I have the thought that I want to emphasize, emphasize what I spoke of yesterday, which is that the samadhi, of the ancestors the Zen ancestors the Samadhi of the Zen ancestors which we call Zazen the Zazen that the ancestors speak of is it's an intimate transmission The Bodhisattva Samadhi is an intimate communion.

[01:04]

The Samadhi is not the Buddha separate from living beings. The Samadhi is the interpenetration of Buddha. and sentient beings. And there's a song which you recited yesterday. It's a song about Samadhi, about the Bodhisattva Samadhi. In this case, it's a song about the precious mirror Bodhisattva Samadhi. And it starts off by saying the teaching of thusness, the teaching of thus, which again is in the Avatamsaka Sutra, but also almost all the sutras start with the word thus.

[02:26]

teaching of the Buddhas is thus. Very simple. And some people might say, well, if that's a teaching, why say more? And the answer is, because you asked that question. The teaching of thus. And then the song goes on and the way I would say it, the song is, the teaching of thus. Intimate transmission. Buddha ancestors. But the way it's usually translated is the teaching of thus is intimately transmitted.

[03:35]

by Buddha ancestors. I don't disagree with that except if you say by Buddha ancestors, what about all sentient beings? What the intimate transmission is, it is the teaching of thus. The teaching of thus is a transmission, an intimate communion. And that Teaching of thus is samadhi. Teaching of thus is intimate communion. And that's what Buddhas and ancestors are. They are intimate communion. They do not do the practice. Buddha does not do the practice by herself. Buddha in communion is with all beings is to practice.

[04:38]

And living beings think, they think, I raise my hand, I say hello, that's a sentient being that thinks. They think they can, they often think that they can think. that they can do what they want. They think that way. Or they think, I can't do what I want. But they think they do that by themselves, which is not true. They think untrue things. But people who have minds like that, can be and are actually in communion with the Buddhas and ancestors. And that communion is the practice. This morning, towards the end of the second period of sitting,

[06:00]

I came into the room. I came into the room not by my own power. I came into the room by the power of all of you. Just like a couple of days ago I came to Sweden not by my own power. but because of all of you. I don't do anything by myself. So I came into the room and I saw you sitting and I stood right in front of the seat and I looked at the floor and I contemplated being in the presence of the Buddha. I was standing here contemplating being in the presence of Buddha.

[07:07]

You were sitting around the room. Were you contemplating being in the presence of Buddha? Please join me in being mindful of being present with Buddha. Again, in the sutra it says over and over. Do not... What is that? Do not regress from being present with Buddha. Do not regress. Do not slip back from Buddha's presence. You can't really... But still we say, don't regress from being present with Buddha. Anyway, I sat there and I did contemplate that... And some sweet emotion came up in me. The beginning of tears at the standing, in this case, at the thought of standing in the presence of Buddha.

[08:18]

I wasn't trying to get anything from you. I wasn't trying to get anything from Buddha. But I was. contemplating being in Buddha's presence, but also being in the presence of Buddha. Contemplating awakening's presence. Awakening has presence. I contemplated being in the presence of awakening. But also, I am the presence. You are the presence of awakening. And then a story came to a story, yeah, a story came to my mind that I think in 2000, early 2000, maybe 2000, anyway, a while ago, I went with a group of friends to China and we visited a number of temples

[09:31]

of our ancestors. And one morning we were going to go to the temple of the sixth ancestor of Zen. And we were staying in a hotel, our group. And so we got up with the intention of going to the temple. of the sixth ancestor. And I think it was when I was walking out of the room, I think, out of the hotel room, but maybe a little bit before I walked out, my wife said to me, you're going to visit your ancestor today. And again, a kind of a sweet emotion arose in me, just like when I was here today. contemplating meeting my teacher, meeting my teacher, my teacher awakening.

