three concentrations or three awarenesses, three samadhis. Shunyato samadhi, animito samadhi, and apranihito samadhi. Those three samadhis I see contained in this practice called wall-gazing. Sunyato samadhi means the concentration or awareness, no, the empty concentration.

[01:02]

the empty awareness. Animitta or animitta samadhi means the signless awareness and apranihitta means the wishless or directionless concentration or awareness. Sometimes they're just called the signless, the wishless, and the empty. In Pali it's sunnato samadhi, animito samadhi, apanihito samadhi. They don't usually have... R's are very uncommon in Pali.

[02:10]

Instead of apranihito, apranihita in Sanskrit, and in Pali, apanihito. Have you heard them before in Pali? Amita means a sign. Right. Right. So the practice of wall gazing has these three aspects. It's signless, it's wishless, and it's empty. So wall gazing has those qualities. These are also sometimes called the three doors of liberation.

[03:27]

This practice of wall-gazing is the epitome of of the bodhisattva's way of non-thinking. Why does the bodhisattva practice the way of non-thinking? Anybody know why? Have some idea why bodhisattvas practice the way of non-thinking? Because they just want to fit in. They just want to fit in. They want to take their place in nature. Yeah, that's right. They just want to take their place in nature. That's one way to put it, is practicing non-thinking or practicing the wishless, the signless, and the empty concentrations. One settles into one's place in nature.

[04:47]

And what's the good of that? What are bodhisattvas into anyway? Compassion. Compassion. So what does settling into your place in nature have to do with compassion? It helps it run correctly. It helps it run correctly. Anything else? It leaves everything alone. Indiscriminate compassion. It's non-discriminating compassion. What? What? It's Buddha's mind, yes. Isn't it oneness? It's oneness. These are all correct, I think. Anything else? Good, I'm glad my teaching hasn't unduly affected you. Another thing that it does is it protects the bodhisattva from what are called outflows.

[05:53]

If a bodhisattva just sets about in the practice of compassion and tries to help people be happy, the bodhisattva must protect him or herself from outflows in that work. or obsessions. Bodhisattva really is working hard to help people, right? Really working to help people be happy and not worry. But in this zealous activity, one can easily slip into some obsession. Is that the same as leaking? Obsession is the same as leaking, yes. Exactly the same. Leaking outflows obsession. Sanskrit is asarava. And you can leak in or leak out. Well, like some sense of gain. Like, you know, I helped somebody today. I feel better about myself.

[06:56]

They paid me some money. I'm more famous. You know, they're probably telling some people what, how, probably went home and told their wife about it. And, you know, kind of inflation is flowing when it's flowing in. You're getting something out of it. That's the flowing in. Or another flowing in could be that you're... Anyway, you have a sense that it's coming into you. It could be negative, too. And then outflowing is your sense is going out from you. You're losing. You're giving away. You're becoming less. So the bodhisattva really needs to actually be willing to admit and actually reiterate the desire to personally be completely happy.

[07:59]

Bodhisattva has to be willing to allow him or herself to really be, you know, unlimitedly happy. Even though you may recognize that you have some problems, still you want the very best for yourself. And then also the next step is to realize or to understand that in order to have the very best for yourself, the most effective way to do that is to work for the benefit of others and to work for other people's complete, perfect happiness and to develop a mind which wants universal, top-grade happiness for all beings. So bodhisattvas, this is, in a sense, it's almost like an obsession. It's a very deep desire, a very deep desire

[09:04]

wish to be happy and to want others to be happy so that you can be happy. Understanding actually that putting them before you seems to be most effective. And how to protect that thought which you're trying on with your whole energy, to put that on without it becoming an obsession, this is a trick for the bodhisattva. Because if it turns into an obsession, if it turns into an outflow, then the whole project gets undermined. Just like at the beginning, when you first conceive and recognize that you want to be happy, if you just directly try to make yourself happy, that turns into an outflow. Because if you try to make yourself happy, if you just try to make yourself happy, that's all you're into. You're completely stuck in your own view.

