I want to review a doctrine, a doctrine, which is a teaching, but also doctrines are, in some sense, like theories, which can be tested. And then there's practice. There's teachings of doctrines, and there's also teachings of practice. So one of the doctrines that has been offered during this series is the doctrine that essence and function mutually include each other. That the principle of phenomena is included in the phenomena,

[01:09]

and the phenomena are included in the principle. A principle is like essence, and phenomena is like function. So essence and function interpenetrate each other, and principle and phenomena also. Essence is, in some sense, the way things basically are. So sometimes essence is referred to as also ultimate truth. The way things really are, beyond the way they appear to us, the way things appear to us is phenomena. So each of you appear to the rest of us,

[02:14]

we see you, we perceive you as phenomena. But you're not just phenomena, you're also essence. And we can't perceive your essence. I can't perceive your essence. Your essence is not a perception. Perceptions apply to phenomena. So we can perceive a color. But the color has an essence, which we cannot perceive. And our feelings can be perceived, but our feelings also are actually, well, I could say they also have an essence.

[03:18]

So our feelings are both an essence and a phenomena. So I wouldn't really say that our feelings are phenomena, or that our feelings are essence. Our feelings are both essence and phenomena. Or I should say principle and phenomena. Our feelings are both essence and function. And this teaching, that they interpenetrate each other, one of the virtues of the teaching is that the wonder of phenomena is that they're not just phenomena. They also have essence. And the wonder of essence is that it's not just essence. It's not just a principle, which we can't see.

[04:21]

It includes what we can see, and what we can smell and feel. So again, essence and function, all day long, we're functioning, right? Moment by moment, we function. But the full vitality, and actually the freedom and peace of our functioning is, what do I say? Is due to our essence having function. I mean, our function having essence. Everything you do, every action you make,

[05:26]

every thought, every feeling, every perception includes essence. And in that way, everything you think, everything you feel, everything you do, in that way, it accords with everything. And it's wonderful beyond the perception. And that's true anyway, whether you realize it or not. All your daily activities, all your daily functions include essence, and are wondrous. That's not going to stop. However, if we don't practice what? Remembering that teaching, and making our function a celebration of that teaching, we

[06:30]

will miss out on the wonder of our function. And the function of our wonder. But we don't make all of our phenomenal existences have a principle. We don't make all our functions have essence. They already do. I was thinking just before, I think before or after the bell rung earlier, that in Christian traditions, they talk about celebrating the Eucharist, or celebrating communion. And I'm not a Christian doctor. A doctor is somebody who knows the doctrine, right? I'm not a Christian doctor. I'm not a doctor of the church. But maybe the doctors would agree with me

[07:34]

when I say the communion is always going on. And once in a while, the people who believe in the communion celebrate it. So the communion between essence and function is always going on. But sometimes we, in this class, celebrate it by sitting still, by making our function sitting still. In that way, we celebrate the stillness, which has a function of illumination. So stillness is essence. And illumination is function.

[08:34]

And the stillness includes the illumination. And the illumination includes the stillness. The illumination is a function which illuminates beings. And the illumination is illuminating because it has this essence, this silence, and this stillness, which is going on all the time. But we need to celebrate it. In order to integrate our phenomenal existence with the principle which I just told you about. So when you're sitting, you can remember stillness. And remembering stillness is something you can perceive.

[09:36]

You can perceive, oh, I'm remembering stillness. I'm remembering silence. And also, maybe the room is quiet. So I talked earlier about that's like a constructed, perceptible silence. But it's also a celebration at the same time. It's a celebration of an unconstructed silence and stillness. And an unconstructed illumination. Our mindfulness of stillness is an illumination of stillness, a constructed illumination, a perceptible illumination. We are aware that we're functioning without moving and without talking. That's, and that, and then at the same time

[10:41]

that we're remembering that we're perceptibly functioning, that we're acting as silence and as stillness. That celebration communes with the stillness and silence which we're remembering, which we can't perceive. And maybe this talking that's been going on recently here is a function. It seems like it's a function. And maybe it's a function of an essence. Maybe it's an action which is a function of silence.

