said, thinking, not thinking. In other words, cetana? What kind of cetana is there in your karmic consciousness, Buddha? Cetana, not cetana. Thinking, not thinking. In other words, freedom from thinking. Yes? Just to clarify, what I'm kind of getting is that with more awareness of cosmic consciousness,

[33:19]

the more awareness of it, that just along with that comes great compassion. I'm trying to think, where does great compassion come from? Is it exponentially increased with greater awareness of cosmic consciousness? Well, one story of where great compassion comes from is it comes from intimately engaging with, not with karmic consciousness, but with the afflictions, not with cosmic consciousness, but comes from being grounded in being compassionate

[34:21]

towards afflictions. So one story is we start by dealing with, for example, pain and pleasure, and noticing if we have any biases or any preferences in the midst of the stuff of our consciousness. Like, do we have a preference for comfort and pleasure? And do we have a preference of that over pain? And do we have any tendency, is there any tendency to hate the pain and be attached to the pleasure? So by paying attention to the potential hatred

[35:26]

or attachment to those states, we begin the process of generating great compassion. We also, to generate great compassion, we meditate on, we listen to, not just our own suffering, but the suffering of others. We don't tend to get attached to other people's pleasure, but we sometimes do get attached to our own. And you may, and we don't usually hate other people's discomfort. We maybe hate their cruelty being done to them, but we don't hate that they're uncomfortable usually, but they might. So training ourselves, we learn to be aware if we hate discomfort. Like sometimes, I've seen my granddaughter seem to hate discomfort. So we work on that as an example of something

[36:34]

to get down into the muck and develop impartiality and equanimity towards pain and pleasure, or discomfort and comfort. And just to sort of kindly notice if there's tendencies to hatred and attachment to those things. And just work on that until we feel like, yeah, this is pleasure, and this is pain, and there's also like impartiality about it. That's one exercise to generate great compassion. Another one is to listen to the cries of the world. Like I listened to this book called Caste, and it was just one bitter feeling, one bitter taste, one painful feeling after another of listening to the suffering that is caused by this caste system in this country.

[37:36]

Just listen to it, and feel it, and taste it. It sobers me. It sobers me. It sobers me. So listening to the cries of the world also is a meditation which sets up the generation of great compassion. But that's not all. We then have to, along with that listening to all this suffering, looking at all this suffering, observing all this suffering, and observe it in a way, skillfully, do it in a way that you can sustain. Like don't do it so much that you quit. But do it, you know, try to find a rhythm where you do it over and over, and a sustainable tasting of the suffering of the world, of other suffering. Meditate on that.

[38:37]

And that's not enough, though. We have to also develop a sincere, gentle feeling of fondness for all things. For all beings, you know. And we start usually, and then also, stepping back, this practice of developing impartiality, we do it with our own feelings of pain and pleasure, or comfort and discomfort, but we also do it towards beings who we feel comfortable with or uncomfortable with. Because sometimes we feel uncomfortable with a being and we hate the being. So if I can be impartial with my own pain and pleasure, then I have a chance now to be impartial with people

[39:40]

that I feel really comfortable with, and with beings I feel really uncomfortable with. Otherwise, I could start hating and attaching to the beings. So in order to develop that, it's recommended to start by meditating on somebody in situations where you feel not too much pain or pleasure, with somebody who, like, doesn't make you feel particularly comfortable or uncomfortable. Start with that person. Start with somebody like that, then move on to somebody who you feel comfortable with, and then learn to not get attached to them, and then move on to somebody you feel uncomfortable with. When it comes to generating this feeling of appreciation and cherishing of beings, we start with somebody that we like,

[40:45]

then we move on to somebody that we feel neutral about, then we move on to somebody who is our sworn enemy, and learn how to cherish and have a gentle fondness for somebody who is our enemy. And if we can do that, then we can start, again, practicing Maitreya Buddha's way of having loving-kindness for all beings. And there, it's recommended to start either with yourself, or if you can't do that, start with somebody you respect, and then to yourself, and then to somebody you feel neutral about, and then to somebody you like, and then to somebody who has been really cruel to you and you have resentment towards. And then from there, then you start practicing compassion,