[10:41]

So we went to the temple and it wasn't too far from the hotel. We went to the monastery. We went through the gates and this wonderful tears started to come out of these eyes and run down this face. It wasn't this face. That face back then. Tears came down the face of the person going through the gate of his ancestor's monastery. Yeah. We were allowed to go through the gate into the monastery and to walk up to the Buddha Hall and walk into the Buddha Hall and then we could prostrate our ancestor and I wasn't planning on it but I bowed 108 times and by the time I was done I was my clothes were very very wet from sweat it was so lovely and some of the people who were there in the temple with me they started to do it too

[12:02]

so lovely to be in the presence of Buddha the sixth ancestor awakening now I would say that this 108 boughs that's what it's like to sit upright in the presence of Buddha to give yourself to sit upright and give yourself to awakening and in the sutra I have a little problem with the great translator's translation of the beginning of that chapter he said the bodhisattva universal goodness sat

[13:06]

and by the power of the Buddha, entered samadhi. He left out, which it says in the original, samantabhadra, universally good bodhisattva, sat, he left this out, in the presence of Buddha. And now I want to emphasize, sitting in the presence of Buddha means that you're sitting, with the presence of Buddha. You're being, you're present like a Buddha. You sit upright with Buddha like a Buddha. How does a Buddha sit? A Buddha sits completely settled in the way she is. That bodhisattva was totally settled into that bodhisattva. If the bodhisattva is not settled, in being the bodhisattva, the bodhisattva doesn't realize that she's being lifted up into the samadhi.

[14:15]

Because she's not there. Because she's distracted from being who she is. From her fear, her pain, her confusion. She wants to be someplace else. She's not present. So when we're in the Buddha's presence, we are present like a Buddha, completely being this bodhisattva. And then we don't have to do anything other than completely be settled. The bodhisattva doesn't get herself into the samadhi. She's completely herself, and that's how she enters. So our responsibility is not to get ourselves into the Buddha Samadhi.

[15:25]

Our responsibility is to settle where we are. And we're the only one who can do it. Nobody else can settle into you where you're sitting. You have your seat. Yeah. Last Saturday was just a couple days ago, but the Saturday before that, I gave an online talk, which is titled, Introduction to Book 15, The Ten Abodes of Bodhisattvas, which I talked about yesterday. And at the end of the discussion, Somebody brought up a teaching he read in the Buddhist scriptures. And he said it a certain way. He said there's three things and he talked about them.

[16:28]

And then I said, oh yeah. And I said it my way. These are three, what are called outflows. Or you can call it, yeah, three outflows. Three ways of flowing away from where you are. taught by the Buddha. And they are, I think you remember saying Sanskrit, they are Bhavaraga, Abhavaraga, and Kamaraga. Three ways to try to be someplace else. To get away from here. To get away from this. to get away from stress, to get away from fear, to get away from here. So bhavaraga means, can be translated bhava, means being.

[17:31]

And raga is like lust or desire. It's a desire for being. Like you could desire to be more relaxed. You could desire to be... You could desire to be happier. You could desire to be healthier. You could desire to be better looking. You could desire to be thinner. You could desire to be more awake. You're desiring various forms of being other than just settling on this one, which you've already got. You could even... Anyway, basically desire to be something other than just... Settled here. Bavaraga. Another one is abavaraga, which means desiring not being or desire being not. Like, okay, I've been desiring being that and being that and being that and being that.

[18:39]

It's not working. I'm out of here. Give me a break. I don't want to be it anymore. I want to non-exist. A lot of people just don't want to be anymore. That's the other way to try to get away. If I can't be that, at least let me get away from this and all this. And the last one is called Kamaraga, which is sex. So those are the three. Before people had all the things we have they use those three things to get away from to get away from being present three ways to get away from present which have now in a sense particularly the bhavaraga part has been really expanded the states of being that were unknown in ancient times

[19:43]

And if I am caught in one of those ragas, in one of those desire for something realms, even then it's possible to be present. And if I'm present in one of those states, I can note, oh my gosh, I'm trying to get away from being here. I'm trying to get away from being with these people. I'm trying to get away from... being with this person. I'm with a person and I think I'm trying to get away from this person and be with somebody over there instead of over here. I sometimes speak of that as like a cocktail party. I went to a few cocktail parties in ancient times. And I thought the food was fairly good. But I noticed that everybody that came to see me, as soon as they met me, they were looking for somebody better to talk to.