[11:43]

And I would propose to you another action of speaking is I propose that when the speaking celebrates the silence, the speaking is more alive and is liberating and is illuminating. And again, there is a function which is illumination. And that function which is illumination includes the essence of silence and stillness. So we have a function which isn't moving. There seems to be movement, but it actually includes not movement. And we have speaking which includes silence all the time. And when we remember that, we start

[12:47]

to realize that unconstructed silence and stillness. By the way, the word for the Sanskrit and Pali words smriti and sati for mindfulness, basically they mean remembering or memory. So remembering stillness is also mindfulness of stillness. And so again, when we're sitting here and not moving, we are being mindful of phenomenal stillness. But we also can remember the principle of stillness, the invisible stillness, which doesn't ever come or go.

[13:49]

And then we can also practice a stillness which comes and goes, which starts at 7.30 and ends at about 8. And a silence which starts around 7.30 and ends at 8. But when I speak, I can also remember silence. And even if I don't remember it, I can accept that there is silence always. There's a silence which doesn't come or go, which doesn't start or stop when I'm talking and when I stop talking. My talking actually is actually a function of silence. My movement is actually a function of the principle of movement. And I can train at remembering that doctrine

[14:54]

and then apply it to my actions, which applies the teaching, applies the principle, and makes my action the practice of that principle. And I can also notice that I seem to have forgotten to apply the teaching to my present activity. And then I can say, oh, and try again without moving or remembering that I can practice without moving, that I can practice not moving to realize the principle of not moving. And one more thing, which I'll just start to introduce

[16:12]

tonight, we'll see how much, maybe I'll do more than introduce, is that this interfusion is a teaching to counteract our sense that stillness and the activity of illumination are two different things. We naturally think that, like somebody sitting still, like a so-called the Buddhas are sitting still, but they're also illuminating. They're silent, and they're also illuminating. They can illuminate without speaking or moving. It's their silence and stillness which is illuminating.

[17:12]

And when they move, they're still silent and still. It's the stillness and silence which is illuminating. And we can perceive movement, but in the stillness of the movement is where the illumination, is where the education, is where the enlightenment is living. It's living in stillness. The illumination is living in silence. But we tend to think they're two different things, because they're two different words. And they're two different parts of one reality, essence and function, principle and phenomenon, imperceptible and perceptible. These things are always turning on each other.

[18:15]

The imperceptible, silence and illumination are turning on each other and including each other. And the perceptible, silence and illumination are also turning on each other. And the perceptible and imperceptible are turning on each other. It's all, everything's reciprocal. Yeah, so I think the next big step would be just to suggest that the consequence of this is that the illumination, the awakening, cannot be other than our present function.

[19:18]

Yes? So our perceptions change, but the attention is still. Pardon? Our perceptions change, but the illumination doesn't. Say again, one more time. OK. Our perceptions change, but our illumination doesn't change. Illumination, well, we can perceive an illumination. Sometimes we think we can perceive an illumination, like we feel, oh, I just got illuminated. Or, that person seemed to get illuminated, like they seem to understand something they didn't understand before. I can perceive that. But the illumination, which is actually the same as liberation in the midst of our perceptions,

[20:54]

that illumination doesn't change. It's always basically, yeah, because it includes stillness and silence. So it doesn't really change, but what gets liberated is changing all the time. So this story gets liberated. Now this story gets liberated. This person, or the story of this person, becomes liberated and realizes peace. However, the liberation is not necessarily something I perceive, and the peace is not necessarily something I perceive. We don't necessarily, like we often say, when people are really awake, they don't necessarily think that they're awake, but they are. And awake, you know, like when Buddha's awakeness,

[21:58]

when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't necessarily think, I'm Buddha, but they are. But we can perceive an awakening, but the perceptible awakening is not the actual awakening. And the imperceptible awakening liberates the perceptible awakening and the perceptible not-awakening. So if you feel not awake, if you feel deluded, awakening will free you from that delusion. Awakening understands that delusion. Awakening is the stillness of that, the stillness of that delusion, and the stillness of that delusion is the awakening of, you could say,

[23:02]

awakening of, or enlightenment of the delusion, or you also could say the awakening about the delusion. But it's really like, not really about, it's like right in the middle of the delusion there's an awakening, right in the midst of delusion. So again we say Buddha, sometimes we say Buddhas are those who are greatly awakened in the middle of delusion. But another way to say it is being greatly awakened in the midst of delusion is Buddha. What Buddha is, is being awake in the middle of delusion. So you got a delusion, you don't have to get rid of it. And matter of fact, enlightening cannot be, at this moment, enlightenment cannot be other than this delusion. It can't be something else.