[10:06]

So you have no hope to avoid obsession. Helping others, you have a good chance to circumvent these outflows. Can a bodhisattva have a view? Bodhisattvas always have views, constantly. How would that put them in opposition with those old other views? Not unless they hold the views. So non-thinking would be not holding views? Non-thinking is not holding views, that's right. Including not holding the view not to have a view. Non-thinking and not having outflows is to thoroughly understand the nature of your views. namely see your views as empty, having no inherent existence of their own, depending on causes and conditions for their existence, and also see that there's no sign, there's no mark, there's no characteristic to compassion, or to you, or to the people you're being compassionate to.

[11:14]

And then also, not to direct your practice Your practice has no wish in it. You definitely want everyone to be happy, but the practice of non-thinking, the practice which leads you to the happiness, that itself, it does not have a wish in it. The practice is wishless. And the wishless practice fulfills this very fundamental wish to be happy. That's just a view. That's what I'm saying, so not holding on to that view. Not holding that view, no, right. But the view that things are empty is not the realization of emptiness. So the distinction between the view of that philosophical statement and the actual experience of it. If you view emptiness, that's usually, unless you're going to do something very fancy, if you view emptiness, that's nihilism.

[12:22]

Because if you look at emptiness, you're making emptiness into a thing, an object of your perception. Awareness of emptiness is non-dualistic. You can't have it as an object. Awareness of emptiness is... It's like, what is it, Meister Eckhart said, the eye that sees God is the eye with which God sees me. That kind of thing. That's the realization of emptiness. Not you see God or God sees you. That looking in both directions simultaneously and nobody seeing anything So just wall-gazing is like that. Wall-gazing is directionless, wishless, signless, and empty. Everything's that way, actually.

[13:24]

But wall-gazing is particularly set up to realize that that's the way it is. And then if the bodhisattva can live like a wall, can think like a wall, can think like a, I don't know what, a tea dipper. Well, you know, a tea ladle. Can think like a tea label or can think like a stick that drops. If a bodhisattva can think like this, then the Bodhisattva's vow to benefit all beings, which brings the Bodhisattva great happiness, will be able to realize itself. So there are outflows in the Bodhisattva's life? Well, not necessarily, but the Bodhisattva's

[14:25]

always a hair's breadth deviation away from an outflow. The slightest separation, you know, like if you're sitting zazen, if you're practicing wall gazing, the slightest sense that I'm looking at the wall or I'm doing wall gazing or I'm doing zazen, a little tiny bit of that sense that I'm doing zazen, that causes an outflow. But there can just be the sitting. Right, if the thoughts flow through your mind, you're not attached to them, then those aren't outflows. The mind can operate without outflow. Right. What about the Bodhisattva's mind? What is the Bodhisattva's mind? the bodhisattva's vow? Well, originally it's a thought. At the beginning of the path, the bodhisattva actually produces a thought.

[15:30]

You're actually thinking. And that thought, at the beginning, when you first try to do it, it probably will have an outflow. For example, thinking of helping yourself has an outflow to it. Definitely, We want to be happy, we want to help ourselves, but there's an outflow to it, because if, I mean, unless you think of what, if you think of yourself, if I think of myself as Reb, and I want to help Reb, and I want Reb to be happy, that has an outflow in it, because I'm getting something. And also, I have a limited view of what Reb is. So that attitude, although it's really true that I want me to be happy, that's definitely true, and I shouldn't try to deny that, to then that thought, although it's a real characteristic of who I am and I can trust that thought and sort of use that thought as a first step, in fact, that thought sucks. It sucks air or something.

