Welcome. I have a memory that last Sunday when you spoke, you started by saying, welcome. Do you remember that? No? And the memory goes on, which Which she doesn't share with me at this time. But the memory goes on that she said, welcome to... And then she listed a number of... Like, welcome to... this valley. Welcome to the... to the Green Valley. Welcome to the organic farm and garden. Welcome to the place of... making vegetarian food.

[01:00]

Welcome to the guest program. Welcome to the welcoming program of Green Gulch. Welcome to the meditation hall. And today I want to also say welcome to the the inner reality of all the activities that arise and cease in this valley. Welcome to the perfection of wisdom. Welcome to the truth of our life.

[02:02]

Welcome to our true relationship. Our true relationship can be called the perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy. The perfection of wisdom brings light. Unstained, the entire world cannot stand. She is an organ of vision. She disperses the gloom and darkness of delusion. Clear knowledge. She is a clear knowledge of the own being of all things.

[03:10]

And she does not stray away from this own being of all things. The perfection of wisdom of the Buddhas sets in motion the wheel of the Dharma. welcome to the perfection of wisdom and welcome welcome to the perfection of wisdom. Come and be with us. The perfection of wisdom is always with us and yet if you welcome her we might not realize her presence. So, on your behalf, I welcome our true relationship so we can realize it. Welcome to this place which is also a place of great vows.

[04:32]

A place of noble dreams. One of the conditions for me saying that this is a place of noble dreams is I heard the activity of a writer in describing people who have noble dreams, who dream noble dreams, but don't do anything. And I wondered, well, I think I have noble dreams. And I wonder, do I do nothing? Do I take care of these noble dreams? I'm wondering about that.

[05:38]

And I wish to continue to dream, noble dreams, but I wish to do what will take care of them and help them be realized. The noble dream of perfect wisdom. in truth are intimate with perfect wisdom, but and all beings must practice it in order to realize it. The perfection of wisdom brings light. It disperses the gloom and darkness of delusion. It frees us from fear and distress. It's never apart from us, yet if we don't practice it, we don't realize it.

[06:48]

And part of practicing it is welcome perfect wisdom. Homage to perfect wisdom is part of the practice of perfect wisdom. So in this place, almost every morning, we sing homage to the perfection of wisdom, the holy. In a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine, lived the miner, 49er, and his daughter, Clementine.

[07:50]

Oh, my darling, oh, my darling, oh, my darling Clementine. He's lost and gone forever, oh, my darling Clementine. in a cavern in this canyon for a mine of perfect wisdom. Live the miners of the Green Gulch and their daughters. Clementine. we aspire to regard all beings as our darlings and also to regard the perfection of wisdom as our darling.

[09:03]

Contemplating the perfection of wisdom. Welcoming it. I've never... casinos in Las Vegas. I went there... first time in 1961 I went through Las Vegas. I didn't go into the casinos at that time. I just went to the bus stop. I was on my way to Los Angeles. But then I went back to Las Vegas to take part in a demonstration at the nuclear test sites which are nearby. At that time I did go into the casinos, but I did not place any bets with money.

[10:21]

But this place, this temple, is a kind of a gambling house for me because I place bets here regularly. I bet on perfect wisdom. I put a certain amount of resources on the spot and bet those resources on perfect wisdom as the best bet. And although I've never won anything, I never regret the bet. Or actually, when I bet, I have no regret. I just keep betting. And the more I bet, the more I'm willing to bet. But I don't win anything, and I don't lose anything. And that's what I came to Zen to learn.

[11:24]

No winning, no losing. Before I came, I knew how to win and I knew how to lose. But I thought I wanted to learn something more in this life than winning and losing. And one of the things I learned is betting on perfect wisdom. Betting which is always with us, which is always with me. A mind that doesn't abide anywhere, that doesn't abide in anything, that doesn't abide in gain or loss, that doesn't abide in me or you. This mind is our true relationship. and it doesn't abide in me or you or in between.