[41:47]

then you start practicing these six perfections. You practice giving, generosity, ethics, patience, and you practice it with suffering beings, with stuff of karmic consciousness. And that leads to cosmic consciousness. Yeah, I do find that when I'm interacting with somebody else, even though we may have different views on things, I find that it's a little bit like the black lady and the plumber that you were talking about earlier. It becomes that relationship, not the issue. We may disagree on it, but it becomes this relationship that, to me, is more valuable.

[42:49]

Yeah, it's liberating. So, I'm kind of like, cosmic consciousness is okay as long as it's well-rooted in the tiniest, most petty consciousness. So, in the petty, jerky, kinky, difficult consciousnesses, that's where we start. Not skipping over, we start low. We start in the mud. And then we have all these ways of getting intimate with it, culminating in great compassion, where we actually really are devoted to working for the liberation, of devoting our life to the liberation of everybody. But that's the culminating thing, that's the compassion. But underneath it, supporting it is loving-kindness, and underneath that is appreciating beings,

[43:52]

and under that is listening to their suffering, and knowing what needs to be embraced, not skipping over any difficulties, and also developing impartiality. Because compassion is the prime cause of Buddhahood, and Buddhahood is the prime protector and liberator. And Buddha, by the way, has cosmic consciousness at her disposal. I mean, cosmic consciousness at her disposal. She has mastered all the Dharma doors of karmic consciousness, all the things in karmic consciousness she has practiced compassion with and seen the light in all the darkness. Each particular darkness, not the general darkness, that's fine too,

[44:54]

but the particular little karmic, what's it called? The river teeth, the little river teeth. You know about river teeth? So river teeth are like up in Oregon and Northern California. They have these big trees, right, like redwoods, and they fall over sometimes, and sometimes they fall into the river. And after about 500 years, the tree is almost completely washed away, except for these little, these tiny burls, I don't know, tiny, these burls, these knots in the redwood,

[45:54]

that after 500 years of the water running over them, they're still there. And there's things like that in our life. Most of our life has just been washed away, but there's these little hard spots that even after 500 years we still have to deal with. River teeth, the indestructible aspect of the redwood trees. When they fall on the ground, there's also those knots, but they're embedded in all kinds of other decaying processes, so it's different than the water washing over, which leaves these hard little nodules, and our consciousness is like that too. There's some things which you remember your whole life, but most of your life is gone, has been washed away, but not all of it, and we have to deal with all those little hard spots.

[46:57]

What is that word? River teeth. Can you spell it, please? R-I-V-E-R-T-E-E-T-H Yeah, it's a word that they have up there in Oregon. The person who wrote this is a ecology writer. It's a book of essays. The name of the book is River Teeth. And so he uses that example from our ecology and also applies it to our minds. So I would like to make some river teeth about this teaching too, some of these teachings that will not get washed away, so they'll be available to you through all the changes. I'd like there to be some practices

[48:01]

which even when you have dementia, you can still do them. Because you're, you know, I saw this lady, she was, I don't know how old she is now, but it was a recent video of a 105-year-old woman, I think she was Japanese, and they brought her out on the stage to play the piano. And, you know, they helped her, you know, because she could barely walk. So they helped her get across the stage and they brought her to the, and she was kind of looking around while they were, kind of like, where am I? What's going on here? Maybe, am I on the concert stage again? I don't know. Anyway, she didn't look exactly like she knew where she was, but they brought her out over and they sat her down in the chair. And so, again, she was kind of like looking around,

[49:02]

oh, there's a piano here. Kind of like, oh. They didn't say, play. They didn't take her hands and put them up on the keys. But it took her a while for her to actually, actually sort of take her little hands. She was a little, really small person and she had small hands to go along with it. But they got up on the keys and then they started to, and she, they started to, the hands, the body started to observe and they started to play. And I'm not saying it was the greatest concert performance I've ever heard, but it was high-level professional piano playing in front of a huge audience, which she may not even have noticed. But it was very, it was very skillful piano playing. But she didn't look like she knew her name anymore

