in the first case of the Book of Equanimity is called The World Honored One Ascends the Seat. The World Honored One ascended the seat, ascended the seat, and Manjushri struck the gavel and said, clearly observe the Dharma of the Buddha. The Dharma of the Buddha is thus. And the World Honored One got down from the seat.

[01:03]

During this session, Manajushri sitting there in the middle of our hall has been for me anyway making himself noticed I actually would like to move him into the center of the room Why did you smile? Well, in a way, yes. In some ways, it's hard to talk with him sitting there looking at me. But he should be in the middle of the zendo.

[02:06]

We have him pushed back there because we also use this room for services and lectures, so it's half a zendo and half a Buddha hall. But I'd like him to be in the middle, actually. Physically in the middle. So he said that he pointed to the World Honored One and he said, the Dharma is thus. And then in a verse comment on this case, Dogen Zenji's great-grand-uncle, Tiantong Hongzhi, said, the unique breeze of reality, can you see it?

[03:13]

Creation continuously working her loom and shuttle, incorporating the patterns of spring into the ancient brocade. Can nothing be done about Manjushri's leaking? You shook your head. Why did you shake your head? So the ancient brocade is the whole world and creation works in the new, the new thing that's happening is constantly incorporated into the ancient brocade by creation. And the point I'm pointing, the point I'm bringing up particularly is that Manjushri leaked because Manjushri pointed at the Buddha and said,

[04:33]

it's thus. But there's not much that can be done about it, because if he didn't say so, we wouldn't have the case. So he, in some sense, defiled himself, the great Bodhisattva defiled himself by pointing, indicating to us what indicating pointing at what saying what's right over there this is a bit of a problem because actually what is not over there as soon as you point you miss the point but he did it anyway for our sake but it's a kind of leaking that he did actually at that time Manjushri kind of moved Yesterday I was discussing the perfection of ethics, of ethical study.

[05:46]

And again, the ethical study in Zen is another dimension, another mode for us to try to practice suchness. that the ultimate morality in Zen and Buddhism is fidelity to suchness, is to be faithful to what's happening. So ethics give us another dimension to try to be faithful to suchness. Another dimension to sit still and be such. The Prajnaparamita Sutra says that the perfection of suchness is not to fall into observance or non-observance,

[07:13]

of the precepts in other words not to fall into the trap of oh I observe the precepts or to fall into the trap of I don't observe the precepts don't violate them and don't follow them perfectly violating them of course is terrible But to think that I can practice the precepts, yes, I do practice the precepts, I'm observing the precepts, this is not correct understanding either. That same kind of understanding applies to our zazen. We don't fall into moving and saying, oh, I moved.

[08:17]

We also don't fall into, oh, I sat still. Sitting still is not something that I can do. Practicing Zazen is not something that I can do. But in fact, practicing Zazen is what's happening. How can I somehow realize the fidelity to what's happening? This is not something I can do, because what's happening is bigger than what I'm doing. Same attitude to the precepts. Don't break them, but also don't think that you can realize them on your own. Or another way to put it is, you should not think of the precepts as, thou shalt not do that.

[09:21]

Like somebody's telling you not to do it. That's not correct. Also, you shouldn't think, I will. It's not from the outside, it's not from the inside. Practicing the precepts comes from the mind that has no abode. Practicing the precepts is not something that leads you to enlightenment. Practice of precepts and enlightenment are both intrinsic to the truth. Enlightenment isn't the truth. all by itself, because there's no enlightenment without delusion. The truth is enlightenment and delusion and morality. The real Dharma has morality and enlightenment in it.

[10:26]

Enlightenment is fidelity to suchness, perfection of ethics is fidelity to suchness. All living beings make it possible for us to practice the perfection of ethics. All living beings make it possible for us to sit still. You don't sit still. The Buddhas don't make you sit still. But you and the Buddhas together, and you and all sentient beings together, that's who sits still.

