I thought it worked out quite well. I wanted to have a workshop on anxiety. Some people did. And fear and anxiety. And I think that a little bit more work needs to be done on this, not a little bit more, but a lot more work needs to be done on the subtlety, the subtle difference between concentration practice and what we mean by Zazen. But it's nice because this work of clarifying the relationship between concentration practice and Zazen, in the process of doing that work, creates a lot of anxiety for people, I think. Because a lot of people's idea of Zazen, I think, is that it's concentration practice.

[01:06]

So as we start to loosen some of our ideas about what Zazen is, anxiety starts coming up for people. Does that make sense? If I'm the one who's bringing up these ideas or these propositions with some background support from the lineage to encourage me and protect me, still I have some anxiety because I realize that the way I'm behaving gives you a chance to feel anxious so and I know that sometimes when a person does something that makes other people feel anxious other people sometimes don't like that person and even try to like get that person to stop repeating like that and would you please take back what you said and just let me go back to what I used to think rather than was and leave me alone

[02:21]

Because what you're saying, after listening to you for a while, I don't know what to do with my life anymore. I came here to have a nice quiet time in the mountains, and now I don't know what's happening. And, you know, I'm doing it with some purpose. And also, aside from the fact that even if you didn't have any ideas about what Zazen was, and even if you had no interest in concentration practice, still, if you came here and got instructions on just being upright, and if you apply those instructions, If you understood them and applied them properly, you would find yourself moving into a situation of being more and more yourself. Being upright means you more and more occupy your body and mind.

[03:27]

More and more thoroughly in habit and fill yourself right out to the surface of your skin. And no more. You know, being upright doesn't mean you sort of like pop out of your skin. It comes right to the surface. You don't over or underdo your body. You don't over or underdo your feelings. You have your feelings to the fullness of them and stop at fullness. You don't overdo them or underdo them. And as you come out to be fully what you are, fully what you feel, fully what you think, at that point, you start to feel vulnerable. And you are. Because you're right there. And everybody can find you. If they touch you, they get you. And you're totally exposed. And you're coming right up to the edge of yourself, which means you're coming up to right where the other meets you.

[04:34]

So you're vulnerable. You make yourself vulnerable. You make yourself accessible. And you start at that point where you reach the fullness of yourself, of your individual self, and your individual feeling, and your individual expression. At that surface where you meet that completely, and you're thoroughly just being yourself, that's where you feel anxiety. So being fully yourself and being just yourself brings you in contact with, again, basically massive anxiety. And most people, as they even approach that place, think better of it and back off. You say, okay, I didn't mean that. I mean, no way.

[05:36]

Sorry, take it back. I'll be good. And we know how to do that pretty well. We know how to back off of being ourselves. We've been doing that for quite a while. We're skillful at it. And a lot of people say, yeah, we do want you to back off. Back off. Don't be like that. This is too much for us. And also, if I'm not going to be able to be myself, you're not going to be able to be yourself, they say. Okay, let's both not be ourselves. So we're both, we're both then invulnerable. And there's less anxiety, right? Well, there's more denial of anxiety. There's, there's, there's, there's, there's crawling back into yourself. And, uh, as being less upright and blah, blah. Anxiety means to be choked or strangled.

[06:43]

Comes from the Greek root. It needs to be choked or strangled. And where do you get strangled? It sprangles your neck, right around the edge of your neck. If you come up to the surface of your being, everything around you chops you. You're choked by the other when you're fully yourself. When the individual feels her individuality, then she feels this immense other all around her. The big, big other, which is your mother. But when you're an individual, you've got to be an individual. And when you're an individual, you're not necessarily saying, thank you, Mom. You're saying, I'm here.

[07:44]

This is me. And then you feel choked. There's anxiety there. This is part of the deal of being a person. When you're upright, as you come into full uprightness and full being who you are, you start to meet that anxiety. And as I say, as you get close, you start to feel it, and you usually will shrink back a little bit. We have been shrinking back for some time. Now we get encouraged, come on, stand up, sit up, be yourself, have your feelings. Take a stand. You're doing it anyway. Why don't you admit it? Take responsibility for being a person. Be a person. This is a new message. We weren't told that when we were kids.

[08:47]

We were told, we love you. Would you please not do it quite so much? Now, the, what do you call it, the, and again, me talking like this, it's a little anxiety producing for me because I know I'm pushing you towards being yourself by talking this way or at least contemplating going towards yourself for causing you to be anxious and then you might come at me. Because I'm sitting here fully expressing myself telling you to be yourself. And those of you who don't want to do it may try to get me to shut up. And maybe I will. And maybe I won't. We'll see. Anyway, this being yourself involves a retrieval of your self.

[09:51]

And wonderfully, it involves a retrieval of your dependently co-arisen self. It involves a redemption. You know, redemption means to buy it back. Redeem means to buy it back. You buy something back at a price for a sum. And the price is you've got to face the anxiety. And as also, as you approach the anxiety, one way to approach the anxiety, and as it starts to manifest, life gets very intense and you shrink back. Another way is you approach the anxiety and jump ahead of it into the future and then become afraid. What will happen to me if I'm myself? What will they do to me? What did they do last time? Will they do that again? Being just yourself, just being upright means you retrieve your true self, your radiant, unpredictable, what do you call it, vigorously jumping fish self.

[11:22]

which is the spontaneous production of the pinnacle arising. It is a spontaneous production of the support which all beings are giving each of us. This is a very alive, vigorously jumping fish. And again, we were told over and over again as we were growing up to stop jumping around, to stop being such a vigorously jumping being. And we decided to abandon this spontaneous, vividly existing, unpredictable radiant self. We decided to abandon it. Only personally abandon our own radiant self. Because we got anxious and we were afraid that certain people would stop loving us if we kept being ourself.

