it's february now and
i thought in my route kind of review
the last year or so of teaching
on many of you have been here for almost all of it for
parts of it
and
to repeat the kind of a history of the teaching for the last year so
oh it's partly so that we have a shared sense of where we then and where we are and maybe where we're going

and also for some of you what i say will be familiar but my feeling is repeating it it will sink in and and you will have the day or the view of the teaching
as a resource in your body
everytime you listened to her teaching
in your conscious mind
it transforms your unconscious mind and your body transforms your unconscious cognitive processes and transforms the neurological basis for those cognitions so we go over and over and would i just said
as another teaching to repeat
also i see that welcome june
welcome jack

so there's about one hundred people here today
from around the united states and canada
and europe
and
last year
in january
we had a
an online
ah january intensive where
we focused on the teachings of the lotus sutra
and following the lotus sutra most of the year the rest of two thousand and twenty one
we were focused and most of our meetings
on great compassion
and also other kinds of compassion that are not so great
nuts we constantly great compassion is infinite an equal to all beings but there's other kinds of compassion which are more limited and not equal to all beings which we looked at all those kinds of compassion for the rest of the year
and then in january of this year we had another january intensive in this one was in person people came and several of you and this assembly right now came to green gulch and we did a three week intensive meditation retreat
and so with his background ah we go forward for the rest of two thousand and twenty two
and we'll see what we go
in the january intensive ah there were two online
ah
i would call them live streams i will speak i spoke with the assembly that we're here in person
and to sundays and these talks were live and some of you came to those talks
at the beginning of the january intensive i somewhat abruptly introduced
a teaching
which is titled
direct realization of the buddha way
another title for this teaching that are offered at the beginning of the intensive and throughout the intensive and which i offer now too
is
right here
settle down

or immediately
hit the mark
or immediately receive
i hit
the mark is the boot away
as book about immediately hitting the mark of the buddha away immediately
being hit by the mark of the buddha away by being touched by the away
so this is again not the the teaching about realizing the buddha away realizing great compassion that
realizing the buddha's great compassion realizing buddha's great wisdom
directly immediately
right here
and i'm saying right here right here and you're hearing i guess the words right here right here each of us is right here
and right here we can we directly realize away and the direct realization of the way must be right here
maybe there are indirect ways
but i was speaking about
a direct way
right here
and again many of you
listen to and discuss these teachings in january
now i'm bringing it up for the whole for this whole assembly

in the chat we did are you listened and and maybe you spoke at a moment ago
i read although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated indeed being the cause and condition obstacles in practicing the way

for me these obstacles are opportunities they're not just obstacles their opportunities
and for me
suffering
affliction
pain
is omnipresent

and i aspire
to accept
i'm the present
affliction omnipresent suffer

i aspire to accept it and eggs but aspire to accept that it is omnipresent
i aspired to accept each
and i aspire to
except that each
is an opportunity to become buddha
i mean i aspire the i aspire to that

so
ah the direct realization
of the ball away
right here

is through nothing other
then what's going on right here
the direct realization of the buddha away
is none other than accepting our current
afflictions
and the current afflictions
how everyone we live with

immediately realizing great compassion
without trying to change our body and mind into some other body and mind
right now with this body and mind
through this body and mind
buy it by this body and mind and for this body and mind and for the bodies and minds of others
without trying to change this body and mind into another body and mind

we might think that in order to become
awake and and free and a peace we need to change this body and mind into another one
and and if we think that that's a body and mind
and the direct path is to is too
realize it with this body and mind without trying to change it into another
and and and then to except and work with this body and mind of course involves compassion so this omnipresent
suffering is omnipresent opportunities for great compassion
so great compassion helps us settled down right here

and great compassion helps us directly realize the way right here
and
realizing the way
gives great compassion so great compassion takes us to the direct realization and great and great indirect realization expresses great compassion
and i'd like to introduce or something which might be controversial or anyway provocative
ah i meet people who want to reduce the suffering in this world
and of course i wish to
hum
practice compassion with the people who want to reduce suffering in this world
i wish to meet the person who is wishing to and trying to reduce suffering in this world
i am not opposed
i support
i aspire to support all beings who wished to reduce suffering in this world

but for me the boot away
is working with this body
this mind
it's working with your body and your mind it's you working with your body and your mind and me working with you working with your body and mind and you working with me working with my body and mind for me that's the buddha ways to work with this body and mind and directly realize
freedom and peace in the midst of suffering

