I've been trying to make clear that there is a lineage of teaching coming from Shakyamuni Buddha down to now that is quite clear and clear and unwavering. It responds to the current time and place, but is basically the same teaching, which is simply to respond to the needs of people at the time in such a way as to help them just sit.

[01:22]

with suchness. And the teachings that I've been bringing up are teachings which are given so that we may make a full effort, so that we may be effortful without fixed or limited ideas of how that effort should function. How we may be full of effort to be totally devoted to just sit without aiming at just sitting.

[02:48]

To make effort without aiming, to sit. In this way we accord with thusness and we accord with the signless, the wishless, and the empty path to nirvana. so that our minds may be pure so that our hearts and minds may be pure and open and alert and ready and silent and still without any device or technique

[04:13]

to realize this way. With no method, So let me ask you, do you remember the teaching of Buddha that I've been saying over and over? You don't? The Buddha said, please train yourself how? Thus. This is a teaching of dustness which the Buddha gave.

[05:27]

In the herd there will be what? In the herd there will be In the scene there will be In the imagined, there will be. In the known, there will be. In the reflected, there will be. When for you, In the seen, there is just the seen. In the heard, just the heard. In the imagined or reflected, just the imagined or reflected.

[06:44]

And in the known, just the known, just the cognized. then you will not what? What? That's a little later. You will not identify with it. When there's just the herd, When there's just the herd, there is not you here and just the herd over there. There's not you and just the scene over there. There's just the scene. So, when there's just the scene, then you will not identify with it. then you have not identified with it.

[07:50]

When you have not identified with it, then you will not locate yourself in it. When you do not locate yourself in it, there's no here or there or in between, and this will mean the end of suffering. That's what the Buddha said. That's English translation of what he said. He actually said it in Spanish. So again, not identifying with practice, not identifying with sounds or images or imagination means that you're not stressing that these things are objects and making an object out there.

[09:07]

The mind has turned around back to the place where the object, the subject and the experience and the organ which separates them are all co-producing each other. The mind has turned around now and is looking at causation, has immersed itself in causation, is contemplating emptiness. The Buddha said, please train yourself thus. Please meditate on how all experience is co-produced. Don't emphasize, don't stress the object. Have no objects of thought. The Buddha taught many other things because people brought other situations. This was his teaching on one occasion. But the Zen school particularly picks up this thread of Buddha's teaching. So Bodhidharma, his main teaching was this aspect of Buddhist teaching.

[10:16]

All he taught, basically, was this. To his disciple, Huayka, he said, what did he say? I mean, after he said, go away, you distracted a wimp after he said that and the guy cut his arm off. Then he gave him a simple teaching. What was it? Remember? Outside have no involvement with objects. Or don't activate the mind around objects. Inside, no coughing or sighing in the mind.

[11:22]

If you can keep doing this, you'll have no doubts." And so that was his teaching. And then it just goes down, down. And also I could cite many ancestors between Buddha and Bodhidharma that had the same teaching. Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, same teaching. And then coming down, both, all the disciples of the six ancestors spread and do this same thing Give this same teaching in many, many, many ways according to the situation, according to the question. Is no coughing or sighing like pay attention?

[12:22]

Yeah. Like, how do you practice? Pay attention. Is there any further teaching you have? Pay attention. Is there any further teaching you have? Pay attention. Pay attention. he said isn't the practice we've been directed to watching the breath concentration on an object oh I forgot to tell you before Bodhidharma right his teacher. What did his teacher say? They asked him, why don't you read scriptures? And he said, this poor wayfarer, what did he say?

[13:23]

This poor wayfarer said something. I know, oh, recites no scriptures or can't find any or something like that. This poor wayfarer, oh yeah, just goes right into it. This poor wayfarer does not dwell in the realm of body and mind breathing in. Does not abide in myriad circumstances breathing out. So he's saying, he's not directing us to take the breath as an object, He's saying, when you're breathing, don't make the breath an object. That's what he's saying. But he's also, also, we do not deny the body and mind.

[14:24]

We just don't dwell in it. We don't identify with it or deny it either. So, go ahead. You're definitely not being told to meditate on the breath as an object. Definitely not being told that. You're being told to meditate on the breath without it being an object. Definitely. It means that you activate thought around the breath and you call it an object. You stress the object. I'm suggesting that you do not direct yourself. This teaching is not suggesting a direction.

