So, themes that we've been discussing. One is constructed stillness and unconstructed stillness. Particular stillness and universal stillness. Upright stillness and inclined stillness. The same with silence. Unconstructed silence and constructed silence. Absolute silence, relative silence. The principle of silence and the phenomena of silence. And these things are interpenetrating each other and illuminating each other.

[01:16]

So, the particular is in the universal and the universal is in the particular. Last week, Tyler said something about sort of pointing out that there's great virtue in constructed silence or constructed stillness and taking care of constructed stillness is taking care of a stillness in which there is unconstructed stillness.

[02:24]

So, taking care of constructed stillness, you're there taking care of it at that particular place for the revelation, for the disclosure and discovery of unconstructed stillness. A stillness which is not at a particular place but is contained in a particular place. And vice versa, if you take care of the unconstructed stillness, which you can't see, it's not a phenomenon, but if you take care of the principle of stillness, right in the principle of stillness is the phenomena of stillness. So, the principle can illuminate the phenomena and the phenomena can illuminate the principle. And I think the last person to ask a question last week was Elizabeth, and do you remember your question?

[03:31]

Would you bring it up again, please? It doesn't have to be the same? Because I was referring to the phenomenal question that you asked, which was only for that time. But still, we can bring up another phenomenal one in relationship to that one. I guess what I was curious about was the difference between having an experience of transcendental compassion through an object or a symbol or, I think, an artistic moment was that, that sort of lifestyle of a conversation. So something that creates a transcendent compassion versus how to define that,

[04:41]

or is there a transcendental experience where you're identifying with the experience as an art, yourself, and I? So again, the transcendent compassion is invisible, but it contains visible compassion. And if one realizes transcendent compassion, the proof that you realized it is the way you deal with untranscendent or situational phenomena of compassion.

[05:49]

Yeah, most of us would have trouble practicing compassion in all situations, I could say, until we realize the transcendent compassion. So maybe you can be patient with this person and this person and this person, but not this person. That's quite familiar, right? The realization of the transcendent compassion will make it so that you can handle all the particulars. And not only handle them, it means you're willing to work with them all. And not only can you work with them all, but you work with them appropriately when you realize the compassion which you can't see. Similarly, the other way around is when you do realize the transcendent,

[07:10]

then the way you work with the particular is illuminated by the transcendent. But we can work on constructed compassion, constructed stillness, constructed good. We can do that, and if we do it skillfully, then we have a chance to take care of something that's not particular, that's universal. And then taking care of that, it's not that that's better, we should take care of that basically the same way we take care of particular things. If we take care of that, then that also is illuminated even more. I just said, if we take care of that, that makes it possible for us to do better care of the particular. If we take care of the particular, that helps us take better care of the universal.

[08:13]

The universal also needs to be cared for. They're interfused, they're reciprocal. So right in the universal is the particular, and right in the particular is the universal. But by meditating on the universal and the particular, you start to see that the particular is not really particular. And meditating on the universal, meditating on the particular and the universal, you see the universal is not really universal. Neither one of them are really stuck in their position. But people are often stuck in the particular, and fully accepting being stuck in the particular is being stuck in the particular is another particular.

[09:18]

And being fully skillful at being stuck, you realize that there's an unparticular being stuck, there's a universal being stuck in the being stuck. Which is not really being stuck, and it's not really universal. And you're just scratching your face, right? Yes, Natan? This relates to the discussion. Someone wants to talk about self-compassion. Yeah. So there's sentimental compassion, and there's a middle one, which is called compassion regarding relations or elements.

[10:25]

And then there's great compassion, which is non-dual compassion. Universal, unconditioned, doesn't really have objects. So the first two types of compassion have objects. One type of object is the usual object of a suffering being. Particular compassion, particular care for particular pain of a particular person, there's that kind. And it's kind of constructed compassion in the sense that this person is suffering, and then I might say, oh, I want to practice compassion towards them. And I remember the practices of compassion and engage in them.

[11:26]

And I wasn't engaging them before I met the person, and I wasn't engaging before I remembered the practices. And now I am remembering the practice, and now I feel like that remembering and all that together created this compassion. But the unconstructed compassion, the universal compassion, is not constructed. It's our actual relationship. It's that we're not separate from each other. We don't make things that way. That's the way we are. That's the way things are. And the middle compassion, called compassion which has relationships or elements as objects, and in a way, that middle kind of compassion is when you start being somewhat critical of your compassion. You start to be open to looking at things somewhat differently.