[12:36]

Now you might think we were afraid they were going to hit us. But that wasn't what we were afraid of. Because if they hit us and stayed close to us, we didn't care too much. We'd hold tighter. But if they gave us the message, you know, I'm going to be gone. I'm going to withdraw. You're going to lose me. Then we made a deal. We said, okay, I'll do whatever you want. Just don't withdraw the love. The irony here is that the love which we saw in our parent spaces, other people's faces. The love we saw was the love which made us this kind of being in the first place. It was the love that came to us, that gave us this life. But then people, you know, put it a different way. They said, now that we made you, don't be that way. And do you really, are you going to fall for this? And sure enough, being children, we did fall for it. Now it's time to stand up and be yourself.

[13:42]

And people will say pretty much the same things they said last time. Now, you should understand that's not what they mean. They don't mean don't be yourself. They mean, are you serious about this? Do you really care that much about being yourself that you'll do it even though it's making me nervous? I'm going to tell you just I don't want you to be that way then. To see if you really will stand up for yourself. And if you will, even though I'm telling you not, maybe I can be. But first I'm going to do a test on you, Ray. So I say retrieval or redemption because we have abandoned this self for smaller scale interests. for, you know, certain kinds of love, which weren't really love, and certain kind, well, power.

[14:47]

Power. Manipulation. Rather than just, you know, this vivid expression of being, which is, you know, our gift, a gift that came to us from all beings. And being upright is the practice of this retrieval. and it puts you right up against anxiety. Now, once you're anxious or even sort of, well, I don't know what. Let's not even start about being up against big anxiety, but just a little anxiety. The little anxiety that still come up when you're sort of like way back from the skin. You're all curled up in a little tiny version of yourself. You're still nervous and still anxious. still uncomfortable, and you're vaguely aware of it, and then you hear about, I don't know what, Zen or meditation or bliss or whatever, and you start practicing concentration and you get pretty comfy.

[15:53]

Because again, among all practices that you can do in the world, the thing that makes you most comfortable, the thing that gives you the greatest pleasure is concentration. It produces the highest states of worldly experience. I mean those concentration practices which take you into like feelings of being totally in the rapture and then totally the highest day of pleasure and then beyond pleasure into equanimity which is like not only if I have great great pleasure but I'm even cool about it and then beyond that that's what you know concentration can offer you so Buddhist monks have often done that kind of stuff But the Buddha, again, found that that was not liberation. And Buddhist teachers warn over and over again that people don't attach to these states. But also, they don't, like, forbid them to go into them because, you know, they're just doing something else.

[16:57]

They're no worse than anything else. They're just a little bit more dangerous in terms of getting attached. But again, we're anxious because individual selves are anxious. And we're, to some extent, aware of that anxiety. And so it's nice to get to a break by practicing concentration. Or you might say, it's nice to go into a bomb shelter for a little while. OK, just a little relief. from the slings and arrows, outrageous fortune, which is our interpretation of support which we received from all beings. So go into the bomb shelter, and when you feel, then you feel good. But after a while, it gets stuffy down there. And after that, but the air raid is over.

[17:59]

So after a while, you should be coaxed out and come out into open space. and face the situation, and face the anxiety, which again comes from your interpretation of the love that you're getting. And then, and the way you face that more and more is to more and more just stand and sit and walk where you are, and feel what you feel, and think what you think, and say what you have to say. No more, no less. It's hard to get the hang of it, but that's the practice of being upright. If it gets to be too much, fine. Go back in the bomb shelter, no problem. Just, you know, withdraw, curl up, go back down into concentration, heal yourself with all that nice, warm, oozy stuff, and when you have enough, come back out. It's okay. Or play golf, same thing. Or go swimming. Have a nice lunch. Get a massage.

[19:01]

Go in the baths. Take a walk. Anything. Fine. Make yourself comfortable. It's not a problem. And you can also practice uprightness while you're doing those things. Those don't have to be like recovery modes. They can be something you do for fun. And another thing is that people have heard, you know, about Buddhist practice. They've heard, you know, about, what is it? Chamath that we're talking about? Pretty decent practices. They're kind of what they call remedial practices. Okay. You got a wrecked person, right? Somebody who's deluded and anxious but don't even know they're anxious because the person who's deluded, you don't know you're anxious. Or you're deluded, you think, well, I'm anxious. And I think this is how anxious I am. You're deluding yourself into how anxious you are. You don't know how anxious you are. Anyway, you got a deluded person who's not a Buddha, right?

[20:03]

So they should do some practice so they can be a Buddha. Fine. This is not Buddhism. This is not what Buddha says. Buddha doesn't say you people are wrecks. You've got to become Buddha. Buddha says you're Buddhist and you don't believe this. Okay, you don't believe it? Okay, we'll have a course, a remedial course for people who don't believe. So the course is concentration. Gradually you start feeling what you're feeling. And... And then they have, in going with the comm, is you have insight practice. So after your comm, you can start, you know, the dust settled you down in the bomb shelter, you know. It's a pretty simple bound. I mean, like, people are flying at you for 15 directions at once. And, you know, kind of like, put one thing in front of yourself and say, oh, it's an apple. Wow. You know? It's a nice little apple. Not pretty me. I'm not scared of the apple. I could face an apple.