[20:59]

They're talking to me and they're looking around. Is there somebody more interesting than this person? Oh, here, I'd like you to meet Reb over here. Oh, hi, Reb. So, yeah. They didn't seem to be committed to being where they were talking to the person they were talking to. They aren't even committed to being distracted. They're just constantly trying to get away in the cocktail party. So we have... a confession practice where when we notice we're trying to get away, we can notice that. And if you're trying to get away, don't try to get away from trying to get away.

[22:05]

Because you're already trying to get away. Don't try to get away from that. Confess, I'm trying to get away. Before you try to get away from being so stupid, I'm stupid. You're stupid. Yes, I'm stupid. And I'm very happy that for the moment I know I'm stupid. And I seem to be willing to be here and be stupid. And even say, I'm stupid, that's what I am, and I'm sorry I'm stupid. I'm not asking anybody to forgive me, I'm just asking everybody to be intimate with me. That's how you do your job. Your job to be what you are. And if you do, you are in the presence of Buddha.

[23:07]

And you are always in the presence of Buddha. Always, always, always. But if you try to get away, you miss. And this morning I said, I said the first verse of the sutra. the first verse of the Sutra, which in Tom Cleary's translation is on page 65. There are 65 pages at the beginning describing the people, the beings, I should say, in the Great Assembly. And then the verses about Buddha's body start. And the first verse I said this morning, the body of Buddha pervades throughout all the great assemblies. Do you remember that? Filling the Dharma realm without end.

[24:16]

What's filling the Dharma realm without end? Buddha body is filling the Dharma realm. Silent. What? The Buddha body is silent and still has no nature and is ungraspable. And it appears in order to liberate beings. But fundamentally, it's ungraspable. Now I'm talking about being in the presence of the body of Buddha, which I can't grasp. And I can't get away from. And it's quiet and still. And you and me being settled in where we are, the subtleness is quiet and still.

[25:22]

And in fact, we are always settled, quiet and still. But if we don't receive it, even though we are it, we miss it. So this Buddha body is always with us. It's always ready to embrace us and bring us, I should say, embrace us and help us enter the samadhi where we already are. But if we're not home, we miss it. And being home is the most difficult thing in our life. Because just to be home without trying to get anything. It is our responsibility.

[26:40]

It is possible. Then the intimate transmission is actualized. It's already going on, but we have to completely be here to actualize it. This is my emphasis on day two. And another thing that popped in my head this morning when I was standing here. Welcome back. How was it out there? Relieving. Like when I got my passport.

[27:42]

I said to the person, thank you so much. I feel so relieved. The people in the press board office were so kind to me. I was standing here and I thought of a story that a friend of mine told me 40 years ago. She said she was in San Francisco on a street called Fillmore Street. one of the famous streets in San Francisco, waiting for a bus. And she's met this old black man. And I think she asked him, maybe she found out he was 100 years old, I'm not sure. But she said to him, to what do you owe your great age? And he said, I just stand upright in his presence. So, you know, in Zen, there's a little bit of a bias to sitting upright.

[28:53]

Not so much about standing upright. But anyway. Okay. I was looking for Valerian. Now I see you. You were always there. And now I see you. Which reminds me of a poem. This leaky tumble-down grass hut left opening to the moon.

[29:56]

Now I see it. All the while, it was reflected in the teardrops falling on my sleeves. The Buddha is always with us. Now I see it. But it's always with us. And it's reflected in our teardrops from not seeing the Buddha. How do you see Buddha? You realize that everything has no existence whatsoever on its own. Then you see Buddha. And Buddha also has no existence on its own. And again, if there's the slightest discrepancy, we fail to accord with the proper attunement

[31:22]

with Buddha. There's not the slightest difference between our suffering and Buddha. But our mind makes bigger small differences. And we can notice the differences and then be kind to them. And being kind to them we can just be the difference. And then there's no difference. and then the attunement is realized. Then the outflows have ended for the moment. Is there any offerings you wish to make in the presence of Buddha?

[32:43]

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