On Friday night, I went to a art show. Not exactly an art show, but it's what it is. Presentation pop. I picked 16 dolls. more or less like side dolls. And after some time, this artist, a woman named White, talked about her work, the work of making these dolls.

[01:28]

And as I was listening to her talk, I felt that her work was very similar to this. Zen practice. I think she's also finding that it takes. Although she didn't know anything about Zen, she started working on it all. Her connection to us and Zen Center I think partly because one of the dolls she made was inspired by a picture she saw of the founder of Zen centers on the back of the Emory Beginner's Mine. She made a doll that doesn't exactly look like Suzuki Roshi, but it does kind of look like Suzuki Roshi.

[02:34]

It's a bald-headed old Japanese monk. So because of that, we got connected with her. And I got to meet her and be inspired by her work. Sometimes if you look directly at something, it's pretty hard to see it. because we may look at it pretty much by a set view. Oh, there's big guys, well that is not it. I've got kind of the set. But if I look over at Michael, and then I pick out a corner of my eye, I may see her in a different way from what I even see.

[03:34]

Probably I will see her differently over here than I see her kind of straight on. And it is often the case that at the edge of Buddhism, not right in the middle, but at the edge, maybe where Buddhism touches another discipline like art or science or animal husbandries or gardening or cooking, At the edge of sometimes is where we can get a new slant on the practice and sort of experience some kind of freshness or creative experience of the practice that we sometimes can't see when we're used to it. When we first were practicing Zen, when we first heard about Zen, when we were first interested in Zen, it was probably a little bit over an edge of where we were before. And we went, wow.

[04:40]

There was some kind of freshness done by power that kind of shot into us. And we fell in love. And then we turned over and looked straight at it, and gradually, Because of that, sometimes we develop a fixed attitude and it loses its light. A friend of mine told me that when you rent a videocassette of a good movie and you go and watch it at home, sometimes it's not as good as at the theater, if you notice. Part of the reason for that, he said, was that when you look at your TV box, even if it's a pretty big box, you're not getting the movie into your corporate vision pretty straight on. Unless you get up real close to the TV set. In which case, you'll probably find the movie quite interesting.

[05:50]

With a lousy movie... a lousy movie that would make a movie theater, it probably won't make so much difference. I would propose that. But with a really good movie, a good director very much works with periphery, works with the edge of the screen. Actions in the middle, right? That's what's really happening out there. They don't have the main event over the edge, right? You're going to notice that? that they don't have the people kissing right at the edge of the street. Or like, one of them walks the street, and the other one kissing the edge of the street. They don't have the face of someone in the middle. They don't have the legs, the body sort of cut off right in here and walk on the edge of the street. So they get you to look at the middle, but actually, they teach you on the edge. Because there, you're not filtering.

[06:53]

You're not saying, hey, I know what that is. So they put all this stuff in over in the head. They slip through their art unbeknownst at the periphery. Of course, there's something going on in the middle, too. The dialogue goes all the way to the edge. But a lot of stuff comes in the periphery. So when you look up close, another poster in a small screen, you don't get the periphery. The periphery is also in the center. So it gets straight on so it doesn't get in. It doesn't get in because you know what it is. So anyway, sometimes when you hear about the edges of Buddhism, you know where the edges of Buddhism are, don't you? Where are the edges of ? Huh? You know, where are they? The fringe, right? The fringe people? You know where they are. flakes, the bums, the lousy students, the weirdos, the non-Buddhists, the totally people who are really out of Buddhism, right?

[08:01]

Out there on the edge, the people with bad posture, weird eyes, out there on the edge, right? But that's often the place where you learn, where you grow. In your own practice, too, out at the edge where you're not sure if it's Buddhism or not, or you think you know Buddhism, but you're not sure if they're practicing Buddhism and you kind of like them. Out there, it's often pretty important. So listening to her talk about making dolls, kind of something slipped in. So I'd like to talk about some of the things she said about making dolls. One of the things she said was that what's on there is, well, first of all, why dolls?