suffering may seem to be decreased sometimes and other times it may seem to increase
looking at the history of the last twenty five hundred years on this planet
i don't know
if the amount of suffering has been reduced
i don't know maybe it has
but it seems like even if it has been reduced
it's
still very great and vast the amount of suffering
a buddhism noise about reducing suffering in the world then you might question whether it's been successful
but for me buddhism is not against reduce after suffering it's about becoming free and freeing beings from suffering it's about freedom and peace
in the world of suffering it's not about reducing the world of suffering
and in the world of suffering are lots of people humans and non-humans who are endeavoring to reduce suffering
and buddhism embraces all beings who are trying to reduce suffering
to help them become free of suffering
and become free of our current suffering not free later with some lesser suffering free with this suffering and this suffering and this suffer
if there's anybody who's trying to increase suffering and some people are trying to at least entries other people's suffering you maybe you've heard about these people they actually want some other people's suffering to increase
they even at in a certain moment maybe even on all always want every other people's suffering to increase but at a given moment they may want someone suffering to increase have you ever seen that happen
i was watching her
a championship basketball game one time
and one of the best one of the star players
in the championship game was injured
and the audience
who are supporting the other team cheered when this person was injured
they were happy that this person tore his achilles tendon
so not everybody all the time wants to increase other people's suffering but sometimes people want to increase it but a lot of people want a decrease it
and that's their effort and because they're trying to decrease suffering they are opportunities for compassion
the direct realization is to practice compassion with the right now the way they are right now and for them to do the same with themselves
so one person may be gives water to a thirsty person to reduce the person's thirst
another person gives water to the person to liberate the person from thirst
i'm the ladder type of person i wish to give water to people so they will be free of thirst
even before they drink the water
even while they're drinking the water and after the drinking water
because sometimes you drink water and you don't reduced the thirst
sometimes you drink the water and you increased thirst
but i wish to give the water i wish to practice generosity not to reduce suffering not to increase suffer not to maintain suffering
but to liberate
to be free of omnipresent suffering
and if yeah if anybody differs from me that person is welcome by me i aspire to welcome all those who disagree with me but anyway that's where i'm at i'm i'm as liberating beings in the world of suffer
and i'm not into reducing the world of suffering
but i do live with a lot of people who are in who think buddhism is to reduce suffering and they were and i know a lot of people who want to reduce suffering and i'm different and i pumped i present myself to you to deal with
and i i aspired to have continued to be
ah at all
compassion to my suffering and you're suffering and also be compassionate with your suffering with me
i don't i'm not trying to be difficult but am i realize that when i just said it may be something to struggle with
and now i see i think i hope
i wonder i think i mentioned during january and chance in which i mentioned again today is that we have within our school along with the teaching about the direct realization of the buddha away
the direct realization is through nothing other than your present body and mind we have another expression called grandmother mind or grandmother mindfulness
and that's the awareness which goes very well with the direct realization that the buddha way cannot be other
then our current daily life
and that's slightly different from say our current daily life is the boot away
it's more like remembering that our current daily life
cannot be other than the boot away and also to remember that the buddha away
the way of freedom cannot be other than our daily life
once again it's not to say that the boot away is our pain
it's not to say that the buddha way is our confusion
that the boot away is our selfishness that the boot away is our pettiness
but the buddha way is our current affliction that i wouldn't say that where i would say the buddha way cannot be other than our current
body and mind it is it cannot be that's not the buddha away it's not like we have our current body mine and another thing called the buddha where the buddha way is right here practicing with our current
body and mind
it's not other
and it's also not the same

in the loudest searches study period over and over we emphasize that teaching that we are all on the same path
all buddhas are on the same path
and all buddhas are the same path with all living beings all buddhas are in the same path as us we are in the same path as all buddhas

we have the same path
the same teacher
the same realization
the same practice as all buddhas
and to realize this practice of all buddhas
it is necessary that we don't try to be someplace other than where we are
or rather that we use where we are right now in order to realize the same practice as buddhas
the same awakening as the borders
the same path which is already the case we are already on the same path
but if we look for something other than our daily life to realize it
it's a it's a
record contra indicated
it's a little bit of a distraction which is then becomes another opportunity
get now maybe that's enough of a summary of the last year or so and going forward and we will go forward from here
ah maybe we'll continue to practice direct realization of the way but i'm not sure maybe we'll do some indirect realizations along the way
so if you'd like to
offers something to this great assembly you are cordially gratefully warmly supported to offer something
i see some hands some green yellow hands
staffing is am from turin

you
you say that our path is no different than the way of the buddhist and often times you use the word bodhisattva so could you clarify i am confused a little about that oh yeah so we're also not were also on the same path with baja
i am side and make a cliff would is are the same path with everybody
okay
buddhists are practicing with every living being
gay and we also are practicing together with every living being
and
but we are practicing together with all bodhisattvas
and all bodhisattvas are also had the same all bodhisattvas have the same path the same teaching the same realization and the same practices us so if we're if we are bodhisattvas we are practicing together with all beings if were booed
as were practicing together with all beings and if we're if anybody's not a bodhisattva well then the lotus sutra says i don't agree the lotus sutra says you're all bodhisattvas
the bodhisattvas are practicing with buddhists right okay and the lotus sutra says everybody's a bodhisattva
because everybody is practicing with buddha as a bodhisattva
so if you're one of the a euros or one of the you know snakes you're a bodhisattva if you're a snake your a bodhisattva
although you may not think your body software because you don't speak english or sanskrit or anything you don't you may not be snakes may not think i'm a bodhisattva but they are there on the path of becoming buddha all beings
if you look at some of the paintings of buddha's assemblies where buddhists are teaching
there's a wide variety of beings in it's a very diverse group
the beings are the same path so right now i don't know where on the same path as
all democrats
and in the same path as all republicans were on same path as a the russians the russian army that sitting on the border of ukraine wherein the same path of all the people who live in the ukraine
who do not want to be invaded
we're on the path of all beings
and we have a thought maybe that we're not on the same path as some beings that we don't have the same practice
but nonetheless to teaching i'm offering is that all buddhism practicing together with us when we think that we're not in the same path as some people the buddhas are with us practicing with us and we're practicing with the buddhas in this way of thinking that some people are not pratt
sing with us
we are really body surface
but we may not understand it very well so that's why we come together and discussed the teaching that we are body suggests
and we we can you know have a great conversation
okay

