This is the last day of a seven-day meditation retreat where about 80 or so people got together and have been sitting in this room every day from five in the morning until nine at night, sitting quietly and sitting still. And this seven-day retreat comes at the end of an eight-week training period. And now we're having this little talk, which is the last talk of the retreat and the last talk of the training period.

[01:04]

Except for some, you know, uncontrollable utterances that might squeak out later. This is the last major point of extended allotment of time has been dedicated to the possibility of quite a bit of talk Considering this, I... In one sense, this is my last chance.

[02:20]

And... So what I want to say... I've been spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about, concentrating on the teaching and talking about the teaching that the Buddhas and all living beings are just one mind.

[03:35]

And in the context of this mind, there is no distinction between Buddhas and any living being, human or non-human. It's not only the last day of this intensive, and yesterday was not only the second to last day, but tonight there's also a precept ceremony, and I'm not complaining.

[04:54]

But anyway, I have to do some work for the ceremony tonight. I have to do some calligraphy and things like that. And also yesterday I had, not had to, but was sort of planning on having about 70 short meetings with people. And in the midst of all that, and also preparing for this last talk, a talk to... the last talk of the practice period, the last talk of the Sesshin, and also to cope with a hundred or so people dropping by who don't have the same background as the people in Sesshin. And thinking about all this and working on this, my wife asked me to start looking for some stuff that's in storage. And our storage area is not just like in a storage room.

[06:15]

It's like in the attic. And in order to get in the attic of our house, you have to get a ladder. And then after you get the ladder, you have to lift this huge piece of glass up. It weighs a pretty heavy piece of glass with sharp edges in the night. And I said, I don't want to do that now. I said, I'll do it later, but I don't want to do it now in the middle of all this stuff. So she said, okay, I'll do it. And I tried to talk her out of it because it's a heavy piece of glass. So then she, but she went ahead anyway. She said, you hold the ladder, she said at least. So I'm holding the ladder and she climbs up there and then she starts lifting, but she can't lift it up. Part of the reason why I can't lift it up is because At the beginning of the fall, that house had a new roof put on, a new roof covering put on.

[07:19]

And in the process, the roofers not only did a good job of putting the shingles on, but they also broke the skylight. And the skylight broke very nicely into like thousands and thousands of thick pieces of glass. So the glass sort of got wedged in around that big piece of glass. So when she lifted up, all this glass shard started falling down. And I said, well, you know, don't climb up there now because you're going to be walking in that glass in the dark. So she gave up. So then we just had this piece of glass out of the way. And then that was that. But this morning I went up there and cleaned up the glass and I found what she was looking for, plus several other things that she asked me to find. LAUGHTER That is, all the Buddhas and all sentient beings are just one mind.

[08:27]

And there's no distinction between such activity that I just talked about and Buddha's activity. Not in the one mind. And the one mind is what Buddha really is. Buddha is not the Buddha that's separate from the sentient beings. Buddha is the mind where the Buddhas and the sentient beings are one. That's the Buddha. And in that mind, that mind has no characteristics. Now, everything in the universe is inseparable from that mind, but nothing characterizes it. Now they say that it's serene, wondrously brilliant, and at ease.

[09:29]

They say that. But those aren't characteristics of it. And if you say that they are, you are just saying that that's not really a characteristic of the Buddha mind. Now to say that it's dark and not serene and all full of trouble, that also is not a characteristic of the Buddha mind. To say that it's got lots of glass shards in it is not a characteristic of Buddha mind. But all that stuff and all the Buddhas are just one mind. So how do you go from there?

[10:48]

One way to go is just first start by not moving and don't say anything. Just sit down or stand up and be quiet for a little while. And something may happen. And whatever it is that's inseparable from this mind, And if you don't think so, well, now we have a class session. By the way, when I found the thing my wife was looking for, it was a very nice box, a very nice gift box. And the box had another nice box set inside very nicely. And between the two boxes, there was a colony of living, of sentient beings.

[12:01]

And these sentient beings are a variety of sentient beings that I personally do not have a strong affection for. I think they're called silverfish or something like that. They're very soft and very wiggly. And they eat fabric and they, uh, huh? And eat paper. And what really gets me is they defecate profusely all over the whole house. Little tiny brown, what looks like pellets. They cover all surfaces. especially on the periphery of the house. They don't come out in the middle and do it so much, mostly around the edges, which I endeavored to clean up.