[16:36]

Now, to correct that and to begin to correct that thought, I start thinking a little bit different way. I start thinking of helping somebody nearby. You start with somebody nearby. Don't skip over the people close at hand, like the people in the front row here. And try not to skip over it. Now, if the people in the front row, if you can't really want the very best for them, well, then go to the second row and come back later to the people in the first row. But it's best, if possible, actually, I would say, just stay with the people in the front row until you can want the very best for them, and then gradually move through the whole room and through the whole universe until you really feel that this wish for the people to be happy is totally penetrating all living beings. And that kind of thinking starts to stop leaking. And you also start to think about helping yourself in a way that's not so limited.

[17:41]

You start to understand who you're trying to make happy now is more truly who you are. It's not this limited idea of this hundred and sixty-some pounds over here as who I'm trying to make happy. That will not work because that isn't who I am. It's a limited idea. It's not any, you know, less who I am than anything else. But any idea I have is a limited idea. But if I want the best for all living beings, I start to think in such a way that it starts to overcome my limited views. And when you can think that way, that kind of thinking is the basic kind of thinking of the bodhisattva path. And that kind of thinking can lead us then to practice really the best kind of thinking for the bodhisattva, which is called non-thinking, which is called wall-gazing.

[18:42]

Because, again, even when you have universal thought of compassion, still you may not quite yet have realized that it's signless, wishless, directionless, and empty. But it is that thought which will drive you to create the perfect thought, the Buddha mind. It is the seed, actually, of the Buddha mind, that thought. That thought is the seed of non-thinking. So non-thinking is a way to protect that very good thought that excellent, almost the best of all possible thoughts, as far as thoughts go, to protect that thought from obsession, to protect that thought from outflow, which will, if there's obsession and outflow associated with this thought, then the thought starts to, the thought is destroyed. Somebody gave me a, oh, some very dear person wrote me a letter from some monastery and told me that the thought of enlightenment is imperishable

[19:49]

It isn't imperishable, it's perishable. This wonderful thought of the bodhisattva is perishable. Do you have any idea before I tell you what I think? Yes. Pardon? I can't see the way that it positive means, but I can see that it might endanger less. Well, how does it endanger it less? Well, you're less. Reduce the rate of inflows . Well, you've heard of the six paramitas?

[20:56]

Generosity, ethical study or observation, patience, energetic, courageous effort, concentration and wisdom. Those six are the same as wall-gazing. Can you see how giving is wall-gazing? Tell me how giving is wall-gazing. Wall-gazing isn't an activity that I can gain from. Right, but how is giving wall-gazing? You don't have to tell me how wall-gazing is. I'm telling you wall-gazing is giving. Now you tell me how giving is wall-gazing. What?

[22:02]

You're not clinging. You're not clinging, yes. Well, one way is that giving is, giving is not, giving is, in the paramita system, the perfect wisdom school, giving is not that I have something and I give it to you. That I'm over here and this is a thing separate from me and you're separate from me and I give this to you. Giving is realizing that the giver, the receiver, and the given are all empty. So giving is to let your breakfast be your breakfast. The greatest gift you can give is to let things be as they are. It's just giving. In the practice of giving, you can give things that don't belong to you. that you don't own. Like, I can give you the Golden Gate Bridge. I can say, I want to give you the Golden Gate Bridge. When I want to give you the Golden Gate Bridge, that's giving you the Golden Gate Bridge.

[23:09]

I want to give you all the neat flowers on the hill. I leave them alone, I leave you alone, and yet I want to give to you. That's my vow to help you without doing a thing. I can also actually hand you something, that's okay too. All the paramitas protect this thought and develop it. And they're all really just wall-gazing. If you do anything, if you give in such a way that you do something with it, that you lose something, the other person gains something, that's pretty nice, that's wholesome activity, okay, but there's an outflow there. I lose, you gain, or something like that. I think that you're the recipient and I'm the giver. If you're the recipient and I'm the giver, then there must be something about me that makes me the giver, really, and you the recipient. But there isn't. If you practice in the emptiness concentration, there's no way that actually we can identify you're the receiver and I'm the giver.

