During the first talk that was given during this session, there was some spraying of the earth, some moistening of the ground. That's pretty—oh, that was okay, wasn't it? During the second talk I gave, I started to pour a little bit, and there was some runoff. I guess. But now maybe I can pour and there won't be runoff. We'll see. I thought you were moist on the third day, but I think you're really moist now. So probably I can just like, you know, say it and it'll just go right in. There'll be no resistance, right?

[01:02]

Yesterday Linda talked about some of her activities during the breaks. My girls are grown up. I'm almost, I'm on the verge of being a grandfather all over the place. So they aren't at home anymore. But now I have a little girl, a little girl, a little dog girl who lives, hangs out and gets fed at my house. Her name's Rozzy. which is short for Rosalind, Rosalinda. Beautiful rose. So that's easy to listen to, right?

[02:17]

That's not threatening. Nice and nice roses, lovely roses, doggies. So anyway, one of the things that this lovely rose likes to do is she likes to roll in the shit of other species. She doesn't roll in dog shit. She eats dog shit. But she rolls in the feces, particularly the feces or rotting carcasses of other species. And then she brings this odor home as a gift to her pack. And I'm in her pack. So she brings me these smells and doesn't understand why I'm not so happy with this gift. Anyway, she brings this stuff like she cleaned the walkway of the bird ship the other day. So that's one of the things I do during the breaks is I clean the dog.

[03:31]

Another thing I do during the break sometimes is I return telephone calls of people who say that they can't wait till the end of Sesshin, or it's hard for them to wait. So this morning I called Switzerland to talk to somebody who used to be living here, a priest named Christina. And I talked to her for a little while. And she said, what's the teaching during the session? And I said, I'm talking about the teaching that all the Buddhas and all the sentient beings are just one mind. And there's nothing else in the entire universe. I said, some people seem a little unhappy at this good news.

[04:35]

And then a little while later she said, and how's your dog? I said, well, right now my dog is kind of scared because she's about to get a bath. is that she doesn't like water. She likes dirt and feces much better. Feces on dirt is her heaven. Does not like water. She is called a terrier. She's a terrier, an earth one. She loves the terra. So, and then Christina said, And then after she gets her bath, she likes to immediately run and rub herself on the ground again, right? I said, yeah, she does. As soon as she comes out, she goes and rubs on all horizontal surfaces in the house, and if she's outside, she'll roll right back into stuff to get re-perfumed.

[05:52]

And then Christina said, and people are like that too. When they hear a teaching like, like, you know, a very purifying teaching that unifies their whole life, they want to get back in the dirt again and separate, get something that they can get a hold of. And that's what the ancestors say, you know, they say, there's just one mind and all sentient beings and Buddhas are non-differentiated in this mind. There are sentient beings and Buddhas But there's no difference between them. They're inseparable and there's not another thing going on. And then they say, however, sentient beings, being sentient beings, they have a tendency, they tend to want to attach to some sign or characteristic.

[06:54]

And then they seek some characteristic outside themselves, outside this mind. And then they move away from it. There's nothing you can do with this mind. You can't do anything with it. And we want to do something with it. So it's very frustrating to our doing mind. you know, grasping. Because there's nothing out there. There's not one particle of dust outside yourself. There's not any Buddhas out there to get a hold of. And there's nothing to get a hold of as a Buddha. So when people hear this teaching, they sweetly, you know, sweetly, nicely, are interested to somewhat, you know, they hear about this Buddha that's so close to them, then they wonder, well, what's this Buddha like?

[08:01]

They say, well, you know, so they talk and we talk and say, oh, so the Buddha is compassionate then, huh? Well, you know, I can't say Buddha's not compassionate, but when you say Buddha's compassionate, then people think, oh, that's a characteristic of Buddha. Buddha's compassionate. So they grab that characteristic, compassion. Or Buddha's wise. They grab the... Buddha's got the wise characteristic or the wise sign. Or Buddha's gentle. Or Buddha's tender. And so on. In this realm of one mind, there is infinite compassion. infinite wisdom. And as someone said yesterday, there's tenderness all around. Great tenderness. But that tenderness is not a characteristic of Buddha. Because if it was, then you could grab it. But you can't get it. You completely, you know, it's all around you and all through you, this tenderness.

