As you can hear, I'm talking to you. And one of the reasons why I'm talking to you is that a number of people asked me to do so after I said that maybe it was not necessary for me to give a talk today. Some people say, well, please, would you give a talk anyway? Most of the people who said that were people from out of town who aren't sick of hearing me. People in the practice period didn't ask me to. Just kidding, just kidding. So in that sense, some of you are like me.

[01:09]

As my wife says, for him, too much is not enough. However, some of those people who suggested I give a talk, you know what they said? Can you guess what they said? But it doesn't have to be two hours. And then somebody said, well, maybe like short talk or someone even said like 20 minutes where is that guy so according to 20 minutes it is now 19 minutes and 47 seconds so just three more seconds no 13. So, actually he said, do the essence, so I'll do the essence. The essence is, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [...] blah.

[02:14]

Was anything said or not? Could you hear the Dharma? Blah, blah. Hear the Dharma? Do, dee, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da. Ta, ta, ta. Do you recognize that? Ta, ta, ta. You know what ta, ta, ta means? It means, huh? No? Close. It's close. One of our theme songs is, You are all dreg slurpers.

[03:34]

This is the great master's warning to our practice. So during my talks, I have tried not to slurp any dregs. I haven't brought any notes. And I haven't looked anywhere to see what to say. I just open my mouth and go, blah, blah, blah. I'm just a puppet of the universe. I don't know what I'm saying. And nobody else does either. I try not to reach someplace for my words. I'll reach over to Buddha to get my words, and I'll bring Buddha's words and give them to you. That seems like a pretty nice thing to do, but that's not Dharma. Dharma is not reaching someplace else for what you have to say. That's what Wang Bo is saying. Don't reach down there and bring Buddha's words up from some deep place or some shallow place or from some other place.

[04:38]

Just express yourself. As stupid as that may be, go ahead. Don't. Get your lines from idiots. Don't get your lines from geniuses. Don't get your lines from sinners. Don't get your lines from Buddhas. Just speak. Express your life. Be intimate with what's happening and let that intimacy express itself. Trust intimacy. Trust the words and actions that emerge from being alive purely. Such pure presence makes experience accessible to wisdom.

[05:47]

I wasn't really asleep, but I was on the verge of sleep, and I had this reverie, or kind of a dream image. What I saw was a person. It was kind of me, but it wasn't me. It was kind of a feminine version of me, and I was in a crowd of people, and I was being kind of carried along by the crowd. I didn't exactly have my feet on the ground, I could just see my head a little bit above the crowd and I was getting pushed around and jostled kind of roughly by this crowd. And the look on my face or the look on this person's face was a little bit tense. A little bit uncomfortable getting pushed and shoved by all these sentient beings. Pushed and shoved, pushed and shoved. And I looked at the face and I said, now what would Buddha's face look like in a situation like that?

[07:03]

Would Buddha be kind of like just totally relaxed and cooled out, just serenely riding through the rough, you know, elbowings and shoulderings that he was getting? Would Buddha be crying out in pain? I don't know. But I guess I feel like I want to find a place, even if my face is twisted and my voice is crying in pain, I want to find a place in the middle of that where I'm just intimate. That's what I trust. And that's where I think wisdom emerges.

[08:07]

All Buddhas come into this turbulent, jostling crowd of beings in order to open people's ears and eyes to this wisdom of the Buddha and to show it to them and to awaken them to it and help them enter it. That's what they come for. That's what Buddhas are here for. Now, if you find a practice and people ask you, you know, what is the practice? If you find some freedom and some happiness in this world If you find some love, big, wide, wonderful love, and people say, well, how does that happen? You say, well, I practiced a certain way.

[09:13]

So what is the practice? And you tell them. Sometimes what you wind up saying is, somehow you get backed into a corner, or maybe not even backed into a corner, but sometimes you wind up saying, well, this is the only way I know. Almost like, this seems like the only way. Now, sometimes Buddhists say, well, actually, there's three ways. If you don't like this way, there's two other possibilities. But sometimes they say, and the Zen school is kind of that way. Dogen Zenji is very much that way. There's not different ways. There's only one way. There's only one vehicle. And That sounds exclusive and people feel nervous about that. So I was going to say a little bit about this point.

[10:14]

You can find in the scriptures, who knows if Buddha actually said it, you know. Maybe his disciples kind of like got it wrong and changed it over the centuries. But it does say in the scriptures that the Buddha said that this pure presence of mind is the only way to liberation. If this right mindfulness This complete, comprehensive mindfulness is the only way to liberation. You can't not, you have to do that practice. That's what he sometimes is quoted as saying. That you can only attain liberation by penetrating contemplation,

[11:28]

in the field of immediate experience, by right mindfulness. Only by intimacy with immediate experience, by the immediacy in intimacy, can we attain liberation. We can't get liberated without being intimate with our bondage. It's the only way. intimate means present present present completely thoroughly wholeheartedly put your whole self in and then you can take your whole self out and then bodhisattvas can put the whole self in again and then take the whole self out put the whole self in take the whole self out put the whole self in forever coming into the world put your whole self into it if you're in this world put your whole self into it and if you can put your whole self into it your whole self can be taken out of it and once you're taken out of it when you look back at it and see those beings who aren't yet able to put them whole selves into it you want to go back and play with them and say come on play the game let's play let's play more thoroughly please

