I don't know if that's true, but I thought it might be funny to say so. And also, several people in this room appear to be participating in a class in Berkeley which is called Zen Meditation on the Roots and Fruits of Perfect Wisdom. And I proposed in that class that one of the roots of perfect wisdom is living beings and buddhas, not two.

[01:05]

So, the non-duality of perfectly enlightened beings and living beings who are not yet perfectly enlightened, that non-duality, I proposed, is like a root of the perfect wisdom. But today I'm thinking about it differently. I would say actually maybe that the non-duality of perfectly enlightened, non-duality of those who have realized perfect wisdom and those who have not yet realized perfect wisdom, that non-duality is the ground of perfect wisdom. So I'm changing the image, and remind me next Thursday to tell the people that I'm changing the image that

[02:09]

the non-duality of buddhas and non-buddhas, or not yet buddhas, that non-duality is the ground of perfect wisdom. In that ground of that non-duality, there's a kind of a root, or a seed, and the root is the thought. The thought in a living being to realize perfect wisdom for the welfare of all living beings. So the ground of perfect wisdom is this friendship, this intimate friendship between buddhas and all living beings, and the root is the aspiration to realize perfect wisdom for the welfare of all.

[03:11]

And one of the people in the class, well actually then I pointed out that the ground of this thought, the thought, I wish to devote my life to realizing perfect wisdom for the welfare of all beings, that thought is a conceivable thought. It's a kind of thinking. And that kind of thinking is the root which leads to a wisdom, and the wisdom it leads to is not a thought. Perfect wisdom is not a thought. It's not thinking. It's freedom from thinking. But the root that leads to freedom from thinking is a certain type of thinking. And the type of thinking it is, is thinking like this. No matter how many kinds of living beings there are, I vow to realize perfect wisdom in order to bring them to freedom.

[04:29]

That thinking is conceivable. We can see it appearing in karmic consciousness or not. But the ground upon which that thought arises is inconceivable. The friendship between living beings and Buddhas, that friendship is inconceivable. So from an inconceivable intimacy arises a conceivable wish which leads to a wisdom which is inconceivable. From a state of intimacy which is beyond imagination arises an imagination to live your life for the welfare of all beings.

[05:31]

And that imagination leads to a perfect wisdom which is non-imagination. And in that class last week somebody said, I've had enough of this inconceivable, I'm getting overwhelmed, can I have some conceivable? So I stopped with the inconceivable stuff and switched to the conceivable. And I was reminded this morning of Suzuki Roshi when he's talking about certain kinds of teachings, the teachings of perfect wisdom, they're like salt. If you add them to the rice of our conceptual life, it makes kind of a tasty practice. So I'm aware that I sometimes over-salt. So if it gets too salty, let me know and I'll lighten up on the salt, the inconceivable salt, the salt of perfect wisdom.

[06:40]

When you're talking about inconceivable, do you know it at all? You can know it, but you don't know it with your conscious mind. You hear words about it in your conscious mind. We're talking about it now in our conscious mind. Is the connection or the feeling of being drawn to those teachings or drawn to that person, is that the intimacy with the Buddhas or is that beyond that? No. The feeling of being drawn to those teachings or being drawn to the Buddha, that's a thought which can appear in consciousness. I want to go hang out with the Buddhas. I want to go hang out with the skillful, compassionate people. That's something you can cognize conceptually. But the root of that wish to be close to Buddhas is an inconceivable reality of being close to Buddha.

[07:45]

Because we're close to Buddha, we want to be with Buddha. So the ground is inconceivable and it supports thoughts in our karmic consciousness of wishing to practice the way of Buddha. And those thoughts are karmic thoughts, karmic consciousness thoughts. But those types of thoughts can be cultivated in such a way that they will lead you to realize this inconceivable, non-conceptual reality of intimacy with enlightenment and freedom and peace. In one of our chants that we practice in this tradition, it's called the Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi.

[08:45]

And in there it says various things. One of them it says is, The spiritual source shines clearly in the light. The branching streams flow in the darkness. It doesn't say in that song, but the spiritual source is dark. Karmic consciousness is light. The lights are on in karmic consciousness. And in the light of karmic consciousness, the spiritual source, which we can't see, we can't see the oneness of all of us and Buddhas. It's invisible. It's totally invisible. But it's shining in our current minds. It's the light of our karmic consciousness, but we can't see the light.