[50:05]

or anything else, but her body had been trained to do this. And if you train your body, even if you can't remember who you are or who we are, you may be able to practice compassion anyway. But if you don't practice compassion and you do remember who you are, it's not going to be good. I remember who I am and I remember who you are and I remember what you did to me. But even if I don't remember you, if I practice compassion, I'm just going to be really kind to you and that'll be good. Because I don't remember even the word compassion, but my body, if we need to train the body so that something comes, compassion. Something comes, compassion. And then with that training, when something comes and you don't know even what it is, compassion. So then it won't be so big a deal to us

[51:08]

or the people who are taking care of us because they will be very happy to be treated compassionately by us even though we don't know who they are. They'll be very happy to take care of us and we'll be very happy to take care of them even though we don't know who they are. But without training, even if we do have a mind or we don't have a mind, we won't be able to practice. So that's why we have to practice, to train our body, just like learning English and playing the piano. Our body and our unconscious processes, that's where the river teeth are. So let's make river teeth in there to sustain us through whatever is coming. I don't know what's coming, so I want to make something that's sustained by our practice.

[52:11]

How about you? How about you? I have these two lines from Zen text going through my mind and I wanted to put them in front of you. Susan was quoting the famous two lines that say to study the Buddha way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self. The next line, to forget the self, is to be brought forth, right? By the ten thousand things? To forget the self is to be awakened by all things. Yeah, so... The part you're referring to is a little bit later where it says

[53:14]

to practice and confirm all things while carrying the self is delusion. For all things to come forth and confirm the self is awakening. That's a different section. This section is that when you forget the self then everything tells you who you are. But if I hold on to myself then only some things are telling me who I am. Like, if I'm holding on to myself then maybe you can tell me who I am but Angela can't. Or you can smile at me and that affirms me. But if you frown, that doesn't. But if I let go of myself through study then everything confirms and enlightens me. I have a thought. I wanted to ask you about it. Could you speak up? Yeah. That in that moment when everything

[54:23]

confirms you, is that what the word was? Yeah. Both of those quotes, when all things bring you forth, at that moment all things, karmic consciousness and all things become the same thing. And the karmic consciousness isn't a prison anymore. That's right. It never really was a prison. You said it was a prison. No, I think it is a prison. But the prison is not a prison. Yeah, yeah. But the people who know that the prison is not a prison are prison experts. People who really know the prison know that it's not a prison. You know, it's a factory or whatever. It's a church. So the other quote I'd like to mention to you, we were reading in your book a couple days ago, some of us, where you tell a story that says

[55:26]

what comes in the front gate is not the family jewels. And then the student says, then what should I do? And then the teacher says, this is a quote that struck me as so beautiful. And it was something like this. You know it. You put it in your book. He said, then what should I do? And then he said, let your chest or your heart open up and fill the whole countryside. Right? Or let it flow out from your breast and cover the whole world. Yeah. I just wanted that sentence to be said. Yeah, yeah. Is that the same thing as letting all things bring you forth? Letting your chest flow out

[56:27]

into the countryside? Yeah. You don't bring them in. They come to you and affirm you and then it can just flow out of you. But if you're carrying the self, you interfere with the process. Yes, Kurt. This way you get some exercise. It's fun. Mr. Microphone. Yes, going back to the non-thinking or thinking and then non-thinking. And it was thinking, not thinking, then non-thinking. So when non-thinking is happening,

[57:31]

it doesn't mean that thinking isn't happening. It just means that one's being intimate with thinking. Yeah, when you're intimate with thinking, it doesn't mean thinking is not there. But when you're intimate with thinking, thinking is pivoting with not thinking. When you're intimate with thinking, thinking isn't stuck in thinking. And also, not thinking is not stuck in thinking. There could be not thinking. Some people think Buddhism is about not thinking, having no thinking. But this teaching is saying the Buddha way is that thinking and non-thinking are pivoting on each other. And non-thinking, that's the way to be with the thinking, to realize that everything's pivoting with everything that's not it. That you're pivoting with the entire not-curt universe.