[11:34]

Total suchness sits still. another aspect of the perfection of ethics that I want to bring up is that the ethics of restraint when I thought about a lot of them especially the ethics of manners that I mentioned most of them seem to be antidotes to our habits of disrespect like moving a cushion with your foot or slamming a door or dragging a chair across the floor a lot of these practices are just balances to our long-standing habit to not respect things

[12:56]

and to bring our mind to meet each little thing in our life with great respect. In Japanese-Chinese Zen, they have an expression called memitsu no kafu. And mem is a character which means cotton. And mitzu means secret, but also secret means intimate. Intimate like cotton, like the threads of cotton. And no kafu means no as a possessive, and kafu means family style. The family style of the school is intimate attention to each little thing. Great respect for each little thing.

[14:04]

This is also another mode to realize fidelity to suchness. Suchness doesn't just appear over there or over here. It appears everywhere equally. So everything is equally deserving of our respect and reverence and care. Suchness is not more in Buddhas and less in ordinary people. What some people do is when they hear that they say, okay, well, I won't respect Buddhas then. So if you don't respect ordinary people, when you find out that the Buddhas have no more suchness than ordinary people, then you can also not respect the Buddhas. But really, it's okay to respect the Buddhas and worship the Buddhas, but also respect and worship ordinary people and ordinary things.

[15:22]

Another aspect of the perfection of ethics, if you look at the perfection of ethics in terms of trying to help us understand what it means to sit still. If you see ethics as a way to help you do zazen, then you can see that zazen is social. Practice of ethics shows us that our zazen practice has a social dimension. It has to do with society, with connecting with other people. Again, as I said early on, we keep our eyes open partly to stay awake, but also we keep our eyes open to keep being aware of the other beings that are connected to your sitting. Because again, your sitting is not done by you only.

[16:36]

All people are helping you sit. And when you finally realize how many beings are helping you sit, you will finally be able to realize what it means to sit still every moment all beings are helping us sit still every moment we're actually already sitting still but because we don't realize how many creatures are helping us sit still we can't sit still because we cannot do it by ourselves. All beings are also helping us be such. Same thing. All beings are helping us be perfectly ethical. So it's hard to understand how when we're sitting here with suffering people all over the world

[17:43]

how our sitting is connected to all them but even though we can't really ever fully understand it somehow we need to understand it or we need to somehow realize that and feel that universal support and also they're not only supporting us we're supporting them again Giving is to let myself be myself and let others be others. This is mutual support and this is sitting still. cooperating with the Green Gulch Water Project. We're doing that today. They're reconnecting pipes and so on so the water is going to be turned off.

[18:50]

So we have to carefully relate to this fact. We have to co-operate. We're operating together with the maintenance department. And we're operating together with each other around water. And the proper ethical behavior is the behavior which is faithful to what's happening here. And this is something which is hard to find out. Because who really knows what's happening with the water project? Maybe they won't even turn the water off. I don't know. Maybe they'll run into some, maybe they won't be able to get a part and they'll never turn it off. But still, with our limited knowledge, we try to accord with what's happening here in this body, here in this room, here in this valley.

[20:01]

We try to guide ourselves carefully to the suchness. And one way is to carefully do each thing. If we ever get close to the neighborhood of suchness, then our ethics are just what's happening. And then our play and our foolishness and our creativity and our art are the same as our ethics. And then aesthetics and ethics are the same. And it's almost like you can't see the ethics anymore.

[21:04]

And what some people do is they see that some Zen people are so free and so creative that they can't even see their ethics. There's no restraint anymore because they're finally, they've sort of honed in on suchness such that their activity doesn't seem to be restrained anymore. They seem to be free and wild like a child. But it's not that they aren't practicing ethics. No. It's that they finally are practicing ethics perfectly. But again, it's so effortless that you don't see any signs of like, hold back there, hold back. Don't do that. Dogen Zenji says, good and bad are Dharma.

[22:06]

But Dharma is not good and bad. And then, just to this morning, a practical example of the interface between giving and forms appeared. And, excuse me, I hope I'm close enough to you people not to embarrass anybody. But anyway, during the chanting, the Mukugya was being hit... I felt rather slowly the first part of the first chant.