[09:50]

And the other way around it says, is that the branching streams flow in the darkness. The spiritual source shines clearly in the light. And the branching streams flow in the darkness of the spiritual source. Did you follow that? The spiritual source is dark and the branching streams are flowing in that darkness. What are the branching streams? They are our conscious mind. Those are the roots. The roots are going down into the darkness of the spiritual source. All the while, the spiritual source is shining in our karmic consciousness, invisibly. A poem comes to mind from Saido. This leaky, tumble-down grass hut leaves openings for the moon.

[11:04]

Now I gaze at it. All the while, it was reflected in the teardrops falling on my sleeves. Even before we see it, the moon is shining in our daily life. And then a time comes when we see this. With some of the senior priests at Zen Center, I've been studying a fascicle written by the ancient teacher Dogen, which is called The Sound of the Valley Streams and the Color of the Mountains.

[12:09]

And in there they tell part of a story about a Chinese person. And his name is, he has many names. One of his names, his most common name, I guess, is Su Shi. Another common name for him is Tsu Dung Po. Su, his family name is Su. And his father, who is also Mr. Su, named his son Su Shi. And I don't know what Su means, but Shi is a word referring to a kind of an ornamental armrest in the front of a carriage. And this person was born into a family that rode in carriages.

[13:17]

And as you ride in a carriage, you have an armrest. And his family decorated armrests, I assure you. So the story is that he gave his son this name to remind his son of being careful of his outward appearance. And Su, his family name, Dung Po, means eastern slope. He had a, during one of his periods of exile, he built a little hut on an eastern slope, Dung Po. And so he did a lot of his greatest writing in that hut, on that eastern Dung Po slope. It's hard to characterize this person. We don't, I guess we maybe would call him a renaissance person.

[14:21]

He was a calligrapher, a poet, a high official of the Chinese government, a, what do you call it, a scientist, and several other things. It would be like a person, a combination of like Yo-Yo Ma and your favorite poet, and your favorite composer, contemporary, and your favorite politician, and your favorite musician, and your favorite athlete, in one person. Who hung out with, you know, the elite in all those different realms of art. He is considered, in the arts, to be the most influential person

[15:24]

of the Sung Dynasty. He lived from 1037 to 1103, 64 years. His father was also a, his father and brother were also, you know, nationally venerated literary figures. And in those days, in the court of the emperor, in addition to other governmental discussions, there were discussions of, you know, what's the most interesting and vital form of poetry that's going on now. And his father was considered by one of the leading court officials to be the best poet in China. So he grew up in that kind of environment, and at 19 years old, he passed the highest exams

[16:26]

for government officials. And not only passed them, but passed them in like a, you know, in a way that was highly appreciated by the leaders of the country. And so, at a young age, he was appointed to be the governor of four provinces. But political workings were such that he got exiled when he was about 43. And while he was in exile, he started to study Buddhism more sincerely. He already knew a lot about Buddhism in his early years. He studied the Buddhist teachings, the Confucian teachings, and the arts. But didn't really practice too much until he got exiled.

[17:28]

Su Dongpo, or Su Shih. So the story of his studying of Zen is a story of, I would say, the story I will tell you will be a story which you can hear in karmic consciousness. I'll tell you it in words. And this story is a story of practice. This is a story of branching streams, which are flowing in an inconceivable darkness. The story that I'm telling is a light that you can see that's living in the inconceivable darkness of our friendship with the Buddhas. So just one place to start the story is to talk about his visiting three good friends.

[18:41]

The good friends we see in this world, again, are the branching streams. The good friends we see in this world are the branching streams, which we can see, which are flowing in the darkness of our inconceivable, unlimited friendship with all beings. So he, at one point, went to visit a Zen teacher. Actually, before I tell this story, he went around and visited teachers and tested them. He, being gifted with an amazingly high-functioning memory, they say, had memorized the Buddhist canon. And he would go visit Buddhist teachers and test them to see if they knew anything about Buddhism. And he was often, you know, kind of in a bratty young man way, testing them.