[24:11]

There's no actual characteristic of me being the giver that you actually can find and say, well, you're the giver because you had the stick and you gave it to him. That makes you the giver. But if you look at that carefully, that won't hold up. You will not be able to find out that there's such a thing as the one who had the stick or what the stick is or what the gift is. You cannot actually find it. And also, in terms of direction, there's no direction in non-linking activity. So which direction did the gift go? It always goes in a circle, actually, if it's really giving. So how is that? How is what? If you say that I want a glass of milk sitting in the night room, you're going to go up to the glass of tea area and say, well, anybody likes something? If you're going to sell it, I could have a glass of milk and get me a glass of milk.

[25:13]

I think you're probably right, but then how is it that that you are the giver and I'm the recipient. I didn't say I wasn't the giver, you weren't the recipient, because in that interaction, I guess I was the giver and you were the recipient, and the thing given was the milk, right? Yes. Okay. Well, maybe not. Yeah, right. But let's say it's the milk if you want to. Okay? It's not to sort of say, okay, don't pretend like you don't think that's what's happening. You do, that's what happens, right? You're supposed to, at the same time you do that kind of thing, you're supposed to do these three samadhis, which are an articulation of wall-gazing. So while you're giving, when you ask me, when I bring you the milk, and I'm acting out the giver, you're the receiver, and that's the gift, in that situation, I try to practice wall-gazing. Because wall gazing puts me in my place in nature so that my compassionate flower blooms.

[26:21]

Okay? And there's no outflow. And if somebody else asks me for an out, I can do it again. And [...] I can do it again. Because each time I do it, I don't get anything from it or lose anything from it. Why? Because I'm practicing wall gazing. Why? Because I'm practicing signless, wishless, and empty concentration. In other words, I really don't think that I'm the giver, that I'm giving you something. I don't think you're really the receiver. And I don't think that the milk is really the gift. And it's not because I think that the milk's something else either. I just said I really don't, I remember, I keep in mind that everything's due to causes and conditions. That's one aspect of wall-gazing. Another one is wishlessness or directionlessness. I don't see this interaction as going over that way or over this way. I don't have a particular agenda in mind of how this is going to work out.

[27:25]

I don't really know if it was successful or unsuccessful. I don't have a fixed view of the interaction. Wishlessness. And signlessness. generosity or whatever we're practicing does not have a particular sign. Compassion does not have a particular sign. Compassion is signless. Yeah, like you asked me for the milk. My intention is... To make an effort to respond to you in compassion, to be generous with you, to be patient with you. But I don't have some fixed idea or aim involved in that. Like that you'll say thank you, or that you'll drink the milk, or that you'll think I'm a nice guy.

[28:29]

I'm not attached if I practice the wishless samadhi. And if a wish arises, I just see that as an arising wish. I don't identify or hold that wish. So these awarenesses protect us. But also, again, just take it back to just simply as wall-gazing. It's just sitting there like a wall. It's like when somebody asks you for milk, it's like a wall gives them the milk. Or it's like nature gives them the milk. Not you. You're just the place in nature where milk is coming out for this person. You're nature's tit at the moment. But nature's tit does not have... a desire to give milk. It just gives it. It does not have a particular idea in mind about how the milk should go or who it should go to.

[29:33]

And it does not have some concept about what milk is or what giving is. Okay? That's... Yes? Yes, I was wondering if you could talk about signless property. The signless property? Signless, you want more about signlessness, huh? Okay. Dogenu Zenji says, it moves along with your non-thinking. That's a characteristic of signlessness, is the appearance, the sign of the way is immediate. In other words, what's happening is what's happening now, not what you're waiting for as a recognizable sign.