[09:09]

this gentleness, this compassion is all around and all through all of us. But we tend to want to grasp it and seek it outside. So then we refute it when we say it's not in us, it's not all around us, it's somewhere else. And then, well... In other words, we don't trust this teaching. It's hard to trust it because we have this strong tendency to want to do something with it. But you can't. You can just be it. And in fact, you already are. All the wonderful characteristics of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are completely possessed by each one of us. And in that chant you just gave, they said, Buddha's compassion, Buddhism, their compassion, by their compassion, blah, blah.

[10:25]

Well, you know, that's kind of misleading. It's not their compassion. Well, yeah, it's theirs, but it's yours too. But it's none of ours. It's just what we are, actually. But we hear about their compassion and we seek outside. It's hard not to Speak that way. So we have to understand that when they say Buddha's compassionate, it doesn't mean that's a characteristic of Buddha or that it's theirs outside you, or that it's you outside theirs. It's just what's going on. It's just that it's inseparable from what we really are. And we have to watch for our tendency to put that outside. Just like the dog, as soon as it's washed, it just wants to jump right back in the dirt.

[11:34]

Or like I've told this story before, I did an animal releasing ceremony in Japan one time with some Japanese monks. We had a nice little altar set up outdoors. And then they brought these chickens in in cages. And then we did this chanting and made these offerings to Buddha. And then at the end of the ceremony, the climax of the ceremony, we opened the cages and the chickens flew out of the cages, crummy old cages, into the lovely green hillsides. Wonderful ceremony. So then at the ceremony there was a buffet for the humans. The humans didn't want to just be free too with the chickens. So they went back to their little feeding area. And then I was cleaning up the altar afterwards and I noticed the chickens had returned from their realm of freedom and were crawling back in the cages.

[12:35]

There's a strong tendency for them to go back into their cages, into their little, you know, They're graspable confines. This is a sentient being. And these sentient beings are, together with the Buddhas, are one mind. There's a mind which is the mind of those sentient beings and those who do not. You know, who do not. get caught up in attachment, who are not seeking something. They're inseparable. So there's no disparagement of this tendency to attach. It's just that that tendency to seek outside ourselves is just the total opposite of the practice, that's all.

[13:41]

But the total opposite of the practice is completely inseparable from the practice. There's nothing outside the practice of this one mind. Nothing. Nothing. And that's scary for people too. What about all these terrible things that sentient beings do? Can't we get them outside? No. There's not one particle of dust outside this mind. and the wish to include certain particles of dust and exclude some other particles of dust, that's a sentient being. That impulse to get rid of some stuff, to get them out of here, get them out of the Dharma and get some other stuff into the Dharma, that's a sentient being. And those sentient beings are allowed in this one mind. And they are completely inseparable from those who do not have that tendency.

[14:45]

or I shouldn't say those who do not have that tendency, but they're inseparable from not that tendency, from freedom from that tendency. So you can say, well, aren't Buddhas gentle and tender and sweet and kind and generous? Yes. So are sentient beings. Really. And ultimately, that's where we're at. That's not a characteristic of us. Not ultimately. Ultimately, we have no characteristics.

[15:48]

And that's what allows us to be tender and kind and gentle and wise and compassionate. That's what allows us to crawl back into the dirt. I mentioned this morning that it's taught that there's three kinds of three treasures. One kind of three treasure is called the single body, or one body triple treasure. In other words, where Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are one thing, inseparable, one mind triple treasure. And in that case, the Buddha treasure is unsurpassable, comprehensive, and authentic awakening.

[16:49]

The Dharma treasure is the purity and freedom from dust. What does that mean? Purity means You can't say anything about it. About what? About Buddha. Freedom from dust means freedom from all characteristics. Dusts are like objects, you know, characteristics. It's free of any kind of thing you say about it. You can say whatever you want about Buddha. You can say nothing about Buddha. You can say Buddha isn't sentient beings. But that doesn't create a duality in this dharma. The Dharma is the purity, the complete purity of the Buddha mind. And the Sangha is the harmony, the virtue of harmony and peace among all beings.