[19:52]

And when they didn't know, he got kind of discouraged, kind of thought, these people are no good. So anyway, he went to visit one teacher, and I don't know if he tested the teacher or not, but anyway, the teacher said to him, what's your name? And he didn't say, my name is, so sure, he said, my name is Zhang. And Zhang means scales, as in weighing things. And I think the Zen teacher, who was the abbot of a monastery called Jade Springs, Master Jade Springs said to him, what's your name?

[20:57]

And he said, Zhang. And then Master Jade Springs said, Mr. Scales. And so sure, he said, yes. And then he yelled at him very loudly. And then he said to, so sure, how much does that weigh? And so sure started to, you could say, his arrogance started to drop away. And he felt moved to study more deeply than just memorize all the texts. And then he had the occasion to meet another Zen master, whose name was Fa Yin,

[22:06]

which I'm guessing means Buddha's sound, or the sound of Buddha. And they became good friends, and he had almost no responsibility because he was in exile, but he would visit his friend Fa Yin, Buddha's sound, when he could. And one day he came to visit his friend, dressed in his Sunday best, as an imperial official. Green and blue brocade, and a large jade belt. I don't know if you've ever seen any of these jade belts that the official wears, but they're kind of like those belts that world heavyweight champions wear. Real thick, covered with jade.

[23:10]

And he came to see his old friend, and his friend Fa Yin said, Wow, I don't know if I can let you in here, into my humble place. I don't have any suitable chairs for you. All I have is these simple cushions. And Su Hsu said, It's alright, I'll use you as a chair. I'll sit on you. And master Fa Yin said, I'll tell you what, I have a question for you, and if you can answer the question, you can use me as a chair. You can sit on me. But if you don't answer it, then you can give me your jade belt. And Su Hsu said, Okay.

[24:19]

And then his good friend says, Let's discuss the Heart Sutra. In the Heart Sutra it says, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. If you use me as a chair, then you're abiding in form. If you don't, and not realizing it's emptiness. If you don't use me as a chair, you don't cling to form, but you have nothing to sit on. How about you? And Su Hsu couldn't say anything. And Fa Yin said, The belt please. And he gave him his belt. But again he was like, you know, moved to study more deeply.

[25:30]

And then he went to visit another Zen teacher, a better known one, who is a disciple of the founder of the Yellow Dragon School of Rinzai Zen in China. His name was Zhang Song. Dong Lin Zhang Song. He went to visit him, and he went to him and said, Teacher, with your great kindness and great compassion, please teach me the Buddha Dharma to help me open my mind to Buddha's sound. The sound of Buddha. And his new good friend started yelling at him,

[26:35]

and said, How dare you come here and ask to hear the dead words of humans. You must learn to hear the living words of nature. Get out! Last time I was here, Dr. Bhattacharyya was saying, If you don't have this conviction, this conviction of celestial dragon's one finger, I should tell you to get out. So this Zen master saw that this monk, this famous cultural figure who was visiting him, did not have conviction in the living sound of the Buddha Dharma.

[27:40]

He was still dabbling in the dead words of humans. So he said, Get out! And he was really shaken this time. And the story goes that he got on his horse and just let his horse take him wherever the horse wanted to go. He didn't know what to do or how to hear the true Dharma. And yet, he gave up everything else and wasn't trying to do anything, and just let his horse take him. And the horse took him to a place where there was a loud waterfall and finally he heard the true Dharma. But hearing the true Dharma doesn't mean you hear the waterfall.

[28:43]

It means you hear, while you're listening to the waterfall, you hear the true Dharma. In this story it doesn't say that he had the aspiration to realize perfect wisdom for the welfare of all beings. I don't know if he did. It's not mentioned in the story. I could imagine that he did. But he had these three friendships that are mentioned. And I'm saying that these three friendships come from the inconceivable relationship between him and the Buddhas. And these three friendships helped him open up to the inconceivable intimacy of nature and the Buddhas.

[29:53]

Nature including us. All of us. The earth, the trees, the sky, the water. All of us. Everything we can see is intimate with the Buddhas. But this intimacy is invisible. And with the aid of these friends in the visible world, he opened to the invisible, inconceivable. And then he wrote a poem. First of all, he bowed in the direction of the teacher who sent him on this mission to hear the teaching, the living teaching, the living words, the living words of nature. He bowed and he wrote a poem which is The Sounds of the Valley Stream. The sound of the valley stream is the universal tongue.