[15:26]

It's suggesting you do not direct yourself. Yeah, right. I'm saying, if breath is happening, the reason why it's happening is because you're noticing it. Already you're noticing it. If you're aware of your breath, you should not want to be aware of something else. If you're not aware of your breath, we do not recommend that you become aware of your breath. Just teaching. Just a second. He's still resisting. What's the matter? I think you're generally aware of a way to arrive.

[16:50]

You're generally aware? You're aware of a way to arrive . Yes. Whenever there's an experience, you cannot have, a human being cannot have an experience without an object. There must be an object of the consciousness. and an organ, you must have those three things to have an experience. No other way. Okay? Those always happen whenever you have an experience.

[17:56]

And you said something like, in meditation I'm aware of what comes up. Okay? But that language, I'm aware of what comes up, sounds like What comes up is something that you're aware of, rather than what comes up is the meditation. And what comes up is not just the object, but also the consciousness and the organ, they all come up. What comes up is what you should be aware of, but not one part of what comes up, namely the object. So we're basically saying don't stress the object. The mind, generally speaking, the mind is going out, is directed out to objects and therefore the mind is disturbed because it's going out towards objects. What's being suggested is that you stop stressing the object, turn the mind around and start looking at the whole causal nexus and settle into that.

[19:07]

If you do that, the mind is naturally, spontaneously, without any device, at peace. If you just have no objects of thought, if you just have no objects before you, your mind is immediately stabilized. We do not say there are no thoughts. If there are no thoughts, there's nothing. There's no experience, there's no problem, there's no nothing. We don't say there's no thoughts. We're only concerned with experience, and in particular suffering. But to say there's no object of thought does not mean that there's no objects, because if there's no objects, There's no experience. There's no life. It just means that you don't see objects out there. To see an object out there is to add something to the situation.

[20:16]

To let the scene just be the scene means that you don't, in addition, stress that that thing is out there and you're back here. It means you turn around and see that that scene depends on consciousness and organ and a lot of other things to be the experience it is. This instruction is to get you to turn around from the habitual going out to objects and stressing them as objects. But realization also only can happen through the five skandhas, through body and mind. It only happens on body and mind. But when we're breathing, we don't dwell in the realm of body and mind. It means you don't make the body and mind something out there.

[21:20]

Because if you make the body and mind something out there, this is not the body and mind, this is just some limited idea of body and mind. So you sit in readiness, in open expectation to be enlightened as to what the body and mind is, or body-mind is, as it arises. So we simply, zazen is to simply be able to peacefully abide in the law of cause and effect. Bodhidharma also taught to simply, what did he say, accord with the causal nexus. Remember that one? Simply accord with the causal nexus. peacefully live with the causes and conditions that are coming together right now.

[22:43]

For example, if you're anxious, to accord with the causal nexus is to be anxious and not to desire to have peace of mind. And to accord with anxiety itself is to realize suchness without delay. If you are desiring peace of mind, then it is recommended that you desire peace of mind. And you accept that you are desiring peace of mind. As Manjushri says, for a living being to be a living being is precisely what we need by awakening.

[24:03]

Yes? Pardon? What do I mean when I say be ready? Expectation means expecting nothing in particular. It means a radical openness. Are you ready now? You're expecting? Like you can expect in all directions at once, that's readiness. And that instruction is to help you just sit, rather than just sit in some limited way.

[25:17]

That instruction is to help you Be ready means also to be ready to accept without any resistance what's happening. If two contradictory things happen at the same time, can you say it louder? If two contradictory things happen at the same time, you accord with the thing, which is the two contradictory things happening at the same time. Hmm? No, with... For example, I sometimes use this example, okay? These two things are kind of contradictory. They're the right and left hand. They're opposite. They seem to be happening at the same time. Okay? Okay?