[09:04]

Most of the people she works with are women, and they age very greatly. But the women she finds most inspiring are teenagers. Because they're at a great transition in their life where they're becoming women, and they're sort of setting off now on their path, on their spiritual journey. And it's very important that they find what their path is at this point in their life. They're really searching for which way to go. But anyway, she works with women of wide range of ages, but that's the group that she finds most inspiring. But she works with some men too, but the reason why I call them dolls is because a lot of young women, a lot of girls, a lot of the way they live out their sight is in their relationship with their dolls.

[10:10]

Not just the dolls themselves, but the way they relate to the dolls. the energy they put into the doll. And the way they talk to the dolls and how they use the dolls is it has a great part in their . She said when she works with men, sometimes the brother calls the doll, she calls him . So part of what she's trying to do is is basically to manifest our highest aspiration, our highest affirmation in forms to bring your deepest, yes, your deepest affirmation, your deepest positive affirmation

[11:14]

feelings into form. And of course, that's what zazen is, is to actually bring your deepest affirmation. We sometimes call that Buddha around here. But whatever you call it, even if you don't know what to call it or even if you don't know what it is, there's something. Make their sign. Is it something that's very, very deep or very, very high? The deepest, the place, the deepest place where you say yes, the thing you say yes to at the deepest level or the highest level. And zazen is to take that thing, which is not necessarily form or not form, and bring it into form. to make it into form, to create in relationship to this highest ideal.

[12:29]

One thing that comes to mind is in the Fulcrums Ascendi, I think it says, have no designs on becoming or making a Buddha. The opposite of making a Buddha. It's to bring Buddha into form is not the same as making a Buddha. Because Buddha is not just manifestation. Buddha is not just the form of Buddha. Buddha is beyond form. But also, for our sake, we have to bring it into form. And another important thing about the Tao making is what Another important thing about this is that this is done in what she calls a circle. You don't just go make a doll. You can just go make a doll. It's OK. You can do that. You can also just go .

[13:35]

You can also try. Go ahead. Anybody can try. Bring your deepest affirmation into form, into the film of your own body, into the form of your own thought, into the form of your own voice. Bring it all by yourself, not in a circle, but by yourself. You can try it, but if you try, that's just beluging. As Jogindanda said, if you try to practice and confirm all things, while carrying yourself, that's delusion. Another way to say it is if you try to teach and help all beings by yourself, that's delusion. What this woman knows is that they make these masks, they make these dolls in a circle.

[14:38]

with a circle of friends. And this circle, the people in this circle are, it could be just two people, right? A student and a teacher, that's a circle. It can also be three, four, five women, six women, or it could be eight men and three women. It could be a circle of people. And I have a circle. In that circle is where you make the Tao. In the circle is where you make the body which is formed to your deepest aspiration. You cannot make it outside that circle. And I would say, at least the first time you make it, you can't make it outside the circle. I will discuss later, maybe not tonight, but later, I will discuss the possibility of making it apparently by yourself.

[15:43]

But when you first make it, I propose you must be in a circle. Now, I like to also call this circle, circle is kind of, what is a circle? It is a two-dimensional. I like to think of it as a treatment, and then I call it a cauldron or a crucible. It can also be called a womb. It is a container or the process by which the divinely wonderful, highest affirmation of your life comes into form. It happens in woo. It happens in a cauldron. Woos tend to be around 98.6, which is a pretty good temperature.

[16:48]

Cauldrons can get warmer than that. Crucibles can get one. The circle has teeth. Number 50. The 50th hexagram of the Xi jian is the cauldron. Deep. A beautiful character. The character looks like cauldrons. To change things, nothing compares to the cauldron. This is the vessel used to refine the wise, to forge sages, to cook Buddhas, and the depths. What is the circle? It's the relationship. What kind of relationships? Relationships of mutual support. Everybody in the circle is there to help the other people in the circle.