[24:03]

If it's something else, it's just another delusion. Enlightenment must be what's going on right now. Really. And we kind of think, no. I just can't accept that we're already at enlightenment. But being at enlightenment doesn't mean that there's not delusion here. It means accepting, accepting silence and stillness and illumination. It means accepting that enlightenment is in the midst of our delusion. Enlightenment is in the midst of our delusion. Anybody got any delusion? Enlightenment is right in the midst of it. But enlightenment doesn't make the delusion go away.

[25:06]

So again, we think, well how could, it must be some other place than here, because this is delusionville. But if it is some other place, that's just another delusion or another idea. We're already there. Now it's kind of like time to get over thinking that that's not, you know, not accepting that. And that's an ongoing challenge because our mind keeps putting up, it must be a little different from this. Yes. A follow-up question about changing perceptions. Is that not the focus of our practice in the sense we're looking at the pliability of the functionality in our process, the delusions that we're trying to, we're seeing they're not subtle. Nothing's fixed. Yeah. That's what we're being mindful of. We're stillness.

[26:07]

We're watching our own tendencies and trying to make ideas of stillness. Yeah. And those ideas are changing all the time, but the illumination is not changing. The fact that you notice, oh, I'm trying to do this, oh, I'm trying to do that, oh, I think this, oh, I think that, all that stuff is changing. And by being compassionate to all that, we wake up to an unchanging presence with whatever, which is already there. You talked about compassion in the three stages last week, and that middle stage was a question. I was questioning whatever was arising and how it would be. I thought that was very helpful. That sort of compassion when you're just dealing with whatever, you're trying to grasp the logic. Mm-hmm. Questioning is part of ethics,

[27:11]

and ethics is part of compassion. Questioning is a perceptible, some questioning is a perceptible aspect of the illumination. So sometimes you notice yourself questioning or you feel you're being questioned, you can perceive that. And then there's a teaching which says that what's going on there by this questioning, this is a perception of a process which is imperceptible. We're imperceptibly always questioning, and we're imperceptibly always being questioned. And sometimes we're perceptibly questioning, and we're perceptibly being questioned. And being open to being called into question is a celebration of always being called into question.

[28:15]

The universe is always calling us into question, and we are always calling the universe into question. Like, you know, what can I do for you this morning, universe? And the universe is listening to us and says, that was a good question. You can actually perceive that. Just now, did you perceive that? I just asked the universe if there's something I could do for it, and the universe talked back to me. At least you can hear that I said that. That's a celebration of what's actually going on. One of the ways the universe supports us is by questioning us, and one of the ways we support the universe is by questioning it. That's one of the happy kind of aspects of being an astrophysicist.

[29:18]

Do you know what I mean? Those people are kind of happy a lot of the time because they're perceptibly questioning the universe. They're sending out messages all the time, where are you? What are you doing? And the universe is answering them, and they, to some extent, know that the universe is asking them questions, too. Yes, E.J.? Did you say that this back and forth questioning is ethical practice? Yeah, well, it's an essential part of ethical practice is questioning and being questioned. But specifically, I'm wondering if that's very broad, or is it specifically, am I killing E.J.? Am I lying about something? Those are specific, perceptible versions of questioning, right?

[30:23]

And other people say, are you killing E.J.? Did you take something that wasn't given to you? Did you tell the truth just now? Did you put yourself above somebody else? Somebody might ask you those questions, right? Now, if you're doing the practice, you would say thank you to them because they're supporting your practice. So them asking you the questions is actually your practice, too. So they're doing the practice of questioning you, but it's your practice, too, because you can't practice ethics if nobody asks you any questions. And also, if people hear a rumor that you're not interested in practice, they might stop questioning you. They say, don't ask him any questions. He's not practicing ethics. He doesn't want to be questioned. Huh? Well, when you're that way, you're basically saying, I don't want to practice ethics at this moment.