[21:03]

Look. There you are. Right? No problem. No problem. Here we are. It's nice to have an apple on the bottom shoulder anyway. But I'm meditating, so I'm not going to eat it. I'm just going to meditate. You know, no bombs flying over my head, no bullets, you know. There aren't even any kind of like crooks down there stealing apples from me. It's really nice. If you need to be in a situation like that, fine. Let's go there. And we'll bring you apples. And then you can study them. And then you can get bored with that, eat them, where you see monkeys. When you have enough to eat, you study them. As you study it for a while, however, you start to notice that the apple's got something to do with you. Well, it's either you or it's not you. You start to realize there isn't you in the bomb shelter with the apple. At first, you just wanted to get away from the problem.

[22:06]

You need not even be aware that there was a you. That's even too much to face. After a while, you feel more comfortable. Yeah, well, there is somebody down here. And then there's apples and walls, and they're not me. As you start to recognize that the apples aren't you, and there's some relationship between you and the apples, and what the apples are is something to do with you, and blah, blah, blah, you start to sense the spontaneous that come out of the come out of the bomb shelter. Because that's what you're hiding from the bomb shelter. You're hiding from this dynamic relationship between yourself and apples. Between yourself and oranges and yourself and orange trees and yourself and trees and yourself and people and yourself and dogs. You're hiding from that because it's gotten to be too much. Because a long time ago, you did this thing, this terrible thing. Which, you know, we popped out. You abandoned yourself. You rejected yourself. You thought you needed to. It was a terrible thing.

[23:07]

You couldn't do better. But anyway, now you've got to recover. So gradually you come out and start facing the problem of having a self. And in short, the problem of having a self is anxiety. Everybody's got a self as anxious. And you start to face the anxiety. You start to surface it. And if you're calm, you can start to study anxiety. Where's it from, you know? You start to develop insight into that. The anxiety is coming from the relationship between the other. You think the other is going to stop loving you, or it's going to kill you, or it's going to choke you, or it's going to overwhelm you, or you're going to overwhelm it. And then it won't be there. And then if it isn't there, you won't be there. It's really a dynamic situation. You start to open up to that. And then the more you open up, open up, open up, you start to see how it all works. And after a while, you start to feel a little bit more comfortable. You start to get more fluent and familiar with how this all happens. The insight gets more and more developed.

[24:08]

And as the insight gets more developed, it gets more relaxed. And as you get more relaxed, you open up to more of the data. And you realize, hey, I'm even more anxious than I thought. This is even more dynamic. This is even more dangerous than I thought. And then more and more you open up more and more and more and more how it works. Until finally you realize this wonderful thing, which is called that self and other are not really separate. The whole thing drops away and you're, you know, the anxiety drops. Because you realize that the other actually is your mother. The other, you know, you finally trust it. You finally realize that all other beings are giving you life, that you have no life, absolutely no life other than their love for you. And then you're a happy camper. And then you're practicing Zazen. A happy camper, happy camper, Zazen, same thing. Zazen I'm speaking of is not the bomb shelter.

[25:10]

Zazen I'm speaking of is happy camper. It's the Dharma gate to repose and bliss. Dharma gate to happy camping. That's it. And it is the happy camper. It's totally culminated resolution of your relationship with all beings. That's what Zazen And then if you commence once you've done that, guess what you can do if you want to? You can practice Zazen. You can practice thinking. You can practice concentration. And you can practice insight. They're perfectly good things to do. But, you know, you practice concentration when you're doing everything. You go into Zen don't practice concentration. You've got a body. Well, you pay attention to it because you've got it. You're supposed to take care of it because you've got it. So you take care of it. You're just walking around. You've got a body. Take care of your orientals. Take care of your seat.

[26:11]

Wash your shoes. Wash your clothes. Put your shoes in there. Blah, blah. But this is like happy camping. It's not like you do this stuff so that blah, blah, blah. It's just what you do. And you only do it because it's what you got on your hands. This is called genjo kong. You just take care of what comes into your hands. But these hands, you take care of these. You nearly set. Where'd I get these gorilla hands? Well, take care of them. Whatever they are. But if you do concentration as a salve, as a balm, to help you relax, you should realize that that's what you're doing for. You're helping yourself calm down a little bit. That's not the same as being a happy camper. You're an unhappy camper. And you want to Relax a little bit and get yourself able to come down to the ground.

[27:12]

Well, fine. That's what it is, though. You still don't really trust yourself. You still don't think you can be yourself. You still haven't faced your anxiety. But some people have to calm way down before they even admit they have pain. They're so blown up. by denial of anxiety, but they're just puppets of anxiety. So they have to be more comfortable before they can admit how bad the situation is. Start to admit how bad the situation is, you're on your road to redemption of yourself. The price you have to pay to get back to your original self, you're dependently coerasing intolerably beautiful self, almost a tolerably beautiful self, the price you have to pay is walking into all this anxiety. And being upright brings you right up to it. It will take care of you. It takes care of you in two sentences. One is it takes care of you by getting you to face the anxiety that's already there, and also it takes care of you in the midst of anxiety.

[28:15]

It explores the anxiety, it cares for you in that exposure. And then as it deepens, more anxiety comes up, cares for immunity, or carrying immunity warrants out, until finally you're actually just sitting there naked, being yourself. And then at that point, you've got full-scale anxiety, and then you have full-scale anxiety, you have full-scale support. When you feel totally attacked, that gets to turn you totally supported. You're partially attacked, and you're partially supported. I mean, if you're partially open to what's coming at you, and if you have your eyes shut to the rest of it, then you have your eyes shut to the rest of the support. So when you open your eyes to the total sense of what's coming at you, you also open your eyes to the totality of what's poorly. But we have to work up to that. Now, this remedial course in Buddhism of taking a sentient being, again, to be a Buddha, is concentration, insight, non-duality, non-dual wisdom.