[18:00]

Well, what about war? Yes, there's war. There's disharmony. But that's not the Sangha. The Sangha is, in this world of the Triple Treasure, there is peace and harmony. Peace and harmony can be realized. It's possible right now. And that harmony, that peace and harmony among all beings, goes with nobody being outside of, nobody being separate from the Buddhas, nobody being excluded from this one mind. And this is like the triple treasure of ultimate reality. And that's the one thing that the ancestors are absorbed in.

[19:08]

They're absorbed in this ultimate reality. That's their samadhi. But there's two more kinds of triple treasure. The next kind is the manifest, which means the realization of awakening, and it says in his manifestation or her manifestation, it's the realization of bodhi. It's the manifesting of bodhi in a particular person that happens at a certain time and wasn't there before and then it was. And it's in a person like Shakyamuni Buddha. or certain other persons that realized this unsurpassed awakening. And there was something, some truth that they awakened to, and that's the Dharma of the manifested Dharma.

[20:16]

And the Sangha in this case are those sentient beings and Buddhas who study this truth that the Buddhas awoke to. That's the manifested one. I have not been emphasizing that one so much. The next one is the maintaining. How do you maintain or the actual working of the Triple Treasure? The first one is edifying or educating or enlightening celestial beings and humans. That's the Buddha. The next one is to transform, to be transformed into. To be transformed into what? For the Buddha to be transformed into shells and leaves and the ocean storehouse of scriptures.

[21:27]

and thereby edifying animate and inanimate beings. And the Sangha is to be free from the house of the three worlds and to be relieved of all suffering. That's the Sangha. That's the way the Buddha is actually maintained, is by edifying beings, letting the Buddha Dhammasanga be transformed into various things that people can relate to. And then it is also maintained by people actually being set free from suffering and from bondage. If it doesn't actually work, it's not going to really be maintained. So someone asked me, well, let's see, someone asked, well, if Buddhas and sentient beings are one mind, and if one understood that, why would one practice?

[23:19]

Now, if Buddhas and sentient beings are one mind, and nothing outside of it, and you don't understand it, then you might see, well, then I see why maybe I should practice. Because I don't realize it yet. So how do you practice? Let's take the case of where you don't understand this yet, you don't realize this yet. Then how do you practice? Well, we have to practice in a non-seeking, non-gaining way. If you practice in such a way that you feel that you have no access to the teaching whatsoever, that you can't get at it, that it's totally useless to you, That's probably what the practice would be like to someone who didn't understand, but who was doing the appropriate practice.

[24:36]

To someone who had already realized and understood this, it would be the same practice, but for them it would just be a natural expression. In other words, once they understand, their practice would be something that was totally useless, that they couldn't get any access to. And what? They weren't doing to get anything. And they weren't getting anything from it. Because it wasn't to get something, it was an expression. It's just like, you know, exhaling and inhaling. It's like sweating or salivating. Now, I don't know about everybody else, but for me, I don't salivate to get something. When I'm about to get something, I sometimes salivate. But the salivation isn't done by me to get something. It's an actual expression of my salivary glands. Not moving is not something that I do.

[25:54]

Real not moving is not something that anybody does. Does that make sense? Now, if you do not move in to get something, then it's like, you know, enslaving your salivary glands and saying, okay, now squirt. You can do that. I think if you reach inside, I think you can press him and make him squirt. But real not moving is not done to get anything. That's really not moving. I mean, you're really just sitting. You're really just standing. That's it. There's just you practicing together with all sentient beings and all Buddhas and nothing else. That's it. No movement. Now, that can be an expression or a practice. And if you do that practice not to get anything for it, even if you don't understand that this practice is a natural expression of what you are, as a matter of fact, even if you don't understand that this is the best, the truest expression, I forget best, truest.

[27:13]

Anyway, it's a really good expression. It's a really, really true, pure expression of what you are because what you are is something that doesn't need to get any better because you're already completely connected with everything that's good and bad. So not moving is really a true expression of what you are. Namely, you're the whole universe. at a particular place. And that's where the universe is. It's at a particular place and it's not in two places. Have you heard about that? That's a recent finding that I heard about. The universe is not in two places. But it manifests two places. But every place it manifests is the whole universe. Does anybody disagree with that?