our next offering is from oscar
you very much trip thank you ask her
where i i count myself among those who would like to reduce suffering in the world and i do understand and support what you're saying this morning without to to to a degree to the to my level of understanding i understand that
i really at that
that my job is to be here and now with this body and mind
but at the same time i often find some conflict internal conflict
tom that i'm not reconciling those two views
that dumb
that i'm not at peace in my body and mind when hi
deal with them
with the world in the effort to reduce suffering
so my practice doesn't reach there yet
and
and i'm wondering
what i how i might think differently or practiced differently to understand further

right now u s the question how might i practiced differently i did it
the direct realization of the way
is to not trade is not to try to change this question you just add into another body and mind
and if and if you have thought my practice doesn't reach something yet
i don't yet reach it
i don't yet reach peace in this world
i don't yet reach understanding
that is a body and mind
yes and
the buddha away is realized without changing that body and mind into another one you don't have to change it into another one
you can realize it with the thought
i i do not reach what i aspire to
so part of our practice is actually to aspire to something with an awareness
that we don't reach it
and then and not to be somebody and then but the practice is not to try to be somebody other than who we are we have a thought like that
that's and buddhists have that same practice
who is do not aspire to be somebody other than border in order to be in order to be buddha
so to accept the omnipresent suffering of in such a moment
i have not being able to reconcile what seemed to be too divergent aspirations
well yeah they might see and they might seem to be divergent and then without without trying to change that apparent divergence without trying to change that that an addendum up and diverses is a body mind experience
it's a body mind event yes yes there's no divergence without bodies and minds
but with bodies and minds that can be this divergence
so the direct ways without changing this body and mind which is engaged in some sense of divergence realize the way
immediately right here with the sense of divergence realize that body and mind yes now if you had a body and mind which which had this sense of there's no divergence then use that body and mind

but the sense of no divergence is equal opportunity to this with the sense of there is divergence bodies and minds are opportunities
but if you but again they can be obstacles if we don't realize that their opportunities
if we try to use do something other than them then it's like they're obstacles it's like they're detours they're not really
but if we forget that than they can they become detours
i am a bodhisattva
that that thought is a body mind thought
i'm not a body sasha
that's the body mind my practice is not too good
the somebody my my practice is good that's a body mind
the buddha way cannot be other than those body minds at they occur
no matter what we're doing the buddha away cannot be other than what we're doing it's right there but is right with us at that moment
realize that moment
thank you very much

next offering is from furnish

thank you thank you
i am
your last teaching about suffering and and the question of a difference between designed to reduce suffering and until liberate well in the midst of suffering is something that i i think i relating to in my practice
currently which is that sometimes i suspect that
i can't separate might efforts to practice my efforts meaning like the marshalling
the effort being the marshalling have some teachings you know for example to be there with the body mind that is a rising so sometimes i feel i suspect that i can't separate the effort from a key
quality of the suffering
itself so that sometimes it seems that my suffering is the self consciousness that what i'm doing is wrong and and that that is inseparable from his efforts to want to be there for it and what i am
and i suppose coyote
also feeling is that maybe what cannot be satisfied like the thirst what cannot be satisfied like the desire to know if it's right or wrong
maybe it cannot be satisfied but it can be understood and embraced and that that embracing is less for me maybe an effort as a effortlessness or a sort of allowing and i guess what i sometimes str
sagal with his

