for five days and for eons we have been sitting, standing, walking around the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. And I have not talked too much about the Dharma world and how things are possible there for fear of intoxication. At the end of yesterday's talk, telling you the story of the she-wolf, we were initiated into this dharma world.

[01:22]

We were initiated by a great death. This dying grounds us so that we don't get inflated as we wander about in the precincts of the entrance. The death, the real death like that, sobers us so that we don't get proud that we've entered not losing touch with the sobering and grounding quality of death.

[02:58]

Let us enter the Dharma world. Let us enter by simply being upright. which means let us enter by taking refuge in Buddha, which means let us enter by avoiding evil. practicing devotedly all good and being dedicated to the welfare of all beings.

[04:03]

This is how we enter. And this dedication to the welfare of all beings is like death. It's so grounding. It's not deadly. It actually gives us life to touch death in an upright way. Avoiding evil does not mean we don't touch it. It means we're upright with evil. We meet it with our heart open It means we're not afraid of it. Especially we're not afraid of our own evil.

[05:04]

We're in awe of it but not afraid. And we don't lean into it or shrink away from it. We don't say evil exists and we don't say it doesn't exist. In this way we pick it up and set it down We meet evil without the slightest deliberation. We meet it face to face. There's not the slightest bit of discrepancy between us and evil. We're not the same. We're not different. We're just being upright, and evil loses its efficacy. and we avoid it. We don't do it. This is what it means to be upright.

[06:12]

This is the way to touch And this way of touching evil is what's called practicing good. One touch like this changes lead to gold. One word from this upright place turns an ordinary person into a sage. If you know that iron and gold are not two,

[07:26]

and that ordinary and sage are fundamentally the same, are inseparable, then what use do you have for this touch, for this word? The way is fundamentally perfect and all-pervading. What need does it have for a touch? The dharma vehicle is completely free. What does it need a word for? And yet, if there's the slightest deliberation, we're lost forever, for eternity.

[08:48]

If there is a hair's breadth Difference, distinction, lack of faith. It makes a gap as wide as that between heaven and earth. But there's no gap now. You people are upright. You've found your place. You've entered the Dharma world and now it's time to play. But we must continue our practice

[10:00]

and keep our fingers touching the earth where the she-wolf is buried with her babies. What kind of a touch is this? What kind of a word is this that's given in Dharma? It's a touch that's called for. When I first sit down here at the beginning of a lecture, I can't believe I feel all of you are out there and I'm pinned to the wall.

[11:17]

Or actually, I'm pinned to Jizo Bosatsu. But as I express myself, I gradually feel like you're all around me and I'm in the middle of you. I stop talking to you And I'm supported and surrounded by you. And I hope my words become what is called for. And when called, we continue our practice. we enter by uprightness and we continue our practice from uprightness. Again, if you stop the practice as you enter, you become inflated, you become proud, and you

[12:29]

You've entered the realm where you can really practice, but you must continue the entry practice so that the life of the Dhamma world is sustained. So even the Buddha continued to practice throughout his life. We don't stop being upright after uprightness rewards us, is rewarded. So watch now the story of Fa Yan and Xu Shan. Fa Yan means Dharma eyes, and Xu Shan means Lord of the Mountain. They were Dharma brothers. Fa Yan, a little earlier to bloom, Actually, they were disciples of Ditsang, Earth Store Zen Master.

[13:38]

So, Fa Yan said, uprightly said to Xu Shan, Dharma I said to Lord of the Mountains, And yet, if there's a hair's breadth difference, it's like the distance between heaven and earth. How do you understand this? And Shushan said, if there's the slightest difference, it's like the difference between heaven and earth. And Dharmai said, And that's good.

[14:43]

That must be close, huh? There's not much of a difference there. Anyway, that's good. But how will you get it like that? And Shushan said, I'm just upright. How about you?" And Dharmai said, a hair's breadth difference is like the distance between heaven and earth. And Lord of the Mountain, bowed deeply. When called for, when there's a call for a word or a touch, how do we meet it just so?