[28:23]

Well, some sentient beings do, and they're inseparable from those who agree with it. Disagreeing with it is a very unhappy situation. Agreeing with it is called nirvana. Where was I? May I? Stuart, where was I? Do you remember where I was? What? That's right, but before that, where was I? Yeah. And before that, where was I? What? We're on number two.

[29:25]

Yeah. Not moving. Okay? Not moving. You can't move any place. There's no other place to go to. If you understand that, then not moving is your natural expression, which brings with it, in that not moving, what comes with it? Tenderness all over. Without moving, without moving, there's tenderness all over. And the tenderness that's all over is not in another place. Without moving, there's infinite compassion. That's not some other place. Without moving, there's perfect wisdom, which is not some other place. All brought to you by that it's already there. And not moving realizes it. Again, if you don't understand that yet, not moving realizes it in not understanding.

[30:26]

And if you do understand, then a natural expression of your understanding is not moving. If you don't understand, then not moving is not a natural expression of your not understanding. Okay? If you don't understand, then a natural expression of your understanding would be to move, to seek something. But you take a little break from your natural expression of your understanding when you don't understand. If you don't understand that everybody in the universe is your eyeball If you don't understand that, then movement would be a natural expression of that misunderstanding of your eyeball. But you just renounce that natural dualistic tendency. You just put it aside for a little while, just for a moment, and do this other practice, which those who do understand have recommended, called don't move. Don't try to get anything.

[31:28]

Don't attach to anything. Just be here right now as you are. And then this practice of not moving seems to realize, you seem to realize, you seem to understand, maybe not first of all the oneness, but you understand the tenderness and the compassion and the beauty of all things. When you meet a person or a plant or an animal or a thought or a feeling and you don't move, that means you leave it alone. You don't mess with it. You don't try to fix it up or down. You don't try to dress it up or down.

[32:33]

Now, at first, leaving things alone might not seem tender. Might not seem tender right away. But leaving them alone really means not moving. It doesn't mean like leaving them alone like saying, oh, there you are, bye-bye. It's no, there you are, and that's it. And this may go on forever, this there you are. It's not, there you are and if I don't like you, I'm going to be out of here in a little while, you're going to die. It's not that one, which is a relief in some cases. Or it's not, there you are and you're going to stay around, aren't you? No, it's, there you are, here I am, here it is. That's it. Now, if you don't understand that whatever it is is inseparable from you and all the Buddhas and there's nothing else going on, if you don't understand that, then this is a practice which you can enter

[33:38]

which is not a natural expression of your misunderstanding, but it's a practice, it's a discipline you do. And if you do this discipline, you will understand. It will be like the discipline will tenderize you. You will feel tenderized. You will feel how... It isn't like you understand that not moving is tender, but you will be experiencing tenderness. You will find your body and mind tenderized. by non-manipulation of everything that you are aware of. This is verified by many, many regular old Zen students. They sit in this room and they move. In other words, in a given moment They think, you know, they kind of like, you know, wish something else was going on.

[34:43]

In the moment, and in the moment you cannot move. You can only like wish for something else or try to get something else or seek something. But that seeking for something else is movement. That's what movement means. Not moving is an act of faith that you and all the Buddhas are one mind. When you practice this way, you will become tender, and when you become tender, you will become tender to things that you usually are not tender towards. And you will continue to be tender towards the things you're already tender towards, but more so. Because sometimes you're tender towards things, but you're not really tender.

[35:47]

You're tender, and then you mess with them. You will see that the things you feel a tenderness towards that you mess with, that actually when you mess with them, that's a break in your tenderness. Seems tender at the beginning, but then you try to get a characteristic. You try to grasp this thing which you feel tender towards. And that is a break. That is a violation of the tenderness. And it kind of ends the tenderness for a while. Someone said to me that he went to the garden and he said, some parts of the garden are beautiful. And I thought, what? How dare you say that? Don't you know the whole Green Gulch garden is lovely? Now she said, you know, maybe if she said, well, some parts of the shop are beautiful. And I thought, wow, good. Some parts of the kitchen are lovely, are beautiful.

