A number of things are coming up to discuss this morning and to talk about and perhaps to enact. Can you hear me all right, Diego? Can you hear me, Catherine? Vinyada, can you hear me? Okay. One of the things that comes to mind is... Well, I've shredded and penned for this to come to mind, but this is about to tell you something that was coming to mind. Another thing came to mind. It just kind of intruded there, and that was... that we're going to China on Tuesday.

[01:02]

The reason why I thought of that was because I thought of a Chinese Zen master named Yun Mun. Yun Mun means cloud gate. Yeah, that's what it means, cloud gate, Yun Mun. So this is a Zen teacher who lived I think maybe lived at the very end of the Tang Dynasty, in like the 10th century, or maybe after the Tang Dynasty was over. But anyway, he had a practice of, he would ask his group of monks questions, and then he would answer the questions himself. And one of the questions he asked was something like, What was the Buddha, the world-honored one, up to during his whole life?

[02:10]

Or what was the teaching of the Buddha for his whole lifetime as a teacher? An appropriate response. And the original Chinese is a three-character phrase. First character means to meet. Second character means one or each. The third character means to teach or expound. So another way to say what the Buddha was up to her whole life was each thing teaching. In other words, the Buddha doesn't have like a teaching program that she brings, that she carries around and then gives that to people.

[03:16]

But rather, in meeting beings In that particular case, whatever is coming up right then, that is taught. And Zen meditation, Zen practice, is, in some sense, it is just like that. Zen practice is each thing teaching.

[04:24]

In every event, meeting the event and letting the appropriate response arise. So that's Zen practice, or that's Zen And practice, in a sense, is to train ourselves, to train together so that that can happen. In order for that to happen, in that meeting, there has to be a relinquishment of everything. And in particular, that could be relinquishment of the teaching program. So the teacher might go to a room to teach, but the teacher forgets what she was going to teach when she meets the group or the person.

[05:30]

And in that forgetting of everything, Whatever you were going to teach, the appropriate response can arise. Actually, it does. And also, you forget the perspective that you're going to do the teaching and somebody else is going to. You forget that, too. You let go of that. And letting go of that, the teaching can happen. Should I speak a little louder? OK, how's that? That better? OK, you're welcome.

[06:33]

Another Zen story is about a Zen teacher named Wang Bo. Are you ready for another story? This one's more complicated. So are you ready? Yes. Okay, now are you ready to let go of your seat? Yes. So let go of your seat and listen to this one. So Wang Bo, one day he had a group too. He came into the hall and the monks were there assembled and he brought a big stick with him. He was a big person himself. He was seven feet tall. Of course, those were Chinese feet. Chinese feet, you know, a long time ago, so maybe they were littler than 21st century English feet. But anyway, he was very big, and he had a big staff, and he went into the hall and started swinging at the monks to try to drive them out of the hall, and they didn't move.

[07:37]

Maybe they were holding on to some idea of what they should do. Anyway, they just, they were frozen. And he said to them, if you people travel like this, how will you have today? And he said, you're a bunch of, you're all a bunch of drag slurpers. They're slipping the dregs of Zen. They're holding on to some idea of being good students of the Buddha way. So when the teacher slings the staff, they don't know what to do because they're thinking, now, what should I do? And then he said, don't you know that in all of China there are no teachers of Zen?

[08:48]

And then one of the monks somehow became unstuck and came forward and said, well, what about all these monasteries all over China, these assemblies of people practicing together, and so on? And Wang Bo said, I didn't say there's no Zen. I just said there's no Zen teachers. So there is Zen, and Zen is what? What's Zen? It's an appropriate response. That's Zen. The appropriate response is happening all over China. But there's no teacher who's doing the appropriate response. There's no Buddha who's doing the appropriate response. There's not one enlightened person who's doing the appropriate responding to the unenlightened disciple. There's not that kind of situation. So when the teacher swings a stick at you, let it come.

[09:54]

Scream in fear. Whatever. Examples, but they're too obnoxious. You can make up your own. So there is Zen all over the place, but there's no teacher who owns it in all of China. Now, in America, maybe it's different. Different culture. Maybe we do have teachers of Zen here who have got the Zen and they can give it to you. Sometimes, you know, we have meditation in this hall.