[12:56]

Let's do it. Or sometimes you try a Thomas Sawyer approach. You say, oh, this is so much fun, you wouldn't like to do it. This would be too hard for you. You wouldn't like this. It's too painful. You aren't smart enough. You're too smart to do this. You're too busy. Anyway, you try whatever means it is to trick them, encourage them to be intimate with themselves, to honestly be who they are. And then they can take themselves out. If they want to, they can put their whole self back in. That way. This is what the Buddhas are about. And so logically speaking, the proposition is that you can only get out by putting yourself completely in. But there seems to be these different practices. So in Zen we talk about this complete intimacy with immediate experience.

[13:58]

And also in Theravada Buddhism they basically say the same thing. We're very close to Theravada Buddhism. Zen school is very close in terms of the complete, wholehearted immersion in experience without holding back or overdoing it. Okay? Without even reaching for some teaching to help you do it. The teaching gets you there, but then when you get there, when you get into the practice, then leave the teaching behind that got you there. Like the raft, you know, you take the raft across the river, when you're there doing your practice, then forget the instructions that got you there. Discipline, discipline, [...] and then throw the discipline away and just be the practice. So Buddha first opens our ears and our eyes and our hearts and then shows us the wisdom, and then we awaken to the wisdom, but then we enter it.

[15:01]

And when we enter it, we forget, actually, almost forget who told us about it. Who was that person that told me about this thing? I'm grateful to whoever it was, but I can't remember. Then you can't even slurp dregs. You don't remember where they are. Where are the dregs? If you ask some people, they can tell you, oh, they're over in the library. Or go in that room. That guy's talking. You can use them as dregs. You know what dreg slurping means? You can have today. And today can have you. I brought this little guy, little gal. Are mukugi of male or female?

[16:03]

What kind of fish are these? Anyway, it's definitely a wooden fish. And these are used in China and Japan and Korea and Vietnam and places like that for chanting. Right? Now, there are schools of Buddhism which say there's only one way, and that way is to go... Like that. That's the only way. Is that the same thing? Yes, it is. You put yourself, you put your whole self into Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.

[17:08]

Namu, I plunge into the Lotus Sutra. I give my whole life to the Lotus Sutra. I go in to the Lotus Sutra. I don't hold back at all. And I don't do it too much. I don't hit too hard either. Namu-myoho-renge-kyo. This is how they bring peace to the world. They walk all over the world. Namu-myoho-renge-kyo. Peace. Peace. Peace. I put my whole life into peace. Nothing else. My whole life. Same thing. Only one way. There's no other way. But there's an abundance of no other ways. There's no other ways.

[18:09]

It's all over the place. There's millions of exclusive paths. The thing is wholeheartedness. The thing is complete mindfulness. They are completely mindful. And while they're doing that, you know, so you start, you know, in San Francisco, you know, maybe downtown, you start this. And at the city center, you start walking to Los Angeles. Around San Luis Obispo, you start thinking, what's going on here? This is getting boring. Is this really going to work? How come that stuff happens? What is that? What do you call that, Matt? Doubt. Is this really going to work? Does this practice really make sense? Am I a fool? Doubt.

[19:10]

And why does the doubt come in? Because I don't put myself completely in to each beat of my little thing. I hold back, and when I hold back and look away, Doubt comes in. Or, I'm going like this and people say, what is that weird bald guy doing? Let's go beat him up. This is San Luis Obispo. This is Paso Robles. What are you doing here? These people are picking on me. If I lose my concentration, I might get angry at them for not appreciating that I'm dedicating my life to them. If I stay mindful, even though it's painful that they're criticizing me, it hurts. It hurts. I still feel hurt when they criticize me. It hurts. It isn't that it doesn't hurt. This doesn't stop me from hurting.

[20:10]

This takes me deeper into my hurt, right? This helps me hurt. And when I hurt all the way to the bottom and stay there, I won't get angry when somebody hurts me. No. Wisdom will come up. Some other places they go. Namo Amida Butsu I plunge into the Buddha of infinite light. I plunge into the Buddha of infinite life. That's the only way. That's the only way. I plunge into the bodhisattva of infinite compassion.

[21:22]

I plunge into the being who opens his heart, opens her heart completely to all beings, and Raleigh gets jostled and pushed around by all beings forever. I plunge into that being, and I say so. Namokanzehambosatsu. This is my heart. I time this with my heart. I put my heart into it. This is my heart. This is my heart. This is my heart song. In Zen, we just put the mokugyo down. And we sit there. And the same thing happens. We open our heart. we take refuge in Kahn Zayon in silence. Like Edward Kahn said, in Tibet, the monks sit and they go... Avalokiteshvara.