[30:57]

The color of the mountains are all the pure body. Another day, how can I recite the 84,000 verses that came through me last night? And I think I also mentioned to you that Sukarishi said, our Zazen practice is to sit in the big invisible world. So we have a visible body and we have a visible mind that can think. I wish to practice perfect wisdom. And I wish to practice perfect wisdom. It's the branching streams that are flowing in the darkness

[32:01]

of the invisible world of our intimacy with the Buddhas. In the visible world, we practice friendship like these stories of the friendship of the great cultural figure and these different friends he had. And that friendship opened him to the inconceivable friendship in which the wind, the sound of the wind, the sound of the stream, the colors of the mountains, they're all teaching the Buddha Dharma. The visible colors, the audible sounds, the touchable tangibles, the tasteable tastes, all these things are expounding the living words of Buddha in an unhearable, invisible, untasteable way.

[33:03]

And the chant we did before the talk began, began, began, is that from this life on through our countless lives, we vow to hear the true Dharma. Dogen Zen, you wrote that a long time ago, but before he wrote that, originally, he said, even though you've wasted a lot of time up till now, from now on, make this vow. From this life on through our countless lives, I vow to hear the true Dharma. I'll listen to everybody I meet, and when I'm listening, I vow to hear the true Dharma. I'll look at everybody I meet, and I vow to see the color, the shape of the Buddhas. I vow that. And after he says, make that vow, then he moves on a little further,

[34:25]

and he says, although my past evil karma has greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause of conditions of obstacles in practicing the way. So after he said, make this vow, he also said, make the vow that, although I just made this vow, my past karma is going to make it difficult, be an obstacle in me practicing in accord with this vow. And I ask the Buddhas to be compassionate with me, and free me from karmic effects, allowing me to practice the way without hindrance. So I wish to, moment by moment, listen for and look to see the true Dharma. And I know that because of my karmic history, I will get distracted. May Buddhas be compassionate to me,

[35:26]

and help me become free of these karmic effects, allowing me to practice the way I wish to practice, without hindrance. And then, what they tell me to do, in order to be free of the hindrance, is confess the hindrance, and say, I'm sorry that I have these karmic hindrances. And by noting these hindrances, and expressing our regret that they've distracted us, we melt away the root of distraction from listening to the true Dharma. That's what we just chanted, before we started, right? Yes, Kim? Is it not possible that those very distractions or hindrances are actually, I mean, they're Dharmagates? Is it possible they're Dharmagates?

[36:28]

Yes, good question. And that they are what make you be able to be empathetic with other living beings, too? I don't know about that last part, about that they're what make you empathetic. I don't know if that's right. But definitely, they are Dharmagates. And when you get distracted, if you confess that the distraction was a distraction, and you say you regret the distraction, then the distraction turns into a Dharmagate. But if you have a distraction, and you say that's a Dharmagate, you sort of missed the point of admitting that that was a distraction. Like, if you vow to be kind to people, and then you are unkind, you don't say, well, that's a Dharmagate. You say, that's not what I wanted to do. I didn't want to act that way. I got distracted from the way I want to act. I wanted to be kind. And I'm sorry.

[37:32]

Then, the Dharmagate opens. Once you confess, it's not the thing, it's not your distraction that makes you more empathetic, it's the noticing that you're distracting, and saying you're sorry. And then, when you meet other people who get distracted, you say, yeah, I had the same problem. It's from the practice that the empathy comes, and the practice comes from your actual intimacy with everybody. That's where the empathy comes from. And when you notice that you're distracted from that intimacy, and the way you want to act because of it, then that admitting it and confessing it revitalizes the empathy. You can feel empathy even when you're not distracted. You can see people who are distracted and feel empathy.

[38:35]

And if I get distracted, and I confess and repent, then it takes me back to empathy. We want to be empathetic, but we get distracted from it. So then, when we notice it and say we're sorry, then we can go back to practice again. But the source of all this is not the part we saw, just saw there. That's just a way to deal with it. And another thing I wanted to mention was that what I'm talking about here as this vow that you make is a psychological event. I wish to live for the welfare of all beings. I aspire to perfect wisdom. That's a psychological phenomenon there. One person translates that as a psychological technique.