[23:07]

And I tried to practice giving. In other words, I tried to let the Mokugyo hitter be the Mokugyo hitter. And me not try to hit the Mokugyo or whatever. Just really let the Mokugyo hitter hit the Mokugyo the way the Mokugyo hitter hit the Mokugyo. That was my giving. And also I let myself be the person who thought that it would be good to hit it faster. That's who I was. But, and I also thought of the Ino, Fusan, whose job is sort of related to the speed, governing the speed of makugo hitting. Now, government in Zen, the ultimate government in Zen is silence.

[24:12]

But from silence, after you completely let the Mokugyo hitter hit it the way the Mokugyo hitter's hitting it, you let them do it that way and you really appreciate the way they're doing it, and then you can walk over and you say, please hit it faster. But it's not based on wishing that a mokugyo hitter was going to hit it differently or not liking the rate that it's being hit. You completely let it be hit at the rate it's hit. And you still walk over and say, would you please hit it faster now? Now we've done one slow movement. Let's do a fast one. That was what he called the allegro. Now let's do a little al dante. And during the Allegro, maybe you feel, I was kind of like, a little bit of me was wanting to do a little faster. But anyway, that was me. I let myself be that way, and I let him conduct that way.

[25:19]

And then I say, well, let's do a different movement this time. So it isn't just that you let people be the way they're going to be, and then you don't interact. You let them be what they're going to be. And once you let people really be what they are, and let yourself be the way you are, then in the next moment you can let them be the way they are and you can let yourself be the way you are and you can say, let's do this. Let's do it differently. And then go from there. Maybe they agree or maybe they don't. But anyway, you can do something. Now this leads into the next paramita, the next way to practice suchness, the next way to sit still and that is the practice of patience which of course is very useful during Sashin because a lot of us have irritation we feel irritated we feel irritated by for various reasons we might feel irritated not all the time but some of us all the time irritated by the schedule we feel irritated by

[26:35]

various things about our body. We feel irritated by our own effort. We feel irritated by the lectures. We feel irritated by the chanting. All these things are possible forms of irritation. And then, of course, because we feel irritated, we become tempted to get angry. to destroy somebody who's doing something irritating, including ourselves. A lot of people try to destroy themselves during session because they think their practice is really bad. Some people even think that the other people's practice is good and theirs is bad. Some people think all the other people's practice is good and they're the only one that has a bad one. There are such people. And therefore they want to kind of like you know squash themselves into the ground because they're so bad and then they're bad but they're even worse because the other people are so good I think it's right that the other people are good that's correct in fact from over here from these eyes I think you're doing very well your postures are very good you're sitting very well and some of you this is your first session

[28:01]

So if you really are, I mean, I'm not kidding, doing very well. So there's people who think that the other people are doing well, they're right. And when you think other people are doing well, at that moment, you are doing well. And the next moment, after you think they're doing well, if then you turn around and think that you're not doing well, well, in a way, you're right, you're not. To think you're not doing well, that's what's called not doing well. But it's not really that you're not doing well because actually you're just such, namely you think you're not doing well. It's just your opinion. It's not really that you're not doing well. Again, if I look at you, I may think that you look fine even though you think you don't look fine. So if you don't think you're doing well, then you might be irritated.

[29:05]

Once you start thinking you're not doing well, you might start getting irritated with yourself because you're not doing well, right? My daughter said one time, she said, I noticed that I was getting mad at my friend for what I was thinking about her. So you start thinking bad. negatively about yourself, and then you start getting irritated because of what you're thinking about yourself. And when you start getting irritated, well then, guess then, you might get angry. Being irritated is not so bad, actually. It's just a natural reaction to, like, thinking bad things about yourself. That's not so bad, actually. But getting angry, that causes problems. mostly for you, at least in a zendo where you're not saying anything or hitting anybody. Now also some people, believe it or not, think that they're doing all right and the other people aren't doing well.

