Now, we've performed the ceremony of New Year's greeting, and another little saying from Proust came up in my mind. He had a dream that the Duchess de Garmonts summoned him to tea, and she had all kinds of questions for him, that she heard he wanted to be a writer, and she thought that he would be the foremost writer of his time. And then he said, that dream reminded me that I wanted to be a writer. Oh, and she also asked him

[01:48]

what he wanted to write about, and he said, that dream reminded me that I wanted to be a writer, and that I probably should start planning what I was going to write. So, I hope you had a dream, that someone thought that you were going to be a Bodhisattva. And if you want to be a Bodhisattva, then it would be good for you to have a plan for how you want to be a Bodhisattva. And Proust did turn out to be the foremost writer of his time. But maybe you have to have a dream that a Duchess encourages you, to remind you of what you want to do with this precious life, that you wish to devote it to art, to put

[02:55]

aside. Either put aside everything for art, or make everything you do, make every act an act of art. Make that plan to make every work, all your work, artwork. Welcome, Meg and Elizabeth. I hope there's an art of reading Proust's work of art. So, I vow to artfully read Proust's

[04:10]

great work of art this year, and perhaps finish before I die. But that's not an ambition, because I may never finish, and that'll be fine with me. But it is something I would like to try. I haven't yet read your writings, but I will do so.

[05:27]

I might even read them out loud. Thank you. I've already shared with many of you my research on the word hope.

[06:51]

I almost say I hope, and sometimes it does slip out, but then I usually take it back. I actually wish to give up hoping, because hope means to wish with expectation. I do not want to wish with expectation. I want to use all my expectation energy to intensify the wish, to just wish, to just wish that you are as happy or happier than I am. It's okay with me if you're happier, but I want you to be at least as happy as I am, and I'm very happy. I'm very happy to be able to practice with you, and I'm very

[08:11]

tomorrow. But I want you to have a great heart tomorrow, and the next day. But I don't expect it. And if you don't have a great heart tomorrow, tomorrow I'll wish you have a great heart. Because I don't expect you to have a great heart, I will never stop wishing you to have a great heart. If I slip into expectation, which I might do, my great wish for you is in danger of getting pooped out. But I don't slip into expectation of such kinds for very long before I wake up and go back to pure wishing. So that's my wish for your great

[09:11]

happiness, for your supreme happiness. And as I mentioned this morning, and mentioned it several times in the mountains last year, true intimacy, which is the work of the Bodhisattva, involves alternating between supreme attunement, which sounds pretty good, and bewildering estrangement. Bewildering estrangement doesn't guarantee that you're doing the work of intimacy, but doing the work of intimacy guarantees bewildering estrangement. The people we're most trying to be intimate with, we will sometimes feel bewilderingly estranged from.

[10:23]

How is it that the person I most wanted to be intimate with, I'm the least intimate with? That's bewildering. How did I manage to make all this effort to pick this person to be my teacher, and I feel like this is the worst person to be my teacher? How could I do that? It's amazing. But such things are thought. But actually, that kind of thinking seems to be part of the great process. Someone told me a shocking story a little while ago. Supposedly the Buddha was talking to a horse trainer, and he said to the horse trainer something like, what did he say? How do you train horses? And he said? Well, there are some horses that

[11:34]

are hesitant and fearful, that I put more energy into. There are some that are too aggressive that I hold back. And then, if I can't train a horse and I try a while, then I kill them. Did you hear that? Some horses are kind of hesitant and so on, so then I give them more attention and encourage them. Some horses are too aggressive, and then I kind of back away from them, withdraw attention. But if those training methods don't work, I kill the horse. And the Buddha said, this is a shocker, I do, that's what I do. And the horse trainer said, you do? He said, yeah, I do. If I can't train people, I kill them. I kill them by not training them. That's the worst thing, is to not train. So, it's great that you

[12:39]

people want to train, because that's life. But training is difficult, that's life too. But training is the path of practicing together, and that is the path of eventual freedom. And not training is endless suffering. So, let us walk the difficult path of training together in these amazing Bodhisattva precepts. And thank you for the story of the horse trainer. Any other things that you wish to bring up this afternoon? Question in the back. Pardon? I just wondered if you could repeat what you said about intimacy, the two sides. True intimacy involves alternating between supreme attunement and bewildering estrangement.

[13:46]

And I think most people would understand that intimacy involves supreme attunement. Not just attunement, but supreme attunement. But it's maybe surprising to hear that it involves not just estrangement, but bewildering estrangement. But actually, when you're in an intimate relationship, it's bewildering to be estranged from somebody you're intimate with. It's not bewildering to be estranged from strangers, but someone that you just made a great effort and successfully become supremely attuned to, you wouldn't be kind of surprised that then the next moment you are estranged. It's bewildering that you would be estranged from such a person. But that's the person you most would be sensitive to even a slight bit of estrangement. And that's normal in the process. And you don't stay on one side

[14:58]

or the other, hopefully. Your bewildering estrangement leads you to attune. And attunement leads you to being vulnerable to losing your attunement and having a little bit of estrangement, which is so bewildering when you just had supreme attunement before. So it all makes perfect sense. Just don't get discouraged, please. But if you do, we're here to attune with you, discouraged ones. We welcome your discouragement. We welcome your enthusiasm. We welcome you in all your forms. That's our vow. And some of you might be thinking, I can hardly wait, but you don't have to. You can start

[16:07]

right now welcoming everybody into your life and attuning with everybody and encouraging everybody, with you being willing to be you. And we all need you to do this. I don't need Delphina to be Patti, and I don't need Patti to be Delphina. But I do need Delphina to be Delphina and Patti to be Patti. I need this. I'm not saying I'll like it. I'm devoted to you being you, and I'm not saying I'll dislike it. Some time ago, some people came to study with me, and they were very good students, but

[17:14]

it was very boring because they were faking it. And then they stopped faking it and became who they really were, and it was not boring anymore. So I haven't been bored for quite a while. People are not faking it so much, trying to be excellent students that happen to not be themselves. Any other things you want me to repeat again and again? I don't mind. It's not because I forgot. Eventually it will be because of that. You can remind

[18:17]

me. That's why we need some young people. Remember what I said, Elizabeth, because I'm going to forget pretty soon. Anything else today? I was curious, why Proust? Why Proust? Well, I don't know. But I think it's because my wife has read it, the whole thing, in English and in French. And as you can imagine, since she read the whole thing in English and in French, she must think it's pretty good. So I'm reading with her. She's reading the French, and I'm reading the English. Out loud at the same time?

[19:18]

No, only one of us is speaking out loud, and that is Froggy. I'm speaking out loud and she's watching the French, and then she's saying, what was that word? So sometimes the French word, the translation is a little bit different from what she thought it would be, and she writes it in her book. I don't write the French in my book, no. French, I painfully tell you, is one of those languages which I don't think I'm going to learn in this lifetime. Those wonderful French people made French too hard for me. I can read it a little bit, but I can't speak it. But I can say, je t'aime.

[20:27]

Je t'aime, je t'aime. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of the Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Divisions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[21:35]

I vow to become it.

[21:40]

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