[12:33]

The mind which doesn't cling to anything. The heart which is open and devoted without dwelling in the objects of affection. my complexion. Every moment there is a mind that arises and ceases, a primary consciousness, and I don't bet on that consciousness, I bet on taking care of that consciousness, being kind to that consciousness, being gentle with that consciousness, being patient with that consciousness, being honest about that consciousness, being calm with that consciousness.

[13:53]

And by practicing this way with the consciousness right now, I'm betting that this way of caring for the consciousness will allow a mind which does not abide in it. And from the mind that doesn't abide in consciousness will come the realization of our true relationship. People who live in karmic consciousness talk. And they say things like, in the midst of karmic consciousness, in the midst of a mind that's full of words and ideas, a mind that's calculating and trying to figure out how to do the right thing, how to do the appropriate thing,

[14:59]

How can I, when I'm being spun around by calculations on how to do good, how can I do good? How can I respond to the situation in a beneficial way when I live in such hectic, turbulent consciousness? In consciousness, if we try to figure out how to do good and how to do... how to avoid evil, we may be somewhat successful. But if we abide in the figuring as the way to realize our noble vows of peace and freedom from suffering. If we abide in our figuring, the realization will be hindered by the abiding.

[16:05]

By caring for this consciousness, we have a chance to live in it without abiding in it. And from this non-abiding, Perfect wisdom will be realized and the response which is appropriate will emerge from this non-abiding heart. I'm betting on that. That's a proposal which I'm betting on. Right now the karmic consciousness of living beings is spinning and turning and the consciousness is being spun about, turned about in the flow of words.

[17:15]

That's a normal situation for a living being. And there's a skill that can be learned of how to be balanced and be spun but not be disoriented from our vow. And to allow, in the midst of this turbulence, to allow what we wish for to emerge. Once upon a time there was a poet. His name, he lived in the Tang Dynasty in China. His name was Bojiri. And he studied Zen masters.

[18:21]

And one of the Zen masters he went to visit lived up in a tree. He meditated in a tree anyway. He might have come down for meals and other activities, but he meditated in a tree. And so the great poet went to visit the Zen master and said, isn't it dangerous sitting up there? And she said, not as dangerous as being down in with a mind that's not well trained in non-abiding. Not as dangerous as being on the ground and living in a mind that's to the turbulence of consciousness. And then the poet says to her, well, what is the teaching of all the Buddhas?

[19:36]

And he said, don't do evil, do good. And the poet said, even a three-year-old child could say that. And the Zen master said, Even a three-year-old child may be able to say it, but even an 80-year-old person may not be able to practice it. All the Buddhas are sitting in the middle of all karmic consciousnesses that are spinning around and they're sitting there without abiding in anything they're sitting in perfect wisdom and from this non-abiding mind of perfect wisdom they sometimes talk and one of the things they always say is

[20:58]

don't do evil, do good. They say that. From a place of not abiding in any words, they all say, avoid evil, don't do evil, do good. They say that. But they don't say that to tell you what to do, even though it may sound like they did. They do it to help you and me find the mind from which the words came. In the midst of many minds that think, I'm going to avoid evil, I'm going to do good, or do good and I'm going to do evil, in the midst of all those different possible ways of thinking, there is a non-abiding mind and this non-abiding mind sometimes says, avoid evil, do good.

[22:18]

But again, it's not telling you what to do. It's not telling you how to figure out how to avoid evil and do good. It's teaching us how to enter perfect wisdom and how to let perfect wisdom enter us. We will someday say, avoid evil, not to tell people what to do, but to help their minds open to perfect wisdom. when we hear, for example, the Buddha's teaching, refrain from evil and we practice with those words and we are turned by those words and we don't abide in them, then we realize that

[23:56]

Evil is none other than not doing. Not doing evil, people usually think that is not doing something. But when you don't abide in the teaching, don't do evil, you realize that evil is not done. It is refrained from. The mind that abides thinks, I'm here, evil's there, I'm going to... Oh, I should say the mind that abides might think, I'm here, evil's there, I'm going to refrain from it.