[58:34]

And so, when the non-thinking is happening, like he said, he's not doing anything. So it's more like a being. You're just being there completely. Being intimate with situation, you don't do that. It's already there. You wake up to it. You give yourself to it. You donate yourself to your intimacy. So that intimacy, isn't that like being great compassion? Yes. It's there already. I said at the beginning, great compassion is intimacy. So non-thinking is intimacy. It's being with each thing as it is. Yeah, what's going on in Zazen is intimacy, being completely with no separation between self and other, between self and the whole universe, which is already the case.

[59:39]

We are intimate with the whole universe right now, but we have to practice that to realize it. And great compassion is practicing that. And so, when you're being intimate with everything, is self still there? Or you're being intimate with that as well? The self is still there and the self is not self at the same time. Then you realize the self is still there, but now you realize it's not just the self that's there, not-self is there too. Before it was just self and you didn't see any not-self, because you weren't intimate with it. You thought, this is what I think it is, and you realize, oh, this is not what I think it is. This is free of my ideas. When you're intimate with somebody, you don't know who they are. You don't know who they are, and also ten thousand sages don't know who you are.

[60:41]

So Yashan's teacher says, well, what are you doing? And he says, he didn't say, I don't know. He's saying, kind of like parenthesis, I don't know, and even the ten thousand sages don't know. Nobody knows who I am or what I'm doing. And yet you asked me, so I told you, I'm not doing anything at all. But nobody knows what that me not doing anything at all is. Well, it's more of a being than a doing. He's being something. You can say that, but nobody knows what that being is either. Nobody knows who we really are, and we can accept that by practicing compassion with the way we appear to be. But we can be who we really are by not knowing it. It's like a not knowing mind. You can just accept that. Not knowing is part of great compassion. You're devoted to something,

[61:46]

and you also realize you don't know what it is you're devoted to. So not knowing mind promotes great compassion. Because great compassion doesn't really know anything. So I'll mention that to you tomorrow morning, about the three kinds of compassion, which I didn't tell you about. But we studied in some of our other assemblies. But great compassion doesn't know what it's being compassionate with, because it's too intimate to know what it's working with. What it's working with is something it doesn't know. It doesn't have as an object. But I think it's too late to bring it up. But tomorrow I'll tell you about these three kinds of compassion. And great compassion doesn't know what the thinking is. It's just worth it. It's just worth it. With the best intentions

[62:47]

and the great vow. Thank you. Homa? When you say the not knowing of the great compassion, it's because of the intimacy to the whole circle, and losing itself. You could shorten that. Just say that the not knowing of great compassion is due to the intimacy. Is what? It's due to intimacy. When you're intimate with somebody, you don't know who they are. If you think you know who somebody is, you're not intimate with them yet. And then I can see the partiality of my self-projecting

[63:49]

and that's the separation. Yeah. And if you're intimate with that, you don't know what that is either. But liberation is right there. Yes? Do you want me to get that? I don't know. Do you want to get it? Can you hear? Yes. What this is reminding me of, non-thinking, intimacy, and what you're saying now, it's reminding me of that instruction in the seed, just the seed, in the mental construction, just mental construction, but that's really an instruction in compassion. It is, yeah. And it's also an instruction in wisdom. In what? In wisdom. It's wisdom and compassion simultaneously. I'm getting...