[13:04]

I found a colony of them in this box that I was supposed to find. All sentient beings and the Buddhas are just one mind. I remembered when I was pulling the one box out of the other and some people may think I'm cruel, but I evicted them from the box. I turned the box upside down and they came out with their multitudinous excretions. And I put the inside box back into the outside box and gave this treasure to my wife. And now among the glass shards, this colony are swarming around in the glass shards now, looking for a new home.

[14:12]

So I, in some sense, a really kind, someone who really understood The one, I don't know, maybe they wouldn't have evicted the things. Now, they might have said to their wife or husband, there's a colony of living beings in this box you want. Now, knowing my wife, she really hates these things. So I could say, well, I was just trying to protect them from her. I found the box, but I can't tell you what's inside of it. The wriggling, the wiggly, the little wiggly wriggling, those are Buddha. Now that wriggling, that wiggliness, is not a characteristic of Buddha. Inside, Buddha does not move.

[15:15]

Outside, Buddha is unhindered. Nothing hinders Buddha. Buddha is transparent. You can't see Buddha, but Buddha is reflected in every single thing. In every face you meet, Buddha is reflected there. Each person, each worm we meet, each wriggling bug is a reflection of Buddha. We can't get a hold of the Buddha. We seem to be able to get a hold of ascension being, but actually you can't even get a hold of ascension being because they too are free of characteristics, really. Part of the work of practice is to have that background understanding when you run into bugs and people.

[16:20]

You try to always think of that whenever you meet anybody so that you will be careful of the interaction and have an opportunity now to understand this oneness of all life in this meeting. But these meetings, you know, are very intense sometimes, like people in the middle of being really busy, somebody asks you to take on a major project. How do you, like, take care of everything in such a complex situation? Like, you're, like, handling many, many things at once, maybe, and then somebody says, can we triple that now?

[17:28]

Things are coming at you from nine directions and then suddenly they're coming at you from ten. Then what? Well, give up control. Give up trying to control it. That's the way to take ourselves into the deepest study of this teaching. So another theme of this practice period has been also not only the contemplation of this one mind, but contemplation that an implication of this one mind is that we are all being supported by everybody. our life is supported by everybody and everything that comes to us.

[18:32]

That everything that comes to us is love. That everything that comes to us is Buddha's love. Now this person may say, I hate you, but them saying I hate you is really Buddha's love. And Buddha's love comes in a package called Buddha's teaching. Buddha's love is not necessarily that Buddha likes us or dislikes us. It's that Buddha is giving us the teaching which will help us wake up. And this teaching which will help us wake up is nonstop. But we have a hard time understanding that everything that comes to us is Buddha Dharma. We have a hard time understanding that, most of us sentient beings. We are inseparable from the ones who do understand that.

[19:37]

In order to understand completely, we need to open our eyes and open our ears to the way that love is coming. We need to learn, open our eyes so we can learn how we are being cared for by ourself, by others, and also then understand how we are caring for others. When I was thinking of this, I thought of this little dog that I care for. Her name's Rozzy.

[20:44]

I care for Rozzy. Does Rozzy care for me? I don't think Rozzy thinks about caring for me. I don't think she says, oh, there he is. What can I do for him? I don't think she does. Maybe she does. Some other people care for Rozzy, too. And some of those people really feel like Rozzy cares for them. But Rozzy doesn't think, I don't think Rozzy thinks about caring for them either. But Rozzy does care for them. How does Rozzy care for them? She looks in their eyes. She just like, she doesn't wear glasses. She just goes, these big brown eyes and just goes. She cares for everybody by saying, what's going to happen now? Are we gonna play? Are you gonna touch me? Are we gonna meet now?"

[21:46]

Just these big eyes look at everybody. These little paws reach up on you. When she meets the meditation hall director, she goes and licks her feet. And the meditation hall director jumps. and says, she's licking my feet, I can't stand it. It tickles. It's painful? It tickles. It tickles. She never licks my feet. I don't know. I don't know how come she licks yours. Do you rub your feet in something delicious? So some people feel, I think, some people feel, oh yeah, Rozzy helps me and I help Rozzy.