[29:31]

The Zen approach of Zazen is you don't go concentration, insight, non-duality. You go non-duality. Concentration, insight, non-duality. It's a cycle. We start as a Buddha. And then you do whatever you want. And I recommend, such as your Buddha, to take care of your Buddha body. Take care of your Buddha teeth, your Buddha eyes, your Buddha face. Take care of it. Put it on every morning. Put on your Buddha robes. Put on your Buddha bowl. Do all that stuff, you know? And if you want to practice concentration, you decide, well, do it. Buddha likes to do that. Sometimes Buddha doesn't want to practice concentrating. Sometimes Buddha just wants to sit there and just be able to concentrate on anything particular other than what's coming out of her mouth at this moment. What's going into her nose. But it's not that she's meditating on the breath entering her nose in order to be a Buddha.

[30:33]

She's doing that just because that's what's happening. She's taking care of everyone else. But again, you've heard these stories. Zen Mok sitting zazen. Teacher says, what are you doing? I'm sitting zazen to be a Buddha. And the teacher goes and picks up a brick and starts. He said, what are you doing? He said, I'm polishing this brick to make it into a mirror. He said, how are you going to make a mirror out of that brick? How are you going to make a Buddha out of a sentient being? Sazen is not to make people into Buddhas. Sazen is Buddha. That's it. Now, practicing that way, you've got the problem of being Buddha. You don't have the problem of being a sentient being who wants to be a Buddha. But if you want to be a sentient being who wants to be a Buddha, fine. But don't call it Zazen. Call it sentient being unattractive to be Buddha. And that path is okay in Buddhas.

[31:40]

It's okay even in the Zen school. It's just the unofficial path. Back door. Front door is start with Buddha and then deal with the problems of Buddha. What are the problems that Buddha has? The problem Buddha has is what? What problems we have? Buddha has a problem of all sentientities. That's Buddhist problem. How to give love from all faiths and receive love from all faiths. That's Buddhist problem. It's a big problem. It's just as hard as the other one. And it's actually not really hard if you're one of not being Buddha and trying to get to be Buddhist so that you have Buddhist problems. Pretty much the whole path. But Soto Zen is start with Buddhist problems right now. And then, you know, have Buddhist problems. Forever, until everybody starts with Buddhist. So the Lotus Sutra, which you all memorize, some of you have read.

[32:43]

He had a wonderful story in there of the kids in the house, right? The house is burning. They have these really nice toys. And their mom's outside. Their dad's outside. Come on out. It's a poison fight. Come on out. Kids are really having a good time with their toys. They're oblivious to the fact that they have a short term on this plate. And they better get out. But, so the dad gets an idea. Hey you guys, I got these really neat toys out here, I got these like, you know, Honda motorcycles, I have these goat carts and deer carts and horse carts, and I mean these are not only these good looking horse and deer and goats, But these carts are really neat, you know, and they have these really neat wheels and all these components. They have, like, these stereo systems and all that stuff. Come on out. So the kids come out. And they come out, and there aren't go-carts, gear carts and horse carts.

[33:51]

It's just one cart. It's a pretty good white bull cart. It's actually a nice cart, but it's not the cart that they were interested in. It's the card of being Buddha. It's Buddha. They wouldn't come up with that one, so he heads up. He'd say, why is Buddha lying? He said, I wasn't lying. I just wanted to get you out of the house. Some people won't come out of the house unless you tell them that you've given this remedial course where you'll be able to improve in 30 days. significantly, and then after that, after completing that course, there'll be a trimlet course at Tassajara, and they'll be even further improved, which, you know, and basically they'll feel like they have like a built-in, you know, high-quality stereo set. That's the promise. And they won't come out of the house unless you tell them that. So you tell them, if you're kind, you'll do that.

[34:53]

Do anything to get them out of the house. And once they're out of the house, you say, sorry. Wait a minute. Actually, all I have for you is Zazen. And you can practice with this host. You know, you can go get yourself a horse card, or what do you call it? It's hard. You can go get them. They're available. Matter of fact, I'll even help you get one. But basically, upon arrival, this is what I have for you. The actual practice, which is where you want to go anyway. You just don't believe you can do it yet. But that's the one I actually would like to offer you. And if you refuse, then I'll give you another one. Yeah, I told you about when they came out to see Bodhidharma and said he was practicing Zen. And even that sort of became a Zen school. Zen school did not name itself, it's the media that named it Zen school.

[35:53]

Similarly, one time Dogen was being interviewed for the newspaper and they said, ask Dogen what he taught me. And I said, well, I must tell people to not move. So you can practice concentration and not move. When you're not moving, you can do anything. Or put it the other way, no matter what you're doing, you can not move. In the presence of chopping vegetables, in the presence of doing plumbing, in the presence of having a conversation, in the presence of class, in the presence of chanting, in the presence of bowing, in the presence of sitting zas, in the presence of being very aware of your posture and breathing, totally engaged and mindful of your posture and breathing and even feeling bliss of being so collective, in the middle of that you can still not move. In other words, you can be yourself even if you're concentrating, even if you're practicing concentration, you can still be yourself.

[36:56]

You can be yourself no matter what. And you are. So if you don't talk, don't move. Be yourself. And that is precisely what the Buddha means of the Magishri taught. That is precisely what we mean by Buddha. Buddha is when you are exactly who you are. That's Buddha. condition of being what you are is Buddha. Buddha is not you being different from me what you are. Buddha is not Buddha. That is simply illusion. That's all. The universe has not made any mistakes here. You are who you are, and if you don't move from who you are, you will be liberated from who you are.