[64:52]

I don't know what's going on here, but I'm getting these appearances that people are getting sleepy, you know, and making a great effort to stay here and something other than lying completely down. So we could either do jumping jacks or we could say, thank you very much, good night. What do you think? Is it? Those are our only options. No, you're another option. Option three. Yeah, option three, that's you. Option three? Sure. Three-ish. People perked up when you, when option three appeared. Like, what is this option three here? Oh my God. The Heart Sutra. Yeah. And you referred to great compassion. And we talked about Avalokiteshvara here

[65:52]

extensively. Yes, we have, in this very room. She or he listens. Yes. A little bug just decided to listen. But I was thinking, what if the first line of the Heart Sutra... By the way, she does listen, it's true, and she also looks. But her name actually is Observes. She Observes. She Observes. Yes? Thank you. You're welcome. So the first line of the Heart Sutra, which a student may have recited several times. Yeah. But it could be a story. I was just thinking. Oh, it is a story. I thought I saw what was a story. Avalokiteshvara. Bodhisattva of Great Compassion. Yeah, uh-huh. One day was practicing deeply.

[66:54]

Yeah, right. Prajaparmita. Right. Which is on your list. Yeah. And... And? And then she saw that all five skandhas, which you spoke about today, All those aggregates. in their own being, are empty. Yeah. And she was saved from all suffering. Well, one translation is she was saved, but the other one is that she saw that it was empty and that relieved all suffering. Not that she was. It wasn't just her suffering. That vision saved all beings. Doesn't it? She observed. She saw this. She realized that. Yeah, she saw that and all suffering was relieved. Liberation, though. It wasn't so much. I don't think it's about her. Well, yeah. That vision liberates all beings,

[67:56]

not just her. It protects them. She was liberated before that vision. She was just, you know, doing it again for her benefit. It's a really good story. It's such a good story. And that's the only perfect wisdom sutra where Avalokiteshvara is the story. And that's the one we chant. We chant the perfect wisdom scripture that has Avalokiteshvara as the one who sees. And there's other good bodhisattvas in the other sutras, perfect wisdom sutras, but this is the only one which has the bodhisattva of compassion who sees the way things are. And that's what we're emphasizing in this retreat is compassion is the cause of wisdom, of discreet wisdom.

[68:58]

Marlena? Avalokiteshvara and Guajin are the same, whereas the feminine and masculine you're referring to the pronoun she. So can we say that it's the only one I know I hear in our Buddhist studies that has the double pronoun, that it's the same feminine and masculine? I didn't quite follow what your point was. The point is, I was just thinking about another issue I have been talking with some of my colleagues about the pronouns. Yeah, but there is no... We don't usually say he or she in the translation, right? Just Avalokiteshvara saw this and relieved all suffering. We don't usually say he or she. It's not in there. No. But in this rendition that the third alternative brought up, the gender came in.

[70:02]

So in India, Avalokiteshvara is usually depicted as a male. But in China, Avalokiteshvara started to become depicted as female. But the Heart Sutra doesn't really say male or female. It just says the one who observes, the liberated one who observes saw this and relieved all suffering. And tell more about why in China in Latin, how it comes to mention. Maybe as a kind of creative breakthrough in China, in Buddhism, to see Avalokiteshvara as a female. It's kind of a great breakthrough. So in China, mostly Avalokiteshvara is depicted as female.

[71:07]

Even though there are some very beautiful Chinese sculptures and paintings of a male version of Avalokiteshvara, mostly it's female. And if you talk to Chinese people, they often refer to Avalokiteshvara as the goddess of mercy. They don't even say Bodhisattva, they say goddess. And that's fine. There must be billions of them, you know, billions of Avalokiteshvaras that have been sculpted. So, any fourth alternatives to calling it a night? I'm for jumping jacks. I'm for jumping jacks. I keep forgetting to ask my physical therapist if I can do jumping jacks. I think it's okay just to jump up and down,

[72:13]

that's okay. No? No? I just got back from Texas and I found myself saying yes ma'am quite a bit. So, yes ma'am, I won't do jumping jacks. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Afflictions are inexhaustible. I vow to be intimate with them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to awaken to them. Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Thank you so much for hanging in there even though you did get a little tired. So you let me know

[73:17]

I can do jumping jacks, okay? It's so real when you listen to it. It's so pleasant to me when you lie down. So I'm going to do jumping jacks.

[73:51]

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