[26:18]

Which one do you accord with? You don't accord with either one. You accord with both of them at the same time. And also you accord with the fact that they're a certain distance apart. Also, these two hands are both separate and joined. You understand? Now I say these two hands are both separate and joined. Do you understand? You don't see if they're separate? Now you see they're separate? Do you? You see they're separate? Now you see they're separate? Now you see they're separate? Now you see they're separate? Do you? Are they also joined? Okay. You see they're joined and separate at the same time? And do you see the place Where they're joined?

[27:21]

Where's the place they're joined? They're joined at the place at the edge. They're joined at the place they're separated. Right? Pardon? It's a metaphor? Yes, it's a metaphor. And now they're separated too. And where are they also joined? Do you see that they're joined also? You see the separation? You see the joining? Do you see what joins them? Now, do you see what joins them now? Try harder. Try, try. Do you see, are you and I separated? Are we joined? So anyway, what we're trying to realize is that the subject and object, the consciousness and the object are joined.

[28:34]

We're trying to understand that. Everything is actually separated and joined at the same time. All things are this way. If you study how things are separated, you will find that the place that they are joined is in their separation. The place where the organ and the object and the consciousness meet is the same place where they separate. It's exactly the same place. Everything happens at that point. So it doesn't happen that more than... The contradictory things happen at the same time. Yes, like right and left hand happen at the same time. The organ and the object and the consciousness are contradictory things. But they happen at the same time. And all the contradictory things together co-produce each other and make a thing called an experience. An experience is actually a totality of contradictory events. And only one experience happens at a time. So the meditation of suchness is to accord, is to settle with the total causation of an experience, embracing all the contradictory events and feeling all the contradictory events embrace each other.

[29:46]

It's a law. It's the law of the universe. It worked out that way. . all the government, everyone in the government, just the general board, 50 of the students, you know, 50 girls in the general board of going to college, which is so much deluded in the whole body, not just the youth college, but the business. And, because it's a government, you know, you have to follow the practices. Can you talk about the fear experience of imagining?

[31:30]

Imagining is a sort of desire that kind of takes me out of the world. You know, I'm going through fear experience of imagining. Because to imagine, it's to be imagined. There's some fear experiences that bring to imagine. In any experience, all these experiences I'm talking about are experiences in the realm of where you actually have some knowledge of your experience, okay? I'm talking about in the realm of knowledge. In the realm of knowledge there's basically everything you're experiencing is a concept, is an image. we're living primarily, most of us are trapped in an imaginary world, in a world of images. The correct way to imagine?

[32:34]

Any way you imagine is fine. It's just that if you think, which we do, we have a tendency, the way the mind works is that as soon as the mind sees objects. As soon as the mind sees something outside itself and stresses the object, or take one step back, at a more basic level of our consciousness, of our life, and also at a more primitive level of development, there is conscious life. which is very calm and blissful, but it knows no objects. As soon as the mind knows objects, its basic tranquility and its experience of interconnectedness and co-production is lost and the mind is disturbed by objects.

[33:44]

However, even though it's a disturbance to this basic composure and interconnectedness and organic bliss, even though that happens, still something quite wonderful happens, namely there's knowledge, knowledge of objects, objective knowledge. And with that sense of objective knowledge, there arises a sense of this thing, of identity, of a self. And with that sense of self, there also spontaneously arises four afflictions. An ignorance of this self, an ignorance of this thing. Ignorance means you ignore it. You don't look at it. You just turn away from it and assume it's there. A belief in the existence of this thing, a love of this thing and a pride in this thing.

[34:51]

This thing which then gets credit for the accomplishment of objective knowledge. This self-ignorance and this belief in the existence of self then gets projected out onto the conceptual realm. Because as soon as experience is made objective, made into objects, then all experience is conceptual or imagined or imaginary. And then the imaginary world is imbued with existence, with substance, with a self. And it is imbued with ignorance of itself, because you don't look at it to examine what really is there. You just assume it there, just like you assume that this thing is there. The imagination is fine. The attribution of self to it causes the problems. So that's why this meditation is to say, just let things as they appear be enough. Just let the heard be the heard.

[35:55]

Just let a sound, a color, or a taste appear. Just let that be enough. Don't add anything to it. That's not pure imagining. That's recognizing that this is pure imagination. Imagination is already pure. All we need to do is just let it be in its pure imaginary form. Let the image just be the image. Let the imagined just be the imagined. This reverses the pattern of disturbance and reunites the mind of imaginary conceptual existence with the mind of objectless awareness. and the whole system becomes unified again and we are freed from suffering. This is exactly the same as to just accord with your causal conditions. And it's the same as saying, have no objects before you.