[25:06]

Rather than, I'm here, evil's there, I don't abide here, I don't abide there, and not abiding here and not abiding there is... by refrain from evil. Not abiding here, not abiding there is what is meant by do all good. The same with good. Here and good there, and I abide in either. This is suffering. Suffering. not abiding here, not abiding in good, is the place from which the teaching comes. There are other teachings besides those, it's just that those always come from Buddhas.

[26:12]

Buddhas always manage to get those out too. But Buddhas also say, Here in the treetops, rocking and bobbing all day long is not as dangerous as being on the ground and abiding in good and evil. They also teach like that. It sometimes happens that people come to Zen teachers and they say, what should I do?

[27:30]

And sometimes the Zen teachers may talk in a way that sounds like they're telling people. But sometimes the Zen teachers say, I'm not going to tell you what to do. All I care about is that you don't abide in your mind. Or that you find the mind which doesn't abide. And I'm not going to tell you what to do because I think that might distract you from what I really want for you. But sometimes teachers, when people say, what should I do, they tell them what to do. They say, wash your face. They say, have you had breakfast?

[28:36]

And they say, wash your mold. sounds like maybe they're telling them what to do, but really they're saying, find the mind, give life to the mind that doesn't abide anywhere. I, the Zen Master, wish to live in the mind which doesn't abide. I invite you And sometimes telling you to wash your face might be just the right thing for the student to give a lesson that doesn't abide.

[29:41]

The student asks the question, the teacher aspires to a response which is appropriate to the student and the teacher's true relationship. Before the student says anything, the true relationship is present. From that true relationship, the student asks a question. The teacher may make a response which is appropriate to realizing this true relationship. The teacher is responsible for taking care of a mind. The Zen teacher is responsible for taking care of the life, the mind that doesn't abide, taking care of that mind, receiving questions, allowing the response to come from that mind which will help the student enter that mind that doesn't abide so that together they will realize their true relationship.

[31:17]

The Zen teacher is trying to encourage people to give life to such a mind. People are giving life to a mind that does abide. And this is fine, that they're doing this And it is normal that doing this, it's normal, is stressful and painful. It's normal. It's normally uncomfortable. And people already know how to do that. The consciousness knows how to function that way already. Now, without all, without disturbing it because disturbing it would be again the same thing. We have the opportunity to discover not abiding in that abiding and not abiding or avoid the stress of abiding.

[32:42]

So welcome to the place of non-abiding and welcome to the place of aspiring to non-abiding. We do both. We pray for non-abiding and we do the work of cultivating non-abiding. I recently heard a description of a chemical process which is described as having two rooms. One room is called the oratorium and the other room is called the laboratorium. The laboratorium is the room where you pray. And I imagine that In the Buddha way, the oratorium is in the same room as the laboratorium.

[33:56]

The oratorium is where you pray for perfect wisdom. You pray to perfect wisdom. You pray for perfect wisdom for all beings. You wish for it. You invite it. You pay homage to it. There is that room. And also, when we have that room, we have now the work room, the room where we do the work. I've offered words which describe the work, the work in the midst of everything you're thinking and everything you're doing and everything that I'm thinking. and everything I'm saying, and everything I'm doing, every gesture I make, to contemplate a mind which doesn't abide in anything I do. Being fully responsible for everything I do, and being fully responsible for not abiding in anything I do.