[31:25]

You're saying, forget ethics. Let's just have it be that what I think is right is right, and let's leave it at that. That's the way I want to practice ethics. But to practice ethics that way is not practicing ethics. That's just being self-righteous. That's just breaking the precept of putting yourself above others. But when people actually ask me, question me, that's my practice, that they're questioning me. And then if I remember that, then I say, thank you. I need you to question me. Like if we sometimes say that, somebody does something, we have this expression, thanks, I needed that. You know that one? It's not so common anymore, but it used to be more common that people would give you a hard time and say, thanks, I needed that. I needed you to call me to account. Call me on that. I need that. So it's not like my practice

[32:28]

is just receiving the questions. It's also the being questioned is my practice. And then if you really understand, then you would welcome that because in fact all day long we are being questioned and we are accepting the questions. Without that we wouldn't be alive. Everything is like testing us to say, is this the right amount of support for you to live? Everything is like in that way very tender to us and very careful of us because it isn't just, okay, I got something to give you. It's like, may I give you something? In the final year or two of Suzuki Roshi's life, he encouraged me to start studying Japanese and he even had Zen Center

[33:29]

pay a Japanese teacher for me. And he also taught me Japanese for free. He didn't ask me to pay him for his Japanese lessons. And one of the main things he taught me was when I would speak Japanese, for example, there's an expression kudasai, which means please. So there's a gerund, I think it's a gerund. I don't know what it is. Anyway, it's a verb, swatte, which means sit. So if you want to say to somebody, please sit, you say swatte kudasai. Please sit. Or, no, that's good enough. Swatte kudasai. And I would say that to him

[34:32]

and then he would say swatte kudasai masenka, which means, he would say, he would encourage me to say swatte kudasai masenka, which as you can see is a longer expression. So kind of an impolite way of speaking to somebody is to say swatte, which means sit. Like we say to dogs, sit. Now, you know, if Suzuki Roshi was teaching dogs, he would say, would you please sit? Sit, please. Swatte kudasai. So kind of a command is to say swatte. And I didn't say swatte. I said swatte kudasai. And then he said, swatte kudasai masenka. So generally, the longer, the more you say, the more polite it is. So swatte kudasai masenka means

[35:34]

please sit. Won't you? Won't you please sit? So it's not just sit. It's not please sit. Won't you just sit? So he would always, whenever I would say something, he would always up the ante on the politeness. And again, it makes it a question too. Rather than swatte kudasai, which means please, the ka at the end means I'm wondering if maybe you would please sit down. It makes it into an inquiry. So you're inviting the person to sit, but in an inquiring, questioning way, which makes it more gentle. Please give me the salt. Or would you please give me the salt?

[36:37]

So the inquiry is celebrating this mutuality. Please give me the salt. Tyler in green. How do you think of silence and stillness as the absence of something? So silence being the absence of sound, or stillness being

[37:40]

the absence of movement. I'm curious how or in what way is silence illuminated? What happens or what do we do that illuminates? Well, let's go to what you usually think it is. So usually we might think of silence as the absence of talking. So then if there's an absence of talking, you can perceive the silence. So the perceptible silence seems to exclude the function of speech. That's okay. Now we're talking about another silence in which there is tremendous activity. A silence which includes a function. Usually the silence we can perceive,

[38:42]

we don't see much of a function of it. The stillness, we don't see the function. But there is, right with the silence that we can perceive, there's another silence in which there's a great function. And right in the stillness we can perceive there's another stillness in which there's a great function. And part of the function is, I would say that when we perceive silence, there is the function of thinking that there's no sound. That's one of the functions that can occur in the perception of silence. And in the perception of stillness, there's the thought, there's no movement. So that's an example of even in the perception of stillness, there's activity. And even in the perception of silence, there's activity. That's a warm-up to a stillness

[39:46]

which doesn't hamper symphonic activity. So the greatest symphony is going on in silence. And the greatest dance is going on in stillness. And even at the perceptual level, if you are very careful and compassionate and questioning of the perceptual stillness and questioning of the perceptual silence, you start to notice, oh, there's a revelation, there's more going on here than you thought before you questioned. And questioning the silence, but also questioning my understanding of silence. Questioning, oh, I thought there was no talking in silence and now I discovered there's a tremendous amount of chatter going on.