[36:58]

Okay? This is not easy, but this is the instruction. And not only that, but one other thing I want to throw into this for you, for you to... Just one other thing that's going here is that I read this little article one time about this American filmmaker. His name is Preston Sturgis. He made movies in the... 40s and 50s, and I saw one of his movies actually called The Travels of Sullivan, or Sullivan's Travels, or something like that. And the director described this man as, he said, he said, a man is what he is. A person is what he is. So he was made, and so he will be. And the reviewer of this book about Sturgis said,

[38:03]

But a Sturgis movie doesn't feel like that. A man may be what he is, but when that provokes everything he isn't to rear its head, the result is dynamic. When a person is just what they are, that causes everything they aren't to happen. which is extremely dynamic. Or another way to put it is when a character is secure in some controlling art or some controlling skill, the character is thereby launched into an uncharted rampage of extremes. When you can sit still, when you become skillful at sitting still, you are thrown into an uncharted rampage of extremes.

[39:05]

When you're not still, you think you're not still. And you think the walls are still. And the schedule is intact. And you have the same neighbors you did yesterday. But when you sit still, you are thrown into an uncharted rampage. Because when you are just what you are, everything that isn't you raises its, rears its head. When you are exactly what you are, everything that isn't you rears its head. And when everything that isn't you rears its head, you forget about you. This is meditation on emptiness. So you people are sitting on your seat and getting more and more like you.

[40:12]

And the more you get like you, the more you approach being at your place and according with your causal nexus, your causal connections, the more everything else rears its head and the situation gets more and more dynamic. Lifts its head up. No, starts dancing. Everything that isn't you starts happening. Another way to say this is, Buddhas always turn the wheel of Dharma in the midst of fierce flames. See that calm Buddha over there? Surrounded by flames. This Buddha is, that's flames around his head. This Buddha over here, flames around her head. And in the midst of the flames are Buddhas who are surrounded by flames. What are these flames? These are the flames of everything else in the universe that isn't that person.

[41:19]

The reason why we should accord with the causal nexus is because everything that isn't us is making us be where we are. That always happens. That's why it's a good idea to accord with the rest of the universe, which is making you be what you are. If you're anxious, the entire universe is supporting that. And if you would join your anxiety, you would have universal support. You would be completely free. You would be completely liberated, if you could accord with that. And as you approach being in your place, you feel the entire universe coming up around you and all uncharted. Uncharted means not under your control. A rampage of extremes, of polarities, rear up around you and go into fierce, boiling activity.

[42:29]

That's always happening anyway, but you start to realize it because you are willing to sit on your seat. That's what it means to be a living being. To be willing to be a living being means to sit on your place and let the world happen, which causes you. This is also called meditating on cause and effect. This is also called sitting peacefully and abiding in the causation of the here and now. These Buddhas who are sitting in the middle of flames are not flailing around saying, let me out of here. They are sitting calmly, peacefully, and they say, a cool breeze rises. Uh-huh. They don't have to always be unpleasant.

[43:33]

That's just a... Yeah, right. Swimming in a teacup. Right. A teacup surrounded by a poisonous ocean of pain. Well, there's pleasant teacups, but if you sit in one of those pleasant teacups for long enough, you realize that it's also unpleasant. That's what they teach. So the first step is to get in a teacup. The second step is when the teacup starts to seem unpleasant, you stay in the teacup.

[44:33]

And when you are convinced, moment by moment, that every experience you have in the teacup is marked, is characterized by unpleasantness, then you are surrounded by fierce flames. And not only is the teacup unpleasant, but the teacup also is impermanent. And a teacup is also, doesn't really have any teacup to it. When you start seeing things that way, but particularly the one that's most strong at the point of conversion is the frustrating, the nauseating, the painful, the not quite right part of the teacup is the part that's most prominent. And when you are convinced of that, prominent.