[15:58]

How do we meet it without the slightest deliberation, without any gap? How do we be upright when we're asked to move forward? How do we be upright when we're asked to cough up a word? We will be asked. If you're upright, you will be called to serve. Holding back won't do. Jumping off sides won't do. When's the real, true response? It must be immediate. There's no gap. Where is it? When we're upright,

[17:10]

We will hear the call, but when we hear the call we must be very quiet not to get agitated by that call and jump too late or too soon. We must jump exactly with the call. Now will you receive Buddha's precepts? Yes I will. You were asked and you can say, yes I will.

[18:13]

One time I was standing out here in front of the office talking to someone. Very nice person. His name was Mr. Green. And you know how hard it is to be green. Anyway, Mr. Green was having a pretty good time, but somehow I couldn't get with him. I don't know where I was. I wasn't upright. I was leaning somewhere. I was leaning away from the conversation. I was living in a dead world and I was dying. I could hardly breathe and he wouldn't stop talking. I didn't have the energy to get away from the conversation or the courage to be rude to save my life. I was going down fast. And then, in my pitiful state, my pitiful state called out for help, I guess, and from deep inside my heart, I heard a call, I heard a voice, and it said, I love you, Rebbi.

[19:52]

And I relaxed and came back and asked for one more and got another one. I love you, Rebbe. And I was back in my place. I was in my body having this guy talking at me and I said, see you later and walked away. He He didn't want to talk anymore anyway. He was just talking to keep me alive, he thought. But love, the word of love to me brought me back so I could be myself and say bye-bye. That's all. No big deal when you're alive. But for a dead man to say goodbye is very difficult. Sometimes what's called for is, I love you.

[21:07]

And when you hear it, or when one hears it, one may say, I can't believe it. And I say, it's not necessary to believe it. It's okay to believe it. It's all right to believe it. That's outside the gate, however. Inside the gate, don't believe it. Just listen. It's not upright to believe. When you hear I love you, it's not upright to believe it. That's not upright. That's leaning into it and saying that it's true. If you hear, I hate you, it's not upright to believe that either.

[22:16]

Sometimes what's called for is, I hate you. Even in the Dharma world there are such words, I hate you. Bodhisattvas, great beings, have said this to people for their benefit. I hate you. to see if the person could just listen, could be upright and just listen to, I hate you. Sometimes we have to listen to, I hate you, quite a few times until we can sit upright and just listen to, I hate you. until we can hear, that's just somebody saying, I hate you. That's not like truth. It's also not false. It's not false or true, I hate you. It's just the world talking to me. It's just me talking for the world. That's all. It's not true or false.

[23:17]

It's just life. Life is free of true and false, right and wrong. And if you can hear I hate you and just listen and not lean into believing or disbelieving, then you can hear I love you the same way. And hearing I love you in an upright way heals. Also hearing I hate you in an upright way heals. Usually out in the world out of the gate or down the hill from the gate when we hear

[24:30]

Anything. I love you. I hate you. You're good. You're bad. We wrap it. We make it into a thing. We say, it's mine or it's not mine. We have, it's mine paper. It's mine cloth. We have, it's not mine cloth. We wrap everything with that stuff. And then a living world becomes dead in this wrapping. We mummify the pulsating vibrant world. We can hardly see it vibrating inside the wrapping anymore. And we dare to grab it. We dare to take hold of it. It seems to be, you know, grabbable. And then we can control it, which is pretty nice. We get to control the dead world. Pretty good deal, huh? Now, you might think, well, let's just take the wrapping off, and I agree, let's take it off.