[12:27]

Instead of seeing people as beings, you can see them as composed of various elements in your own consciousness. You can see them as forms rather than people, or people rather than forms. Or you can see people as feelings or ideas or perceptions. So another word we used last week is perceptual compassion and imperceptible compassion. And in a way, starting to be somewhat critical or experimental or questioning, and open to being questioned about your compassion towards beings, that opens a new kind of compassion. And that openness is also part of constructed compassion, but that openness is also in the unconstructed.

[13:28]

So the constructed is in the unconstructed, and in a way, or the particular compassion is in the universal compassion, and one of the ways it's there is that there is a question about, well, what is this compassion? The universal compassion helps us be in a state of wonder and awe about the objects of compassion, the people, and the compassion itself. Rather than at the beginning, you think you know who that person is, you think you know what their suffering is, you think you know what your suffering is, you think you know who you are, that's fine. Let's practice compassion with this situation. But you may not be open to have your assumptions about who you are, or who they are, called into account. You may not be open to being questioned about your compassion practice.

[14:30]

That makes things even more sentimental. But to be compassionate, even sentimentally towards someone, and be open to being questioned about your compassion, now you move into a kind of a transition compassion. And also, in some sense, that transition compassion is in a way even more present than the previous one was, because you're attending to the compassion, but more intensely. Like you're looking at your compassion, or you're looking at who you're compassion towards, but you're also like, what am I doing here? Where am I? Who is this? That should make you more intimate. And the more intimate you are with the practice, the more you're there for the revelation of what's already there intimately, but not perceptually. So again, as we shrink away from or hesitate to be with our perceptions,

[15:43]

to the extent that we're not able to be with our perceptions, fully, compassionately, we're stuck in them. And to some extent we're stuck in them if we don't question them. Questioning them helps us not be stuck in them. And the full liberation from our perceptions comes with the revelation of the imperceptible. Then we become completely free of our perception of how good we are, or how skillful we are, or how unskillful we are. So we still think, well, that was unskillful. What I did was unskillful. What I did was skillful. You can still have those thoughts, those perceptions, but when you don't believe them anymore, then the universal is in the individual, is in the particular. So you've got the particular compassion you're practicing,

[16:45]

but the universal's there all the time. The more you're with your particular compassion, the more you have a chance to see the universal's there, and that your particular compassion isn't really particular. And you thought it was. You thought it was this way, and not that way. That's the way it looked. It's like, well, there's this kind of compassion, but that wasn't the kind I was doing. I was doing this kind of compassion. But there's infinite particular types of compassion, and infinite beings, and we can work our way down the list of infinite beings, and infinite forms. But really, it's like, among the infinite, we deal with a large number, and each one, if we're completely there for it, we get to see that it's not that way.

[17:53]

It's otherwise. Yes? Would you still continue to practice the acts of the national torch? Wouldn't it change that? Maybe it would double the time, less self-consciousness? We see, once you have this realization of the universal and the particular, that realization will illuminate the particulars which you've been doing. And you realize that the universal was in the particulars all along. Then you realize that the particulars contain the universal. So now you continue to do the particulars, but with, in a sense, a little bit more enjoyment,

[18:55]

because you realize you're not just doing this particular. You're doing this particular, and in this particular, all the other forms of compassion are contained. Mike, could you close the door now? Like, so a particular example is, towards the end of Suzuki Roshi's life, Zen Center started growing, particularly after Tassajara. And also his book was published shortly before he died, and his book, after it was published, sold quite a few copies, and so a lot more people knew about him. But just in the last year or so, Zen Center started growing, and the city center had a lot of people, and the city center sangha was growing. Zen Center was becoming more well-known. And before that, he didn't have so many students.

[19:59]

So he says, now Zen Center is growing, so now people have to make appointments with me. But in the early days of Zen Center, you didn't really have to make appointments with them. You could just go, you could say, can I talk to you, and he'd be there. Yeah, sure, let's talk. But when many people wanted to talk to them, he started to have to make appointments. But he said one time, but you should know that when I'm talking to that person, I'm doing it for you. So I may never get to talk to you. He didn't say that part. But he didn't rush through this person to get to the next person, because he was talking to this person for all these people. So you still have to talk to individual, not have to, but you're still talking to individual people. But you're not in a rush to get to the next person,

[21:01]

because even before you get to the next person, you're talking to this person for these people. And that's transmitted to them, that while they're waiting to talk to you, the person you're talking to is being talked to for you. And when you get to talk to him, he'll talk to you for them, which means he's not rushing through this person to get to the next person, because he's doing this person for the next person. And when he gets to the next person, he won't rush through that person to get to the next person. And if you do have quite a few people to talk to, and when you're talking to this particular person, and you care about the next person and the next person, but you rush through this person to get to the next person, that means you don't think all the other people