the surprise of
how effort great effort and effortlessness are related and the sense of i'm always trying so hard and maybe that's all to the good and has been you know to kind of gripped her grasp onto a sense of ground and teaching which is always with me
but at the same time there is this awareness now of like oh fish i'm not am i abandoning the ceaseless suffering
or am i just sort of accepting it because sometimes i feel that it's insurmountable if i were to try to meet every know that rises with every perception for every know that rises with every yes you know i can sometimes slow it down and say okay why no to this cloud
why new to this whatever you know you haven't even contact it yet why know and i can serve slow down and try to be compassionate and curious that one know but then it seems that that would be every moment i would have to be i can keep up and so in the struggle to not be able to keep up
some other way of life maybe i'm not abandoning maybe the i cannot actually satisfy the know because i'm trying to change or reduce the suffering i perceive as know
and maybe i'm this is what i'm bringing forward as is where i feel i am now and
if that isn't some way related to what you're saying about maybe i'm trying to reduce suffering and what i'm learning is that the great effort to reduce suffering is something i'm learning to embrace and as i'm doing that i'm
becoming more my
embrace and
that that state is not necessarily something i am required to maintain but then i am becoming because sometimes misses the last thing i'll say
even now for example i feel like becoming with what i'm expressing is not the know there's not the
desire to reduce what i perceive i need to say in some way and i think to myself when i'm laughing or i'm teaching are really speaking whereas that effort god where has that great desire to reduce suffering by practicing a certain weight where's it gone you know and what is the relationship between
this kind of becoming you know that is like you said a sort of freeing within the suffering that i'm describing you know what's different between that and the conscious practice you know the conscious practice of i see this arising and i'm going to respond to it with this whip with this practice
thank you

you have just offered
many body mind moments to the greatest symbol
and the broader way
in each of those moments was none other than what you were would convey your body mind

and that teaching
he has given to help to promote to encourage intimacy with each one of these body mind
offerings there were offered to you and which were offered to us
this teaching is to help us
the intimate with each of those moments intimacy with all these examples of suffering
which you offered
his freedom in the midst of these examples of suffering which you offered
compassion is is the intimacy and also compassion is something we can train out
to become intimate
with our moment by moment experience
the intimacy
if the great compassion which liberates beings in the midst of their current body mind
which as you demonstrated is constantly changing
and i'll see you brought it to recovered every moment every body my moment has tremendous energy
tremendous effort there's tremendous effort every moment
of life
this teaching is too
embrace and become intimate with that effort

without adding or subtracting anything from it
ride it like a great wave in the ocean

our next offering is from rosie

thank you
thank you
ah on
i am the smaller in
and right
oh being here
moment by moment with other
the words and the faces
oh
and what comes up for me of course with this practice of stars and and the yoga practice that you know rabbi i've had for so long they don't like this for me so the words body mine
kind
oh
resonate with why this breath
and these whatever these sensations are and when you say on
to start as you do today know that you are living
each moment by moment with fan with soft rain
this includes of course the most an intimate and immediate
of our pains and sufferings
and
for me it's
very much more very physical
jess what i feel em
soto zen practice is so much what grounds s
what our work practice is
part of surfing
and being with each other
and where i'm taking this i'm not quite sure
oh because he asked get each marla
is a new one
and
offers fresh eyes trash years
first taste and touch
and it so
astonishing
to be alive or fill at this
time in my life
i remember blanche
just being alive is enough
schilling that aliveness and well know
awareness that's the word i want it okay home the awareness of all this is this hurts
i remember once when day saying i heard
oh this hurts okay how can you not run away from that
or indulgent and just tell her be the whole thing gets stuck
oh you know this is our practice isn't it to be free from with the awareness
mrs with the awareness being with it like were a little her puppy
oh and yes of this whatever and that's the compassion oh so i love returning to this
on daily
waking up
oh
i wonder what
today will bring
thank you for your offering
if you've out for being with us

next offering his friend barbara june and jeff
thank you read
thank you thank you create assembly i have a question on you talked him down freeing beings and liberating being used as opposed to reducing suffering liberating beings from suffering not a no
not opposed to a woman is think not opposed to reducing suffering but
your work is to free beings from suffering and i wanted to ask you to if you could elaborate a little bit on the word the words liberate and free are you and ask whether you are in
including understanding his liver what is lit being liberated from suffer
well liberation does involve understanding or realization
when we understand we what's going on we will be free if we understand suffering at the my at that moment we will be free
and
we will not understand the suffering if we don't love it
if we don't fully if we're not intimate with it we won't understand it
but if we are intimate with suffering will understand it and will be free with it will be free and the suffering will be free will be mutually free

thank you that helps me
and i appreciate your work
next offering is from justin
iran
please excuse me
i just want to say that i find the distinction between i
pain and suffering are other examples of of dharma realization i not being
the put away but being nothing other than the boot away very helpful and at say it seems like a berries a subtle but very important distinction and i think can really help my practice and i i'm i'm saying that partner to say thank you and partly to help myself remember
it and i the same time have
ah the concern that i'm going to forget it and i want to know what is said and asked for by a son
ah as as habit sometimes a piece of advice that i found really helpful were really worked for me and practice for a few days and starts that of fact starts to wear off i i wanna know how how can i remember it

do what do you wish to remember it very much
so wishing to remember it is conducive to remembering it
and i'm
being concerned that you're gonna forget it
is an opportunity to remember it
because been concerned that you're gonna forget it
might
a men might make you forget it because you're you're more concerned about forgetting it than remember it however when you're concerned about forgetting it remember it the boot away is nothing other than you been concerned about forgetting that teacher

the the intimate with your concern about forgetting and you and you remember it
gay
thank you