[30:12]

This is also irritating. And then rather than wanting to squash themselves, they like to squash some other people. This is also very, very unfortunate. but it sometimes happens during sashins and as you know it happens throughout the world so the practice of patience is very important for us to develop we start with easy stuff like our own evaluation of ourselves and our own physical pains and irritations. That's relatively easy kinds of things. And with those easier things, we start to develop the virtue of patience. Ultimately, we need patience to tolerate, to forbear some much more difficult things than what we are facing now.

[31:18]

For example, One of the highest attainments of an enlightening being is the patient acceptance that dharmas, that things, don't even happen. This is extremely difficult to be patient with. Imagine being in a situation where nothing's happening. This is very difficult to accept. But if you warm up, on pain in the knees and negative opinions of yourself and others if you warm up your patience with those you can tolerate eventually the reality of emptiness the reality that nothing really happens in the first place so patience is not only useful to prevent anger but it's very useful to finally actually be able to stand the truth and to sit the truth and to be faithful to the truth to be such to sit still that's one of the later uses of patience which you can look forward to

[32:45]

Suchness is that things are empty, that things have no inherent existence, but the other side of suchness is there is confusion and pain. The confusion and pain are empty but the confusion and pain are being produced. So if we just look at the truth that everything's empty and lacks its inherent existence, and that side of the truth is our great relief. Like Ron's song, when you're tired and weary, when you're in pain, when you're irritated, try a little emptiness and you'll be relieved. However, you must also recognize and not put down the reality of the suffering in the world and the confusion in the world.

[33:57]

That keeps coming up. So we need patience to tolerate our own confusion and other people's confusion. The confusion that comes from within and the confusion that people offer to us. I am it. And the pain that people offer us, we need patience to tolerate this, to forbear this, to endure this. But we also need patience to be able to stand that things are empty. So you need patience in the end of the practice, in the middle of the practice, in the beginning of the practice, at the lower levels. You also need patience not to just blow it with anger. In the Tassajara practice period this winter, the main image that we used that I proposed to the Sangha there was the image of a cauldron, a cauldron, a crucible, a cooking pot.

[35:00]

And the Tassajara Valley is a cauldron, a pot. Green Gulch Valley is a pot. This group of people is a pot. This room is a pot. This body's a pot. And your relationship with every person in this room is a cauldron. Or can be, anyway. It may not be yet, but it could be. The relationship between a student and a teacher is a cauldron, is a crucible. And in that cauldron is where Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are cooked. So when you sit, you enter that cauldron. When you give, when you let yourself be yourself and you let others be others, you enter the cauldron. When you let yourself be yourself and you let others be others, you get in the cauldron. Letting yourself be yourself, letting others be others, that's the wall of the vessel in which we will become transformed.

[36:15]

You can't make yourself get transformed, but you can get into the cauldron. Actually, you're already in the cauldron. You're already in the crucible that's going to melt you down into a Buddha. You're already in it. But as a religious practice, we reiterate the fact and we jump into the cauldron ritually. So we come in here and we sit. Every time we sit, we get into this cauldron. And when we're in the cauldron of you being you and others being others and letting things be such, you start cooking. But if you get angry, that's not letting yourself be yourself and others be others. And you break the cauldron. it breaks open and the soup, the Buddha soup, leaks out.

[37:20]

Of course, you really can't break the cauldron, but to think you can, then you think you can, and therefore you break the process. So after you give yourself to yourself and give others to others and get into the pot, and after you receive and take on the care, ethical care, be careful of each little thing, Respect each little thing. Maybe you're really starting to cook. Okay? And you really start to cook, and then something irritating happens. And if you don't make yourself comfortable with that irritation, if you don't adapt to that irritation through patience, and you get angry, you blow all the good work you've done, and you're back out of the pot again. But don't worry, it's never too late. You can get back in, but you do blow it. And then you have to sort of go through that process again to get back in. So patience is really necessary.

[38:22]

Patience isn't like you're in pain and you just grit your teeth. It's not like that kind of thing. It's more you take that irritation, you take that difficulty, and you turn it into You know, gold, so to speak. You take that shit and you turn it to gold. You transform it. You make yourself comfortable with it. You appreciate it. You turn the other cheek joyfully. Oh, thank you. Let's do it again. This isn't masochism exactly. But it may be related. Everything's connected, right? The way of thinking of patience is very unusual, very strange to us in the West and the East and the North and the South.