[45:37]

Prominent. Yeah. When you're aware of that one, you're able then to switch over to a new mode, a mode of the wishless, the signless, and the empty. you will then be willing to turn around and stop looking at things the way you have been looking at them, which is the reason why you experience them as painful, and start looking back in the other direction towards the causal nexus. If you accord with the causal nexus, you do not, you are free of suffering, even if suffering is happening, you are freed of it. Because if you accord with suffering, if you really accord with it, if that's what you are, everything that isn't that rears up. And your suffering is just a teacup in the middle of a raging, vivid universe. ... And the things I'm about to look at because I know that I've got that look.

[47:00]

And it's just all the stuff that's there. It's made there. I mean, trying to look and see what's happening. And yet, when it's made, I'm like, what's the use of that? And I'm also like, hey, this is weird because it's part of the picture. Well it sounds like you haven't quite been able to do what the Buddha suggested. It sounds like you're still not letting the teacup just be the teacup. It sounds like there's still somebody over here looking at the teacup. It sounds like you still have a little resistance to the teacup and to the characteristics of the experience of a teacup.

[48:05]

Sounds like you're still holding back a little bit for Richard. You don't want to be? Uh-huh. Right. And that's called resistance. You're resisting being what you are. And resistance comes in those three varieties. Confused, angry, and lustful. Those are three basic varieties of resistance. But it's not, I mean, you're doing that, but we all do that off and on or quite a bit or whatever. We resist simply accepting what's happening. And even if you can accept what's happening now, then they change it.

[49:07]

That's the law. That's right. As soon as you get adapted to it, you get something else. That's why I recommended at the beginning that you stop making adaptations to samsara. Stop adapting to it. Stop accommodating to it. Stop making these accommodations like catatonia and psychosia and richness and poorness and intelligence and all that other stuff. Many views we have of some way to adapt to birth and death. Forget that adapting stuff and just accord with it. Have no adaptation. Adaptation means you're sticking something on top of it. You're still trying to hold on to some trip. Just jump into birth and death completely without holding on to anything. Strip yourself of everything and just die and just be born. and just die and just be born just keep doing that moment after moment crap after crap without trying to fix samsara it is unfixable and those who try to fix it just are miserable ineffective people that's it and when somebody else comes to you and asks you to fix their thing don't fall for it

[50:37]

That is counter-transference. Just see, oh, now I want to fix them. They're suffering. They want to fix themselves, and I want to help them fix themselves. This is counter-transference. And that's good, too, because now I feel that, so now I can tell them, oh, you want me to fix that. And then they can say, well, no, actually, I don't. I know you can't. And then they know that really they're into fixing samsara rather than according with samsara. Buddha never made the slightest effort after he was enlightened to fix samsara. Before he was enlightened, he tried to fix it. It's perfectly reasonable and a nice thing to think about, trying to fix samsara. It's a nice thing to think about. It's a wholesome thought. But it just is simply a vain activity.

[51:45]

It's hopeless. It's conceited. You cannot fix samsara. But if you accord with samsara, you will become a bodhisattva. you will become happy and not leaking and compassionate. Also, if you could fix samsara, you wouldn't be compassionate because you would have fixed it up and you wouldn't be suffering anymore. You plunge into the pain of birth and death and birth and death, and you walk through it, and every time you walk through it, it hurts. Buddha hurts. But Buddha sits in the middle of the hurt and doesn't try to get out of it. He just sits there and turns the wheel of Dharma. Kick, kick, kick, kick. Do you want to talk now? You want to talk now?

[52:48]

Where I connected them? What's the question? Every experience is produced by these three working together. These three, you never have consciousness without an object, you never have object without a consciousness, and you never have object and consciousness without an organ. You never have an organ without an object or without a consciousness. All those three things co-produce each other. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm repeating. It's a basic teaching about the mechanical cause and effect situation that happens every moment. Okay? Yeah?

[53:58]

Yeah. Yeah, it's like that. It's all that kind of stuff, right? Being with it is being all... Being with it is everything you said, including the trying to fix it. It's just everything together. You name it, you got it. That's what...