[25:40]

But the funny thing is that the way you take it off is not so much by taking it off, because if you try to take it off, you just wrap it some more, usually. A better way to take it off is to wrap it again. Wrap it with art. Wrap it with dependent colorizing. Wrap it with, what is it? Wrap it with, is this happening? Wrap your thinking with, what kind of thinking is this? Don't wrap it with, it's not mine. This isn't for me. Take it back. Don't wrap it with, this is for me. I like it. Don't wrap it with, this is not so. Don't wrap it with, this is so. Wrap it with, what is it? This is how everything comes repackaged in the Dharma world.

[26:42]

It's repackaged, reclothed. You can just unpack it somehow, fine, but usually unpacking is a control trip, but repacking is creative. You repack not in order to get it to be something. You repack it just because you like to repack it. There's a famous artist, his name is Billy Crystal, you know him?

[27:47]

Huh? No, he's a French artist. He wraps things in cloth. Most people call him Christo. Billy Christo, you know him? He has a wife, by the way. And she helps him. She makes various arrangements. And one time she was being interviewed. She was smoking a cigarette. And the interviewer said, it's a lot of work to arrange all these big exhibits, isn't it? She said, uh-huh. Isn't it stressful? She said, uh-huh. And doesn't all that stress bother you? And she said, no.

[28:53]

The stress is good. I don't know about this woman. I think maybe she wraps her stress with nicotine. Nicotine. Just put nicotine around the stress. I don't know. But I think maybe a little bit more than that. I think she wraps her stress with, what kind of mental activity is this? Every kind of mental activity that you look at, every kind of mental activity that I look at, everything I look at is wrapped with me and is dead. Got to wrap it again. So Christo goes around the world, goes to Paris and wraps a bridge, a dead bridge, a bridge which was once alive, which was once alive, and everyone was awestruck. He wraps it again so people can say, what did he wrap it for?

[30:00]

What's in there? He wraps these hills. He wrapped these hills right here. Even these hills, even these beautiful hills, we've killed because we look at them and say, I'm here and the hill's over there. That kills the hill. Wrap them again with what is the hill or what is art? Who am I? When you're upright and you walk in the hills and you walk in the mountains, and you look at the roads, ugly roads that men have cut into the hills, you see that those cuts in the hill are art, are uncovering the raw underground. And the poison oak and the thistles will come to heal the wound.

[31:04]

But this wound is art. before it's healed. You can see it if you are upright and wrap it again. Touch it. Touch, but not by leaning into, not by fixing up. Touch not by saying, Anything more than what is asked for. Sometimes the ground says, please come and talk to me. Then go talk to it and say, good morning, ground. Sometimes the ground doesn't want to hear anything from you. It wants you to just put your head on it. What's being asked for by the earth? What's being asked for by the trees? What's being asked for by the people? Listen. Listen. And don't lean forward or backwards.

[32:09]

And in your uprightness, see what touch comes. What touch is it? What touch is it? It's not even needed, this touch. There's no touch needed. The way is perfect. But if there's a little discrepancy, that little discrepancy calls for a touch. The touch is given to those who don't need it. but it must be given by those who cry for it. They don't need it, and they're crying for us to show that they don't need it. They're saying, fix me. They don't need to be fixed, and they say, fix me, just to see if somebody will not do it. And they're calling for someone to not be caught by the word and to say another word back to them. Fix me. And the respondent says, fix me.

[33:15]

Or, you want to be fixed? Or, you need fixing. Or, Anyway, what is the touch? What touch is it? What's the touch that refreshes? I've seen some people who are fresh. With my fresh eyes, I see their freshness and they give me their freshness. Then I see someone who says, okay... I'm not fresh. What are you going to do about that? The last person who came in here was fresh and I'm not going to be fresh. You going to fix me up? Hmm? It's tempting. We had a

[34:18]

a woman in the practice period who escaped a while ago. We gave her her, what do you call it, we gave her her butterfly license and she flew through the air to Ohio. Anyway, she's a swimmer, this woman, and she told me that, you know, I told you that when I was a kid I used to bite my toys. Well, she told me that swimmers shave the palms of their hands. You know about that? Swimmers shave the palms of their hands. You know they shave their heads, right? You heard about that? They shave their legs. But they shave the palms of their hands. Why do they shave the palms of their hands? So their hands will be raw. Why do they want their hands raw? Because when you're raw, you feel alive. And when you hit that water, it's kind of like you're a fish.