next offering is from charlotte

hello hello
i no great assembly
and thank you for being us being with us rep
he awoke him
thank you for being with us shall see
no
m
i wanted to
i raised my hand because
i'm i'm losing a a dear friend me mine in in cancer
and him
and she's only thirty five and
she has two kids and in the whole situation is snap
yeah of course so difficult
and then way sorry the put away
it is none other than these tears

the buddha away is none other than this body and mind which is crime

the buddhas are practicing together with you right now
and they're practicing together with your friend
the teaching help you embrace
the several intimately
this deliberate this is the freedom from suffering the systems
i always to don't give kill her that
i wish i could feel that
yeah
i wish i wish to give it to her also i wish to practice with her also
and helping her is none other than remembering and practicing this teacher
well
she's helped in the exact same way that were practicing she's practicing
no
that's hard to understand
but i said it
hmm
and this is for you and for her

the night i heard you say ones that
death does doesn't need to harm us
the i wondered if you will take one thing trafficking in death doesn't need a harmless and death doesn't need to kill us
hmm
we can be fully alive when we're dying
when are dead

wow

that was really helpful to hear pardon that first really helpful to hear
i just received some photos of her just before this talk and him
the other i got so shocked because i couldn't recognize her because of the medicines has changed her so much that i i i wouldn't i wouldn't recognize her first met her and this is your new friend
hmm
the new person to be interest
just as she is
and this is what she is how you know if you can be intimate with her this helps her be intimate with herself in him
she was smiling and looked happy and at those photos
oh
i think she was in
in that moment at least two cdc look generally genuinely happy and when onca i've been amazed at how she has been
he bought a been so be so open and remain open and vulnerable in in this situation she's in
may a cheap deeply inspiring a touching helps you how you can
what would you can be this way
this is the way she's helping you
hmm yes
it's like she's helping us around her own so to embrace death and
no

thank you so much

our next offering is from carroll co

no hat
hello call
i'm
i am
well into my grandmother years at this point and might my world is very small with the covert am i see my husband and our villa with an infant now who were trying to protect cushions not able of getting a vaccine
and in some ways m
because of the suffering of the world it looks like she won't be returned to her birth mother so we are now considering whether to invite her into our family
hum
and i will love to hear more about grandmother mind being enough because in anyways i i
i have an internal negative idea of older women which i am now being a
and how do i
embrace grandmother mind and let it flow through me
how do you are racing
one translator translation of grandmother mind his grandmother mindfulness him
so i'm
you i get feeling like it's not that difficult for you to treat for you to remember
ah this little person
smoke you learned to like is he open possibly where is it's easy for you to remember her a lot of the day
just comes naturally
so the the grandmother mind of our school is to have that kind of ease in remembering
that
ah the buddha way is none other than your body and mind

this particular body and mind
grandmother mind remembers the buddha away can not be other than this one
and this helps you
not only take care of this little person
but liberate this little person by this mindfulness at the way she is in her life and way you are and yours
is the same
it's not both of your life and none other
them great compassion compassion can be none other than her and you
together
and she's changing in you're changing put away cannot be other than the way you're changing together
and so remembering that when we want to be able to remember that the way you remember her
it's like effortless for you remember her and so would be nice to be effortlessly remembering that the put away can not be other than what we're doing right now
that is direct realization
wouldn't remember
whether you're giving medicine or not
the away is none other than this if you are trying to reduce suffering the buddha away is not other than that
if you're not trying to reduce suffering but just being with it the border with other than that
that's grandmother my grandmother remembering not just to the purpose being that you're caring for and yourself for remembering the put away at the same time
and eventually ah maybe as effortlessly as you remember that the little one you remember the big one
yeah been where the realizations is that her suffering and not resisting for suffering is such a doorway as opposed to my whining for stump suffering to stop his to allow it to flow with entrance there's allowing her suffering and then there's
allowing you wishing hers with her wishing that's another suffering to allow
good
thank you you're welcome

the next offering his friend kim and barry
iran hello
belgrade and broken and barry
i shall i i just wanna say a shoutout out my heart goes out to you in it comes back to me way from california over to europe
hang down
but my question rub a has to do something that came out piano reading this week with in a third turning up the wheel in chapter two and i think it relates to what you're talking about today and that is the the idea that's presented and it
was presented in the lotus sutra to that bodhisattvas not associate with people who don't thirst or beings who don't thirst for the time am i don't have it exactly right i'm sure bet but that would they don't they're not intimate with ah beings who don't thirst for the dharma and i think
you talk about that they don't spend time teaching
those beings perhaps i just wondered if you can talk a little bit more about it because it gave us great we were bewildered by that and from what you're talking about what you've been speaking about today it seems to me that we can't be other than intimate with
everything that that comes to us and
so if if you it could you talk about hannah robert please thank you