[17:49]

Everybody in the circle knows they can't do it by themselves, and they ask the other people in the circle to help them. In a one-on-one relationship between a student and a teacher, that's a call for them, too. It's a container for the process, this wonderful process of evolution, where the divine comes into form, is made in form, by the individuals with the help of the professor. The teacher needs the student as much as the student needs the teacher. A teacher is a person for you. A teacher is a person who leads you to matters. highest in your body. They need you to do that.

[18:54]

They won't be OK until you have accomplished this. So a circle is a group of people, a group of beings, that are dedicated to helping other people. And not all of them are dedicated now to helping other people, but also not to let the quality be broken until the contents are cooked to perfection. Perfection is not a permanent thing, perfection is just Now, one of the things he said in the doll making is that people who make these dolls, that making the doll is given to these people.

[20:03]

One subtle point about the Daoism is that these Daos, the ones I saw, kind of like just incidentally happen to be very beautiful. If you look at them, some of you might be very impressed how skillfully and beautifully they make, how great their faces are, how beautiful their hands and feet are, how beautiful their clothing is. It's hard to put this, but it's almost like these wooden capitals have beautiful dolls. The most important point for me is that the people who make the dolls, when they finish, they're . They may give the doll away or put it in a story. The doll is a rat. It takes them across to the other shore . The beauty of the doll, however, is theirs. It is part of the beauty of the doll is to show the person who made, in many cases, that they can make a beautiful doll.

[21:15]

Because a lot of people think, like most adults probably think, I don't have a beautiful doll. I never made a doll before. How am I going to make a beautiful doll? Most of us have never been sculptors, I guess, or not much. So in some cases, the doll has to be very, very beautiful in order to heal a person because the person thinks they can't make a beautiful doll. Some other people who are quite sure that they can make a beautiful doll have to make a more beautiful doll than they thought they could. But I want to emphasize the fact that in the circle, you can do things which you never thought you could do. When I'm talking to people, now I'm getting this talk, right, when I'm just talking away. But when I'm talking to people, I can say to them that I never could say it by myself. I say really beautiful things to people sometimes because of the questions they ask.

[22:18]

I wish that I could just sort of, hey, it's my conversation with people, and just kind of, it was in the lectures, and much better than the lectures. Because I say a little bit, and the person's face happens, and the person keeps making it so relevant that it gets very beautiful. But also, they're saying things they can't say when I'm not very . So it's like the circle makes it possible. Ordinary people can make it, she said, ordinary, unskilled, not artists make these . dots that are better than peridots, and peridots are very good. So the scary part of this lecture is that I'm basically suggesting to you that we need a circle. I think probably most of you, since you're Zen students, are somewhat aware that when you're sitting in darshan, you actually are trying to actually realize Buddhahood right there.

[23:29]

Make Buddha happen. Make Buddha real, alive, when you're sitting. I think maybe you have a feeling for that, right? Right? No? What are you doing? Yes? Right. But one thing I'm struggling is that we need a circle, and that when you sit in a zendo, you have a circle there. You've got it. But remember, you've got it. And use it. In terms of the zendo, well, in the first before I said zendo, when we talked about the relationship between in the circle, Dougie Zende said zeno has two aspects. One aspect is the total devotion to the just sit. In other words, your personal effort can make it all. Your personal effort to, with your hands, except in this case you use your hands and your feet and your knees and your thighs and your butt and your chest and your stomach and your head, with your whole body, you form a Buddha.

[24:44]

And you put your whole creative effort into making this Buddha. In other words, you say total exertion of one thing. What's the one thing? Your body. Total devotion to making a body, to imagining the body you have. as the Buddha. That's one half of Zen. In terms of time of Zen practice, maybe you see that more hours are put into that sometimes than the other half. The other half is to go to the teacher and ask about Dharma. And Dogen Zenji said that that part of teaching, what the purpose of going to a teacher is to open up your consciousness. So when you're making a dog, or you're making a Buddha body, or you're making a physical version of a Buddha body, it's not exactly a Buddha body.