[39:41]

It's a way to establish the inconceivable relationship among all beings. So it's a psychological training to realize a spiritual reality. The spiritual reality is not psychological. The relationship between all psychological beings is not a psychological phenomenon. But it's being proposed that all psychological beings are intimately related to each other. So how do we use our psychology to open up to the spiritual relationship among psychologies? Well, this is the technique. Or these are the techniques. Starting with the aspiration to realize perfect wisdom.

[40:43]

In other words, realizing perfect wisdom means realizing perfect friendship. Which means realize perfect intimacy among all living beings and between all living beings and Buddhas. That's a psychological function, a psychological practice. And by doing that practice we get to meet friends who yell at us and say, how dare you try to, etc., get out. And that psychological response to our attempts can lead us to open to the spiritual, inconceivable, perfect wisdom of our relationship. Our actual relationship, right now, is perfect wisdom. But you're right that the distractions are opportunities for practice. And practicing with distractions

[41:45]

is the pure and simple color of true practice. Distractions aren't exactly the practice. Practicing confession and repentance with the distractions and the distractions and then vowing again is the pure and simple color of true practice. The true mind of faith, the true body of faith. Diane? Could you talk a little bit about kindness toward all beings? Kindness towards all beings? Yeah. For instance, what I consider a kind act towards someone, they may not consider it to be a kind act. Right. And so, I don't know, I'm thinking of a situation right now in my life and having to say no to this person,

[42:48]

it would really hurt her, but it's a very kind act as far as I can tell. Well, the last part you said was as far as I can tell. I guess I would say to you, and I wish this to be a kind thing, but I don't know if it is, is that every kind act you offer to this world is kind as far as you can tell. But we really can't tell. If an act is kind, because kind has something to do with the consequence. So in these stories, when the Zen master Zhang Cong yelled at Su Dong Po and said, how dare you come to get dead words of a human. I think that he thought, I'm doing this in hopes that this will be beneficial to this person.

[43:52]

But I don't think he knew that it would be beneficial. Now we see by the way the story went, it was beneficial. It led to his awakening and his great happiness and the continuing of a wonderful life. But if we try to do something kind and the person says, you know, that was really kind, you're just the most kind person I know, and then they say, so I don't have to practice meditation anymore. And matter of fact, you're so kind that I don't have to be kind to anybody ever again. Because you've shown me that, now let's move on to something more interesting. We don't know, because it's the consequence for the welfare of the world. And we can't see that. Still, we aspire to do what's good. So again, I think,

[44:52]

Kim asked about this the other night. It's not that Bodhisattvas go around and say, well, I want to be kind and I just did a kind thing. It's that I want to be kind and I'm doing this and I want this to be kind, but I don't know if it's kind. I mean it to be kind. And sometimes I offer it and I say, you know, that wasn't that kind, I think. And I'm sorry, because I think that wasn't that kind. That's not the way I meant to say it. So like, I saw an example of this recently. Just yesterday I was thinking, what was it? I don't remember, but anyway, sometimes you do something for someone like, I don't know what, you might wash their laundry for them. And they might say to you,

[45:54]

you know, after you just did the service for them, they might say to you, you did a lousy job washing my laundry. And then how do you, like when you hear that criticism, how do you remember, I aspire to realize perfect wisdom. And then, if you kind of lose track of that, even though you don't say the words, if you lose track of that feeling, and you start thinking, how dare you say that to me, I just did you a favor and now you're criticizing me, after I just, you know, washed your clothes for you. And then you say that and you think, well actually that wasn't that cool what I said. I actually didn't appreciate them criticizing me. I actually didn't think, oh, this is the Dharma. And I wasn't like, you know, as I started to talk, I wasn't like, okay, I'm listening. You did a lousy job washing my clothes.