well are uneasy star i was an easy response is ah
that we we don't on
we don't give teachers to people who don't want them
did we even know if we're giving them the teachings nor by me like if we had a teaching and we knew that somebody didn't want to hear it like for example i don't know what somebody might have ah
may maybe they have food on their face
and we see it but we might have mentioned it to them if we felt they didn't want to hear about it
or if we saw someone being impatient with somebody else or unkind
and we knew they don't want to hear any teach him about that
we might not offer it
we might offer something else that they that they do want for example you might tell him but how how the shortcomings of your kindness
and they may say it's interesting
you have problems the you sometimes on kind you say nights i'm sorry i sometimes sometimes not kind you might sense of that teaching they would they would be able to receive
so some teachings are
we have them available and are true in there
and they're beneficial but it's not the right time
and bodhisattvas are really busy
embracing all beings
but sometimes beings do not wanna be embraced and in or with with our presence they don't really want us
the way we really are they don't really want the teacher
the way we are
so then we don't give them the teacher
which is the whip which includes the way we are
and we're and were our job is to be is to be a they read they don't really want our expression of generosity that our job is to be generous with people
they don't really want our expression of ethical conduct but are caught our our job is to practice ethical conduct with people they don't really want our patients but that's our job so our jobs our life is something they don't want
so in that sense we don't associate with them and also by doing our practice in this way we realized ever intimate with them
but we're not we're not hanging out with them because they don't want us
they don't they they they don't want us the way we are they'd rather have us be someplace else or maybe they'd like us to be different from way out what we are you know but we're not we're not gonna do that we're gonna be who we truly are and that means that we don't spend time with some people who do not want us

they don't want to teach you we have to offer and our job is to offer teachings teachings of compassion they don't want that
and i should say if they don't want it we don't force it that wouldn't be it
so i think associate or means that you act in a way to express this intimacy and some people do not want it
and those people
we don't we don't we don't give it a so i would occur and estuary respond to this this thing about so bodhisattva vow to be intimate with all beings and that means that they don't associate with some beings as part of that practice of being intimate part of being intimate it
is to stay away from people who don't want you
who don't want a bodhisattva
they want a king or a businesswoman
are you know or a mother or father not you
but it also says if they do want
let you know who you truly are if they want the truth they want to teach it than you shouldn't then then you should associate with them if they want the teaching of intimacy then give it it says it at the end of each one of those sections don't don't associate or hang out with these people but if they want to teach him in the ask for
then give it
so another way to put it is
if this type of people do not want to teaching them don't associate with them
and that's an accord with your intimacy with them
but right now they want they want you to be not they don't want who you are they don't want the teacher of intimacy
okay so how has that setting is is this is a sinking in a little bit for you
yes john island when i would say that it's for me it feels like what i can be sensitive to
a situation and i also remember that the idea of asking somebody can may i offer a suggestion on a i know are you know man at the commenter i don't know about those things that you doing i'm not gonna i'm not suggesting we revives the lotus sutra but when it
says don't don't associate with these group of people and then it says but if they want to teaching then do
maybe which say say don't associate with these people who do not want the teacher
and as you said be sensitive to that people don't want who you really are
yeah and i'll also reduce suffering while the way round i can see that are not produced when we don't ever do suffering but it's not that we don't want to reduce suffering it's that we want to liberate beings who are trying to reduce suffer
right we're not trying to get rid of the people who are trying to reduce suffering were trying to be intimate with them
and if we're trying to reduce suffering for example if i've got a headache and i want to take an aspirin i wanna be intimate with the person who is taking with the body and mind as taken aspirin to reduce the suffering of the headache
it's not that i don't take two aspirin if that my real job is to be intimate with the person who's taking the aspirin
so i wanna be i want to be intimate with all the people who are trying to reduce suffering
and if i'm one of them i want to be intimate with myself
and also to be a to allow for the person who doesn't want know my my good
and have my best self
allow for that and to ah
to be compassionate with with a my my wish town and you know improve their situation and wish for me to they are
yeah
the intimate with them not want you to be a bot he sought for in their presence