[30:37]

And also we say, if you don't understand the path as it meets your eyes, how will you know the way as you walk? So every moment we're walking the path of Buddha, and we're looking for some sign that will make us feel like, hey, I'm on the path. Like people maybe say, hey, you're a good Zen student, or hey, you're really compassionate. Or maybe you think they'll say, hey, you're not compassionate. Or you're looking for some way to figure out if this is compassion, right? Wouldn't you like to know? Wouldn't it be nice if even when you were trying, you got a sign that said, hey, even though you thought you slipped and fell, actually that was compassion. Some little signal, you know, from someplace, like a little eye coming up out of the ground saying, hey, that was good. You didn't even know you were being compassionate, but actually that was actually compassion. And...

[31:39]

You know, and I have a sign by which I could tell, and you had that sign. And you might say, well, what was the sign? And then the eye may go away before it tells you, but it might say, the sign was that you did it just like that. That made it compassion. And then you'd be kind of like, hey, he said signless, but actually, I'm much happier to have a sign. But if you think about after a while you wouldn't be happy because what happens when that sign isn't there? Then compassion can't reach. Signlessness means compassion can reach into everything because there's no sign, there's no sign where it can be. So in non-thinking, it moves along, its appearance is immediate. It's not like, okay, non-thinking or, you know, wall-gazing or non-leaking compassion. You're waiting to see what it looks like. But actually, it's always immediately. It's the thing that's immediately, with no hesitation, with no preparation, it's always what's appearing right now.

[32:44]

It's not something you can ever prepare for. Even though what you might be preparing for is really swell, Like, you know, something really nice you want to do for people. Great, okay, that would be nice. But compassion, which doesn't leak, comes before you have a chance to arrange anything. It isn't like you're like a wall and then you're sort of anticipating something and kind of planning out your compassion. It's like you're sitting like a wall and the appearance of the way is immediate. It's not later. It's exactly at the same time that you're sitting like a wall. And that is not any particular sign, right? Because it's whatever you're doing. And now that's gone. And now you're another wall. A sign is...

[33:46]

It's a name, yeah. The word is nimitta. Nimitta, name. It's related to nama. Excuse me. It's a word, yes. That's right. When you name it, you're separating from me. And also when you name it, it's one flash of a second away. It's not immediate experience. It's one step away into a concept. And when you make it into a concept, also it's not empty anymore either because emptiness is innocent of conception. And also, then there's a wish there. A wish because you want to know that you're compassionate or that you want it to be going towards compassion or you want it to be going towards helping people. This is fine that we want that. This is a wholesome thought. It's definitely we feel that way. But that thought... untutored by wall gazing will poke holes in your compassion and it will leak out and you'll give up, at least temporarily.

[34:53]

So you got to protect the compassion from desires. You got to protect the effort to help all beings from the desire to help all beings. You've got to protect it from substantiating the activity of compassion, substantiating the compassionate one, and substantiating the recipient. In other words, you have to keep practicing emptiness, and you have to protect it from giving it a name. But there's always a name, but you have to protect the activity from the next name. Because the next name infects this name. This name is actually untouched by anything. It's completely free. But the next one, if you wait for the next one, then this one's lost, and so is that one. And the next one then becomes the name of this one. Rather than this being a name untouched by names, and that being a name untouched by names, both of them, compassion can reach into both names.

[35:57]

So this is wall-gazing. This is non-thinking. This is the three samadhis of the bodhisattva, which protect this wonderful idea of benefiting all beings, which makes us happy. It protects it from being lost. It protects this thought, this perishable thought. And this is the same as what I was talking about all last summer and all last spring and all last winter. It's the same instruction as in the seeing, there will be just the seeing. In the heard, there will be just the heard. In the imagined, there will be just the imagined. In the known, there will be just the known. It's the same instruction. That is instruction for wall-gazing, that is instruction for protecting the bodhisattva vow from outflow, protecting the wonderful aspiration from obsession.