[46:55]

I got distracted from, I thought, okay, I'm not listening for the Dharma anymore, I'm listening for praise and blame. So, when we had this aspiration, one of the things to watch out for is, are you by any chance concerned with somebody noticing that you have this vow? Are you by any chance wishing to be famous as a Bodhisattva? And one of the advantages of being a beginning Bodhisattva, as most people, I don't know if it's an advantage, they may not actually be thinking yet about being famous for it. But the more advanced practitioners are quite susceptible, especially as they start getting famous, to realize that their continued practice of compassion might make them famous and they actually might be concerned about that. And then if anybody comes and says to them,

[47:59]

you know, that wasn't very compassionate, they might feel like, oh, don't tell anybody. Because I was just, you know, about to receive a compassion award, so don't tell anybody about that. So I wish to be beneficial, and then I try to remember that, and I try to watch out, am I trying to gain the status of being a beneficial person? Am I trying to gain the status of being a compassionate Bodhisattva? Or am I somebody who aspires to be compassionate and if I attain the status, I will accept that, but I'm not trying to gain it. This is an art to learn to do this, to learn to aspire to something which you think is really great,

[48:59]

without thinking that you're going to gain anything by practicing it, and that you're going to become famous for it, even if you get good at it. And I confess to you, sometimes, I'm embarrassed by how unfamous I am, but then I also feel really good about having nobody know anything about me, and just do the practice for the practice, rather than because I get something from it. You will get something from it, but if you try to get something from it, that defiles it. Yes? What would be a skillful way to respond to that fatigue?

[50:01]

Respond to what? The longing. Yeah, a skillful way? Yeah. Any thoughts on that? A skillful way to respond to it? You can say, what is a skillful way? But I actually don't know what a skillful way is. But although I don't know what a skillful way is, I aspire to respond skillfully. And I don't think, usually, that if I respond by thinking, you know, how dare you criticize me after I just did a kindness for you. I don't think that's very skillful. I knew how to do that when I was a baby. What I'd like to learn is to respond basically the same when the person says, you did a really great job of washing my laundry. You are like the most...

[51:02]

Not only are you a good laundrette or laundress, but you're the most compassionate laundress of all time. I came to learn how to respond to that the same way as, you're the worst... you know, whatever. That's what I aspire to. But what is that? I don't know. But it has something to do, I think, with when they insult me, I don't get distracted from... I vow to hear the true Dharma while this person is talking to me. And then they switch and say, I'm just kidding, you did a great job. And I vow to hear the true Dharma while they're giving me this great compliment. Yes? Well, you said this before, I mean, you basically, you know, telling the story of the Zen priest who, you know, gets in trouble with the village for a rumor, etc. And I get the point of it, like, don't get wrapped up in your identity

[52:05]

in external validation or condemnation. Or internal validation or condemnation. But I propose that if somebody pats me on the back for doing a good job with their laundry, I want to take a little pleasure from that. Yes, so I would say, right there, when they pat you, it is pleasure. It is pleasure. Yes. It is pleasure. But don't take it. Don't take it. Exactly. Don't take it. Why can't it take a little bit? This is a great question. This is it. The pleasure that comes when you practice giving is an opportunity for renunciation of that pleasure,

[53:08]

which will bring you more joy, which you then renounce, which will bring you more joy, which you then renounce. In this way, your joy increases, increases. But if you take a little bit, it doesn't destroy the joy, it just defiles it. It just defiles it. It just defiles a really good thing. The pleasure is good. The giving is better than the pleasure. But pleasure does come with giving. But if you then cling to the giving, you just defile the giving. Whereas if the pleasure of giving comes and you give it away, a bigger giving comes. And then with a bigger giving, comes a bigger pleasure. And if you give that away, this is how you grow and get ready to open to perfect wisdom. Thank you!

[54:17]

And the joy of me hearing that you're going to think about it rather than you insulting me. You know, you didn't insult me, but if you had insulted me, it probably would be somewhat painful. So in the story I told, if the insults of this Zen priest felt the same to him as the praise, I wouldn't have liked the story as much. But I thought getting slapped in the face feels different than being patted on the back. If it didn't, then what he did was not so interesting to me. But the fact that a spit in the face or a slap in the face feels one way and a pat on the back feels another way, that pain and pleasure feel different and that you know how to respond to them in the same way basically, which is, I wish you would become Buddha. I wish you and all beings would quickly become Buddha. No matter what you do to me, I aspire to respond to what you do to me