[35:28]

It's kind of like, hey, I'm in the water. Let's swim. Well, anyway, that seems like a nice practice. Shave your palms. And shave the parts that have hair. Shave them, double shave them. So you have razor burns and you hit that water and you don't go to sleep. So if somebody comes to see me and they're kind of like a little bit cooked, you know, not cooked, but a little bit, after you're raw, after you're not fresh anymore, what is it? Stale, they're a little stale. Okay, I'm stale, what are you going to do? Am I going to shave them? What's the gift? What's the touch? The touch is always to let them be like they are. That's the fundamental gift, is to let the person be like they are.

[36:34]

To let them be upright, even though they call out, fix me. Let them be the person who says, fix me. Let them be the person who says, don't fix me. I always find such people attractive, the ones who come and say, walk way out of their way and come up to me and say, I don't want to talk to you. I always find that very interesting. What did you say? The touch that's called for is called being upright. And that is a touch. It can be a touch. The hand reaches out and touches. And the touch means be like you are.

[37:42]

Be stale, be fresh, be dead. Be dead means, what are you? You are upright now. You have reached your upright place. You are yourself. Now you're in the perfect position to wrap the world in dependent co-arising.

[38:48]

To wrap your thinking with all things coming forth. To wrap your body with all things coming forth. To wrap each thing you see, which is to wrap again. It's already wrapped this way. Wrap it again. Unless there's no call. Unless there's no request. In that case, Just don't move until the next call comes. Because grass, earth, trees, walls, tiles, pebbles, bridges, people, all engaged in Buddha activity, those who receive the benefit of wind and water caused by them are inconceivably, inconceivably helped by Buddha's guidance.

[40:48]

splendid and unthinkable, and awaken intimately to themselves. Those who receive these water and fire benefits spread the Buddha's guidance based on original awakening. Because of this, all those who live with you and speak with you will obtain endless Buddha virtue and will unroll widely inside and outside the entire universe the endless, unremitting, unthinkable, unnameable, unstoppable Buddha Dharma. All this, however, does not appear within perception because it is unconstructedness in uprightness. It is immediate, a realization. Your uprightness right now is immediate realization of the unremitting, unthinkable, unending, all-pervasive Buddha Dharma.

[41:59]

Now you have it. It is you and it is not you. We cannot recognize this because what is recognized is not realization. In stillness and uprightness mind and object merge in realization and go beyond enlightenment. Nevertheless because you are in this state of self-fulfilling awareness without disturbing the quality of anything or moving a single particle, you extend Buddha's activity. You touch but don't harm. You speak but don't influence.

[43:12]

You simply affirm everything and everything affirms you. And in this way you extend Buddha's great activity, the incomparably profound and subtle teaching. Grass, the earth, fire, air, trees, lands are all embraced by this teaching and together radiate a great light and endlessly expound the inconceivably profound Dharma. The earth, grass, trees and walls bring forth this teaching for all beings. And they in accord extend this Dharma for the sake of the earth, grass, trees and walls, bridges, cars, refrigerators, Windows, doors, floors, clothes, everything.

[44:21]

In this realm of self-fulfillment, all things have the same quality. No one knows about this. And yet, because the call has been made, these words come. These words are not coming from knowing about this. These words are coming just because they were called for. They come from the unknown and go back there. When they're not needed anymore, there will be silence.

[45:27]

When there's silence, real silence, words are not needed. That's what silence means. And then there's a call, and they're needed again, and they come. And when they're not needed, there's silence again. This is the eternal cycle of this wonderful wheel of Dharma, turning and not turning forever. You've been taking care of the Buddha Dharma very nicely this week.

[46:20]

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