[11:00]

For example, right now we're having meditation in this hall. Right now there is Zen meditation all over the place in this room. But there's no teachers of Zen meditation in all of this room. The Zen meditation is completely penetrating the entire space. Sometimes people have some idea about what Zen meditation is, and maybe they think, well, this doesn't seem like Zen meditation, or this does seem like Zen meditation. Those are ideas about Zen meditation. They're fine. You can have a whole pile of ideas of what Zen meditation is.

[12:03]

That's not a problem, really, unless you would hold one or more of them. Zen meditation is to let go of all your ideas of Zen meditation and let go of all your ideas of every other kind of meditation and let go of all your ideas of everything. then meditation can happen. Let go of your ideas that you're doing the meditation or that somebody else is doing the meditation, that Buddha is doing the meditation and can link to you. Or that you're doing the meditation and making Buddha a success. All these are nice ideas and there's other ideas you probably think up. They're fine. The meditation is to let go of them, is to meet what's happening without holding on to your idea of what's happening or what's the way of meeting what's happening is. Then the appropriate response can arise. I think many of us at some point along the way in practice have thought that what meditation

[13:19]

or is, has something to do with sitting or standing in silent repose. And I'm not saying that sitting or standing in silent repose is not meditation. Rather that Letting go of the idea that sitting in silent repose is meditation is meditation. Some people come in here and they sit and they try to sit in silent repose partly because they think that's what they're supposed to be doing if they're meditating. It sometimes happens. I've met people like that. And that's fine. And some people would say, fine, call it meditation, but really it's not the meditation of the Buddha.

[14:25]

The meditation of the Buddha is an appropriate response. And sometimes the appropriate response is not silent repose. Sometimes it's noisy, noisy hyperactivity. Sometimes it's lifting your foot up eight and a half inches off the ground and then bringing it down on the earth firmly with a thud. Response, if not holding to some idea of silent repose, it is. it is to dynamically and with full confidence meet whatever comes. And in that, and meeting whatever comes without holding to any perspective in that meeting.

[15:32]

There may be perspective, like there seems to be somebody over there. I think it's not me. There might be a perspective like that. This person's not me. Or this person doesn't like me. Or this person does like me. Or I'm actually just like that person. That person's just like me. These are perspectives which might arise in a meeting. You might think, gee, this is fun. This is scary. Or I know what to do. Or I don't know what to do. These are perspectives, OK? The appropriate response comes in letting go of those perspectives, not holding them in the meeting, not getting rid of them and having no perspective, just not and not rejecting them. Then the appropriate response, the work of the Buddha, can live. It's already going on. It's a question of giving up resistance to it by holding some leverage on it.

[16:37]

or giving up resistance to it by trying to control the appropriate response to meet whatever comes. What is it, like that Hallmark card? You care enough to give your very best. And is to meet holding nothing. So I think you completely understand what I'm trying to say there, right? So now I'd like to introduce one more kind of like perspective on what the work of the Buddha is, which I think might help complete the picture of how this practice works, how this practice might be realized.

[17:59]

Meeting whatever happened, meeting whatever comes. And that is the idea of marrying all . So again, this appropriate response arises in the joining with beings and things. In the joining or the marrying, appropriate response arises. I heard this story, which I've also probably told at some weddings, a marriage ceremony about a rabbi and a Roman matron.

[19:06]

I guess the story is set in some part of the world where the Roman Empire was interacting with the Jewish community. This Roman matron was talking to a rabbi, and she said, what is your God? What's the business of your God? And the rabbi said, the business of our Lord, the most majestic and holy, is to create the universe. And then I think he said something like that. And then the matron said, well, how long did that take? And he said, seven days. And then she said, well, what has he been doing since that time? And the rabbi said, the great Lord, the most lovely and holy,

[20:16]

has been marrying people. And I hear that marrying people in two senses. One is that the Lord marries the people, becomes and also that the divine one performs marriage ceremonies, facilitates the marriage among beings, both marries them herself and also performs the ceremony whereby beings are married. And the matron said, that doesn't seem like the work of God. I could do that myself. And the rabbi said, oh, no, no, no. Making a true marriage is as difficult as parting the waters of the Red Sea. The maker says, I'll show you.