[39:35]

People all over the world think patience is weird before they start practicing it. You know, it's, you know, stand up for your rights. You can stand up for your rights, but the main rights to stand up for are the rights, your Buddha rights, your suchness rights. Those are the rights to stand up for. Standing up for your suchness is patience. If someone spits in your face, it may be that the best thing to do would be to spit back at them. I don't know. But if you get angry when they spit in your face, you don't know what's going on anymore. So you don't know what to do. You first of all have to say, they're spitting in my face. I know from the books, from all I've heard, this is one of those great opportunities to practice patience. Because I really feel insulted and irritated by this saliva from another person in my face.

[40:40]

Do you know about how if you have saliva in your mouth, you don't mind it? Have you noticed? Right now, each of us, I hope, have some saliva in their mouth. And you're not irritated by it, right? But if you take your saliva and put it in your hand, then you don't want to take it back, right? It becomes a little obnoxious, right? And also, like, if you drink water, you have saliva in your mouth, you pour the water into your mouth and it gets mixed with saliva, and then you swallow it, saliva and water, right? And you don't mind at all, usually, right? But if you spit into the water, then you don't want to drink the water, right? Or maybe you do, but some people don't. Why is that? Now if somebody else spits into your water, especially somebody you don't know very well, you think, well, I don't want to drink that water now because it's got their saliva in it.

[41:52]

Well, what? And I've got good reasons for that. Well, I'm not saying you don't. I'm just saying this is the way we think. And this is the kind of thinking that causes irritation. with this great thinking mind we have, which can tell the difference between water inside here and the water out there, and have that be a big difference, that mind can create lots of irritation. And then once it creates irritation, then we can practice patience. You can't practice patience when, you know, everything's real nice. There's five fears in Buddhism, and maybe outside of Buddhism there's less than five or more than five.

[43:03]

But anyway, in Buddhism we categorize fears into five types. One is fear of death. Another one is fear of loss of livelihood. Another one is fear of loss of your reputation. Another one is fear of losing control of yourself, like going nuts. And another one is fear of speaking in front of a large group of people. Those are the five fears. So if somebody, like if you're a Zen student or a Zen teacher, and somebody goes and starts walking around saying, that person is a terrible teacher or a terrible student. They really have bad this and bad that. And you might feel insulted. unless you had no self-clinging. You'd think, well, why am I insulted? I'm insulted, I guess, because they're wrecking my reputation.

[44:04]

But what if I had a good reputation, or maybe I do have a good reputation? Having a good reputation, actually, what happens when you have a good reputation? Well, it doesn't always happen this way, but generally speaking, if you have a good reputation, well, that's a nice thing. You try to take care of it. So if you have a good reputation, you try and take care of it, then you're like a sitting duck for anybody that attacks you. You're projecting yourself, clinging out into what other people think of you. So then, once you have a good reputation, you have to spend your time taking care of it and protecting it. Before that, you didn't have to spend any time doing that. So now you have a good reputation, so you're scared of losing it. Now you're getting scared because you have a good reputation. And it's scared and hostile and protective. Not only that, but if you're a Buddhist teacher and you have a good reputation, people come to see you because they're following good reputation. So you get all these lousy students who are coming because you're famous.

[45:09]

And then when they get there, they find out what you really like, and they get angry and start attacking you because you're not like your reputation. And so then you get into quite a mess because you have a good reputation. Now if somebody attacks your reputation, they're actually protecting you from all those problems. So for your own spiritual development and for your real true spiritual relationships with people, it's really good to have people going around saying bad things about you. Not only that, but even better than that, it's good for you because such people give you a chance to practice patience. So they're doubly, they're helping you not only by the criticism itself, which helps you turn your mind around from being criticized to realizing how lucky you are, but also you can value the person themselves for doing this for you. Such kind of mental change