[22:04]

are contained in this person, so you don't take care of this person. And this person feels it. Although they are getting your attention, they feel that it's split between them and the other people. And then following that thing, when you get to the next person, the next person also gets, you could say, short shrift. Each person doesn't get your full attention because you're thinking about the other people. If you realize that in this person are all people, then you give each person yourself fully. So the practice is not so that we don't have to deal with individual people, it's so that we can deal with each individual person fully. You still can't see all the people anyway, unless you only have two people to see in your life. Or even one. Even if two people, the same problem would occur. So it isn't that after you have this revelation

[23:11]

you don't take care of particulars, it's just after you have this revelation you're more fully convinced that when you're talking to this person, everybody's included. So you don't rush through talking to this person. Now there's another aspect of this, which is that if you rush through this person to get to the next person, because you don't realize the next person is included in this person, if you rush through it, then you also don't take care of yourself. So you will crash. Why? Because you're trying to take care of everybody individually, rather than take care of each person individually. You take care of each person individually rather than everybody individually. You take care of each person individually, then you realize you're taking care of everybody. And then you don't crash.

[24:14]

And you're not rushing on to the next person. And you're not feeling like, I can't talk to this person any longer because there's so many people waiting. But I can tell you from my experiences, this thing about thinking of the next people, you burn up or burn out. But if you give yourself completely to each person, you don't burn out. And everybody gets taken care of. And also the people you're talking to learn this from you. They know other people are waiting, and they're kind of thinking, hmm, she knows other people are waiting, but she's not rushing through me, which is fine with me, but maybe they'll get angry. But still, she's not rushing. It's fine. It's like she's willing to stay with me forever. And the more you feel like the person's willing to stay with you forever, the more you feel like, you know, thanks a lot.

[25:17]

And you get what you need and move on. And if you don't feel like you're getting that the person will stay with you forever, you kind of want to talk to them more until you feel like that. Did you follow that? When will this person stop thinking of the next person and just think of me? Because they're talking to me. And also, when will I, when I'm waiting, want them to talk to the other person without thinking of me? So that when they get to me, they'll talk to me without thinking of the next person. And teach me how to do that. But it's a little difficult. But the more I concentrate on this person, the more I realize this is for everybody. It's for me. And in order to continue the work, I need to deal with people that way.

[26:20]

Same with activities. Yes. If you open a door, you know, thinking about opening the door, you know, it's okay, but really, the point of opening the door is to get into the room. So you don't really, like, give yourself fully to opening the door because you're not that interested in door opening. What you're interested in is what's going to happen when you get in the room. Did you follow this? Then when you get in the room, you do the same thing. You take care of things in order to get through them to the next thing. Or like, I also use the example, if you sit down in a chair, assuming it's going to hold you, then you don't really take care of sitting down in the chair. And also,

[27:25]

not just opening the door to get in, but opening the door without sort of wondering if the door is going to actually, if the knob is going to turn and if the door is going to open. It's kind of like, I'm a busy person, I don't have time to, like, wonder whether doors are going to open. Which is, again, like, door opening is not the be-all and end-all of my life, even though it's what you're doing right now. And you do the next thing that way, too. I mean, you might do the next thing that way, too. Like, again, like, here's a room and I don't have to wonder, what is this room? So in a sense, to fully take care of each particular thing, you need to question every particular thing. Sorry, but it's possible to put your foot down questioningly

[28:27]

and put your next foot down questioningly. You can walk that way. It might slow you down for a while, I don't know. It's possible. You might not get as far if you walk that way. I don't know. And this way will not prevent the floor from falling under your feet, either. This way doesn't make the world solid and permanent. It makes you, however, be more and more there. It allows you to be more and more there and less and less someplace else, which, of course, you're not. You're just thinking about someplace else. So activities like opening doors and sitting on chairs and also talking to people, every movement, every thought, the same applies. So I was curious about your comment

[29:31]

about burnout. I know some people are worried about that. And I was wondering if you do all your activities questioning fully, not thinking about the next one, extrapolating it, saying that is a way to not end up getting burned out. It's not only the way... It's not so much feeling burned out, it's actually being burned out that's the problem. Because you can feel being burned out and feel fine. I feel burned out, but I'm full of energy and enthusiastic about my work and I just feel... I feel burned out. But I take care of the burned out like talking to somebody. And I don't assume I know what burned out is, so the burned out isn't bothering me. But when you... Like, again, I think this story, which I might have told you about this, is a Japanese Buddhist priest, I think, and he... I don't know, I think he got into taking care of a lot of people, some face-to-face, but also he got into telephone calls and internet. And I think he got into