[22:55]

But, you know, how we help each other is not necessarily our idea of how we help each other. Some, you know, India grew up on this great river called the Ganges River. We say in English, Ganges. And along the edge of the Ganges is, at least there used to be sand, a lot of sand. It's a long river and there's a lot of sand on the river. And the old time Buddhists said, when the great Buddhas and Bodhisattvas walk on the sands of the Ganges, the sands don't get attached to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas walking on them. And when cows and goats and other animals, horses walk in the sands and they don't get angry.

[24:00]

And when people have ceremonies on the river and they put down beautiful flowers and wonderful perfumes, The sand does not get excited. And when animals defecate and pour pollution on the sand, the sand is not repulsed. The sand supports everybody equally. We need to open our eyes to see how everything is helping us and caring for us and how we're caring for ourselves, how the whole universe is holding us and supporting us.

[25:05]

We need to understand that. in order to understand it more, in order to take specific examples of how the universe supports us and look at them very, very deeply. We need to study things very, very deeply in order to verify that each thing gives us life and that each thing is reflecting this Buddha mind. buddhas we say in this tradition we say that buddhas are born of compassion which means they're born of a wish buddhas are born of a wish they're born of a desire basically they wish for everybody to be completely free of suffering

[26:53]

That wish for each and every being to be free of suffering is the main condition for the birth of the Buddhas. Buddhas wish to open our eyes and our minds and our hearts, open us up They wish that we will open up. They want to help us open up to see. They want to show us. They want us to open our eyes to this one mind. They want to show us this one mind. They want to help us awaken to this one mind, and they want to help us completely enter this one mind. They want to open our eyes to this truth of the oneness of all life.

[27:59]

They want us to wake up and understand the oneness of all life. They want to demonstrate this to us in any way they can, and they want us to completely enter the oneness of all life. And in this mind which is born of this wish, there is no seeking. They don't seek anything. There's no seeking in this practice of wishing and working for all beings to open their eyes and see and understand and enter Buddha's wisdom, Buddha's mind. There's no seeking. They always work with what's happening and never anything else.

[29:06]

Because they understand that what's happening is inseparable from Buddha and all life. And they want this, whatever this is, whether it's a person, or one of their own feelings, or a grain of sand. They want awakening to be realized at this point. They want that and they seek nothing other than what's going on. Sometimes I ask people, what is the practice?

[30:59]

And some people say to me, it is the practice of being loved. It is the practice of being held. Or it is the practice of learning to see how I'm loved, how I am beloved. Some other people say it is the practice of being loved and loving, of learning to see how I'm loved and how I love. Some other people say the practice is sitting meditation. The practice is sitting still. Some other people say the practice is sitting Buddha.

[32:05]

sitting meditation, sitting Buddha, being loved and loving. There's no distinction in Buddha's mind. So in this practice, sometimes people say, sometimes a student says, Sometimes the teacher says, if you look in the Zen books, many, many, many, many, many, many times, the teacher says, what is Buddha? And there's many ways of asking, what is Buddha? And many times the student says, what is Buddha? One of the ways to ask that besides what is Buddha is, what's happening?

[33:40]

What is happening? That's the same as what is Buddha. And when the student comes or the teacher comes and asks, what is Buddha? Sometimes the teacher or the student has mentioned that it's good to take the question mark and put it in parentheses. So once Buddha is born, what is Buddha?

[34:48]

How can we see and accept that Buddha is what? Do I want to spend my life learning how to see and accepting that Buddha is what? And expressing myself in the context that Buddha is what? that Buddha is unhindered and reflected in everything, but still, that it's what?

[36:07]

That I cannot put any characteristic on it? Somebody said to me just recently, well, Buddha must be flexible, huh? And I said, yeah. But before I said it, she said, but that's not a characteristic, right? You can say Buddha's flexible, but that's not a characteristic of Buddha.

[37:14]

But if we practice being flexible, if I practice being flexible and gentle, and honest and harmonious and upright. And I practice all virtues, which means I enter into every moment of my experience. It means that I enter into the experience of wiggling bugs in places I don't like. I enter into feeling uncomfortable with bugs all over me. And in that bug-ridden, broken glass-filled world, I try to harmonize with the bugs and the glass and be gentle and flexible and honest. Honest.