[26:06]

One Buddha has three bodies, the truth body, the bliss body, or the organismic body, and the physical body. You're making a physical body. It's inseparable from the other two, but you make that in the other two. So you're making this physical body totally different. But there's a possibility there that you'll develop kind of a narrow attitude about how to make a Buddha. There's a very great possibility of that. Matter of fact, everybody will slip into that trap of making a network of tightening down on what the Buddha body is. Now, when you tighten down on what the Buddha body is, you get all kinds of problems. Like, for example, you think you've got it, or you think you don't got it. You think, hey, this is not the Buddha body. Because you have an idea. Buddha body is like, I got, they're not the same. Therefore, I don't have. Therefore, I could do or whatever.

[27:08]

Just like when you're making a doll. There's people who make a doll, and I don't want that. They make a doll, and they say, it's a mug feet. And they tell their friends in the circle, they say, I have an ugly doll. And their friends say, well, it's not really ugly. It's actually truth. The point is, anyway, they get into a narrow version of what the body is, what the doll is. Or they think this is great. And somebody says, yeah, great. But if you look at it from this angle, it looks kind of, there's something, there's some pain. Do you want that pain? And they say, yeah, we want that pain. OK. And if not, all your pain will come into the doll. All your problems will show in the doll, will show in the body of Buddha. We have sometimes the expression of that, when the teacher walks around with his end of correct posture. I don't like that word correct. It's not that they correct it, more they open up

[28:12]

They adjust your posture to show you another possibility. So you think you're sitting straight, and they adjust your posture, and you think you're sitting like this. Well, that's interesting. What's going on? It's not that they're right and you're wrong. It's just that this person has now introduced some information into your life that you didn't think you were going to have introduced. Your practice is kind of like, Why didn't it work before? Because over here now. It used to be like in here, right in here. This is not right. This is sitting straight. Buddha's right around here. Not over here. Buddha's not over here. See? Buddha's over here. But actually, you were over here. That's why you think now you're over here. So you're right. Well, it isn't over here. But that's where you were thinking that you were over here. So now somebody puts you over here, and you think you're over here. It's not that they're right and you're wrong.

[29:17]

It's that you were at a narrow little version of where you were, and we couldn't open it up. So somebody came and, hey, try this one. Come back. And then after a while, you realize you're not actually over here. You're here. And then, actually, you have a bigger version, because now you're not just sitting here, but you also know you used to be sitting over there, and that you thought sitting over there was sitting straight. So you have a bigger group. You know more about yourself. You know that I could be way over there and think that I'm over here. You know that about yourself, or I know that about myself. And I also think maybe I'm over here now. And I wait until I get maybe the next adjustment and find more. Now you can also, you can wait for them. But sometimes the practice leaders forget about them for months. Sometimes they go for a long time.

[30:18]

So if you're just sitting there waiting, waiting, well, I think I'm sitting straight, and they'll probably adjust me if I'm not. But I haven't adjusted me for a long time. Maybe they just straightened me along. Maybe they don't care about it. Maybe they're afraid I'll resist. Then you know what you have to do. You have to take a walk on the board. You have to walk over and visit the teacher and say, hey, how's my posture? And they say, perfect. Well, you pulled it up that way. The point is, you have to come and ask, what is the truth? What's happening these days with my body? You have to go. And then, since you go, they can say, well, this is fine, but I want to mention this.

[31:21]

They can't necessarily tell you anything if you don't come and ask. Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't. Sitting in the Zen, there was actually kind of a request for some feedback. It should be. That's, I recommend that attitude, going to sit there and sit down there and ask them for feedback from everybody. How's my practice? This is my practice. This is my offering to all beings, this practice. This is my attempt to manifest, inform my highest aspiration in life. How's it going, folks? You see what they do. But if you don't get the feedback, then go and say with your mouth to somebody, how's my posture? How's my practice? Or, I have some questions about my practice. I have some questions about the truth. Ask them. Talk to them. Make a circle. You've got to make a circle. You can't move your body without a call. You can't call it all by yourself. You can't do the practice all by yourself.