[55:22]

and what you give to me as a gift and say thank you very much no matter what you do to me. But if they're not different, the story is not as interesting to me. And so pleasure is pleasure and before I cling to it, I want to say thank you. And I want to say thank you so wholeheartedly that I don't cling to it. And when pain comes, when insult comes, I want to say thank you to that so sincerely that I do not push it away. But basically I'm responding to both with generosity and that is a great joy. And when that joy comes, that's not a great pain, that's a great joy. And when the joy comes, I want to say thank you for the joy and let go of it. And when you say you'll think about that, that's pleasant for me to hear. And if you say I will deeply contemplate that, it's a pleasure for me to hear.

[56:22]

If you say that was really stupid that you said that, I might feel a little uncomfortable. If you say you're really a harmful teacher, if I hear that, if you're a disgrace, if I hear that, it hurts a little bit. But I want to say thank you when you say that about me. I aspire to that. I want to do that. Is that skillful? I don't know. Somebody said, well you said thank you but it wasn't that skillful to thank you. And somebody might say, I think it was pretty skillful. Again, external validation is not where it's at. Internal validation is not where it's at. Where is it at? What's your aspiration in this life that's coming from your intimacy with Buddha? And the aspiration is something like perfect wisdom for the welfare of all beings, something like that. Which is totally open to human beings not thinking that what they think is going on is what's going on. Like I think that was helpful,

[57:24]

I think that was unhelpful. We don't push that stuff away. We practice kindness towards it. But we don't think that my opinion about what's going on is what's going on. It's just my opinion in my little world. And if I'm kind to that opinion, all beings will be free of it. If I'm kind to the opinions I have about what's going on, perfect wisdom will arise and there will be freedom from my thoughts and that perfect wisdom will set everybody else free from their thoughts. And I aspire to that. And the wonderful thing is that the pure and simple color of true practice is when I get distracted, there's a practice for that too. Which is to be kind to being unkind. And to be kind to being kind. To be kind to being kind means let go of being kind. And to be kind to unkind

[58:28]

means let go of unkind. Is that a little bit clear? Thank you. Yeah, first receive it. Everything that happens in your life is something you receive. Nothing happens in your life that's not a gift. You receive everything. So you do receive you do receive pleasure. Buddha did not say I found the middle way between pleasure and pain. He didn't say I found the middle way between self-mortification, self-denial and self-indulgent. He said I found the middle way to addiction to self-indulgence

[59:29]

and addiction to self-denial. Some people are addicted to self-denial. Some people are addicted to self-denial. They always deny themselves because then nobody can indict them for being self-indulgent. They always think of the welfare of others at their own expense and they're addicted to it. And Buddha tried that. It's the addiction to it that he gave up. And some people, of course, are addicted to self-pleasure. When the Buddha ate a little bit of food after not eating much I think his blood sugar level went up and I think his body went Yippee! This is totally cool! Thank you! He didn't say no sense pleasure. He didn't say no self-mortification. Sometimes self-mortification is good. Sometimes self-indulgence

[60:29]

and sensual pleasure is good. But addiction to it is what he wants us to drop. And how do you drop addiction? By confessing and repenting it. And we're generally addicted to getting distracted from our aspiration by our addiction to being self-sacrificing or getting pleasure. So again, as someone said to me, I've learned that devotion to the welfare of others frees me from my addiction to sensual pleasure. Yeah, it is. But if you are devoted to people to become free of addiction to get that, then you just defiled it a little bit. So, it's an art. We're trying to learn an art. And great artists have had a hard time

[61:31]

learning this art. The greatest artist of the Sung Dynasty had a hard time learning this art. And fortunately he got exiled from the imperial court where he could go and meet all these Zen friends who pushed him to a more and more simple state where he could hear the Dharma in the water sounds. But they pushed him. His friends pushed him. Renounce, renounce, renounce, renounce, renounce. Don't come and try to get some dead words from me. Hear the living words. Where are the living words? I think I also told a story. I was listening to Kadagiri Roshi one time

[62:31]

giving a talk at the San Francisco Zen Center in the Buddha Hall. And Kadagiri Roshi, unlike, in a different style, Suzuki Roshi somehow seems very relaxed with English. Kadagiri Roshi always seemed like he was struggling with it. And he would like hit his head, hit his forehead when he used the wrong word. He was like really, you know, you could tell he really loved talking about the teachings of Zen Master Dogen. But he kept struggling to find the English words. So there he was trying to speak English. I was listening to him and listening to him and listening to him. And while I was listening to him I started to hear something. It was like he was talking and I was hearing him but then there was this other sound. And I thought, what is that sound? I thought, maybe that's the Dharma. But I didn't know what it was.