[55:01]

There's nothing really in the middle, right? But there seems to be a middle. It's sort of implied. It's not like in the middle is the one place where there isn't anything. There isn't anything anyplace. You kind of forget about it. Right. Right. Right. But when you reach for the vortex, you get a bunch of water. When you reach for the water, you get a vortex. Yeah, that's right. Okay, so I hope you can have confidence to... Because I think most of you now maybe have found the Fierce Flames. around you and so I would encourage you to try to sit there in the middle of the Spirit's plane and try to see how your being there is turning the wheel of cause and effect and see if you can calmly peacefully abide there and with the confidence that there's no way to do that

[56:33]

and just be ready there in that situation. This is where the Buddha works. Do you believe that? Yes. Well, I'll say that my Buddhahood is realized to the extent that I believe that. That's what I believe. When I completely believe it, well, if I ever would completely, when I believe it a lot, when I believe it a lot, I'm very happy. And not only am I happy, but I notice that the people around me are happy too. And I'm not afraid of their suffering anymore. As a matter of fact, I can embrace it and go back to the mountains with it.

[57:44]

And if I don't accept it and I try to get out of the flames, I notice that I'm really miserable. And also, I don't want to see anybody else's suffering either. Because not only does it make it worse, but I feel ashamed. Not only can't I face mine, but I can't face others. But if I can face my own, especially if I really accept my own, especially if I really accept my own and I'm really accepting my own and I really realize how extensive mine is, when it's really overwhelming and burning me all up, Then sometimes what other people are telling me about, who aren't themselves living in the middle of their suffering even, who are just sort of like in the suburbs of their own suffering, then I sometimes kind of like have a little bit of a chuckle. Like I sometimes say to people who think it's too noisy outside during Sesshin, just cross your legs in full lotus. And if they're already in full lotus, then I would say, well, cross them the other way.

[58:56]

And usually that takes care of the problem. When I'm in the middle of my suffering, I really love everyone. And I'm not afraid of people suffering. When I'm on this edge of my suffering, when I'm checked out of my suffering, then I can't meet people. And I But I don't mean being in suffering and wiggling and twisting and fighting and running away from it. I don't mean that kind of in the middle. I mean in the middle where you can't move an inch because it's coming at you from all directions. Just like if you have two friends who are suffering and they're coming at you this way, you think, yeah. But when you have two behind you and two on the right and two on the left and up there and down there, when they're coming at you from all directions, you can't get away. You're done for. And then you're happy. You're done for. You're finished. You're done. The work's over.

[60:01]

All you got to do then is cope. That's all. That's the teaching. What is it? The monk asked Umun, what was Buddha's teaching of his entire lifetime? And he said, facing... You can say facing oneness or you can say facing one teaches. You just handle one at a time. Hi, hi. It's like, you know, what is it like? It's like a guy running for president, you know, going to a big group of people and he starts shaking hands with people, you know. Now, I heard Bush described, or how was he described? It sounds like a bodhisattva. He was shaking hands with people like this. that's why they have all those arms so you can join hands with all beings and walk through birth and death with them that's the point and how can you possibly do that

[61:11]

by turning around and contemplating the objectless world, then you can cope with these flames. It's not that you're retreating from them. It's not that you're retreating from them. It's not that you're running away from them. It's just that you don't see them as objects. If they're objects, they're going to attack you. But if they're not objects, they don't hurt you. A sewer, if you're in the sewer, you're all right. What's disgusting is a sewer next door. Not in my neighborhood. But if you're in the sewer, you don't talk like that. Do you understand? Do you believe that? Yeah. Yeah. But it's not easy to live in the sewer. It's not easy, especially when you have temporarily gotten a little distant from it. Now I'm supposed to get back in the sewer?

[62:16]

I'm supposed to jump into the fire? Yes, that's right. Which means go back to the zendo and sit there. Pardon? incomparably easier to live in the sewer than next door to it. The only problem is having a sewer next door. That's the only problem. Without sewers being next door, you don't suffer. When sewers are next door, that means you identify with it. It means, I'm here, the sewer's over there. That's identifying with it. Also denying it is, ignoring it is identifying with it. When you're in the sewer, you're not identifying with it. It's just the sewer. There's not even you anymore. There's just sewer. There's just flame. That's where Buddha lives, exactly there. But it's not... When things change and a new situation comes up, a new world, a new fire, a new sewer...