[38:03]

Being who you are can be a trap if you move around a little bit. And not moving is entirely beyond human agency. There's no activity there. The inactivity of your being is your liberation. So you just have to act. Not moving away. That. Anyway, that's what Dogen taught. Have you heard about that? He said, total dedication, total devotion to immobile sitting. But he means total devotion to immobile being. every moment, in every situation, in every religious and non-religious practice. Flat out, absolutely not kidding, and very happy to convey the message to the newspaper reporter. So the newspaper reporter says to Dogen, well, how about koan practice? Or various other gradual approaches to inspiration. He said, well, koans are great. The newspaper reporter says, well, I thought you said that just moving

[39:09]

was all you're taught and that's all you recommend to your students and that's right. You said, well, why do you say, because some people won't sit still unless they're cool. But if you said do a coin, you'll sit still. It's the sitting still. But being still does the work of liberation. It's the being we are that liberates you. It's not anything else. It's what's happening. It's suchness that liberates us. Not some healing trip that we get involved in. But the suchness of our human trips liberates us from our human trips. That's what I said in this newspaper. The price, however, of this redemption, the price of redeeming yourself, You're liberating, you're dependent on the core of yourself. You're liberating self, same thing.

[40:13]

The price of that is usually anxiety. Because as you approach being this immobile person, everything in the universe starts doing its thing to you. And from the point of view of self, which we have, it looks like it's doing it to us and we feel threatened. We are trying to work with it rather than realizing it's giving us life. But you have to be there to make this reversal to realize everything is supporting. Everything is co-rising. So it's very difficult for us to take our seat there. And the Buddha, again, you know, it's in the movies now. It's very clear what happened to the Buddha when the Buddha tried to sit still. Buddha tried various things. Buddha tried various things. He tried starving himself. He tried, you know, I don't know, eating dirt. He tried, you know, standing on his head on top of Paul's mount.

[41:18]

And he got very good at yoga, went to the highest heavens, tried everything. He did this, he moved that, just like Hamlet, right? He didn't kill anybody, but, you know, try this, try that, try not doing something, try it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [...] blah. And in the end, he reached the same thing that Hamlet reached. Readiness is all. Just be ready. Just be present. Don't move. And then when that happens, that's not the end of the story. Then you get tested. And they come flying at you. You think you're going to get fine with this? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's all the stuff in your own mind that's sitting on. You can't be yourself. It's echoes of those voices that you've heard. You can't be yourself. That would be totally arrogant and selfish and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. That's what you get. Everybody gets a slightly different version of patterns. Some people get a lot of, yes, arrogant. Some people get, no, no, no. But anyway, it comes at you and it tests you. Now, like somebody told me, he feels encouraged by people to be himself.

[42:19]

Everybody said, come on, be yourself, Pierre, be yourself, be yourself. But he senses that if he was, they wouldn't like him. And I said, that's very likely so. So the funny thing is, we encourage, I encourage people too, to be themselves, knowing that it's going to be hard for me when they are. But I want them to be, most of all, I want them to be, even though I won't like them as much as I do now. Well, they're very sweet the way they are now. Kind of like all, you know... You put them up there, you know, God, it's gonna be... I don't know what. I don't know what is vigorously jumping the fish. I don't know what kind of fish either. Splashing I don't know what all over the place. It's gonna be... It's gonna be I don't know what. It won't necessarily be a mess. If we knew it was gonna be a mess, we'd be just gonna get our reindeer on and, you know, can't be a mess. But we don't even know if it's going to be a mess. We don't know what it's going to be. So why don't you all just forget what I said and go up and, you know, practice. Concentration. Be happy.

[43:19]

Don't bother anybody by being yourself. And we'll get to this past period. So that's it. I was sort of wondering about something and that is that concentration practice is actually a bit boring. I wonder if that was kind of what the Buddha might have experienced, is that, well, so what? You know? That's exactly what he experienced. So what? It's exactly what he said. He said it in foreign language, of course. Poor guy couldn't speak English. But basically, that's what it comes down to. It's that actually, this is not what I'm looking for, folks. And I told the story. I did this. I did it. I wouldn't say world class, but anyway, over in that old Zen out there, I disciplined myself. I had a fascist program here. Nobody knew about it.

[44:23]

Nobody stopped me. I got pretty heavy, and I got myself concentrated. I got myself wind up under control, concentrated. And I got here and I said, this is not what I came here for, this dog. And I think Buddha at a higher level said, this is not the point. This is, you know, I guess this is something or whatever, but this is not what I came here for. And I told you about this person who told me about going these two ways. One way, kind of fuzzy and nice, but kind of like it's not that vital. Concentration is swell, but it turns into a dead pit. And sometimes, again, people look at Soto Zen, You know, it's like they look at Bodhi Dharma, they probably practice in concentration. Sometimes people look at Soto Zen and say, those people are like going, they're also just going into some kind of like quietistic trance, you know. They're just like making themselves feel good with all this stuff about being Buddha. So they want to like speak up with the title process.

[45:24]

And maybe they're right, maybe that's what we're doing. Who knows? But in fact, even if they don't get stuck by somebody outside, inside you go, this is it, this is not... This is just a stage, but proper concentration naturally. And then the nice thing about concentration is it naturally starts to make you feel more relaxed. You start opening up. And then stuff starts coming in, and you start doing the dance. You start concentrating, the insight practice starts to develop. You start to notice this relationship between yourself and the apple. You get jacked up a little bit. and it can go too far the other way, then you lose your concentration, also PNC straight, so then you run, so then you can do this shamatabhi kashnu, which is a good practice, and again, no problem in it, as long as you don't confuse that with something else. You can even use Zazen. You have this practice called Zazen, which is already being Buddha, you do those practices. If you're Buddha, you can do shamatabhi kashnu practice, it's okay.