[40:47]

As a matter of fact, in silence, now I see, because I've been kind to my idea, my perception of silence, because I was compassionate with my perception of silence, I discovered a function in it. So again, silent illumination, right? But when we first think of silence, we don't necessarily think there's this thing, illumination going on in it. But if you're compassionate with the silence, you'll discover an illumination. What's the illumination? There's a conversation going on right in the middle of the silence. And what is that conversation? It's the conversation between me and the whole universe is going on in stillness. But my first take on stillness and my first take on silence

[41:51]

is there's no conversation. It's the absence of conversation. And that makes it easier to perceive the silence because it's like a little tiny silence, so I can get a hold of it. If you're kind to the little tiny silence, gradually the kindness opens up the silence and you discover that there's a great symphony of conversation going on in the silence. But you can't skip over and push away the silence that your mind has constructed, which is a little one, a perceptible one. So our mind and body construct little tiny silences which seem to exclude the great conversation of the universe. But if you're kind to the little and not afraid of the little one

[42:51]

and also being kind to it means question it. Like couldn't this little tiny version of silence be questioned? And could I question it even without saying anything? I just did. And might this questioning process open up this constructed silence? Again, that's another question. Is this construction silence open to being questioned? That's another question. And there might be an answer. Yes, hello, I'm constructed silence and you can question me. Or I was constructed silence and now I'm talking to you and telling you. You can keep questioning me and you can discover who I really am. Always. I'm real silence.

[43:52]

And in real silence there is the conversation between all beings which liberates all beings. We are conversation and the conversation is going on in silence. And the silence where this conversation is going on there's also illumination of the conversation. That's right there too. And if we look someplace else the constructed silence or someplace other than the constructed conversation we'll miss the unconstructed conversation which doesn't come or go and is always the same. The illumination which is always the same for each changing perception of sound and silence. So we have changing silence and changing stillness

[44:54]

and changing movement and changing speaking and compassion to all that along with the teaching which tells us, you know, that actually there's a possibility of discovering amazing things beyond our perception by taking care of our perception. Compassion towards perception reveals the imperceptible which was going on before we started practicing compassion towards our life. When we were little children we didn't know how to practice compassion so we just were kind of rude to our life and said to our life, you know, you're what I think you are. And our life said, okay, sweetheart, you can keep talking like that as long as you need to. Like my grandchildren, you know. My grandson said, what's your favorite animal? And I said, humans. And he said, humans are not animals.

[45:56]

And then he was, and I could tell he was not open to being questioned. But still, even though he wasn't open, I still might question him very carefully. And then he was succeeded by his little sister who I've told you before, you know, I mentioned to his little sister that her mother was my daughter. And she said, no she's not. She's my mother. That's it. Not open. And could I ask you some questions about that? What a weirdo. Can you ask me questions about what I just told you about what reality is? Don't question. When I tell you what's real, there's no need to question. There's just nothing. Well, you know, that's the way people usually are when they're uneducated. Some children actually

[47:01]

don't think like that, but most children need education. They need to be questioned. And we need to show them that they can question us. And then, again, questioning our idea of stillness, which seems to exclude movement, and our idea of silence, which seems to exclude sound, questioning it compassionately, being compassionate and inquiring will reveal what cannot be seen. And then we also get to see how this unseen thing is doing all this good work and liberating everybody and making peace. But we don't see it with our perceptions. We see it with being willing to practice. So the proof that we've seen it is that we're willing to be questioned. If you've seen it,

[48:03]

and you say, I've seen it, but don't ask me any questions, it sounds like you didn't really see it. If you see it, you feel like, finally I'm not setting a limit on questions people are going to ask me. Any questions you want to ask me? Not to say that I think I have attained realization, but just let's see if I did. Shall we? Yes, Nathan? Yes, Phil? Yeah. Pardon? No. We can't make a...