[21:24]

I've got lots of slaves. I'll take a thousand female and a thousand male and maybe some other combination and marry them. I can do that. So she did. She gathered together this large number and pronounced them married. And then, like the next day, the newlyweds started to come to her complaining of various injuries and wounds that had occurred because of the fight they had with their new spouse. So she went back to the rabbi and she said, you were right. It is very difficult to make a marriage. And one day I was doing a retreat at Tassajara, and one of the people in the retreat said to me, after the Buddhists realized enlightenment,

[22:39]

and touch nirvana, after the Buddhas touch complete freedom and peace. Then, after that, are they like, can they be in the world like us and walk around and stuff? And I said, yeah, it seems to me that they can. As a matter of fact, I think that they not only live among beings, but they marry all beings. They get married, but actually they marry everybody. In both senses of marry everybody, they get married and they also marry everybody. So I think there's another way to put what the Buddha's work is, is that although they realize the ultimate truth they let go of that and join hands with all beings and walk through whatever with them.

[23:52]

And they work to realize marriage with these beings. And marriage is more than just taking somebody's hand. So the Buddhas, in their devotion to all beings, meet whatever comes. Whatever comes, the Buddha meets this and responds appropriately. And this appropriate response is one of marriage or one of encouraging marriage. But it's possible to meet someone and be willing to be devoted to this person even without holding onto some idea of what devotion is. It's possible to meet the person, but that person may not be ready to meet you that way. You may be ready to marry them, but they may not be ready to marry you.

[25:00]

Just taking someone's hand is not yet marriage. Marriage requires something more than just being devoted, just joining. It requires that you quite your troth, put your truth to the other. Give your word and give your most true word to the other. The word spouse, I think, comes from the word espouse. And in Spanish, the spouse is called espose or esposa. Esposa and esposo. Esposa and esposo. These are the people who espouse to each other. They espouse. In other words, espouse means to solemnly promise. To give your word.

[26:01]

to give your truth, to endanger it. This is necessary for the marriage. Otherwise, you might join hands, but then you might let go and want to call the marriage off if it's not going the way you'd like it to. You might have some perspective about how it should be going. And things might not be going the way you think they should. So then you might think, well, see you later. So it's possible to be willing to join hands with someone who is not yet willing to join hands with you. It's possible that you're ready to make a promise

[27:05]

to put your truth out there, to take the risk of telling someone who you are, but they're not yet ready to take the risk of telling you who they are. Be willing to try to learn how to tell your truth and endanger your truth, to plight your trough. You might want to learn it, and the other person might not even yet want to learn it. So the work of Buddha is to learn how to do this up to the point of actually having this happen, that you can make this promise to all beings. What's the promise? The promise is whatever your promise, whatever your truth. I promise to be selfish with you till death do us part.

[28:12]

Doesn't sound so nice, but that could be your truth. In fact, that might be who you are. It's dangerous to tell anybody, wouldn't it? I would like to have a relationship with you and be selfish from now on. And I promise to try to be selfish with you from now on. Telling the truth, or what you think is your truth at the moment, you endanger yourself. They might say, well, if you're going to be selfish, I don't want to marry you. Or if you want to be selfish, I'm going to tell everybody else how selfish you are. Or they might say, you know, you have a really bad truth. You know, that's like one of the worst truths I've ever heard. But Buddha says, thank you for saying it. Because it's not so much, some people have other ones, right?

[29:16]

Like, I promise to be unselfish and always be devoted to God. I promise to be completely unselfish and I promise to, you know, always think of what is beneficial to you and everybody else you like. That's what I promise. That's the nature of truth, some people might say. But the point is that that one also is in danger. A person might say, I don't believe you. I will see. The point is not that you have this truth or that truth. The point is, that you put your truth out there, so it's endangered. And it's endangered to what? To relinquishment. Maybe you don't hold your truth. Fine.

[30:17]

Put them out there just to make sure. The point is not that you make the promise and then you follow through on the promise, because the other person might not want you to follow through on the promise. You might say, I promise to be loyal to you. I promise to honor you, and so on, through all these difficulties. And the person might say, I don't want that. What? You don't want me to be loyal? No. And I'm not going to give you any brownie points for being loyal. You can have it if you want to, but really what I'd like you to do is let go of your loyalty to me. That would be real loyalty. Let's see if you can do that. And I'm not doing that just to test you. I'm doing it because this place stinks of loyalty. There's a future loyalty smell around here, and I think because somebody's been holding on to loyalty for about 10 minutes.