[46:25]

But if you don't have that basis of accepting yourself, It will never work. As Dostoevsky says, you have to love first, the world first. You have to love life first. Before it's needed. You have to love. One must love. into it meaning. In the midst of life, if you practice concentrating yourself in order to develop insight into the meaning of life, if you've already basically trashed yourself and, you know, not loved yourself in all your, you know, loved your life, then even though you see the meaning, it won't console you. So first of all, in Zen, in in Oridama Zen and Dogen Zen, the situations then, first of all, love life, which means love yourself, which means love yourself a lot, just enough, not too much, not too little, just enough to let yourself be yourself.

[47:35]

It isn't like you've got to give yourself all kinds of like huge awards and stuff and consolation prizes. That's not the point. You don't give yourself consolation prizes. You give yourself the prize. The most important prize is you give yourself to be yourself. And that's very interesting and not boring at all. As a matter of fact, it is terrifying. It's terrifying. If you move one iota from being present, it becomes terrifying. If you stay present, then it's just awesomely anxious. And Buddha, I believe Buddha was anxious. Big time anxious. But he did not run away from his anxiety. was liberated from it. And he recommended that to others that they want to know how to be liberated from being a person. We are people. We are persons. And it is not by being more, it is not by more person trips that we get free from being a person.

[48:36]

Free from being a person by giving up personal trips doesn't mean you don't do them. It means you let go of them. And letting go of personal trips means you're just a person. Practice is just being a person. That's not a trip. And that's very interesting. Interesting is not the word. You know what it's like when you're yourself. It is extremely vital and can be terrifying. And you've got to absorb yourself in that state of being yourself with all your pain and being on the verge all the time of being ripped to shreds, which means you're on the verge of changing all the time, which means you're on the verge of enlightening. But basically, what do you call it? License. Be yourself. Basic license of Buddhist way. Be yourself. Sit in your place. You don't move. That's awakening. And now you can have problems. It's okay to practice concentration under those circumstances because you haven't loved your life starting out.

[49:44]

So now you can go look for the meaning of it. But if you abandon yourself, first of all, you might still be able to work back to the meeting, but it's kind of confusing that you come out of the house and get on these horse carts and stuff. It's confusing to change from the horse cart to the bull cart. I'm on the horse, I'm on the horse cart, on the horse cart brigade, you know, we ride together on Sundays, you know, get all these complications. It's simpler just to come out of the house and get on the boat cart, and you can stay on that one forever, you know, because there's nothing other than being yourself. moment after moment, which is not anything, but it's, you know how glory it is, okay? I'm just not clear on what not being yourself is.

[50:47]

I just, I have no idea what not being yourself is. I don't know. Is it deluding yourself? Is it deluding yourself? Is it deluding yourself? I have no idea what not being yourself is. Well, those are good ideas. Those are good ideas, but they're good ideas. I don't see how you can not be yourself anyways. Oh, you don't see how? I don't even see how either. Delusion isn't real. What are you talking about? Yeah. What are you talking about? I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. You know what you're talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what it is? I don't know what it is either. I don't know what being yourself is either. I don't know what those things are. You don't know and you're like me. It sounds like you're saying there's a how of not being yourself. Oh yeah, there is a how of not being yourself. That's right. There is a how of not being yourself. That's right. You know what that is? Well, it's kind of like, you know, like, you have something to say, and you feel like, well, if you say that, you know, people might not like it, so you don't say it.

[51:52]

And after a while, since it's kind of inconvenient to go around thinking of something to say, and not being able to say it, Then you start to forget that you have to say it. And you actually do this thing called putting what you have to say in a hidden place because it's more convenient than remembering it all the time and feeling bad about not being able to say it. So you hide it from yourself. You put it in the hiding place. That's how you hide from yourself or didn't hide from yourself. That's how you do it. Yeah, that's how you do it. And people can do that because we have imaginations. However, you're completely that person, you know, and everybody watches it. They say, well, look at that guy going over and hiding himself over there in the corner. You know, you think you're being successful because, you know, but everybody sees you, you're just hiding over the corner. You say, I'm hiding here. And you say, at first when you're hiding, you say, I'm hiding and they can see me hiding. And after a while, that gets embarrassing. So you don't even forget what you're doing. And you think you're sitting over in the corner like a normal person. But you just gradually delude yourself and delude yourself. Now, that's how you do it.

[52:54]

There's many, many ways, but that's one example. Or like, you know, like I mentioned to some people in Chosan at the end of the day, when I was a young person, actually, I did like girls. From birth, I liked girls. That's part of how I got to be a boy, I think. And I liked my mom and my grandma and my sisters. Anyway, in my teenage years, liking girls was kind of like became this soulful thing. Before that, it was just me and girls. And there wasn't no intervening. Boys weren't involved in liking girls. But after a while, liking girls became something you did with the boys. Boys like, we like girls, we like girls, you know. It became something to disgust, you know. So, you know, I like girls. I had my own interest in girls. And there were some things. But, you know, all boys, I think, have slightly different interests in girls. So, but then there's nothing much to talk about, right? So, like, what they do is they tend to, like, agree on certain things they like about girls, and they talk about those things, so they have something in common.

[54:02]

They can tell us, like, oh, yeah, well, blah, blah, you know, oh, yeah, blah, blah, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, not blah, blah. Concentrate, you know, on these certain topics so they can have more fun. And certain things that they were interested in, that they talked with, they were interested in, I was not interested in. They were not an issue for me. It was not interesting or attractive or anything. It just wasn't an issue. But in order to, you know, be one of the guys, you start talking about this stuff and pretty soon you're talking about baseball and these things about girls and blah, blah. After a while, you start thinking you like it. And you start denying it's part of this kind of guy that was interested in this other stuff because nobody wants to talk about that. As a matter of fact, if you start talking about it, it's not that they don't want to talk about it, but they think you're kind of like, you know, I don't know what they would think. It's a few stories, you know, like... At a certain point, you know, if a boy dances with girls, he's like, you know, not good. He shouldn't be interested in even dancing with them. Even though they kind of want, let's dance, you know, like cool guys, do not dance with them. The ones who dance with them are friends.