[49:04]

We can't capture the essence with our perceptions. But the essence illuminates, and illumination is in very close relationship, is a close friend of the essence. But when we perceive something, we've just made it into something that is not... Illumination you can't perceive. You can't see light. You can only see light bouncing off things. You can't see the illumination, but you can be illuminated and have a new life. I don't know what happened, but everything's different. Well, maybe an illumination occurred. But that thought is another concept which you can perceive, and it's fine. Be kind to it, and then again you'll discover the essence and the illumination. But the illumination cannot be captured with perception. And also it cannot be hindered

[50:06]

by the perception either. It's not hindered right now. It's illuminating everything right now. But we have to be kind to our perceptions. We have to be a little bit more kind to our perception in order to receive the benefits of what's already being given to us. That's why I say I pray that the Great Assembly will remember and receive this stillness, which means remember and receive illumination. And so please receive it, and then also be kind to any thoughts that you're having so that you can realize that those thoughts are bringing you illumination too. Another one, yes? Except essence and function

[51:17]

are not a duality. They mutually include each other. So it's a teaching that they're interfused, that you never have the essence without a function. And that's part of the problem is sometimes people think there could be stillness without a function. But the function isn't movement necessarily. It could be. The function is illumination. So they're not a duality. This illumination is what frees us from seeing them as a duality. Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, you can remember this. You can just remember one. You can remember the stillness. Remember the essence. And also you can remember the teaching about the essence

[52:18]

is that this essence has a function. It's not a duality. And part of the function of the essence is when we remember the essence. One of the ways the essence functions is by mindfulness of the essence. The essence has function by transmitting the instruction to be mindful of the essence. And when we join that, we are part of the function of the essence. We're celebrating it. And also another aspect of this is, I just thought I'd mention that somebody who practices Zen a couple of months ago said that he had started practicing mindfulness. And he said, well, what's the difference between mindfulness and like Zen meditation, the way you teach it? And I said, well, I don't really feel like I want to talk about the difference right now.

[53:19]

What I want to say is when you're practicing mindfulness, but you're not trying to get anything, that's Zen meditation. So if you're mindful of your posture without trying to get anything, you just have celebrated stillness. The stillness isn't trying to get anything. So in that sense, you're doing mindfulness, yes, but not to get anything. You're doing mindfulness, and not to get anything means you're doing mindfulness of essence. And then there's this wonderful function, which will be discovered right there without doing some other kind of mindfulness, without doing mindfulness to get an illumination. So if people practice mindfulness to get I don't know what, you can make a list, right? Illumination, freedom, peace, whatever. If you're doing mindfulness to get anything, then you're basically

[54:21]

not honoring the mindfulness. You're not honoring the stillness. You're not honoring the essence. If you honor the essence, you get this gift of the function, which is there anyway, but you can't receive it because you're not there honoring where it lives. Yes? The relationship between essence and function reminds me of something you said in a class a few years ago when you were talking about words and things, and the relationship between words and things. I remember, I think you said something to the effect of the word is the thing, but the thing is not the word. The word is not the thing,

[55:23]

but the word gives us meaning in relationship to the thing. So you can say that the word tree gives meaning to the tree, which is not the word. So I used the example of Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan, is it? So Ann Sullivan said to her, I think in the movie anyway, or in the play, the water is this, but really water is the meaning of this thing. And then she reversed it and said, this is the water. Water is this, this is water. Now this is not the water, but the word water is this.

[56:23]

Right, so I was remembering that. It seems like the word is pointing at this unknowable thing. And in a similar way it seems as though the function is pointing at the essence. The essence is unknowable, but the function is somehow indicating or pointing in the direction of the essence. Yeah, and Helen Keller had to learn perception before she could receive this teaching, because she didn't know how to proceed, because part of perception for humans is to use words, so that we get this thing called meaning, which we sort of need. And so we go along with that. But then once we do that for a while, we can experiment with not getting meaning, or even getting it, but not attaching to the meaning,

[57:25]

not confusing the meaning with the thing that the word gave us, by which the word gave us meaning. That the thing is not the word, but the word gives us some meaning with the thing. So we got the thing, whatever it is, and now we have meaning, and we use the word. But it's not reversible. The meaning of the word is not the thing. The meaning of word is other words, because words give meaning. So words give meaning to words, and words give meaning to water. But the other words are not... The other words that give meaning to this word are not this word, which we kind of... Oh yeah, right, that's not... But we need other words to get meaning out of words, and we need words to get meaning out of things that aren't words, and we're quite successful at it, and we're, generally speaking,