[46:12]

from feeling attacked, undermined, criticized, irritated, and try to get back at those people and eliminate all those people who are criticizing you. This is the usual way to turn and start to appreciate the people who are attacking you and criticizing you. Such a turn of mind is one of the little turns that's involved in the participation. Now, another aspect of the practice of patience is to realize how unfortunate it is that that person is doing that for themselves. Because they're causing themselves tremendous damage by saying anything slightly bad about you. So while you practice patience, you have this dynamic of feeling grateful to people who are criticizing you, valuing them greatly, and also feeling sorry that they're hurting themselves. by criticizing you but what can you do you can't stop them from criticizing you that's their you have to let them do that and if you really let them do it and you really practice patience they might stop and then they're not used to no use to you anymore but at least that they're safe then this may sound funny but I'm not really you know I am kidding around but actually I'm talking about a real life

[47:38]

exercise that actually, if you do it, it actually works. And I think it's really true that people insulting you is actually a great spiritual opportunity, and people complimenting you is a great spiritual danger. Spiritually speaking, when people start giving you compliments, the red lights just start going off. I'm being flattered. Where am I? Living in a realm where people are flattering you is very dangerous. And when people are flattering you, you have to say, you have to carefully try to find out what are they talking about. So that you don't start believing what they're saying. And start pumping up. You know, to yourself, that flattery, that flattery. Fine. That's right. If you're not clinging yourself, there won't be any flattering going on.

[48:40]

Right. Because not clinging is freedom from flattery. It just sort of goes right by. But generally speaking, even if a person... I find that when someone says something nice, there's a kind of a warmth that comes off them. And... You know, it's just real hard. It's kind of like the warmth that they're generating is just warmth towards life, you could say. But when that warmth hits this body, just like when the warmth of the sun hits a flower, the flower does go . So there is a physical reaction, which even if you don't cling to self, this physical reaction still happens. It's pretty tricky, even if you're sort of kind of free of self-cleaning still. Yes? I understand part of what you said, but the other side of that would be, seems to me that to be bereft of offering that to people,

[50:01]

Or having that come to you. You mean this warmth? Yeah. Oh, you should give it to other people constantly. But when you do it, they're in danger. When I see somebody, when I tell some student, you know, and I sometimes can't help it when I say, you're really doing great, they're in danger. They walk out of the room, hey. Yeah, hey, man. Zafus, you know, Zafu, get out of the way. Zabutan, make away from me, you know. Yeah, and then the next day I say, you know, your practice is not so good. Is that what you mean? And then I've got a real enemy. Boy, he said my practice wasn't good.

[51:05]

Oh, good. But if you never say anything, that's the safest way to go. Just shut up by the students. Then it's pretty safe. But it's hard for them to go on sometimes without a little warmth occasionally. that candy that they get from that kind of like you're doing well it's dangerous stuff but you should do it all the time constantly emanate appreciation for others which is good for you and bad for them that's not bad for them it's just dangerous because they may cling to it it's really dangerous the whole situation is quite dangerous that's why to be really careful Because even appreciation can get entangling. And then some people say, hey, you know, he told me my practice was really good. And other people say, he didn't tell me that. And I've had the experience of I tell, I say, your practice is really good, your practice is really good, and your practice is really good.

[52:12]

And then the people go off and they get together and they talk about it later and they say, This one says, he didn't really say my practice was really good. He said it was sort of good. I say exactly the same thing. Each one picks on a slightly different thing, and then they compare notes. And this one says, oh, he said my practice was really good. And this one says, well, he said mine was really good, but I didn't think he didn't really mean it. And you felt like he really meant it. Oh, yes, he really meant it. Such things happen. This is another area to study. Yes? I didn't actually say everybody. That would really be something. Or even one. I just said one. Just take one, for starters.

[53:15]

You're not in the right. That's what you know. Well, then the suchness is you think you're doing the best you can and the suchness is a lot of people disagree with you. That's what's happening. It's not that you're right and they're wrong. It's just that you think you did your best and they think you did badly. That's what's happening. It's not like you're right and they're wrong or they're right and you're wrong. It's that they have one opinion. A lot of people have one opinion that you did a bad thing and you have an opinion that you did your best. Yes, it is. That's right.