[55:02]

So if you want those guys to like you, be your pal, you kind of got to not do some things you might want to do, like dance, or maybe, who knows, write a poem, or read a poem, or say that you like something, like, yeah, I like your friends. You don't talk like that. Yeah, like the hair. You smell good. Or whatever, you know. You don't talk like that at a certain time. You say other things. And then the guy say, that was cool. We boys also sometimes like, we like boys too, right? We want their approval too. So we start to deny ourselves. And we wind up to be this kind of phony version of ourselves. We deny ourselves. We trash ourselves. We reject ourselves. We hate ourselves. And then after we hate ourselves, they're calling themselves. This is how you do it. I can go on, but we have the whole practice period for me to draw a full-scale horror. What we do to ourselves, and what we do to get back at ourselves for what we do to ourselves, and what we do to get back at anybody out there who reminds us of what we give to ourselves, which is the real horror.

[56:11]

What we do to others. When we project out what we've done to ourselves, we say that they're doing it. then we really get monstrous. That's why it is essential that we go back and be ourselves for the sake of others. So we be kind. Because until we redeem ourselves, and redemption of ourselves is the only repayment for what we've done against ourselves. That's the only way you can... All this other stuff is consolation. But to get to be back to be yourself, to get back to be a vigorously jumping weirdo, that's what you want. That's your life. And when you get back, then you won't be cruel about it. You want them to be able to be themselves too. Even though if you think about it, you'd be scared to death. So you don't think about it. That's part of what you don't think about. You just say, come on, be yourself and go look. And you have to say, okay, you're right. That's it, you got it. And it's not boring.

[57:12]

And such a person, if such a person wants to practice concentration, such a person can be a concentration practitioner. When their whole energy goes in, they practice concentration. They learn typing, they become crook, you can do whatever you want. Because you've got everybody supporting you now. It's no longer that you're being hassled by everything, you're being supported by everything to be yourself. You really believe that. And then you can do all kinds of wonderful things. Just like you could do before, but before you were doing an under-insult to yourself. And they would never consult. They'll never consult you because you don't love your doing it. Even the great meaning will not work, although it is a nice consolation pride. Yeah. I have this idea that if a person is truly his or herself, then there's just this process of dependent core rising going on. It doesn't have any center. There's no center.

[58:15]

But there is what you call it. A nexus. A nexus, you know. There's, like, in the huge infinite pattern of cause and effect in the universe, there's these nexi which make manifestations. So, like, a person appears, but there's no center. It's just a bunch of causes and conditions. And when you take away the causes and conditions, there's nothing left. So what's getting, like you said, when a person is truly herself or herself, they're going to get tested. So what's actually getting tested there? How can something be tested if it doesn't have a center? I think the expression of defending core eyes is getting tested. It manifests the way men, the way that antichlorizing is being manifested, being tested. And when causation produces a person, a person, part of what it produces is a being that has, is this being, a form of being, which doesn't have a center, but which has, for example, the power of choice. So it can, like, choose to be that, or it can choose to be something other than itself.

[59:19]

It's ridiculous, but it can do that. And that's part of the way that being can say, hey, I can choose to be something else. I mean, I can get involved in that, but I don't. I love this. I'm so appreciative of this opportunity. I'm going to be this, even though I'm being tested this way. Because I think this is the only way to help people. Because if I don't take care of myself, I'm going to become a negative liability to all the beings which give me support. Not to mention there's going to be very people around here and not very interested. But there's no center. But when you say no center, it doesn't mean that the center doesn't exist. That would be insulting the situation by underestimation. To say that the center exists is called slandering itself by exaggeration. To say that the center doesn't exist, that would be underestimation. There is an apparent manifestation.

[60:21]

And it's very bright and unpredictable, and it's alive. It is alive. It is eternally, eternally alive. It is infinitely alive. It never dies. Never. There is death. Death is all around it all the time. Around this thing. Death is part of what creates the thing. Death is in perfect harmony with its life. They're not conflicted. They are partners. They're happy partners like the death. Killing is you kill yourself when you say, I can't be me. I got to be less than this. You don't respect and appreciate your life to kill yourself. You reject yourself. You abandon yourself. And then if you don't respect yourself, well, then you don't respect other life forms either. If you really respect yourself, you respect lies.

[61:23]

Raccoon. Dog chasing raccoon. Last night was my turn. I was at the center of the merry-go-round. He's so cute. Anyway. On and on. All life forms will be respected when you respect yourself. And if you respect yourself, 90% and you respect other being 90%. Now, sometimes what you do is you just take 90% of the people and the other 10% you trash, or sometimes you just spread it out and you respect 90% of all the people. And as long as they keep on the 90% side you respect, fine. As soon as they move into 10%, you have a way of dealing. But if you respect yourself 100%, you respect other beings 100%. And the way to respect other beings 100% is to raise your respect in yourself. And the way you test to see if you respect yourself is whether you are willing to be and have your experience, which is called the Zen. It's called just being yourself, not any more, not any less.

[62:34]

And that's how it can, of course, You're not going to get it for that. There's going to be problems when you do that. Even if you try 90%, or 60%, or even if you try 2%, during the 2% time, you're going to get it for that. But if you get up 90%, 95%, 99%, 100%, you're going to get up a lot. You're going to get, like, a lot. Then it's going to be very expensive. But it's worth it. According to the Buddha. Or it says, you people are worth it. You deserve this kind of politician. And what do you pay attention to? You pay attention to everything but particularly. You pay attention to the part of yourself that you abandon. Of course, you can't see it, right? Because you abandon it. But the way you kind of give it special attention in a way, when you're sitting and trying to be yourself, the part of you that comes, that you don't want, that you're uncomfortable with, particularly try to develop a presence with that and let that lead you.