[38:17]

I'm uncomfortable with these bugs and this glass, and I'm so busy. If we are that way, we will see Buddha right now, right in front of us. And whatever way we see Buddha, we must continue to be harmonious, honest, and upright. In other words, When you clearly see Buddha, don't grab her. Don't grab it. Don't grab him. Keep your hands open. Keep your heart and your mind open. Don't grasp the Buddha you see now appearing right in front of you. Continue to be upright. if you don't attach to anything, and you don't run away from anything or run towards anything, and yet you're honestly experiencing fully what's happening, you will see Buddha.

[39:41]

And Buddha will be realized here, now. But at that time, it's even harder not to grasp Buddha than it is to avoid trying to get rid of obnoxious things. This week we've been studying a Zen story. And we didn't finish studying it. So I kind of promised that today I would not finish it maybe, but go deeper into it, especially certain parts that people were really interested in.

[40:53]

And one person asked about that part, and I said, I'll talk about it tomorrow. And then I said yesterday, I'd talk about it tomorrow. And somebody else says, you won't be able to talk about it tomorrow. So I can't decide if I should talk about it or if I'd be better to fail at talking about it. Not fail exactly, but just show you that actually I'm not in control of this teaching program. In a way, you know, a Buddha is strong. And in a way, all of you are strong. Very strong. Everybody's kind of very strong at being who they are. When you're weak, you're very strong at being weak. When you're sick, you're very strongly sick.

[41:57]

When you're dying, you're very strongly dying. Each person is really strong at being what they are. And each person is also helpless. Helpless in the sense that you can't do anything by yourself. But Buddhas are also helpless. It's not a characteristic, but they're helpless. Buddhists can't do anything by themselves. They can't stand. They can't sit. They can't walk. They can't talk. Buddhists have great power, but it's not their power. It's a power that all beings give them by being inseparable from them. Buddhas are all powerful because of all beings supporting them.

[43:07]

Everything that happens in our life, all of our activity is both personal and cosmic activity. In Zen meditation, in this temple, when we sit, we put our hands together and make an oval with our hands. And this is called, we call this the cosmic concentration mudra, or the cosmic concentration oval. And when we make this oval, we think maybe that we do it by our own personal power. But the name of this mudra is you don't do this by your own power. The name of this mudra is concentrate on how this mudra is created by the whole cosmos.

[44:14]

The whole universe makes your hands come together in this lovely oval. Remember that and take that hand which is a symbol that you can't do anything by yourself and put it on your tummy. To remember that everything you do, everything you think, everything you feel is the activity of the universe through your body and mind. Buddhas are not in control, therefore they have great activity. We are not in control, therefore we have great activity.

[45:20]

If we try to get control, we lose track of that great activity. But it's a hard transition for us to go from personal power to cosmic support. Buddhas are born out of the wish that we can make this transition from I do it by myself to I can't do anything by myself.

[46:28]

And even though I can't do anything by myself, I am being used very nicely. And everybody else is too. I have to let myself be used so nicely, so cosmically, and I need to learn, which I can't do by myself, that everybody else is being used very nicely, that the Buddha's activity is coming to me and is coming to me through everybody, and that's very nice of everybody to come to me that way. So there's a person sitting near me who told me a story of he has a dog next door, but he doesn't think the dog is helping him.

[47:40]

This isn't a dog that just comes up and licks his feet and looks at him with big brown eyes saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are we going to do now? It's a dog that barks a lot. And this dog lives in a house of a bunch of young people who also play record players a lot, make a lot of noise. So he's having trouble understanding that this is his new family, that these young people are his new children. He thought his children grew up and left home, but now he has this new set of children who live next door and make a lot of noise and have a dog that makes a lot of noise. He's having trouble seeing, oh, This Buddha is inseparable from these beings, and these beings are supporting my life and making my life possible. It's hard to see that.

[48:47]

It doesn't mean that when you see this, you don't say, I don't want to climb up in the attic in the middle of the night and walk in the glass. Doesn't mean you don't say that. Matter of fact, maybe that's just exactly what you say. Matter of fact, it is exactly what you say. But do you think that you said that all by yourself, by your own power? Or do you realize that your husband and wife helped you say that? And that you wouldn't have been able to say it if it wasn't for the glass and the night and your wife. Now, if you do realize this, then when you say to your wife, I don't want to do this, or even you could say, I'm not going to do this, your wife says, yes, you do.