[30:34]

like, I got to see the next person. And the next person was like knocking at the door saying, you got to see me. I need you. And he's kind of like, okay, I'll be right there. Which is normal, right? But he wasn't taking care of this person. Because he was worried about the next person. And he thought he should be taking care of the next person and the next person. So he was, even no matter who he was talking to, he felt like I'm not yet... I'm not taking care of the people who need me. And I should try. And the people who he was trying to help, they were calling to him and saying, you're too slow. You should speed up. I need you. You're not available. And he was going like, oh, I'm sorry, I'll try to go faster. He's a young priest. And he had a heart attack. And he went to the hospital. And in the hospital,

[31:34]

he got a little rest. He wasn't on the telephone all the time. People weren't coming into the room. He also wasn't going to, you know, where they were calling to be. And he wasn't online to all these people. But at least one of his patients or one of his students got through to him and was really angry at him for not being available. And he kind of said, oh, I get it. But he realized that this, the conclusion is that if you have a heart attack, your students basically, they think you should be taking care of them better when you have a heart attack from trying to take care of them better. So then he basically changed his style of practice and he went to some kind of pretty remote temple where in order to see him, you had to walk a long way. And he didn't help so very many people,

[32:43]

but also he didn't have a heart attack. And the people who came to see him were not asking him, you know, to be perfect. When they made that long, when they made that big effort to see him, then he didn't have to be perfect. All he had to do was be there. Yeah. An interesting lesson that I hear from this is also that if you make a practice of rushing, the world will start to expect that of you. Exactly. And reinforce it. You rushed for him, you should rush for me. Yeah. In other words, you rushed for him, you should rush for me. In other words, you didn't take care of him, so you should take care of me. You rushed for him, so, but don't rush for me. Wait a minute. So,

[33:45]

urgency needs to be, I don't know what the word is, respected. And if you respect it, the urgency can be held and cared for without speeding up. It's actually an urgency to be here. It's urgent that you be here. That's what everybody needs to learn, needs you to do, so somebody can set the example and show it is possible. It is urgent that we are here. That we take care of this person. And that we also accept that we're limited. Yeah, so people say, yeah, go ahead and accept you're limited, but not in my case. But if you pretend to be unlimited with this person,

[34:47]

the next person wants you to have no limits with them. But people are actually pretty good if you start off right away saying, I'm limited, I'm sorry. They kind of go, oh, okay. Thanks. I am too, by the way. Yeah. Like that Emily Dickinson poem comes to mind. I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too? Well, then there's two of us. Yes? I wanted to relate this to what I think the title is about. I think it has something to do with the problems of the world. Bringing benefit to this problematic world, yeah. Yes. Urgent, yes.

[35:49]

Urgent, yes. Yes, urgent, yes. It's urgent that we be present. It's urgent that we don't rush with this person, and this person, and this person. It's urgent that we don't speed up. And it's urgent that we also don't like try to stop ourselves from speeding up. Because if you're trying to speed up, it's urgent that you take care of the person who's trying to speed up. It's urgent that we take care of our sense that we're not doing enough. Or, it's urgent that we take care of our sense that we are doing enough. Like, I'm doing enough, leave me alone. It's not to argue with that, it's to be present with that. Like some people come to see the teacher and they say, I'm doing enough, aren't I? I'm not doing enough, am I? I don't know if I'm doing enough. This is a big issue. All these things are urgently calling for full attention. And this particular, am I doing enough,

[36:53]

in that particular, am I doing enough, is the universal. And if you're totally with this particular, am I doing enough, the universal is revealed. And in that revelation, you have more energy to deal with the next, am I doing enough? Whatever it is, am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Am I doing too little? Are they doing enough? All these things are calling for complete, unconditioned, absolute, universal compassion. But the way it starts is by being fully there for this limited thing. If we're not doing enough, if we're not here fully for the limited, we're not ready for the unlimited, which is right there, of course. And the unlimited then

[37:56]

infuses us with resources to again and again be completely there for each individual. And again, the individuals are not going to stop saying, and you're not going to stop thinking, am I doing enough? You're not going to get away from that. People are going to keep wondering that. And they're going to come to meet you. And they're going to come to meet you wondering if they're doing enough. And they're going to also be wondering, are you doing enough? And are you doing enough for them? And to meet that, it's an urgent matter. And if you rush, you won't meet it. If you rush, you'll go off to the side or jump ahead. Rushing undermines complete meeting. But it's urgent that we meet completely. And if people speed up, it's urgent that we are there