[63:40]

That's your growing. That's your redemption. And that's where you're feeling anxiety. This is a recommendation for a diversity treatment. This will be two days when you can work at being yourself with other people, being different from you. Everybody the same as you is not anxiety. In our situations where you temporarily are with people that aren't disliked to you and you feel pretty comfortable, of course you have to be disliked to try to, you know, like if you're with the boys, be disliked and it's pretty comfy. Just don't talk about girls in that way and you'll be fine. But not to be in a situation where there isn't any group, you know, of guys or gals to hang out with, then it's going to be just anxiety all over the place. But if we can all experience the anxiety of us being different, well, I think that's a good thing. By the way, I want to mention that I think girls do the same thing, that some girls are interested in things about boys that other girls aren't.

[64:41]

Some girls like the fact that boys are, you know, certain ways that other girls don't like. Maybe some girls like that boys work on cars or something that other girls don't like. So if they want to talk to their girlfriends about the boy, they don't talk about, you know, auto mechanics. They talk about certain other aspects which most girls are interested in. So it grows to kind of like what we call the canalized, you know, get certain ruts about how they talk about boys. And after a while, that's what they like. They also deny some of their interests, too. So we all do that in many dimensions. put ourselves in the ruts, what's on the game. And then we start burning something. It took God and rejected. Of course, the reason why we're yearning is because all of it rejected, it's still there, right nearby.

[65:44]

It's calling up, and it's pleasing. Hey, listen. Let me back into the game of life. I think they listen to those calls. They do not have something to treat. They sound like raccoons, flies. What's the importance of following this video? Well, it's just something that you want to do. That's all. What if you find that you don't want to do it? Well, then, of course, you wouldn't do it. You'd be yourself. But you're not like that, so. All of you, all of me, if you wanted to follow the schedule, you all told me. I already went through this one other time this period. Because I'm not going to, I'm here to respect you for what you are.

[66:48]

So I just happened to pre-selected the group of people who wanted the schedule. There's another group who don't want you to schedule, and I want them to not follow the schedule. That's what they want to do. But they're not here. It's a subgroup of people who just happen to want you the same thing. That's all. But what if I wasn't myself when I told you that I wanted to schedule you now? I'm myself. Well, then that would be wonderful. But I think most, you know, I personally... I also like what I said, if I didn't, I wouldn't be here. And in that other practice period, I said, no, I don't want you people to be up there because you think you're supposed to be because some daddy or mommy told you this. I don't want to be sitting here with other people who are up there. I want to be sitting with people who want to be up there. So if you don't want to be there, don't come. Fine. No problem. Do something you really want to do. And it turns out a lot of people came in the practice period thinking that somebody was forcing them to do the practice.

[67:53]

I had no idea something was okay, but I found out that was the case. So now, I ask people, I don't want you to, you don't have to do this, right? So I just want, I ask you, love doing that. If you love doing that, then well, great. Now, unfortunately, I told you it's not what you thought. So, but you can still go and practice what you thought it was. I'll just keep being my side, which is going to cause you some anxiety. And you're going to cause me anxiety by, you know, going deep into these samadhis and not wanting to pick one off. The funny thing is, you know, when I just say zazhan is just what's happening, you know, that puts somebody into a samadhi instantly. Okay? You can't stop these samadhi things from happening. It's okay. And it was very blissful and comfortable and encouraging and vital. And it was put into a zazhan discussion. It fell into that. That happens. All right? The thing about zazen is, though, when the bell rings, look it up.

[68:55]

The way you perfect that samadhi is by letting it go. Then it becomes put. So that's zazen. It let go of your bliss. And when you let go of it, you get more on a predictable schedule. And it gets greater and greater and greater. And if you let go of a greater samadhi, you get even more bliss. until finally you get real on this, which is the bliss of all beings, which is why you feel blissful, because all beings love you. I asked you all to love it, you said yes, so I thought we were doing it, right? But if you change your mind, this would be a great breakthrough, and you know, we'll all enjoy somebody being himself in a way that would be . But we did sort of like try to get the people here that want to do that. So we're looking up to go looking for people, figure out when to play. So we're kind of, I think very beneficial because the more people you're with, the more you sense that mutual, you really sort of dramatize our mutual support.

[70:08]

Exactly, right, exactly. And the more beings you're in the presence of, the more you can be yourself. Because, and also the more anxiety, the more anxiety you can experience, the more you can be yourself. So the anxiety comes from you being yourself. Anxiety originally, it's even self. Things that don't have self-doubt and anxiety, you can't choke them. And also, if you move away from being yourself, as I said the other night, and you can be with other people who want you to be rather than yourself, they can't find you, so you're safe. But somebody's really pissed off that you did that. And that person who's right nearby is going to get you for it. Unfortunately, the way they're going to get you, it's horrible, but the way they're going to get you is by taking on somebody to meet them for you. It's very horrible. So, as soon as possible, go ahead and have the courage to admit if you don't want to practice it.

[71:11]

Admitting that you don't want to practice here in the face of beings you really respect, that will be practicing here. You say, I do not want to practice here. If that's what you're feeling, I encourage you, even though I don't want to hear it, I encourage you to say it. I won't like it, but I encourage you to say it. And that's dumb transmission is when a person really does not want to practice themselves. So we should stop now so the kitchen can slay the lake, right? Can we stop?

[71:50]

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