[32:25]

That's a solution. When everything comes forward and confirms you, that's like not what you could think. When everything teaches you and affirms you, that's the call to cook. Hey, I'm cooking. Things are affirming this person. By the way, also, I want to point out that this body work we do, we do in silence. Most of our body work is done in silence. No? But no. .

[33:47]

I have some good notes here about several new kind of new frontiers that are going up, but I think that it takes us into the next dimension of time and space. I think I should stop before I tell you the next new interesting stuff. I mean, do you have some questions about this? You could ask your question. Yes. Could you say something more about the things that probably would help if you're there? I got this newsletter from the World Wildlife Fund. If an organization at a particular time, you know, preserve rainforest and protect various species from extinction.

[35:27]

And plant, fishery, biodiversity. I'm making the point of how important it is to have diversity. And the periphery. All those species of plants and animals that we don't even know about. are very helpful, and we don't even know how they're helpful. But that's sort of what the main thrust of this. And it's interesting, they often have religious leaders in this, you know, sighted in this room with pictures of Buddhist priests and rabbis and Catholic priests and so on. But they have some quotes. And one of the quotes in this issue was by Dogen. And the quote was, to teach and to help all beings by yourself is delusion. For all beings to advance forward and help you is enlightenment, is awakening.

[36:41]

Another translation of this is to act on and witness All faith, while carrying itself, is deluded. To act on and witness the agony of all faith. I think that to act on and witness the advent of all things would be likely. So just try to think about, you know, like right now, can you experience the advent of all things? Can you experience the arrival of everything?

[37:49]

And witness that and act on that. for all things to advance forward and confirm themselves. Who practice the Buddhists. Do you practice Buddhism? Do Buddhists practice Buddhism? Do the mountains practice Buddhism? Do the skyscrapers practice Buddhism? Do the oceans practice Buddhism? Who realizes the way of Buddhism? Dogen Zenji said, the mountains and rivers of the immediate present

[38:55]

are the realization of the ancient way of the doers. The mountains and waters of the immediate present are the realization. The phenomenal state and emptiness of that phenomenal state in the immediate present, that's the realization. There's no self there, and there's no self not there. Nothing's eliminated. Everything's included. And yet, there's no self carrying it. And we live in the advent of all things. can live there, can witness that, can act as that.

[40:00]

I've never seen a good place to live. It seems like a very good place to live. Yeah, it's a great place to live. It's called all this bubbling activities, adventing all the time, all that's happening. abiding together in their phenomenal state. He's not in waters. Abiding together in their phenomenal state or their dharma position. That way they are. They have culminated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. Culminated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. culminate the qualities of .

[41:03]

There seems to be a fear that comes up when I come close to that . That's exactly it. It's a fear, and it bounces you back. That's what happens. It's like a lot of people have that experience. You get up close. This is, in a sense, you get up close to the cauldron, or you're in the cauldron, and you try to jump up. So a big part of the practice is, through your own effort, try to stay in there and get people to help you. That's another important point to have a teacher, because when you get into that situation, you get in there, where everything's adventing and it's confirming your life, okay? At that very point, there may be a reflex due to past clean, a reflex, which will then jump out of there and make that into a thing.

[42:19]

And that's a very frightening thing, too. As soon as you're afraid, you jumped over. And you then objectified the situation. You're not putting the call, you're putting the circle outside yourself. You left the circle. But very common to do that. When you realize how dynamic and ungraspable your light is, in the next moment, You can turn around and say, hey, there it is, and make it into a thing. And that thing is a worse thing than most things. Most things are like things, you know, like cars and people and stuff. But ungraspability, absence of inherent substance of things, if you make that into a thing, that's a real monstrosity.