[36:56]

It's a step in the right direction. But the garden, some parts are beautiful? No, this must be a mistake. The whole garden must be beautiful. But there are areas of the garden where my dog considers to be heaven. There are compost piles that are not really that spiffy, that aren't, you know, Sometimes people dig in them and make a mess. So someone may think, oh, this part of the garden's beautiful and this part's not beautiful. When you don't move, in other words, when you, let's see, if you don't understand and you put aside seeking, you put aside trying to attain something, and you just work with what's happening with no alternative, Your eyes open. Your eyes open. It opens your eyes. Not moving.

[37:58]

Tenderizes and opens your eyes. When you don't move, when you really don't move for a while, maybe just for a moment, but anyway, when you don't move for even a short time, your eyes open, and then you see that everything is beautiful. And you even see that beauty is most beautiful because it's not beautiful. That's the most beautiful thing about beauty, is that beauty even transcends beauty. All things are inseparable from you and all the Buddhas and the entire universe. That's what's beautiful about everything. Your eyes open to this and the whole garden is beautiful. The whole slime pit is beautiful. All the little animals who, you know, want to go in the most despicable places

[39:04]

are beautiful. Everything is beautiful. Everything. Sorry. This is frightening to people but The test of this vision is whether this vision then can manifest as a community and people who understand this and who can teach it in such a way as to set beings free of suffering in a world where some people don't see that everything's beautiful and are seeking things. And because they seek things, they're very untender. In this seeking, the seeking can get way away from tenderness and way away from gentleness into what we call cruelty. There's three kinds of triple treasure. In meditation of this Sashin, I'm focusing on the ultimate reality, the one-mind triple treasure.

[40:11]

When we realize this, the test of our realization is the second and third triple treasure, namely, does our understanding edify beings? Does it set people free from suffering? Does it help people drop their cruelty and adopt a practice by which they become tender? That's the test of this vision. But sometimes we're afraid. If I would see beauty in cruelty, if I see a cruel being, if I see someone being cruel and I can see that that being is beautiful, that the whole universe is operating there too, and that cruel person, that cruel animal is inseparable from all Buddhas, if I would see that, maybe I would cooperate with this cruelty. You're already cooperating with the cruelty.

[41:13]

Everyone is already. Cruelty does not happen outside the universe. It happens in the universe when beings don't understand the universe. If you understand, you need to convey and give your understanding and share your understanding with those who don't. And the deeper you understand this, the better chance you have of sharing the world of tenderness, gentleness, and unified life. You have a chance to share this with other beings. But are you sure of it yourself, or do you already kind of like despair of dealing with this, like Linda said, this glass mountain or this precipice that you can't do anything with. You can't even put a characteristic on it.

[42:16]

What do you do? You have to just sit there with it until you understand that it's you and that you're it. So we actually, we had this, it's kind of like set up. We have floors and walls for you to look at. Now some people, you know, can do things with the floor and the wall. They have little shows going on. That's inseparable from the tenderness. But you grasp and you seek as the show starts on the wall. First of all, it's just a wall. You can't do anything with it. Then it seems like you can do something with it. But then when it seems like you can do something with it, do you renounce doing something with it and just stay still and tender with it? At first, the reality is there.

[43:20]

It's just a wall. You can't do anything with the wall. That's the way it is with everybody you meet, really. You can't do anything with people. But as you watch them more carefully, you think, oh, I think I can do something here. I can at least put a characteristic on them. I can easily say, oh, they're beautiful or ugly or good or bad or compassionate or wise. I can at least do that. Same when you meet Buddha. Meeting Buddha is like meeting a wall. You can't do anything with Buddha, really. So, I mean, I've got to just sit here and, like, face it? Face Buddha with, you know, no, can I say Buddha's beautiful? Well, you can, but it's, you know, it's not very tender. It's more tender to say, oh, I'm so happy. What can I do? I'm just sort of happy. Poor me, just happy to see. I can't even call you Buddha? Okay, you can call him Buddha.