[31:19]

Let's move on and have a life here, rather than you being this one, swell, loyal person who wants to live with me, poor little me, blessed by your loyalty. I don't want that. And you might say, well, but I want to be loyal. And the person may say, just let go of it. If you want to be married, tell me what you want to hold on to, tell me what you think is precious, and then I can tell you what to let go of. And you can see, when you tell me what you think is really important and you put your truth out there, you can see what you're holding on to and what is actually undermining our marriage and is interfering with the appropriate response. Because you actually think you know what the appropriate response would be. So of course, since you know, you're going to hold on to it. But since you hold on to it, you're blocking it. The appropriate response is not what I know beforehand.

[32:24]

I do have some ideas about the appropriate response. So do you, probably. Those are just ideas we hold on to. And some people have really fancy, lovely ideas. And some other people have these low-grade, lousy ideas, according to the other people. So that's not really the problem. That's not really the problem. The people with the evil ideas and the people with the good, unselfish ideas, the problem is not that they have these different ideas. Or the problem is not that evil people and the good people are the good people. That's not what the work of Buddha is about. The work is to get these people married. But in order to get married, the evil ones have to give up the evil and the good ones have to give up the good. The ones who are not so good at marriage have to give up not being so good at marriage and the ones who are really good at it have to give up being good at it.

[33:30]

Sorry. You can't have this deal like, well, we're married and I'm better at it than you. I mean, that's just the way it is, right? And you can get billions of people to agree, yes, you are better at marriage than this other person. They're like, you know, really, they're the problem. You're, you know, you're great. They're not. Well, that's a, again, a perfectly good perspective. Forget it. A response can come. But you have to kind of, in a marriage, you have to put it out there your really great ideas. So if you have really great ideas, you have to put them out there. And probably people who have really great ideas of what they'd like to do, they're not so afraid maybe because if anybody finds out about this, they're going to think I'm great. So I don't mind telling. But then they might think, but what if they wouldn't, you know, what if they don't like my great ideas?

[34:30]

These are great ideas, so I don't want to like endanger my great ideas. So this can be the problem of the people who really are great. For them to tell people how great they are. There's a danger there. Marriage requires that the great ones tell people how great they think they are. Now the other people who think they're like, you know, low quality, their problem is, you know, people might find out. They don't mind so much people saying you have low quality. They already know that, but people might, you know, not like them. They're afraid. Marriage means... Put it out there. Tell the truth. Tell the truth means tell your truth, not the truth. The truth means we tell our truth and other people tell their truth and we all forget about it. Then the truth is realized. The truth of the situation when nobody's holding on to their truth.

[35:34]

But you kind of have to put it out there in order to let go of it. Well, I put it out and I let go. I mean, I do have this opinion myself, but I'm not attached to it. Okay, well, fine. Now do it outside. Do it outside. Do it out loud. Tell somebody else. And try to find somebody who will do it also so you meet in that disclosure. This promotes the development of this Zen meditation, which is to meet, to meet each being, to meet whatever comes without holding to any fixed perspective, to meet whatever comes with confidence in meeting without holding But if you don't promise to do it, you might forget and back down.

[36:41]

And even if you do promise, you might forget and back down. But there's a person over there who might say, didn't you promise to tell me something once in a while about what's going on? Didn't you promise to communicate? And then you might say, I think I remember that I said that. Yeah, that's right. I did say that. Well, what's the problem? How come you're not communicating anymore? You haven't communicated for a long time. You've been saying things, but they really haven't been disclosing anything. Oh, yeah, that's true. Well, the reason why I haven't been communicating is because communicating is Dangerous. Communicating is dangerous. That's why I haven't been. I just did, though. But I'd like to not do anymore for a while.

[37:43]

That was really scary. But somehow it slipped out. And the reason why it slipped out is because you asked me that question. And the reason why you asked me that question was because I told you that I would tell you And you remembered. And you told me you would, so you asked me. So now here we go. Now, maybe the appropriate response happened. And actually, and I didn't even do it, and neither did you. So there it is. So one marriage ceremony could be, although this is not so common, even at a Zen center, a marriage ceremony could be. I promise to meet you and everything, whatever happens, whatever comes, I promise to meet it without holding to any fixed position. And I ask you, are you, do you want to also?