[58:27]

in a process of recovery from the addiction to meaning. We're in recovery now. We're letting our addiction be questioned. I mean, you are. My granddaughter is not. At least not by me. But she did grow up somewhat, and her mother did question her about that, and she accepts being questioned by her mother, which is compassionate of her. Allowing her mother to ask her questions is compassionate of the child. So children can be compassionate by letting people question them. And if some people are really compassionate to them, they will let the person question them. I mean, like really question, rather than just be mean to them. So her mother is very kind, so eventually they had a conversation

[59:30]

where her mother told her, Yes, that man is my father. Doesn't mean I'm not your mother anymore, it's just that I'm also his daughter. And she could accept that. So we can accept that the word is not the thing, even though the word gives us meaning in relationship to it. So then we can start questioning. Questioning the phenomena and questioning the word and open to the stillness and the illumination, which are right there in the perception of the water and the word. There's a stillness right there, which is functioning as the water or the word. But the way it's functioning

[60:33]

as the stillness we can't see. But if we're kind to this function we can see, we open to the function we can't see, which is illumination. And the path to realizing that is to be kind to all of our perceptions, to be generous and careful in questioning and be questioned, which is, you know, it's a very intense ongoing process which we're in the middle of. I don't know if we're in the middle or anywhere we're in it. We're in the midst of it. We're at the center of it, but not the middle, like, you know, halfway through. We're in the middle, like, at the center of it all the time. This process of recovery from our delusions. And it's the Buddha's work.

[61:35]

It's not like this is a second-rate assignment. This is the work of Buddha's. This questioning, this compassion to all these perceptions. Yes? What about gut feeling? What about gut feeling? Gut feeling? Doesn't have perception? What do you mean? I perceive gut feelings. And I also, you know, anyway, I perceive gut feelings. Don't you? Something sensory? Knowing something from the senses,

[62:41]

from the body. What I mean is, perception is like a thought, a language, but a gut sense. It doesn't have a language. Well, it is possible, I think, to, you know, let's say you can have a sensation and no words associated with it, which would, I guess, I think it probably would be a sensation that didn't have any meaning. Maybe you can say, I can be like swimming. It's possible to be swimming in sensation and have no meaning in it. Some people can tolerate that. That's fine. And you can be kind to something that's not really meaningful to you. You can be kind to meaninglessness.

[63:41]

But if it's a sensation that you kind of like, you understand it, then you can be kind to that one. And then you brought a word in, like gut feeling. I have a gut feeling. You can practice compassion with that. And you can practice compassion before you have the word gut feeling. Like, I think, did I use the word, did I use the Japanese expression nodokawaita last week? No? Do you remember the nodokawaita? Nihongo de ikimasu ka? You remember it? Do you remember nodokawaita? Yeah. Can I talk about dried throat last week? Okay, so that's an example where I had a sensation. I guess the sensation was, I think the sensation probably was that I was thirsty. But I didn't know it consciously. But then my sensation of thirstiness

[64:49]

got put up into my consciousness and then once it got up there, in order for it to have meaning, some words went to it and the words that went to it were Japanese words. And I'm not that familiar with Japanese, so I didn't know what those words meant. Do we hear for that example? And then, but then I discovered, oh yeah, nodokawaita means I'm thirsty, means the throat is dry. And then I realized consciously that I was thirsty. So we can be unconsciously aware of things. We are unconsciously aware of things a lot, you know, like things we're unconsciously aware of vastly outnumber the things we're consciously aware of every moment. I think it's like 11 million to 40. That's one estimate I heard recently. We got 11 million things going on down here

[65:51]

and 40 up here. And 40 is a lot in a moment, you know. That's 40 like that. 40, 40, 40. And so this stuff is going on and we know it. And then sometimes it gets chucked up into consciousness and, and correctly, but we don't understand it yet. And then we do. Oh, that means I'm thirsty. And then we sometimes realize, oh, I'm thirsty. So we hear the word I'm thirsty. Like somebody else could say to you, I'm thirsty, and you go, oh, I'm thirsty too. Or you could say I'm thirsty and say, oh, I am thirsty. But sometimes we say thirsty before we check to see if it's true. So this is, these are different opportunities, but they're all basically, excuse me for saying so again, they're all calling for compassion. They're all calling for, for example, who are you?