[44:23]

Okay. Go ahead. Call her Buddha. Fine. Don't think that's a characteristic of Buddha that's Buddha. Well, then I'll just sit here and not call it anything and just sort of like just be happy and everything else or whatever I am. This person who admitted that he only saw part of the garden as beautiful. I don't know if that person said it or I said it, but I think I said it or he said it. That's a confession. If I look out at the people in the session and I say, some of these people are beautiful, that's a confession.

[45:31]

As a disciple of Buddha, when I say I see some beautiful people, that's a confession. That's a confession. I don't understand Buddhism yet. I don't understand the teaching. I only see some people as beautiful. And actually, that beauty I see is not real beauty yet either. It's a self-defined beauty. Of course, when you see all the people you don't think are beautiful as beautiful... then you'll see the people you now think are beautiful as beautiful, but in another way. And the way it will be is that you'll be free of the beauty you used to think they had. You can leave them alone now. No longer try to own them, exploit them, and have them nearby. You can be free of that. So anyway, I said to this person, you confess that you only see part of the garden or some of the people as beautiful. That's a confession. That's part of the practice, is confess. Then, after that, you're ready.

[46:32]

You're ready. Now I can say, do you want to take refuge in the Buddha now? Do you want to go back to Buddha? Do you want to return to the vision which doesn't see part of the people as beautiful? If you say yes, okay, I take refuge in Buddha. Go back home to the vision which is everybody is beautiful. the most beautiful thing in the world. Whether I see it or not, I want to go back there. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in the purity and freedom from dust. In other words, I'm free from the dust, from the characteristics of people. This characteristic, that characteristic. People have characteristics. It's not that we say they don't, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between one person and the other. But you don't grasp those characteristics as the person and you don't grasp the characteristics of Buddha as Buddha because Buddha doesn't have characteristics and really people don't either. Taking revision of Buddha means I go back to renouncing grasping and seeking and laugh at my own mind which does this characteristic sign-painting thing all over the universe.

[47:56]

Oh, poor guy. poor little sentient being in his little cage. And maybe the same person says to me, well, what about preferences? What are you going to do when you have preferences? And are there preferences in this one mind? And I would say, Well, yes, because this one mind is, there's nothing in the universe outside of it. So it's not like the preferences are outside. There's not anything outside this one mind. So, like, you know, do I prefer for him to wake up? Well, you know, I admit it. There's a preference for him to wake up. But do I attach to that preference?

[48:59]

Well, maybe I do. How am I going to not attach to the preference? When we realize the one mind, we don't attach to the preferences. and move them around and stick them on the proper places. It's not like in the one mind, there isn't, like I said, there's compassion, there's wisdom, there's sleepiness, there's love, there's hate, there's Frank, there's Josephine, there's Buddha, all the stuff's there, everything's there. It's just that you don't go around grasping the stuff and putting the compassion over on the Buddha and trying to get the sleepiness off the monk You maybe have a preference that the sleepiness would be sort of like, you know, up in some shelf someplace, not on a person. Or that you could put the sleepiness on the monk when it's bedtime and take it off when it was meditation time. Or take it off the monk when you're giving a talk and put it on the monk when somebody else is giving a talk.

[50:05]

You might prefer that. But in the one mind, when you realize the one mind, you don't grasp those preferences anymore. You don't prefer to have purity, compassion, tenderness on the Buddhas and sleazeball, lazy bum on the sentient beings. If they get mixed up, fine. There's no affixing. Now, how do you get free of the affixing? By sitting still. when you really look at your preferences, you start to become tender towards them. And then you see that your preferences are also beautiful. And you're preferring this person to that person. The preference itself is beautiful. It's so beautiful that you become tender towards the preference. You don't use the preference like a piece of sharp steel that you cut things with.

[51:10]

You put your hands together and bow to the preference. You don't use the preference. You can't use a beautiful thing. You become in awe of your preferences and they lose their function. If you grab your preferences, they could cause great damage to you and other people. So the ancestor says, the way is not difficult except for picking and choosing. And people think, well, then in the mind of these people who have easy time practicing, I guess there's no picking and choosing. But there is no picking and choosing, but there is the preference, which is the basis of picking and choosing. But they don't attach to the preference. But the reason why they don't attach to it at first is is different from the reason that they don't attach to it after they practice not moving for a while. When you first don't attach to it, really you're attaching to it because you're trying to avoid attaching to it.