[38:46]

I promise this to you And I also would like to tell you, one of my truths is I would like you to promise this to me. Are you ready to do that, to make that promise? I feel ready. Are you ready? When we're both ready, we can have a marriage. We can make this promise. We can espouse these vows together. And you might also tell the person that you intend to do this with everyone, or you might just say, I'm just going to do it with you for now. But you might say, I'm going to do it with you and I want to someday do it with everyone. And I also recognize right now that it will be because it is dangerous for me to tell people this, to show them, to communicate. It's possible that I'll get hurt. that I'll lose something else that I'm holding on to.

[39:53]

But I want to do that because I feel it's needed in order for me to learn what I need to learn so that I can enter the Buddha way of the appropriate response. To enter the way of where I'm not going to do the appropriate response, but where I give myself to the realm where the appropriate response can happen. At the same time I let go of myself. I give my truth. At the same time I let go of my truth. It's both a relinquishment and a giving. a relinquishment of my truth and a giving of my truth and a promising to continue this giving and relinquishment.

[41:11]

Have you had such a marriage in this lifetime? Have you given yourself and promised yet to put your truth out there with someone else who's putting his truth out there. Has this happened yet? If so, do you wish it to happen more? If not, do you wish to have it happen? Do you wish to marry one to all beings? It seems to me that in order to realize the Buddha way, there must be the marriage of all beings. I can see no other way. But I put that out to you.

[42:19]

Although I think I'll put it up there again, I relinquish it for now. for some time now. Actually, shortly after I became ordained as a priest in 1970, a friend of mine asked me to perform a marriage ceremony. So, for 30 years, I'd been participating in marriage ceremonies and helping people get married. And It's been more recent, though, that I've thought about me joining all those marriages. That it isn't just them getting married, it's me too. So, I understand that many of you might have come here today not expecting to get married.

[43:30]

So, maybe you're not ready to get married today, or now, in a minute. But perhaps some of you are ready to get married. And if anyone feels ready to get married, wants to get married, we could have some marriage ceremonies now. Would anyone like to enter a marriage ceremony sometime? Yes, please come. Please come. Please come. People who want to get married, please come. I've seen this happen before, and it starts with the woman.

[44:40]

But then the men come, after the women, the men see it's not so scary, then the men start coming. So you butted in front because you had a good seat, yes? Do you want to get married? Yes. Okay, so here's a, here's a, here's a, what do you call it? A say? Um... So this is a wedding ceremony now. So I invite you to say what kind of a ceremony you would like. A bell. That's often what they want to use, a little bell. Nonsectarian implement here. What kind of a ceremony would you like, Salvi? A ceremony that will benefit all beings. Okay, so what would that be? Is there any, would any truth, any word you'd like to give?

[45:46]

Would you like to give your word? Any promise you'd like to make? Yes, I would like to bow for the six precepts. Yes. And would you like to make that vow? Would you like to marry someone in that vow? Anyone in particular? I would like to marry all of the beings. You'd like to marry all these beings? Yes. And what is your vow to them? Help all beings. Help yourself to practice them with these people? I commit myself to that. Okay. Is there anything else that you'd like to have as part of this wedding, this marriage ceremony? I don't know at this moment. Okay, well, you want to say it's over? You want to now say that we have been married to all beings here? You ready?

[46:46]

Yeah. Okay, I say that you are married to all these beings. This is your wedding. Congratulations. And now you can do this with your new spouses. I mean, you can tell them whatever else you want to tell them. Okay? Maybe I would like to have the ladies in front of me. You would like to what the ladies in front of you? You'd like to hug this lady? Yeah. Would that be acceptable to you? And Melissa, you're now another person's wedding ceremony, so you're in it too. He married you in his ceremony. What would you like to have included in this wedding ceremony, this marriage ceremony?

[47:51]

I'd like all beings to experience the joy of freedom. You want? Yeah. And in what way do you promise to work for that? I promise to work for that in being who I am as completely as I can be in every moment. And being completely who you are, what does that require? Relinquishing. Relinquishing what? Who I am. Good. Now, is there anything else that you would like to have to this marriage ceremony? Is there anything else you would like to have included in the marriage ceremony? The Buddha's blessing. The Buddha's blessing.

[48:54]

Now, how are we going to get the Buddha's blessing? Could you help me with that? Can I help you with that? I'd love to. How could I help you with that? Is there some ceremonial performance that we could commit ourselves to at this time? A ceremonial performance that would accomplish the Buddha's blessing? Yes. May the Buddha bless your vow to be completely who you are by relinquishing who you are. May the Buddha bless that. And may the Buddha bless that because that is Buddha. Okay?

[49:39]

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