[38:57]

for their speeding up. It doesn't mean necessarily we speed up, but we're there with their speeding up. We can just jump on their train and ride with them. Like surfing. Yes? So today at work, one of my co-workers at work, we were the two oldest people in the group of five. Say again? At work? At work, one of my co-workers was having a conversation with one of the younger women. And we were the two oldest, she and I. It's been about four years since then. She said that the absolute conviction if you do this work correctly, guarantee you will burn out. She said it was absolute. It was like passion. But if you feel people fear staying home... Yeah, yeah. Basically, that's what I'm saying, yeah.

[40:02]

If you practice Zen, what was the word? Correctly? If you practice Zen correctly, you'll burn out practicing Zen. You'll burn out. If you practice Zen correctly, I think what this correctly is like in quotation marks. If you practice Zen according to your idea of correctly, and you finally make it there, you'll burn out quite quickly. Most people are, since they haven't quite arrived there correctly, but they're approaching it, they're not quite in as much trouble as if they actually would arrive at, finally I'm doing it correctly. That's like rushing. You're rushed to correctly, rather than, I'd like to do it correctly, and I aspire to do it correctly, but I don't actually know what correctly is. However, if I'd like to do it correctly,

[41:06]

and I do know what correctly is, then I might be able to do it correctly, but then I'll burn out. But to want to be a bodhisattva, anybody heard about that? To aspire to be a bodhisattva? If you miss out that you don't know what it is, I mean, if you aren't aware of this, you don't really know for sure what it is, you're missing out on what it is. What it is includes wondering what it is. And doing it right or correctly includes wondering what correctly is. Again, as I said, if you miss wondering what you're doing, if you wonder what you're doing is, you're missing a key ingredient of ethical practice. So you're doing good or you're doing things correctly,

[42:08]

but your ethics are undermined by not wondering what you're doing, and also by not being asked by other people, and they don't ask you because you're doing it correctly. They stay away from you. And if everybody stays away from you, you'll burn out. Yes? This really reminds me of the Zen story. Really? Is it okay to share it? I don't remember the names, and I don't remember the details, but I think the gist. I have the gist. So, this is in China, right? That's a common place for Zen. Yeah. So it might technically be a Chan story. Well, Chan is the same word. Yeah. So there's this mountain temple, and there's a teacher and a student, and the student says, I'm going to go off to the next mountain over because I want to live all alone. And the teacher says something like,

[43:10]

that sounds like a good plan. And the teacher says, if I call to you on the other mountain, will you answer me? And the student says, well, no, because I'm going to live alone. And then the teacher says, if I call to you and you don't answer me, you don't understand living alone. Oh, right. And so, for some reason, that story is in my mind, and I don't know why it was on my mind, but I think what we're talking about right now really illustrates how that story is. Yeah. What comes to my mind is, when I was in Japan one time, and this Japanese phrase came to my mind, which was, nodo kawaita. And I thought, I knew it was Japanese, but I thought, why did that thought come? And then I thought, what does that actually mean in English?

[44:10]

What does that nodo kawaita mean? I said, oh, it means, nodo, the throat, has become dry. So the expression that came to my mind in Japanese was, the throat has become dry. So first of all, it came up, I don't know how that came up, and then when it came up, I wondered what was it, and then I translated it and found out what it was, and I still didn't know why it came, and then I realized I was thirsty. Sometimes you're thirsty and you don't think, I'm thirsty. Sometimes you're thirsty and you do think you're thirsty. I don't know why that expression comes up. You could say, well, it's because you think you're thirsty. But sometimes you don't think that when you're thirsty. But this time, the Japanese expression came, I didn't even know it was Japanese or I didn't know what it meant,

[45:10]

but it was the perfect thing for my condition. And that story came because it's the perfect story for what we're talking about. You can go, yeah, you want to go be alone? Fine, that sounds like a good idea. And then, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the student says, blah, blah, blah, and the teacher says, oh, no, no, no. You can go be alone, but you can't go be alone according to your idea of what being alone is. You can't go off and like just attach to what you think being alone is. That's not what we mean by being alone. And being alone isn't also what I think it is either. Being alone is, like everything else, it's a conversation. And if you're alone and you're not open to people questioning your being alone, you're not being alone. You're just being isolated. So when the student said

[46:11]

I want to be alone, the teacher thought he meant, oh, you mean you're going to go explore what that mystery is. And the student didn't mean that. He was going to go do what he thought it was. And then when the teacher said some things to him, he realized, oh, oh, oh my God, no, [...] don't do that. That would not be a good idea for you to go and spend time doing what you think is going on as true. You stay here a little longer because here we can question you. Like when you go to the bathroom and you say, I'm going to the bathroom. What do you think that is? Well, is it an urgent matter? Well, do you think it's something you should rush to do? And so on. We can have a conversation here. So that Soto Zen is not about going off and practicing by yourself according to your idea of practicing by yourself. Once you're free of your ideas about what practicing by yourself is, then you can go practice by yourself.