[35:05]

But in order to be able to do this work, I have to pray for it. I have to say, otherwise I will forget. I have to remember to pray. I have to remember to say, homage to the perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy. I have to remember to pray. An enlightening being. must give life to a mind that doesn't dwell. I must remember that to the prayer. I usually sit in this seat here. For example, this morning I sat there and I prayed. I prayed for a mind that does not abide. I focused my wonderful powers of imagination

[36:09]

and attention on a mind that does not abide. I paid homage to perfect wisdom. I praised perfect wisdom on that seat. I contemplated something which I can't see. I contemplated a mind which I can't grasp, which is a mind that doesn't grasp. And I did that for Perfect Wisdom and I did that for you. I reminded myself of that practice so I could tell you about it and tell you that I need to remind myself of that to perform that practice. And coming into this room helps me remember it, because when I get to this seat, I sometimes might think, what's my job again?

[37:17]

Do I have some responsibility on that seat? Oh, yeah. My responsibility on that seat is to practice perfect wisdom. Oh, yeah. To practice sitting there without abiding there. That's my job. And I remembered it. And I want to do it. And remembering it and wanting to do it is part of doing it. And then, okay, let's give it a try. One, two, three. Don't abide. How'd that go? I don't know. I don't know if that was a successful non-abiding. But I do know I want it to be. And I do know I'm betting that that would be the way to go if you wish to save all sentient beings from suffering.

[38:24]

I'm betting that that's the way to go. And I'm betting that that's the tradition of Zen, is to bet on being devoted to all beings in any of them. To give your whole life to other beings for their welfare and not to abide in their welfare or any of them. And the teaching is saying you can help people by being devoted to them and abiding in them, but the main way you help them in that way is by showing them the wrong way. by showing them the way of suffering. So they can see, oh, that doesn't work. But it's better to show them the way because some people might copy you out of love for you. So better to show them the way of, the actual way, rather than show them a dead end.

[39:35]

Now, if you tell them beforehand, I'm going to show you a dead end now, Now, I want your welfare and I'm going to abide in it and I'm going to show you how stressful that is. Okay? So I want you to do that because I think that would be good for you and I'm going to cling to that and let's see how stressful that is. And after you do it, you can say, I'm sorry I did it. And you could even say, and I'm going to continue to do this this wrong way until I'm done doing it. But I just want you to know it is the wrong way. I'm just addicted to it. And just in case I haven't said this enough times, let me say it one more time.

[41:15]

In order to not abide in anything, or maybe I'll start by saying, in order to not abide in something, in a particular thing, like in order to not abide in a particular person or a particular relationship, in order to be successful in not abiding, we must deeply love the thing we're not abiding in. Non-abiding depends on being devoted to the thing we're not abiding in. Was that clear already before I said that? Is it clear now? Not quite? Well, I'll say it pretty much the same way. What means not abiding?

[42:18]

It means other words. I can give you other words like don't attach, don't cling. But that's not the meaning of non-abiding, that's just the meaning of other words. Non-abiding, the real meaning of it is that you can't get a hold of it and therefore it doesn't get a hold of you and therefore nothing gets a hold of anything and everybody is released. But you can't be that way with something unless you're totally devoted to it, because if you're a little bit devoted to it, you might think you're not abiding in it. And then if you got more devoted to it, you discovered that you were abiding in it. You must be totally devoted to beings to realize there's no beings to be devoted to.

[43:24]

because we already think there are beings that we can abide in and cling to. We already think that. And if you fully understand that, that's because you're fully aware of the thing you're realizing you're attached to. If you're a little bit devoted to somebody and you realize you're attached, that's good too, that you realize you're attached. In order to take the step to go from realizing you're attached to somebody to not abiding in the attachment, in order to get to that point, you have to be more devoted to them. As you become more devoted, you realize more fully the scale of the attachment and the scope of it and the texture of it. And then you can confess to the attachment and repent to the attachment which you can see is causing suffering, which you can understand is causing stress.

[44:30]

And by that process of caring more and noticing more and more levels of attachment, you have the chance to confess the attachment which is discovered and say you're sorry. And this process will lead you by increasing the devotion to increasing the awareness of the attachment of the abiding which will take you to realizing some people try to realize non-abiding. Because they notice, I care about this person and it's painful because they're not the way I want them to be. Or they don't treat me the way I want them to. Or they're not doing what I want them to do. If I would care less about them, it wouldn't be so painful.