thank you
thank you
our next offering is from cat
hello taking so much and an state assembly can you hear me okay
yeah so this might be a little bit of a mass an a while i was just like to share an experience and the maybe there's a question or thought often there and but you know coming back from the january and serve
city now and you know i'm an icu nurse and i also work at a vaccine for a brooklyn so and i pdf
and while i'm all about trying to reduce suffering i'm actually increasing suffering quite a bit amongst the hideous are giving them time and i think the first time i gave a pediatric those i was like crying will fix the head which isn't
to professional and but it's just it's so hard to see kids
dufferin and to them during and just to see how to the parents
three thirty while their suffering we know that you're planting some
see a primer for them just
it's not quite verbal eastwood but it sits very
toxic to where in live a lot of oh you shouldn't crying here near boy with your tough boy like guy and it's it's very difficult to you
in those situations as i can just try to console the kittens a nicer guy is it scary to the like i almost feel like i'm fascinated by the first group of people to get activated and he didn't know how you'd respond to it so
it's just sound
i'm not sure what else and can do in those situations was know exactly something else you could do but you could remember
when you're with a crying baby and when you're crying too maybe
you could remember the teaching
that the buddha away is cannot be other than what you were you and the baby are doing
you can remember that that's not something in addition that's just remembering the teaching you're suffering with this little person or this big person
you can remember that
and in that way why you're caring for this person who is suffering and while you're feeling suffering with them you can realize the bull away
and that liberates both you and the baby
from the suffering which are currently feeling
and the buddha way cannot be anything other than what's going on with you too
in a situation like that you're not trying to make the baby cry less you're not telling them that to be a you know a big girl now cry you i'm just remembering
that great compassion cannot be other than what you're going through together
and that doesn't change the situation it liberates it
and the situation will then change the baby will stop crying you'll stop crying and then and then again you don't do anything in addition to that
use the not crying baby in the not crying nurse
not use remember the teaching them only through this body and mind
because also a fan of concerned that and becoming somewhat sensitized to the
are you from suffering
and i'm not sure how to he added
are you asking if you're becoming desensitized and i feel like i'm becoming he said oh you do know if you if if you ever
if you are if you feel like you're becoming desensitized
if that that did that your body mind experienced i think i'm getting maybe i'm getting desensitized the boot away cannot be other than you
feeling like you're becoming desensitized
and you can become liberal braden from
feeling or being desensitized
and when you're liberated you are able to liberate others along with you in with whatever level of sensitivity they have the i must say you're never gonna be desensitized i'm just saying that's another opportunity for compassion decency censored
i used compassion doesn't say you should be suffering more

you shouldn't be insensitive
like some people say that i heard some people say to some other people you're too sensitive
but i don't hear so often you're not sensitive enough but that we could have that too we could have
you're too sensitive you're not sensitive enough i am too sensitive and not sensitive enough wherever the body mind ears is
there is a direct immediate right here realization of the way
and that's what really helps people through the ups and downs a pain
and happiness and sensitivity

if you're welcome
thank you for your offering
our next offering is from you key

good morning good morning
so i i have been thinking i'm kind of starting with the conversation you have with oscar and the theme running through this
can you say something like just buddha way is to just be who you are who this person is that's manifesting in this moment to just be that
ah something like that and it sounds really easy a natural and yet it's really difficult and i'm wondering why something that sounds like it would be so natural
it's so hard what what's that about

well natural doesn't mean easy
if you climb a mountain
it's natural that it's hard for it may be natural that it's hard
so yeah natural doesn't mean easy
i guess i'm wondering how we should be anything other than what we are and why we why would think that we are something other than that and the way we are that we can think we can think pink sauce like them that's the way we are we have the ability to think that we could
be other than we are which is of course nonsense
yeah but we can think it
and we can also think things which aren't exactly nonsense but where we're thinking it but we don't know what we're talking what we're thinking about like you can think of being a buddha but you don't know what a buddha is
a little girl can think
up being a mother
but she doesn't really know what being a mother is but she still can think of it and wanna be it
as you'll also and ah sugar also know that she's not a mother
but she probably doesn't know that she doesn't know what a mother is
we should become more mature when she becomes a mother she become more aware she doesn't know in a mother is
but she still can aspire to it that's the way we are we can inspire things that we don't understand and we can despair of things that we think we do understand
in other words we can have childish aspirations and mature aspirations that's the way we are and we can think of being somewhere other than who we are
and people can think that you have to change this body mind into some other body and mind in order to realize the buddha away
i'm saying a different teaching
you do not have to change you into being somebody else to realize the boot away a matter of fact giving up changing into somebody else at giving up to change in his body and mind into some other body and mind that realizes the border way
and
it is hard as climbing a sheer cliff

i my connection went down i couldn't hear the last part of what you say

oh
he
i'll say differently being intimate with who we are is already the case were already two who were with we are but to realize that were intimate with who we are is as hard as climbing a sheer cliff
it's hard to realize that of course were intimate with who we are
it is hard to realize that were intimate with all beings
but is naturally so it's obviously so but not in appearance but just our mind can understand it of course were intimate with the whole universe but to realize it is difficult because we have thoughts like i'm not intimate with this person
and then again it's which we have trouble being intimate with that thought
but that's the way we are were naturally that way
and but to realize that we're not sure that way is really hard
it's the hardest thing
there's magic when you talk about it it sounds like it should be as easy as falling off a log worry
fortunately you ask me and i say know it's hard enough
good
when you do it of course when it when you're asked the way you are it's effortless
but to find is effortless intimacy
is hard

our next offering his friend deborah

iran hi deborah i'm ran i heard you say if we don't love the suffering we cannot be free good i could one replace love with intimacy yes
org or compassion
no it's not like not like thought a preference no i don't like cancer but i love it i mean i don't like cancer but i aspire to love it i aspire to be intimate with it
i met with intimacy with the world saves the world
an intimacy is hard work
thank you you're welcome thank you