[43:21]

And then if you do, then when you realize what you're doing, then that's just another thing. It's not the situation that you're in. It's a situation converted into an idea or a concept. And it's a terrible concept. But it happens quite frequently. And then you jump back. But you actually have already jumped back. And that's a sign that you've jumped back. But it's also a sign that you used to be in a good spot. used to be in a spot there of abiding together in the phenomenal state. When you're really abiding in your phenomenal state, as you really settle into that, you realize that your phenomenal state will lack inherent existence. Again, like Dogen Zenji says, Okay, somebody said, oh, Charles, somebody said, where did Buddhists come from? Where did Buddhists come from? They come from this place that we're talking about.

[44:26]

They come from that place. They come from the mountains in the immediate front. That's where the Buddhists come from, okay? So someone asked, where did all the Buddhists come from? They said, eastern mountains move over the water. That's where the Buddha's coming from. What is going on with you, with your life, sitting exactly on the other end? It's culminating in the quality, the thorough exhaustiveness. But those qualities of your life are moving over the water. What's the water? It's emptiness. It's the fact that the mountain waxes during existence. But then Dogen then comes in and thoroughly exhausts the possibilities of that teaching of the eastern mountain moving over the water.

[45:33]

And he says that at the very bottom of the mountain touches the water. He says, the tiptoes of the mouse stick down in the water, and the water spurts up as the toes touch. Now, at that time, it's easy to jump away from him and say, no. But he is like, you know the tiptoe? What are the tiptoes of the mouse? It's a last rocky slope. It's a last rocky slope, right. What's a last rocky slope? It's the culmination of the qualities of philosophies. It's falling in mountains right down to the very possible last bit of mountain. It's being totally filling your phenomenal life.

[46:35]

You're totally there. How can you get everything to be that way? First of all, if you're a filmmaker, you totally exert the film all the way up to the edge of the screen. What's at the edge of the screen? It's also beyond the last weird thing he does there at the edge of the screen. Tiptoes of the mountain. Have you seen mountain toe tips? Have you seen mountain toenails?

[47:36]

Mountain toenails are at the edge of the screen. What's after the screen? Blackness. Right? Unless they have some exit signs up there. What's a blackness? That's a water, okay? That blackness is the most important thing that the filmmaker has to work with. All filmmakers work with light, right? But who can work with the rest of the theater? Who can work with the black that goes forever? But once you get the black in there, the black comes into the periphery of the screen. So what happens out there? You won't let the black in in the middle of the screen, will you? No. You guard it there. Black can't get in there. It's full technical. Lots of bright coming in there. You've got your eyes ready. I know what this is. OK. That's good. That's bad. I don't know. But to the edge, what comes into the edge, to the periphery, is blackness.

[48:41]

blackness is what you need that's what you go to the movie for to get that blackness what's the blackness it's the rest of your life besides what you know about it's the million power of the universe coming to cook where does it come in it comes in where you aren't looking It comes in on the edge. It comes in the places you never thought it would come. Because the places you thought would come, you're already looking for it to come at those places. And it ain't coming. And it's never going to until you forget about those places and look to the other places. And then it gets you over there. That's where it comes. It comes where you don't think. And where is it? It comes at the edge, where the toes of the screen are the toes of your life. of the mountains of your life touch the waters as mountains are walking over the waters. Splash, splash, splash. All this black water is coming into your life and refreshing you and sealing you to be a great blue.

[49:50]

The filmmaker has to work all the way to the edge of the screen, but doesn't forget about the edge. He works all the way to the edge. and uses that place as the most important place, and doesn't get people to look over there either. Takes a lot of stuff in the middle, gets interested in the middle, and then help them, cure them, heal them, inspire them to the edge, where the light moves the dark, where the form moves the emptiness. Emptiness is not Buddha. The form is not Buddha. Buddha is when form educates emptiness and emptiness educates the form. It's where the light informs darkness and darkness informs the light. That's where Buddha comes. Form and emptiness dancing together. Buddha is not emptiness. But if you're in form, emptiness wakes you up. If you're in emptiness, form makes you. There is a periphery of emptiness, too.