[54:36]

Well, there's many things to say about this, but one is that, again, if you do something and then you get a bunch of people start hitting you or criticizing you, it's not good for them that they're criticizing you. But what I'm first of all emphasizing today is you then have the opportunity to practice patience with their criticism. It's not that they're right or wrong. that it's irritating to you when people are attacking you as you say unless you have no unless you have no self-clinging when people are attacking you it kind of hurts but even if you you know it's like a cold wind hits you you have a body you feel cold so first of all number one i'm saying when negative energy comes towards you criticism or attack this is an opportunity to practice patience you can really do a spiritual practice now you have the you have the material to do a spiritual practice called patience at that time okay that's the first point next point is are they harming themselves by crit by being critical to you well yes that's too bad so actually after you get your feet on the ground and you start practicing patience and you can handle that then you then sympathy comes up and you feel sorry for them because you realize that they can't control what they're doing they're not in control

[56:08]

And you're not in control either. If you were in control, you wouldn't have had them criticizing you in the first place. You just would have, you know, just don't criticize me. And that would have been the end of that. As a matter of fact, think nice things about me and generate warm feelings towards me. If you were in control, that's what maybe would be happening. Or you could say, okay, today everybody would be critical of me. And then everybody would be critical. But we're not in control. Nobody's in control. Everybody's... under the control of other things. So once you get over your irritation of being attacked, and one of the ways to get over your irritation is to realize that people who are attacking you are not doing it because they're in control. They're not sort of like autonomous creatures. They're under the power of their past karma and their delusions and so on and so forth, and their opinions, so then they come with this opinion.

[57:09]

You have to somehow make yourself comfortable with that irritating information you're getting. Once you can settle, once you've arrived at patient forbearance with the negative information, okay, then you can start meditating on, you can work towards meditating on what's actually happening. What's the truth? And part of the truth is, anyway, that this negative stuff's coming towards you. You know, you don't have to be wrong to get negative information at that moment. But you do need to practice patience, otherwise you're going to get angry and you're going to throw yourself out of your own transformative process that you're in. You're going to destroy your own practice by getting angry because there's negativity. That's the first thing you have to take care of right away. When you feel irritated, at that time, as soon as possible, recognize that you feel irritated.

[58:20]

That's the first thing to admit. I feel irritated. I feel pain. I feel insulted. That's the first thing to admit. Then try to figure out how you can work with that so you can adjust to it without counterattack, without revenge and so on. And if you can adjust to it, then you can move on to moving towards, warming up to suchness. to sitting still. If you work a patient very fast, get onto it, get onto the irritation very quickly, that squeezed, confining experience that sometimes happens, if you can respond to it quickly, that's practicing suchness too. Yes? You're never done with it, I don't think. There is a possibility of being a complete Buddha where you, you know,

[59:27]

When the sun shines on you, you just open your flower, and then when the sun goes away, you just close. That's it. That's fine. But most people, when the sun shines and the flower opens, just that action creates a little attachment. So we're working towards just opening and closing. The sun comes out, we open, the sun goes away, we close. But it's very difficult to be perfect at that. So usually the sun opens, the sun comes out, we open, the sun goes away, and ooh, ah, oh, ooh, ah, ah. It hurts a little bit to die of the opened, that open, radiance that we feel sometimes, it hurts a little bit to let it go. So we have to sort of grieve ourselves along back into the night.

[60:32]

So birth, ah, baby, old age, sickness, and death. If you can just stay with that and grieve right along there and watch the body decay and watch your powers go away and the memory go. The eyes go, the ears go, the muscles go, and just, just, ooh, ah, ah, just grieve right along there, and finally, we're good. And then, it doesn't end though, because, ooh, baby, new baby. Ah, the sun, another flower, ah, nice, how lovely. And then, ooh, ooh, So Sashin's like that, you know, too. Occasionally during the Sashin, you may have the good or bad fortune of, oh, it may happen to you. Next morning, ugh.