[63:23]

you can have this reflex of seeing it as an object. It's built in. You see it as an object. Then you're out to lunch. You're in the suburbs. And then you're going to go back into the inner city, going to re-enter the slums. That's what you're being asked to do. When the causal nexus arises, we have this immediate experience to make it an object and to try to keep it away if it's obnoxious. But also we keep it away if it's pleasant. So we have to keep turning around on a dime, moment after moment, keep turning around and not being caught by objects, not seeing things outside of ourselves. That's the way you jump back in. And if you can't do that, we have a special technique called sitting, especially sitting a long time. If you see things as objects, the heat builds up. And finally, when the heat gets hot enough, you drop this object stuff and people sitting in exactly the same pain with no problem.

[64:27]

How does it happen? They just turn around and stop seeing objects before them. And then all there is is just pain. There's nobody there having the pain or running away from the pain or having a choice about the pain or anything. There's just pain. We don't want you to have pain. You got that automatically by being alive. It's a characteristic of having objects. And having objects is a characteristic of objective knowledge. And objective knowledge is unavoidable for human beings that don't have brain damage. So if you have the suffering, you're intact. You can be a bodhisattva. One other thing which I'd like to suggest is that we try a little experiment for the next couple of days.

[65:34]

And if you don't like this, I'll give it up. But I just suggest that, you know, during the serving of seconds, we say the traditional way is not to eat during seconds. Just sit there and be served or let other people be served. And then when everybody's served, we start eating again. But when we tried to establish this practice at Tassajara, there was a small rebellion. And I, myself, gave into it and we made a compromise, which was you can finish your firsts. If you haven't finished your firsts when they're serving seconds, you can keep working on your firsts. But you don't eat your seconds until everybody gets their seconds. Okay? But I thought we might try for the rest of Sashin just the radical method of

[66:36]

not eating during seconds. Just stop eating entirely. And do something with yourself at that time. What do you call that, Norman? Zazen. Just do zazen during that time. And then if you get bored with that, well, then supper. Or get angry. Or ask for some food. What? That's true zazen. So, now, just for the next couple of days and then we can reconsider it later. So, what do you think? Practice leaders? Want to? What?

[67:40]

I give up. What? Some other question? Yes? Everybody just takes a little break from eating and gets into some other activity like anger, whatever. This meal's getting awfully long. This is cutting into my break time and I'm in more pain. No more seconds. That would really shorten things. How about no firsts? Anyway, as you saw, there was not, I didn't get approval from the local track machine unit.

[69:08]

I was just hoping for unanimous approval. But this decision had not been made. So please continue. doing the practice that you were doing before. What? What were you doing before? During practice, what was the image? The first, the evening, and the second, particularly when the play comes. So you didn't, yeah, you put them in that. Okay. No, no, that's not seconds. That's water. And the water can come out. If you haven't finished, you should continue. Do you sing while you drink?

[70:57]

Sing, sing. Yeah, sing in English. It's the same thing. If you go crazy, you can sing while you drink. It's okay to sing while you drink. It's better than saying a healthy thing. Sing while you drink. Lay it down in the water. Like a garage down there. Now, I actually believe the stuff I said today.

[72:13]

But my faith is not one hundred percent. When I say I believe, I mean up near the humanity a lot of times, but sometimes it's down around thirty percent. Twenty-five percent. Only in Europe sometimes. In other words, sometimes I did not accord with the call from God. I suffered terribly. I felt really ashamed of myself, particularly ashamed that I am a fruit of the tree. I'm not accorded with what God needs. But then I remembered, oh, the reason why I'm suffering is because I'm resisting the path. And I faced that coming up a little bit. The more I accept, the more it works. It definitely works. I totally believe that it works when it works, but I also slip. So I know it's hard to accord with your life.

[73:15]

When you're not accorded with your life, it's hard to put those that are not accorded to accorded. It's hard to make the shift, to make the reversal, to turn around and turn your life in other directions. I know it's hard, but I really believe it works. Just don't expect it to be easy. Just don't expect to be able to do it all the time, right away. But if you can do it all the time, right away, fine. And you might be able to do it all the time, or you might be able to do it at a time, all the way. It's all in the world. So can you try? I will do it.

[73:56]

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