[47:13]

But how are you going to become free of that idea, except by having conversations with other people who help you notice if you're attached to your idea of what being with people is and what not being with people is. Most people need quite a bit of interrogation. I heard somebody on the radio just yesterday. Oh, I know, there's this woman, this very interesting, what do you call it, a critic. And particularly, she's a TV critic. And so she was talking about the art of horrible men. The art of horrible men. And she started thinking about this because Stanley Weinstein is a very powerful artist, but horrible to people, not to mention what he did to the men. And so she made the point,

[48:16]

it's not about putting blinders on, it's about interrogating it. So when you find out that some artist is terrible to people, rather than putting blinders on in relationship to his or her art, don't put blinders on. Like a lot of people do. Once they find out somebody's corrupt, they stop reading the person's books, or stop looking at their movies, or whatever. She said, don't put blinders on, interrogate it. Interrogate the art. Don't look away from it and deny it. Because there's something in there. And before you found this thing out about the person, you should have been interrogating their art too. And if you were, you might have found out how corrupt they were. Even before you knew, if you interrogated their artwork, you might have found out

[49:17]

the problems in their personal life. But once you find out, you should start or continue your interrogation of the art. That's part of being compassionate to the horrible person, is to interrogate the art. Yes? Why do you think people feel they need to separate art? I think that they... The causes and conditions for that thought, you know, I don't know how that works, but people do think it. Some other people think you can't separate it. The people who think you can't separate it, they might be inclined to sort of look away from it. So if the person's cruel and abusive, then you might think, well, their art is too. I'm not saying you can or cannot separate.

[50:18]

I would just say that cruel people's art is they include each other. But also, we are included in their art and we are included in their cruelty. So taking care of... When you look at art, taking care of it is another example of something to be completely present with this particularity. And... be open to being questioned about how you are when you're... Well, like in art school, when the students look at the art, the teachers interrogate them about what they're seeing. They have intense conversations about art in art school. And we should do that with art too. We should do it with art and we should do it with the artists. Because all these things are calling their particulars. Each one's a particular. And every particular

[51:19]

is an equal opportunity to discover the universal. And discover how the universal is turning with the particular. So if people think artists and art could be separated, that's something to investigate. If they think they cannot be separated, that they're the same, that's to be investigated. And this is like science, right? It isn't like we're done. The investigation never ends. And we should be open to be interrogated about whether we're discontinuing our interrogation. So part of, again, part of Zen training is your teachers and your cohorts question you about whether you've stopped questioning. Your friends question you

[52:21]

about whether you've stopped questioning. They should. That would be a wholehearted relationship that they would question you. Because you might be quite questioning, and then you might stop. It's possible. And that's where you need friends who might say, Have you stopped questioning? You sound like you're done questioning. You sound like you've finished the questioning course. You sound like you've retired from practice. Yes? It's kind of hard to make the exit. I don't know. It makes me really tense because people have been jockeying at the front. I had this thought. I was at a chicken soup rumble.

[53:23]

It was a river of rocks. It was just tumbling around on me. And I just felt like, I don't need to be a river of rocks. I can dance with these other cars and not feel like me against them. So that was really helpful. Yesterday I was driving home from Los Angeles on Highway 5. Again, I found myself feeling like I was in competition with these cars. So I was really getting into the story about these people who were rushed up behind me and want me to get over. And it just occurred to me, it's just similar. I'm putting the story onto the other cars. And to just treat it more like a dance. In another way. I was like, I was done.