[61:34]

So this is it, you know. Birth and death. Birth and death. So these paramitas help us, are kind of like lubrication. to go through birth and death smoothly, radiantly, joyously, without . But we have a longstanding habit of birth, okay, stay it, spray it, put, you know. So it's hard to let it go, because the clinging, hold that flower, hold that flower, Hold that baby, right? And our mother is, dude, hold that baby, don't let that baby get any scratches on the face, the lovely face. Every baby's born, almost every baby, a lot of babies, nice smooth skin, you know? And even when they get cut, the cuts go away and they get new skin again. For years, they just be lovely little creatures.

[62:38]

So everybody tries to protect them, you know? If you can get a kid to 16 without major scars, you feel, really, that's great. But eventually, unless they die in a car accident when they're 16, which we don't like that either, if they take good care of them, really good care of them, then they start to wrinkle and shrivel and just keep taking good care of them, they get older and older and older and less lovely, less lovely, but in a way more beautiful if they can die with it. But even if you can die right down to the end there, that last little snuff, and just really let it go, let it at the end go. So this is how we develop our skills, by being born and dying. Try to stay with that process of birth and death. This is suchness. This is suchness.

[63:41]

This is suchness. This is suchness. This is suchness. And for like this, people say, what a lovely flower you are. Thank you. And then someone says, I think that's a greedy flower. That's a selfish flower. That's an ugly flower. That's part of the flower dying. Part of the flower changing. We have to be generous, study ethics, and be patient in order to let this flower change. And also be able to let it... open again sometimes people you know they had such a hard time like a lot of people say I would never be a teenager again well that's we can understand why they feel that way but you know I'm not saying you should want to be but it's not that you approve of it but if that's what's happening that's suchness you should practice that suchness

[64:45]

Our mind is very clever and can think of millions and millions of excuses to not be patient. And before it even thinks of excuses, it gets angry. But then if you start practicing patience, you start saying to yourself, well, this is really a silly way to talk. This is really a silly way to think this patient way. So, I don't know what to do about that, but... There is some more exercises on patience which maybe we can do later. In the meantime, I think all of us have some large or small difficulties and that's the material to practice giving on because you just let your pain be your pain. and practice ethical conduct.

[66:07]

Be very careful all day long. Keep your hands and feet clean. Brush your teeth. Be on time. All these little things are very important. That will help you. Be very careful. That will help you when it comes time to practice patience. That ethical conduct will help you. But although the ethical conduct helps the patience, patience also has to help the ethical conduct because if you get angry, you undermine all your carefulness. And the funny thing is, in some ways, the carefulness makes it more likely that you will experience irritation. If you just sort of say, oh, whatever, man, you know, like, hit the mokugia, whatever rate you want, I don't care, then whatever rate they do, just say, well, I said I didn't care, so I don't care. Really, you're just covering up some commitment to something. But if you do something carefully for a long time and then somebody else comes and doesn't do it carefully, it kind of touches you.

[67:12]

Or as they say, it gets to you. Just because you're careful, you become more susceptible to life's difficulties. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful so that you won't be susceptible to life difficulties. You should be careful so that you will be susceptible to life difficulties because they're there all the time anyway, and carefulness just exposes them. And once they're exposed, then you can practice patience. And you need patience Because the next step is to practice enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for sitting another period? Are you kidding? Enthusiasm for sitting up straight when I can barely do anything? Sometimes when I'm adjusting postures, I come up to a person, I can see they're just having a lot of pain. They're not screaming, but I can see they're in a lot of pain. Sometimes I feel like they're all bent over, writhing from the pain. And I know if they would just sit up straight, they'd feel much better, you know.

[68:17]

But I know if I try to adjust their posture, they'll feel like, I'm barely able to do anything and you're asking me to sit up straight now? So I'm afraid, you know, to touch them. Even though I know they'll feel better after I do. See, if you have patience, then you can stand someone who's asked you to take one more burden for your own good, but But if you're already resisting, then it's pretty hard to be enthusiastic about the situation. So each one of these leads to the next. And the next one helps the previous one. And the next one also protects the previous one. I'll keep going through these parameters with you. Mail.

[69:19]

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