[63:33]

But no matter what I'm saying now and no matter what anybody else is saying, the Dharma is also, the sound of the Dharma is also coming right at the same time. The spiritual source is shining clearly in what you're hearing and what you're seeing. You can't see the spiritual source but it's shining there and whatever is happening, it's there. But if you don't listen to what you can hear and look at what you can see, then you're going to miss the spiritual source. It's right there. It's right there.

[64:43]

We've been going on for quite a while and I just thought of another story which some of you have heard before but it seemed apropos. When I was about eight years old, I was up in my room playing eight-year-old boys games and I heard a ringing. It seemed like it was in my ear. But it wasn't really a ringing in my ear. It wasn't really a sound that I could hear, but there was this ringing and I felt uncomfortable. Maybe because it wasn't a regular sound but there was something else I felt uncomfortable about it. And then from that time on, now and then, I would hear that sound. From the time I was about eight years old, I would hear that sound. It would often come to me in the afternoon.

[65:43]

I don't remember it ever coming in the morning. Often in the afternoon, sometimes in the early evening, but not usually late at night. And when I was thirteen, I heard the sound and I understood what it was about. It was about something that happened during the day and it was again in the afternoon. It was about something that happened during the day that I felt uncomfortable about but I didn't pay attention to it. It was not a real bad thing. It wasn't like I got kicked out of school or somebody hit me in the head with a baseball bat or everybody in the room turned to me in class and said, we hate you, you're the most terrible person. It wasn't something like that.

[66:44]

It was something like some girl would look at somebody else instead of me. Something small like that. Something that I did not say, that hurt. I didn't say it. It did, but I didn't say, that hurt. I barely noticed it, but it happened. The ringing happened and finally, when I listened to the ringing, I thought, oh, it's about when that girl looked at somebody else instead of me or when the teacher praised another student instead of me. And as soon as I paid attention to it, the ringing went away. And I learned from that time on that when the ringing came, if I just be quiet, the thing that happened during the day was usually that day. The thing that happened during the day that bothered me, basically, what's bothering you?

[67:44]

The ringing was saying, something's bothering you that you did not pay attention to. And then the thing that bothered me would come back, I addressed it and the ringing went away. Now, the ringing doesn't happen anymore. Now what comes is, something's bothering you. And as soon as I say what it is, I usually can remember it. And I address it and it goes away. The things and what's bothering us, basically, is when we weren't there for the event. When you're there for the event that bothers you, you're doing your job. You're listening to the cries of the world and by listening to the cries of the world, you'll hear the cry of the Buddha. Sometimes we are in a hurry, right? So then the ground brings these things up again

[68:50]

for us to listen to again and again until we hear the Dharma. Anything else this morning? I wanted to tell you that one of our Sangha members, the last I heard, he had a gall stone. A kidney stone. The last time I heard he had a kidney stone. And the latest I heard, they hadn't decided how to treat it. He's in a lot of pain. His name is Yaron.

[69:51]

Yaron. And they were going to come today, but they probably won't make it. But we'll see. So I'd like to do a well-being ceremony for him. I'll call during lunch break and see. I actually was going to do that today. Thank you. The last time we were here, Nettie Pardue was here and she was going to have a baby pretty soon. And so she's probably had it. So I'll call her and I'll let you know at work meeting what I find out. Thank you for reminding me. Yes. Okay.

[70:59]

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Yaron. Happy birthday to you. Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Illusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless.

[72:05]

I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. The other day at Green Gulch, Anna Thorne pointed out that in this vow we just chanted, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Beings are numberless, I vow to realize perfect wisdom so I can help them. Beings are numberless, I vow to realize perfect wisdom which will save them all. Right? Right? And then, delusions are inexhaustible. Oh yeah.

[72:50]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