[37:02]

Would this sign also be holding views again, right? If it was some sign that this was, you know, the analogy you're making, this was a compassion, this was an act of compassion. If you believed that that sign... A view that this was a compassionate act. No, no. It's okay to have views because... Well, I'm talking about holding... But actually to believe that that quality or that sign, that is a sign of compassion, that would be actually holding that view. That's what I'm trying to... Yeah. So any sign would bring up a holding of a view? No. A sign and a view are the same. Okay. Same thing. All right. And so holding a view is the same as a samadhi or a practice that has a sign. Okay? So you want to do a practice that is signless, which is the same as having a practice which you don't hold the sign or hold the view.

[38:06]

But there is a sign and there is a view. Always, every moment of experience has a view and a sign. But you don't hold the view, so you stop that outflow. You don't hold the sign, you practice the signless. And that protects you from, hey, by the way, remember those three kinds of outflows that Deng Shan said? Remember them? Remember this one, right? Remember this, right? So what's this? What are the outflows? Somebody that doesn't know, say them. What? Emotional or feeling outflows, outflow of views and outflow of verbal, okay? Does that remind you of anything I was talking about recently? Huh? What? Signless, wishless, and empty.

[39:08]

Which one is which? Huh? Verbal is signs, and wish is emotion, and language is emptiness. Is that what you want? There's verbal leakage Emotional or feeling leakage and view leakage, leakage due to fixed views. Fixed views would be signless, maybe. The wishless would be related to protecting you from emotional or feeling outflows. And emptiness would protect you from verbal outflows. How about that? Try it. This helps you understand what verbal outflows are. Verbal outflows are protected by this concentration on samadhi because verbal outflows are basically when you confuse the source with the end.

[40:17]

Again, the instruction is hearing words you should understand the source. In other words, hearing words you should understand they're conditioned. You should understand that they're empty. Now, if anybody wants to switch them around and say, try something else, like say that emptiness applies to, the empty samadhi applies to the fixed views, and the signless samadhi applies to the verbal, you could try that too. But anyway, I would suggest that those three samadhis, which are three aspects of what we call just sitting, that those three samadhis are antidotes to the three kinds of leakage, which are the bodhisattvas' nemesis, which are the bodhisattvas, you know, what undermines the bodhisattva vow. Okay? Wall-gazing is a one-tiered practice which addresses all three kinds of those outflows.

[41:26]

So think about, see if you can see how wall-gazing, how just sitting, does not have any of those three kinds of outflows, and how it also is those three samadhis. Okay? See if you can see that. Those words may help you understand what it means to just practice wall-gazing. or to sit like a wall, or to sit like a Tan, or to sit like a Zafu, or to sit like a Buddha, or to sit just as your place in nature. Your place in nature has no outflows. It's all balanced. I just thought I might mention to you that Bobby McFerrin is going to be, is preparing to direct the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven's seventh.

[42:41]

And in that same program, Yo-Yo Ma will be performing a piece, a cello piece, which Bobby McFerrin wrote. So be sure to be there if you can get seats. You go. Well, I don't know if I can get seats, but I would like to go. I'd like to see that. Sounds like a really good show. The other, huh? It's in March. after the practice period so you can go. So do you... Anyway, if anybody here has any reservations about wanting the very best for themselves, I would suggest that you work on that one. I... Definitely it's a wish. It's a want.

[43:46]

I would suggest that you try to let yourself really want yourself to be completely, utterly, you know, with no limitation, happy. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm saying anybody who doesn't I would like them to do, to do that wishing. Okay? As I said, when you first start, it's going to have a little outflow to it. That's okay. You know? When you first approach the way, you go backwards a little bit. But you go back to a good, just in case you're going to go back to a real good starting block, you know? Real good place. Then once you get there, then we can talk about how to apply that wonderful thought, that wonderful wish.