[52:14]

So since you've heard about not attaching to preference, you prefer to not attach to them. So it's the same thing. So you see somebody you're really repulsed by and you sort of like try not to attach to their propulsion. And maybe you don't. But then you're attaching to this other side. You're still messing with yourself and being a little rough on your poor little preference equipment. That's not the practice. That's just another kind of picking and choosing. I'm choosing to be, you know, a bodhisattva who doesn't pick rather than a bodhisattva or just a regular sentient being who does pick. That's another kind of picking. Not moving is... You don't tamper with your preferences. You don't try to not grab them. By not moving, you don't grab them. And by not grabbing them, and not grabbing them, by just not moving, you gradually open your eyes to their beauty.

[53:18]

And when you see the beauty of your preferences, you realize they're not something to use. Beautiful beings are not to be used. They're to be venerated. They're to be loved. They're to be appreciated. They're to be listened to and looked at. And you can touch them without grasping and attaching. And it's kind of, you know, I actually kind of mean this, that the things are actually hiding from us until we don't try to get their beauty from them. And when a thing or a person in the universe sees that we're just going to, like, not grab them as soon as they show us how beautiful they are, that we won't then... kill their beauty as soon as they show it to us. They say, this is a trustworthy person.

[54:20]

This person won't exploit so we can reveal the beauty to them. And what happens sometimes is that the person who was so good and not moving and was so tender and therefore so trustworthy, when they actually see the beauty, they collapse and grab. And then the beauty says, oh... six steps backward for you. And you go back and say, okay, I'm sorry. I won't do that the next time. I promise. But not even I promise. I just, okay, now I'm really going to trust that I don't have to grab this thing. This is a gift. And more gifts will come if I stop worrying about getting gifts. So everything is in the world of one mind, everything.

[55:20]

All characteristics, all signs, everything is there. It's just that we sit and stand in the confidence that we are already connected and inseparable from all good things and therefore all bad things. And this understanding is Buddha. And this understanding is each of us not moving or tampering with the gift of life at this moment, no matter what it is. And the test of this vision is whether it can be realized in liberating oneself and others from suffering and bondage. This one mind should have that fruit. That's a test, though, not something you're trying to get.

[56:24]

Because if you try to get it, you just refuted that you have a possibility of getting it. So there's nothing to do in a sense besides just not moving. And that's not doing anything either. And the practice there is you simply absorb yourself in what's happening. And then with no alternative, with no meddling, and then deeper and deeper layers of what's happening become available to understanding, and then if the practice goes on and you don't then grab those deeper understandings, then you get deeper understandings until finally you thoroughly understand that sentient beings and Buddhas are one mind.

[57:29]

But the very people who teach this kind of method also say, well, if you can't do this practice, we have another practice where you can actually, like, you know, seek something and get something and then seek something more and get something more. There's an alternative practice which they give if you refuse to just, you know, stop trying to get something. Then they have another practice called where you can get something. some people who strongly stressed the other one. But some teachers, like Dogen Zenji, they just teach this one vehicle. They don't give alternatives. But some other, actually the fourth ancestor, kind of I think because he was so strongly teaching this one practice, samadhi, he gave alternatives. But some of his disciples, some of his descendants, did not give an alternative, or at least not in public. Maybe in private he said, okay, yeah, you can do that. You can do this practice that you can get these characteristics.

[58:51]

So again, if we don't understand, if you do this practice, you will understand. And when you do understand, the practice, the discipline, is just something that's a natural expression. It's no longer something you need to do in order to understand. So the Buddhas do the same practice as the sentient beings, who are doing a practice which will help them realize what's going on. But in one case, it's a natural expression. In the other case, it seems to be a discipline in the sense of a way of learning. Discipline is the root of discipline is to learn. It's a way of learning. And it's a way of learning how to not seek which is the way a Buddha is.