[66:54]

Gut feeling? May I ask you a question? May I address you as gut feeling? Would that be polite? And the gut feeling says, yeah, it's okay. Or no, that wasn't polite enough. You should say, your honor, your honor gut feeling, may I ask you a question? You know, I've had decades of being treated disrespectfully. If you want to have a relationship with me, you have to be much more kind to me than people usually are, or that you used to be. So yeah, you can talk to me, you can ask me questions, but you should ask me questions before about whether you can ask me questions. And I'll tell you whether you did it respectfully enough. And you kind of go, okay, I'm up for this really challenging relationship between practice and gut feeling. And I also want to be as kind

[67:56]

to my non-gut feelings, whatever they are, my head feelings, my neck feelings, my shoulder feelings. I want to be compassionate to all of them because they all are the function of the essence. And they're all demonstrating this interfusion, and that interfusion is the teaching which liberates people. Or the teaching, yeah, the reality which liberates us from the function or the essence. Getting stuck in the function is the usual situation. We're usually stuck in functions, like perceptions. We have these various perceptions going on that we're having trouble not getting stuck in it, right? And some people get stuck in function,

[68:59]

which is more dangerous. But we don't want to get stuck in either. Being stuck, being over into the essence, the virtue of that is you're free of, you're temporarily free of being stuck in the function. You're liberated from being stuck in the function because you see the essence of the function. But if you get stuck in the essence, you can't relate to the world, which is where you function. So this teaching is to keep us from getting stuck on either side. Did you follow that, by any chance? So the essence liberates you from the function. The stillness liberates you from the illumination. Yes? Was it John? Did you have your hand raised? I just wanted to say something about this proposal that for recovery from meaning, I'd like to say a couple of words.

[70:02]

I'm thinking about... Wait a second, you say addiction to what? Did I say addiction? Recovery from meaning. No, it's recovering from addiction to meaning. Meaning is not the problem, it's the addiction to it. Words are not the problem, it's the addiction to using them in order to get meaning. Because we have evolved to a point where we're kind of uncomfortable without meaning. Helen Keller was really uncomfortable not having meaning. She was alive and she was loved, but there was no meaning in the love. She could perceive the love that was coming to her, but she didn't mean anything. And she could perceive that the other people, it meant something, but she couldn't figure out how to get the meaning. And then once we got the meaning, then we become addicted to having meaning, because it makes all kinds of things possible. But we actually can be liberated

[71:07]

from being addicted to meaning so that we can tolerate a little bit not having meaning now and then, which is similar to we can tolerate turning the words upside down, which will take away the meaning temporarily, or having a word, you know, having the word mother, you know, have a different meaning from that she's just yours. And if we're kind to the words and the meanings, then illumination can occur. Yeah. Yep. Really, really good poets, I think, are able to tolerate a little space in the meaning to let the word,

[72:07]

like T.S. Eliot said, let the word slip and slide a little bit or notice that the words don't hold and not noticing and seeing how they don't hold, then some new words can come. Some new words can crack through the pavement or you can crack through the pavement under the words. But we have to be kind to the pavement or kind to the words in order to penetrate them or let them penetrate us. And penetrating us to free us from holding on to them. Because usually we're holding them really tightly because we think we'll lose meaning. So she's got this word mother. It's really important. It's got a lot of meaning. And then now it's going to get expanded to mother is daughter. Wait a minute. I'm daughter. She's not daughter. But, you know, if we're kind, we can tolerate letting mother and father

[73:09]

move a little bit. And we need help to tolerate the change which also temporarily endangers the meaning. And so we can tell people, well, could we temporarily take away all your meaning just, you know, for a couple of minutes? And people might say, okay, let's give it a try. And that happens in this here, doesn't it? Doesn't the meaning get taken away now and then for a little while? And then you get a new perspective, right? So if we hold on to the meaning, we are addicted, but we can also let our addictions be questioned. And then they start to slip and slide and open up. So thank you again very much for coming to this meeting.

[74:04]

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