[44:49]

Among the outflowing thoughts, that's the best one. Well, it's not the best one, actually. There's other ones which are slightly better. As you start to expand it, it starts to get better. But basically, it's a really good one, and then you can start expanding it. So I think there may be some people in this room who are not hoping for the very best for themselves. And anybody who is doing that, I don't necessarily want you to stand up right now. But I really wish you would tell me, because I want to tease you out of that position. Because I really think you all, deep down, really want to be completely, completely happy. And if you don't let yourself be happy, you're not going to let other people be completely happy. You're going to, on some level, say, well, if I can't be, you can't be. But if you really want the very best for yourself and you're really willing to let yourself have it and you know really that's what you want, then you can start to see that helping others get that too is really going to help you get that.

[45:56]

And actually wanting the absolute very best for each and every one of them, that's going to help you a lot. I mean, that is basically the kind of thinking that's going to make you happy. But you can't skip over yourself. This is basic, what do you call it, friendliness practice, right, of early Buddhism. And in Mahayana, it's basically the same, it's just we work it really, you know, a little bit more and more. And also, We have these, not in Mahayana Buddhism, in basic Buddhism too, this basic teaching, they don't talk about bodhisattvas, but it's basically to protect the person who wants to be happy, unselfishly, to protect them from obsession. Because meditation is obsessional. You do become obsessional, you really become fixated on things, in a way.

[47:01]

So how do we balance that? Well, we study and we have educational programs, right? It's an incredibly flexible mind. It's two things. It's incredibly stable, unmoving, and maximum flexibility. Flexible and stable. Right? It seems impossible? Yeah, it seems impossible. This is inconceivable liberation. This is not conceivable. There is conceivable liberation too, which is pretty good, but this is inconceivable liberation. Mahayana Buddhism is inconceivable liberation, definitely, which has this total stability, unmoving mountain that's completely flexible.

[48:14]

That's the only way to be completely flexible, be completely stable, is to be really flexible. Yeah, and soft. See how flexible? I never thought I'd have to admit to that. You know, when they ask the famous koan that Dogen Zenji likes so much of Yaku-san Igen, he was sitting in meditation and a monk comes up to him and says, in Chinese he says, which means, it's actually a Chinese character which has a line like this, a horizontal line like this, and I'll draw it to you the way it looks on a piece of paper, okay? It goes like this and like this. So it's got this top thing and then these legs coming down. So the image is of a bald mountain or, you know, a body holding the heavens up and the legs underneath.

[49:21]

That character means go-tsu. It means stable. unmoving okay and then he says it twice gozu gozu guess what that does it makes it more stable and more unmoving okay gozu gozu chi what's chi earth in the unmoving unmoving earth he said he said to the teacher in the unmoving unmoving earth what kind of thinking are you doing And he said, think of that which doesn't think. And he says, how do you do that? He says, non-thinking. So the kind of thinking you do when you're completely unmoving earth, okay? But the second definition of gotsu gotsu means wobbly. No, it just says so intensely stable.

[50:29]

that it's very flexible. Very flexible. I have this daughter who's getting ready to go to high school now, checking out high schools. So she's going around these different high schools. Tam High is a public high school, doesn't cost anything to go there, and they have a very good drama department, which she would like. And they also have this really neat area behind, I forgot what building it is, where it's a kind of a, what do you call it, a needle exchange. Now, of course, she doesn't have to go there, but anyway, she doesn't, there's some problems around that. So she's checking out some other schools, too. And she can't go to the other public high school, Redwood, I guess, because of where she lives. Anyway, so she's checking out these other private schools, and she went to this one school, And I won't say the name of it, just because, I don't know, maybe it's rude to do so. But anyway, it seemed like really a good school.