[22:31]

comes into them and completely permeates their bodies. And then, soto zen, they just sit up straight and quiet. And their body becomes pure compassion. Raw discomfort all around and not running away from it. Got a problem? Any problem? We got it here. And when they first start sitting, they don't, they aren't Avalokiteshvara, they're not completely open. They're not. They're just a little bit open. But over the years, they gradually soften and gradually melt into all beings. They gradually are nothing but response to other beings.

[23:48]

It's the only way. But these ways don't exclude each other. They just mean you can't... Human beings are Buddhas. Human beings are Buddhas. You must be a Buddha. And Buddhas are wholehearted creatures. They are the wholeheartedness of humans. We must be wholehearted There's no alternative, as Charlie says. But, you know, it takes a while to be wholehearted, and to be wholehearted, and to be wholehearted. Hakuen Zenji said, when he was a kid, he was an amazingly fervent practitioner. he practiced so hard he got sick he practiced too hard he put himself in 110 he went overboard and got sick but when he was quite young he had a tremendous awakening when he got balanced he got he woke up and he kept having awakenings and again and again and again and finally he kind of like blew the top out of awakening at 46 didn't have any more

[25:10]

After that, when he was 65, he said, I finally got to the point where I'm mindful non-stop 24 hours a day. After practicing for about 55 years, he finally had perfect continuity in his practice. So, Even the great masters who are greatly awakened when they're kids, we hear about them, we feel like, geez, I'm way behind schedule. They took them a long time of practice after enlightenment to have complete continuity. So don't be impatient with yourself if you don't have this mastered and have continuity in it now. Just ask yourself, do you want to? It's hard. But it's impossible if you don't want to. On the other hand, if you want to, even though it's hard, it can be realized.

[26:20]

Pankei Zenji said to his monks, only two out of 10 of my students realize the way. And someone said, what about the other eight? How come they don't? He said, because they don't want to enough. And you know that famous story of Suzuki Roshi going swimming in the Tassawa Creek at the place they call the Narrows, where it gets narrow and deep. And he went swimming down there with his students, male and female students, and they all jumped in the water. So he jumped in too, but he forgot he didn't know how to swim. Got so excited. So the Narrows, the pool at the Narrows, right after the waterfall, the pool is about maybe 15 feet deep. would you say so he went down little tiny guy about five feet tall he went down and he said I saw the beautiful lady's legs you think that's funny huh little Zen master drowning you think that's funny but he was drowning mindfully oh look at the legs

[27:50]

I'm in heaven. Anyway, he was down there, and the students were up on top of the water swimming around. And they say, oh, Suzuki Roshi. He really can hold his breath a long time. He really is a master. Boy, wow, this is really getting to be a long time. Maybe he's not so good. Maybe, hey, let's go down and check on him. So they pulled him out. And he said he was very embarrassed. Not that he didn't know how to swim, but that he had jumped in without checking. And he was about 63 at this time. He said, after that, I really started practicing hard. This is our founder, right? At 63, he should know better. But anyway, his response was not, oh, you know, who pushed me in, or you guys tricked me, or, you know, you jerks, you shouldn't be swimming, or, you know, or, you know, I really knew what I was doing.

[28:59]

He just said, no, his response is, no, I really want to practice hard. And then after he said that in a talk, and then at dinner, one of us, actually that one that I told you about that was making the faces and serving himself with his bare hands, He said, Roshi, you said that after that happened, you really wanted to practice hard, but weren't you practicing hard before that? And he said, yeah, but after that, I really wanted to. So he had a few more years, and he really tried. And he said, I'm getting old now, and I can't sit up very straight anymore. He couldn't sit up quite as straight as he could when he was younger. He had pretty good posture. But it wasn't quite as straight as when he was younger, because he was getting old. He said, I can't sit up straight anymore. But I can try. And so he tried for us.

[30:00]

Right to the end, he tried. And towards the end, I went to see him one time, and he said, I feel like I'm being tortured. Really painful. But he kept teaching us right to the end, right to the end, right to the end. Never stopped teaching, never stopped practicing. So we got some hard times ahead of us unless we die this morning. And I hope we all live a long time because now that we're practicing it's good if we can practice for about 40 more years so we can develop some continuity in our mindfulness and be an inspiration to this suffering planet So I hope we all live a long time, and therefore we're going to run into some trouble. So we're going to really have to be able to suffer, because we're going to have some hard things ahead of us, especially you young people. Boy. So if we can be intimate with this suffering, we'll be fine, just fine.

[31:14]

If you can be intimate with this world of suffering, then from that intimacy, wisdom will emerge, will issue forth and manifest in the practice. That's the proposal. And intimacy means no drug slurping. Just meet the moment with no crutches, no guidelines. If you're not ready to meet the moment with no crutches or guidelines, well, then use crutches and guidelines to help you meet the moment. But finally, set them aside respectfully. And, you know, thanks, crutches.

[32:23]

You've served me well. I appreciate it. you could even, like, you know, have him, what do you call it, gilded, and put him on the wall. You served me well when I need you. Now I don't need you anymore. Actually, I don't even need to walk anymore. I'm just going to sit here now. Put aside the things you used to get home, and then just be home. ardent, steadfast, and serene in the midst of samsara.

[34:43]

So, is that enough? Okay. May our intention

[35:19]

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