[51:00]

where emptiness splashes into form. We've got to get that in our life. Where do you get your life? You exert where you are. Watch the movie and eat popcorn. It's not what Dogen Sanji never would have said. Everything is for adventure. Before Dogen Sanji, he almost said it, where everything has for adventure. Yeah, well, to get things a little bit more up there, the fourth well-being is that everything has a good nature. Then he said, some people say, he said, everything is good nature. But actually what he said was, all being, total being, good nature. The total being could be said to say, have, the have or our exception. You could read it. All beings possess without exception.

[52:03]

He read it. Some people say all beings are without exception. But we combine the are without exception. It means totally are, total being. You, each of you, but not just you, but you with all being. You in a circle. You cooking. You being cooked. That. is your total being, that is Buddha nature. Not you by yourself, that's not who you are. You're not Buddha nature, but you, your total being, top of all being, that's Buddha nature. That's the total exertion of your position, okay? You cannot totally exert your position by yourself. If you go sit in a zenda, okay, sit there, sit there pretty well. That's pretty good. That is 50%.

[53:05]

You need all beings to help you to be 100%. When the bell ring or the being rings the bell, ding, if you're completely sitting, you can't, you don't want to move. Because you are all being, right? You've got to find your 100% effort, totally exerting. Great. Bell ring. I ain't going to move. No. Bell ring. You move. Because total being is also total flexibility. Total being is immobility. Totally exerting your spot and being willing to give it up like them. You've got to have both of those to be totally exerted. You've got to have a total exertion on your spot, at your time, who you are, and be willing to give that wonderful total exertion away. At the ring of a bell. Or somebody whispering in your ear, would you go work in the kitchen? Or you're totally exerted.

[54:13]

You're over here, totally exerted. And somebody stirs you up like this. And you can't totally exert over here. But that's total exertion. Total exertion had other beings come in and adjust your posture. Total exertion is immoveability and flexibility. But your flexibility, you can't be flexible by yourself because you will decide, I will decide, I'll be flexible. I'll say, okay, I'll be flexible. There, see? How about this? Okay? See, I'm flexible. Me, I can move. Somebody else says, okay, be flexible this way. Wait a minute, not that way. Okay? Be flexible but not moving. Well, that's not flexible. I have a different idea of flexible. You need all beings that are really flexible. To really exert your position, you also have to be changing constantly. But again, my idea of changing is a very small idea of changing.

[55:15]

Your idea of changing is also a very small idea of changing. But your idea of me changing, that's change. Each one of you turkeys has a different idea about how I should change. I can't keep up with that. I can't. I have no hope of keeping up with that, unless I can legally really flex on it. Well, I can't do it, of course. But if I could, if I could actually Keep up with what you want me to change to, what you thought was changing, what you thought my practice was. In other words, if I could live in the cauldron with all of you and totally exert my own limited idea of what my practice is, too. You don't skip over that one, too. You don't just sort of say, okay, whatever you say, you just fly around. You don't. You totally exert yourself. You sit like a moth and you don't move. And then you move when they tell you to move. Anybody any flexible?

[56:17]

We have no appointments. You don't have to be on time. Somebody stops and says, hi, let's talk all day. No problem. But when somebody's waiting for you, you can say still, no problem. You get in a meeting and they say, you know, it was really rude that you were late. That was actually really bad. Who do you think you are to keep us waiting? But if you've got people waiting and somebody wants to talk in the seat, what are you going to do? You've got a problem. You've got your pants. You don't know what to do. You've got a problem. You've got to be flexible. Say, hey, I've got to get out of here. I've got to go to a meeting. Can you come with me or leave me alone or something? Well, I don't know. I've got to talk to you a little more. Oh, gee, well, what do you do? You've got a position. And if somebody's asking you to move, change, or adapt, there's two qualities. Unmovingness. Unmovingness and flexibility. Unmovingness, you do yourself.