[51:31]

The kids seemed to be really, as they say, fired up. And my wife talked to a lot of the kids, too, to see what the kids thought of the school, and they all just love it, you know? She went to this one talk given by the director of the school, and she didn't like it too much because the guy seemed like a convert, a religious convert. And she said to one of the kids, she said, is he like this all the time? And she said, no, he comes down to the ground other times, you know. You can talk to him. She said, the reason why I act like that is he's new to the school, and he's just so excited because it's such a great school that he's kind of, you know, a little bit flipped out over it. And at this school, the teachers talk about how the kids, as they get into the studies of the school, they go through some changes

[52:38]

For example, they stop watching TV and they get really scared when that happens. For example, you can imagine if you sort of dropped into the wishless samadhi, you might get a little frightened, right? It's quite common that as you start to enter into the samadhi of emptiness, people often get quite frightened. And one of the kids that Rusta talked to also said, I call my teachers a lot. In other words, at this school, you can call the teachers up on the telephone and talk to them about your problems you're having with your study. I thought that really seemed like a good... When I was in high school, some teachers, not really good, but teachers you're really close to, you can call on the telephone out of school hours, but most teachers,

[53:39]

And you wouldn't do that. I think that you need that kind of thing, but I think that kind of thing is part of what makes a really good school. And I'd like Zen Center to be a place where people call the teachers, you know, where they said this school is hard, you know. They love the school, but it's hard. It's really engaging. So maybe in situations like that, you need to call the teachers... after school hours sometimes to get help. I hope that you do that. I hope that you're enough into the study so you need to call the teacher sometimes to ask questions about your studies. While during this talk there was an audience of the parents and the kids This guy was giving this talk, and my daughter was sitting next to Rusa, and she was, she had taken her watch off, and she was gnawing her arm like this.

[54:46]

Very hard, pull your skin away out. And my wife was getting nervous. She said the reason why she was doing it was because underneath the watch it really smelled bad. She was trying to get the smell out by biting it off. This is referred to as auto cannibalism. Now it makes people nervous though sometimes, you know, this kind of activity. Also, I got that article about Bobby McFerrin actually to show to Taya because the name of it was something like about how to... It was how he teaches kids to be creative. That was what the article was about. And I thought she likes Bobby McFerrin and thought maybe that might be an article she would like to read.

[55:51]

And she had already read it when I gave it to her. And the next day, in the People column, that same column, it had an article about Miss Manners. And... Miss Manners said that the first law of etiquette is humility. I think that, you know, Miss Manners and Amy Vander Vilt and Emily Post are actually worth reading. They have a lot of wisdom to give us. Emily Post is, I think, you know, anyway, really good, but one time Amy Vanderbilt said, not one time, I heard her say, no one has ever been rude to me. And at the time I thought, that was when I was a kid I heard that, I thought, how could that be? Did she just sort of hide out someplace?

[56:51]

Especially it seems like if you were teaching etiquette, somebody would try to hit you up for it, you know, just to sort of put you to the test, don't you think? Somebody said, oh, Amy Vanderbilt. Okay, well, we'll see. But she said, no one was ever rude to me, and I thought, lately I thought, the reason why nobody's ever rude to her must be because of her attitude. Not that she's living a protected life. Maybe she's somewhat protected, but it must be something to do with her attitude. Or another way to put it is, no one can ever steal anything from me. Because, you know, just before they reach for it, I'm going to give it to them. And humility would also contribute to no one ever being rude to you. If you really think you're the lowest among all people, it's hard for anybody to be rude to you.

[58:10]

When I say really think that, I don't mean you really think that. I mean you think that way as an exercise. In the morning I chant that. I will think, among all beings, I will think of myself as the lowest. I will learn to think of myself as the lowest. If someone, if someone who I, you know, had high hopes for and did a lot of good things for, turns around and hurts me very badly, I will consider this person to be a great spiritual teacher. It doesn't mean that I think that what they did is good. What they did is bad, actually. Bad for them.

[59:16]

But for me, they're a great teacher. Why is that humility? Oh, I didn't say that was humility. I said, what I think that is, is I think that is an exercise in being very happy. If people are sweet to you and kind to you and patient with you and generous with you, this is good for them. And for you, it may be not too difficult to love and appreciate them when they act that way. So go right ahead and enjoy appreciating people like that.

[60:21]

Even be like them. No problem. But people who you've been kind to, well, people that you haven't been kind to, just some stranger, if they attack you,

[60:36]

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