[50:06]

You want to do it. And you can say, you're right, I do. But I'm not going to. And so on. It is a dance of love. 24 hours a day between you and the whole universe and all Buddhas. That is the teaching of one mind. Is it hard to understand this? Is it hard to go into that mind and look at the stuff that's so challenging to this understanding and to get cozy with it. Is it hard? Yeah. And if you can make, if you can remember this and understand this, then the reward is you get a harder one. This is really funny.

[51:33]

And it's also something that you might want to cry about. When Buddha sits by our side, Buddha sits close to us, just the right distance, and if we get up and walk, Buddha gets up and walks with us. Although inwardly, Buddha is not moving and that's not a characteristic of Buddha. Buddha walks with us everywhere we go, but not by Buddha's own power. Buddha can't walk with us unless we get up and walk. And I can't walk with you and you can't walk with me unless I get up and walk or you get up and walk. I need you to walk in order to take a walk with you. I can't take a walk with you by myself. I can't sit still with you by myself, and you can't sit still with me by yourself.

[52:40]

We Buddhas are helpless, and yet we can do wonderful things like sit and walk. I can't talk with you except with you sitting there listening to me. It's really true. I often mention to people, believe it or not, I do not walk around the world talking all the time. I just do it when somebody else is there. I cannot talk by myself. I've never said one word without everybody helping me. And you may think, well, I'm not helping you. I want you to shut up. I also can't shut up without you helping me. And you can't shut up without me helping you. And you can't talk without me helping you.

[53:45]

You are helpless. I am helpless. This is the one mind. We do everything together. Never separately. Never independently. Never independently. And this, what we do together, is really something wonderful that has no characteristics. It is a vast emptiness whose essence is compassion. This clock says 11.21.

[55:41]

That means this thing's been going on for more than an hour. So I guess I can't get into this wonderful story. But I haven't forgot that I wasn't able to get into the wonderful story. And I'm kind of sorry. I feel kind of bad. Kind of painful that I wasn't able to. wasn't able to talk about the ox cart. But my inability to talk about it was helped by all you. And my feeling bad about it was also helped by all you, especially those of you like Neil who really want me to talk about it. I could not feel this bad without your help.

[56:45]

My inability to speak about this story and, you know, being confronted with my helplessness about talking about the story. I needed all your help to feel helpless. Thanks a lot. I really feel better feeling helpless. I feel liberated somewhat from the illusion. that I can do things by myself, the terrible unhappy life of doing things by my own power. I used to live that way, I used to live that way somewhat, thinking that I could do things by my own power. I wasn't a happy camper. Now I'm starting to make the transition to realize the life that I can't do by myself And even I can think of things, I can think of doing things which I can't think of by doing myself, which will never happen.

[57:52]

But some things do happen, and those are the things which we do together. And there's quite a bit of that happening, so I'm grateful for that. So I can think of six songs about this. One of them is... Women get weary. Something like that. Or sometimes they say, young girls get weary. How does it go? What?

[59:15]

Little girls, they do get weary. Yeah, right. Women get weary. Little girls, they do get weary wearing that same ragged dress. And when she's weary, try a little tenderness. And here's a part that I thought of is... She may be waiting, just anticipating things she will never, ever possess. But when she's waiting, try a little tenderness. So I'm waiting to talk about this story with you, which I may never be able to do. In the meantime... I'll try a little tenderness on myself. And those of you who wanted me to talk about it, try a little tenderness on me, too. You see, I wasn't in control.

[60:17]

Even though I really have all these notes. It's such a wonderful story. And the other song I was thinking of, I don't... I don't know the words of this one either very well, but it starts out... It's related to the previous one, isn't it? Yes. I don't know if these are the words, but I think it goes something like this. Oh, we don't have a barrel of money. Maybe we're ragged and funny, but we'll travel along, singing our song side by side.

[61:19]

Through all kinds of weather, weather in the sky should fall. Just as long as we're together, it doesn't matter at all. Same as tomb farted, just a-traveling along, singing a song side by side. That's the second song. Now there's four more. I didn't hear what you say. You forgive me. They are in tension.

[62:22]

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