[57:19]

Flexibility, all things help you do. And you're one of the all. You have one vote. So you're not eliminated from the situation. But your vote is basically being clear. It's your vote. You should really vote completely that vote. That's your job. And then? Listen to other beings and hang out with people that are capable of making a commitment to you and to your life and expecting you also to make a commitment to them. Hang out with people that care about you. Hang out with people who need you to develop and say so in words. And hang out with people you need to develop, people you need for them to grow. Hang out with those people. And make a commitment. And don't break that bond until you're cooked. Oh, I was going to say one more thing. And that it's possible that after you get taste, a taste for creativity, a taste for what this real life is, okay, in the top there,

[58:30]

With the aid of all beings, you learn, you feel what it's like when the mountains dangle their toes down the water and the water splashes up. You see the water. You see it splash. In other words, you experience, you witness creation. This is what we're here for. This is the most healing thing to experience as a life is born. as light is born between darkness and the light, the toes of the mountain slashing into the wall of emptiness. Okay? You witness that. You get a taste of that. In that case, you can say, friends, neighbors, I'm not leaving the circle. I'm going off to find another circle. You can leave the circle. They let you go. And they may say, you can go. You finish your dialogue. Then you go someplace else and make a new simple thought.

[59:33]

Not necessarily go. So some writers and painters, I think, maybe actually go out by themselves and actually write by themselves for a while, and they do it OK. But you can find it again in a new circle. The circle may not look like a circle the way the first circle did. There may not be seven women who say, we're going to make this doll together in the next year. It may not be like that. It may be seven men who say, we're going to make a Buddha in 10 lifetimes. Or it may be three kids who say, we're going to make a pile of sand in 10 seconds. Or maybe an army of cockroaches would say, I'm going to eat this bread. You don't know what the circle will be. The circle can happen moment after moment after you find the taste of it. But we have to get this taste. But taste comes in circles. There isn't one good invention, many good inventions.

[60:46]

What? There isn't one good invention, there are many good inventions. Living nature has both of them, such that it is in the actual present, it has the quality of being both one and the same time. That's what is real. All the same, it's different. It all has a unique aspect. One of the qualities of the Buddha nature is that it pervades everything. See this? It pervades this. It pervades this. And it doesn't pervade this little sign out here. You can see a little sign here in the air that points and this is the Buddha nature. There is a sign in it, but it pervades the sign, too.

[61:48]

The big finger without a sign has no sign. It always pervades a unique thing, but it's always the same, too. That's why it can't pervade it. I just want to say one more thing. I know this guy in front of me. He's a French person. And French people grow up in circles. The circle, in that case, is a circle around a table, dinner table. They eat French food. French food is another example of the divine reaching into home. French people learn what French food tastes like. Then they come to America, even in California. And they start eating the food. Eventually, they get hungry.

[62:49]

They start eating. And then some of them notice that the food doesn't taste good. This one guy, he noticed the food didn't taste good. But he didn't know how to cook. He just went to a restaurant one time and mother cooked one. And yet he didn't want to eat the stuff that tasted the way the stuff tasted. So he started cooking. And he just kept cooking and cooking until the food started tasting like French pudding. He knew what it was supposed to taste like, but he didn't know how to make it. So he just kept cooking until it had that taste. All by himself. We know French cooks around town. So when you first find the taste of liberation in the circle, in the cauldron, with your friends, but after you get the taste, then you can just cook it up someplace else. with a different situation. And his taste is really nearby right now, really close.

[63:55]

It's exactly where you are right now, his taste. But it's on the periphery of your tongue. It's not right in the middle of your tongue. It's not right in the middle of the part that can spot salty and the part that can spot sweet. It's on the edge of all the little areas. That's where the taste is coming in. It's at the edge there. So exert the little salty taste, the little acrid taste, the little sweet taste. Exert them right to the edge. At the edge there, you will find taste of liberation. I really like this tack, I really gotta yield it. Sorry. It's all good magic, weird. My problem is sometimes I try to hold back.

[64:50]

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