[60:11]

A Buddha is not seeking. So your seeking mind feels frustrated by a course in how to not seek. The grasping mind feels frustrated in a course that's teaching you how not to grasp. And sentient beings have strong seeking, grasping tendencies, so those tendencies feel frustrated. And so the test of those who give this teaching of not moving is the tenderness which is all around, towards those who are pretty irritated by a practice that they can't do, a practice which they aren't allowed to seek, a practice of giving up strong tendencies that feel so good and natural.

[61:27]

to wallowing. there is in me, coming up to me, many, many more things that I actually would like to say to you.

[64:22]

And when I see all those things, I realize, well, you know, it's not possible to say all those things. I mean, it's possible, but it's so outrageous. So probably I should stop. because is there anything more that you really need to say?" And I thought, well, I just want to make sure that you know that when I say don't move, and that when a magician says to Buddha that when a sentient being doesn't move, they realize Buddhahood. That when that's said, do you understand that not moving is something that can happen throughout the day, in every moment, and you cannot move every step of the way to the bathroom?

[65:28]

Do you understand that? That if you're sitting in the zendo, you cannot move, even if you seem to change from one posture to another. Movement is an illusion. It's just that we change in time and space. But each moment there can be not moving. Okay? So I'm not saying, you know, just stay at your cushion and don't move and, you know, hurt your knees or something like that, or, you know, burn your butt. Just saying in each moment, don't move, don't try to be someplace else. That's what I mean by not moving. Each moment, look and study the one mind that's right there all the time. That's what I mean by not moving. Okay? There actually was a, what do you call it, a Japanese Zen student

[66:42]

who heard the teaching about not moving and wanted to test his faith in it and he sat on a railroad track in Japan to test his faith in the teaching of not moving. And he actually sat there and let the railroad train hit him. That's not what I mean by not moving. That's actually, what that is, is that's moving, that's reaching out and grabbing a characteristic about what not moving is. Okay? Not moving would be, if you had an idea like that, you would not move on that idea. You would just say, oh, that's an interesting idea, wow. That's a beautiful idea. It's so beautiful I can't grasp it. But also, sometimes when you're sitting in meditation and you have an idea, oh, how about walking out of the room?

[67:53]

That's a beautiful idea too, that you don't move on. And yet, we change. And yet the body sits and stands up and walks and sits and stands up. It happens. It happens together with the whole universe. These wonderful things happen by a beautiful process of reality. But there can be non-movement in every one of these moments. And I also thought, now my dog is in my office, you know. I just washed her, right? And so I was going to leave her in the house, all spank and clean. Still smells a little like shit, but basically, you know, cleaner. So I carried her down to my office and put her in my office.

[68:56]

And she's happy. She's up sitting on top of several Zabatons, very soft, with a nice kind of stinky towel on top. Now, when I go back there, you know, and I kind of want to keep her clean. I kind of want to prevent her from rolling in shit today. So I'm wondering, now, how can I do that tenderly? How can I be tender to my dog, you know, How can I be tender with her when she wants to roll in the shit? How to do it? How can I not move in each moment? Here we are, me and her. There's some shit. She wants to jump in it. And I prefer for her not to. How can I say, Rozzy, come here? And be still. and really accept her for being this little, this being who loves to do that.

[70:05]

How can I accept her, not tamper with her, not manipulate her with her, and be still with her and appreciate her always, and still say maybe, I'm a person who says, Rozzy, come here. That's an example of how difficult it is actually to get right in there and actually like, there's the preference. How do you not move with that preference and see the beauty of the dog, the beauty of the ship, the beauty of the preference, and not grasp any of them? And yet, there it is. And then everything changes and then there's a whole new set of circumstances and preferences. How do you find that stillness where you really feel tender and loving and gentle in the midst of all that? And really what you're about is realizing the one mind.

[71:07]

Not really about preventing shit getting on certain beings. And yet, That's where you are. It's very dynamic, very challenging. This is, well, it's just a wonderful practice, wonderful opportunity. Got all this stuff to work with, right? So among the many things that I want to say, those are the two additional things I did say, and now I will stop.

[71:43]

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