[45:31]

So they withhold the love and the pain goes down. The attachment is there, but they don't notice it. And they get colder and colder and more and more attached. And more and more numb by this addictive process. So it's understandable that I might myself not want to tell somebody who's successfully reduced their suffering by caring less for themselves and others. I might be shy to say, well, care more. Or how painful it is to care, not because you care more, but because by caring more you notice the pain of your attachment. So if you're attached to somebody and you don't care much, you won't notice the pain much.

[46:37]

Or you may not. Turn up the care, you notice the attachment more, you notice the pain more. In order to get to the place of perfect wisdom, we need the vow to care which means not too much and not too little for everybody. We need that vow in order to realize the true non-abiding. Otherwise, as I just said, you could feel like, well, I'm not abiding in that person. They can drive that way and dress that way and it doesn't bother me. And I may notice the reason why it doesn't bother me is because I'm holding back. I'm closing my heart to them. I'm still abiding in them, but because my heart's pretty much down, it doesn't bother me.

[47:42]

As I start to open up, if I'm abiding, it bothers me. And it bothers me until I give up abiding. And when I give up abiding, I give up abiding in the midst of total, non-excessive devotion. Total devotion which isn't too much or too little. That's where I will give up abiding and attaching to whatever. I think that anybody who has any questions maybe could ask them later because I think almost everybody perfectly understands this.

[48:51]

So just kidding. So maybe you can tell me if you have any doubts about what I said. I'm convinced of what I said, of the truth of it, and I'm convinced to not abide in my conviction. I am convinced that I should not abide in my conviction and that doesn't weaken my conviction. It doesn't weaken it. It allows actually for more devotion to it and more willing to use it, like in science, to test it and to invite being tested. Okay?

[49:55]

The non- abiding mind, the lovely, the holy. The non-abiding mind brings light. Unstained, the entire world cannot stain the non-abiding mind. The non-abiding mind turns the wheel of Dharma. And I must pray for it. I have just praised it.

[51:11]

I must pray for it. I must wish for it. I must wish for it. I must praise it. I must remember it. Because karmic consciousness is a busy place that sometimes thinks there's something else to do besides remembering perfect wisdom. that we have other things to do in this life besides paying homage, that we have something else to do in this life than realize non-abiding. There is a consciousness like that. And I'm not arguing with that consciousness. I'm just saying that consciousness makes it difficult to remember and tolerate all beings. So most people, most sentient beings, have to say over and over what they really want.

[52:42]

If you want peace and freedom from suffering, it may be that you're like me, and that in order to remember that, we must say it over and over. If it's... We must say it. We must say it, and we must say it. Once a day, homage to the perfection of wisdom. Once a day, homage to the mind of no abode, the lovely, the whole. Good. Twice a day? Good. Ten times a day? Good. I've already got over ten myself. and you've been listening to it so you get credit too. Your mind has been transformed by listening to this teaching.

[53:46]

Transformed and more likely probably in many cases to remember now the teaching that the enlightening being has been encouraged Life to the mind of no abode. To remember that. It's not like good students don't have to remember and only below average students have to remember. All of us until we completely realize that we have to remind ourselves in the midst of turbulent karmic consciousness we have to remember we have to remember the perfection of wisdom. We have to remember being devoted to all beings without abiding in anything. I remember you

[54:50]

You're the one who made my dreams come true. A few moments ago. I remember you. You're the one who said I love you too. I do. Didn't you know? I remember too. A distant bell and stars that fell like rain out of the blue. When my life is through and the angels ask and call the thrill of them all, well, I shall tell them I remember you Tell them I remember Tell them I remember Tell them I remember you And you know who you is, right?

[56:13]

I remember you, the lovely, the holy, the perfection of wisdom,

[56:27]

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