next offering is from stephen
well we've had all these wonderful offerings robin and so instructed by all of them ah
yeah
the hell being is the
i'm you know they're all sorts of hell beans and on
and the bodhisattva aspires to be with the hell being
and
it's so you and and in some way so i really up to questions but you can answer one or both are not respond to wonderful that a year the you are with the hell been
ah the early two ways and they perhaps or non dual your with the hell been
you know your with hitler in the bunker
as a broad maybe or your with the hell been as the hell being
himself or herself or themselves so
and i suppose they're not do ultimately so but
there is this interesting phenomena of being phenomenon of being with the helping as the hell being and yet you're you
still and then there and then the second question is ah ah aspiration your with the hell being either as the hell been or are withheld been as yourself or both but there's some on aspiration to not be a helping
which would seem to be trying that again to tear
get out of trying to get out of the for the bottom of the by my thanks amen
the aspiration cannot be a hell being is one of the conditions for being a hell being
so in hell there's a bunch of beings who are aspiring to not be in hell
which you know puts them back and help
the body sought was wanna be into aspired to be intimate with the hell beings while the hell beings are aspiring to not be in hell
the bodhisattvas not aspiring for them not to be in hell the body sought was aspiring to be with them
and to liberate them
in hell
because that's where they are
not till i get them out and then liberate them
liberate them in hell teach them how to be free of hill
teach them how to be free of wishing that they weren't where they are
and if the bodhisattvas in hell the bodhisattva aspires
i mean i guess each you're either inhale or they're a hell being if the body sought of finds himself to be a helbig he aspires to be intimate with his own hellish torment
and he made sometimes feel like i wasn't too intimate with it that in that moment let me try again

it wasn't the only thing i think i'd say is it the only other thing i'd say is that it eventually i think the boy sought but once a break from health and i i mean that an undiluted diet of nothing but hell is hard of being a bodhisattva is to take breaks
bodhisattvas take rest that's part of as part of how they have enthusiasm for their work
so you know like doctors without borders as good if they take breaks from the long line of people coming to see them so they can go back to work so resting is part of our enthusiastic aspiration
but we take the break in order to do the work not to get away from it
if you define if i take the break to get away at it if i take the break for inspiration and route rejuvenation to do the work that's part of the work
rest is part of the work no rest is not the work
which we need bodies up as do need to rest
buddha buddha as do rest

our next offering is from pam
the morning ram
earlier you are you said to somebody if we understand our suffering we will be free of are suffering and i thought that a yes but or and we can be free of are suffering without understanding are suffering because being free of are suffering is
is really about an orientation towards are suffering certain smells so much an end result as it is an orientation towards an orientation towards their suffering where we're not trying to get rid of the suffering not holding on to the suffering or if we are trying to get rid of this efrain were intimate with trying to get rid of this
or for holding onto it were intimate with holding on to it but that am that so there's two parts of that one that i in in my experience i can be free from suffering just from being intimate with it even if i don't understand what is from and you know maybe that's just because those are just
little our freedoms and maybe the big freedom does involve understanding go ahead it sounds like you think understanding means you understand words from
he well okay yeah there is understanding where it's from the you're saying there's another kind of understanding that is just the understanding of intimacy yeah wait yeah no yeah and and from the understanding of intimacy you might understand words from or might not but you don't and
audio you might not like it happened if you learn how to dance you know your intimate with the dancing with your partner but you might not understand where your partner you are the dance came from yeah but then you know later after your dance for a while you might read a book on the history of dance
but that is it you know that is understanding the dance is to dance
now we can thank you and where do you think about the other part of it of being free from suffering not so much as an end result but just as an orientation towards it being marked by just being willing to be whatever it is that is yeah i i
but i have trouble with the word with the end so being free of suffering as an ongoing process
yeah no in drawing all beings into the process of being free of suffering know it is no there's no end to it yeah yeah
i think you welcome
for next offering his friend linda

okay ah
that ah when you were talking the uk and
talking about how hard it is like going up a sheer cliff
and then i thought this song
and as very pleased i want to sing the chorus to this song by woody guthrie
and yeah and i'm also nervous about doing it but let me just do it okay
and it's hard and yet harding it hard to love one who never did love you and it's hard and it's hard and it's hard great god to love one who never will be true
okay
you see why that is a response to young
yeah okay and
it's our nature to love them
yeah loving them as natural but it's hard
and them is us yeah right yeah and nuts and that's that's intimacy and it's hard it's hard to reverse because it's hard to love us what we have never good love us
the hurricanes and in if it isn't okay i yeah well i usually one if somebody realizes intimacy with no effort i'd be surprised but taught me about it
what will it happens then it seems like than it's ever got three it yeah
and zucker she did say intimacy is hard
thank you for letting me sing thank you for singing you wanna sing it again
is that a good idea i don't know
one is at a year well i just hope everybody will join in this is woody guthrie it's hard and at hard it's hired a and it hard a hard to love one that never did not view and it's hard and it's hard and it's hard great got to love one who is
never will be true
q like you have now so thank you great assembly for of
for coming to this great assembly which i think is sometimes kind of hard
this is not always easy this assembly but you came and you supported it and it's supported you thank you so