[54:25]

I was like, I was done. I pulled myself out of the story. Or you could have that view. You could have that view, I'm going to hold my ground. You could have the view, I'm going to hold my ground. But is it being questioned? And so, like you could have the view, you could have the view, I'm going to stay on the road. I'm not going to drive off the road. That kind of doesn't seem that unwholesome to have that thought. You know what I mean? I'm going to stay on the road. That seems like kind of a wholesome thought. However, for it to be moved towards revelation, you should be interrogating yourself with the thing, I'm going to stay on the road. And I'm going to go ahead of this person. Or I'm going to let this person go ahead of me. But that doesn't mean when you let the person go ahead of you, that you don't interrogate. And also,

[55:26]

you could have someone with you who's saying, you know, who questions you letting the other person go. Or who questions you not letting the other person go. Like this person might say, you know, it's nice of you to let all those people go, but what about the people behind you? So that's part of the dynamic process of questioning. I'm willing to let this person go, but what about the people behind me? I wonder if this is really... So, yeah, so I'm going to let them go, or I'm going to like, kind of like give them, I'm going to have a conversation with them, kind of like saying, what would happen if I go a little, you know, keep going a little bit and don't stop? Then what will you do? Like an investigation, an interrogation between you and the other cars. But not for the sake of getting to like do the right thing, but again, for the sake of the conversation.

[56:27]

And we usually don't think, okay, I'm going to get in the car, I'm going to drive from here to there, and between here and there, basically, it's about conversation with the other cars. And when I say it to myself right now, I think that's where it's at for my life. That would be really good if I was out there conversing with the other drivers, rather than, I have this agenda of, you know, I'm going to let everybody go before me and with no questioning of myself, because that's obviously really generous. It seems generous, doesn't that seem generous to let everybody who wants to go ahead of you go ahead of you? Seems generous. But I'm saying, if you don't question that, it may be generous, but it's got an ethical flaw in it, namely, you don't question yourself. But like, I could let people go ahead of me, I could also, but I think where I'm really at is have a conversation,

[57:30]

and also that can be questioned. And when I'm driving with other people, and they have different patterns of letting people go ahead of them, then also I can question them in my mind, but I can also question what I think would be better than what they're doing. And some people you can be quite open-minded about, and other people not. Like, someone picked me up, I met somebody in Golden Gate Park one time, and it was in the middle of the park, yeah, pretty much in the middle of the park, and she lived out in the ocean, and she picked me up in the park, and she drove almost downtown before she turned around and went west. You following me? We're in the middle of the park, she goes east for a really long time, and I'm kind of going, Wow! Because I knew she lived, you know, out near the beach. This is just an amazing way

[58:33]

to go to the beach. It was just, she went a long ways east. And I'm just kind of like, Well, how far is she going to go east? And then she finally turned around and went west, and one of the places she went as she was going west was the place she picked me up. And I thought when she picked me up she was going to go west. And she could have, but she didn't. Well, she could have, she might have had to turn her car around, but it was okay. And I noticed, I went with her and I did that the whole time, and I was really, it was just amazing. Like, people are different. However, if my wife did that, would I be able to go, like, to Oakland? We're going over the bridge now? Obviously this world is here

[59:35]

to help me become free of my ideas. Sorry. It really is. So when you get in a car, the world's there to help you become free of your ideas, so you can question your way foot by foot as you're driving. What's the appropriate thing to do here? How do I take care of this position I'm in right now and these cars? I'm sorry, you sound a little exhausting So you love that question. I can see how you say that, yeah. Is that not your experience? My experience is actually, it is energizing. It is invigorating. It is wonder-releasing. I think it actually did take longer to get home when I practiced my way home, but when I came home I was just full of joy. The other way is quite exhausting,

[60:37]

where you're fighting the other people and not only fighting them for going where you want to go, but also every step of the way having your idea about what's appropriate and not questioning what you're doing. That's very tiring. Even though in a way it's less energetic, it's more like... It doesn't seem like it takes that much energy. You're just kind of going with your habits of me first. Like even me asking you that question. So I should be questioning why I'm asking you the question. Yes. And you're questioning the answers. Yeah, right, yeah. Yeah, I don't find that that's tiring. And the other way, you don't necessarily feel like it's tiring, but you later find out how tiring, you didn't realize that you were leaking energy. And then suddenly you're like, there's no energy. The other way is like, you thought you were making a big effort, and you were,

[61:38]

and yet you're not tired. How did that happen? Could some of that be because when you actually stay in conversation you also engage in the universal of your self-being. So you're only living your own idea, but you keep questioning and having conversations, you keep questioning. You're not humiliated by yourself alone, you're not isolated. You're incorporated, you're finding the universal in the self. And you're being, you're being as usual, as always, you're being universally sustained. But now you're like accepting the universal support. When you try to do things by yourself,

[62:40]

you're still universally supported in trying to do them by yourself, but you kind of close the door on the universal, even though it's still there, you kind of close the door. When you open your door to it, you get all this energy, like I was talking to some people over in a restaurant there a couple hours ago, and they said, did you celebrate your birthday? And I said, well, it kind of celebrated me. You know, I got up and did meditation, and then I had two meetings in the morning, and after the meetings were over, I said, I felt quite perky. I wasn't trying to have a birthday celebration, but my birthday just kind of came and like gave me all this energy, and I was vitalized somehow by my birthday. So my gift was, I just got this big, I don't know how it happened,

[63:44]

but it wasn't like I was looking for a birthday celebration, I was just going to meetings, and it was my birthday. And the first meeting, the people knew it was my birthday, but they didn't mention it. The second meeting, they mentioned it and sang happy birthday, but there was no cake or ice cream or anything, but there was happy birthday to you, and that was fine. But then after those meetings were over, I just felt like, whoa, what is this? Where does this come from? I don't know. But I felt like my birthday was celebrating me, used me to have a party, which is basically me feeling energetic. So it's like that. That's the way we always are, is this incredible support's coming to us, but if we don't take care of the limited version of it, which doesn't always look like support, which looks like people butting in front of you on the highway or whatever, that's actually a particular example

[64:49]

of this universal support. And if you take good care of that, you realize, oh my god, this person who was butting in front of me was the occasion at which I realized the revelation of the whole universe supporting us, not just me, but them too. Well, why is it that? Again, I don't know why, there's various stories about it, but, you know, it seems like there's some, there has been some, what do you call it, survival value in not noticing that everybody's supporting us. So we've gotten into that or there's some survival value in a consciousness which sees things in a limited way and believes that that's actual reality. There's some survival value in that. And also,

[65:50]

there's energetic issues there too, that some ways of thinking about things take less energy than other ways. So the way I'm talking about might seem like it takes more energy, and it does take more energy than the other way, but it may be a way of making more energy expenditure to open up to a huge energy resource. So it may be putting more energy into this thing here and your gift is to get, you realize, oh, the universe is having a celebration through me, but I have to make the effort of noticing me and what I'm into, which is maybe a lot of work. But it is a lot of work. But I don't realize the full extent of it, and if I accept the amount that I can see, I get a revelation of the incredible amount of work it is, which is, you know, tremendous vitality and openness and peacefulness

[66:51]

and gentleness also is part of the wholehearted presence with the particular in which there's the universal. But if we're not wholeheartedly taking care of the particular, to the extent that we're not, is to the extent that we don't get our full support, which is already there, and which we don't create. So how it happened that I had this thing, you know, and again, this person said, did you celebrate your birthday? I thought, no, I didn't celebrate it, but I didn't think that before. I mean, I noticed there was no party or anything, but I didn't notice that before. I was, oh yeah, but my birthday, the universe celebrated me, and it gave me lots of gifts. It was a great day. I don't know how it happened, though. But I think it partly happened that I was there for those meetings, and I wasn't like, well, when's my birthday party going to be? These people are not really

[67:52]

celebrating my birthday very much. I wasn't into that. I was into the meetings. And it was not that difficult to be into the meetings, because they were calling me to be there. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to be here less because it's my birthday, or more because it's my birthday. However, if I am able to be there more, that's partly a gift. Or it's all a gift. Yes? You still are in it. Say again?

[68:55]

Yes. Or sentimental compassion. That one means to an end. We ask ourselves, how am I seeing these things? Am I seeing this person as the other? And if so, why? What if I'm not seeing myself as that person? Or if I'm seeing myself as that person, why am I seeing that? Yeah, great. Sounds like a Buddhist peace fellowship. So, I'm really looking forward to driving home. I got a nice long... And you have a nice long drive too, John. So, we have a great opportunity

[70:07]

to interrogate our driving. You know? Wonder about our driving. Wonder about what is really compassionate driving. We want to be compassionate, of course. But what is it? What's the compassionate speed? What's the compassionate lane? Exactly. Exactly. So, now you can ask that question every moment of the way. What... What is... What is this? What's going on here? What's the true way? I mean, we are in the true way. We are. The teaching is, we're on the path. And the teaching is, asking what is the path while you're on it is appropriate. We are on it,

[71:08]

but when you're on it, you wonder what it is. And if you're not wondering what it is, you're still on it, but you're just not open to it. If you don't wonder what this wonderful path is, you're closing the door a little bit on it. You're still on it, though. You can be on it with closing doors the whole time. I'm not on the path. I don't want to be on the path. This is the path. That's not the path. You're still on the path, but you're kind of missing out on letting yourself be celebrated by the path, which is what's going on. But how about accepting that the path is celebrating you? Should we go be celebrated?

[71:50]

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