Oh, these are for you if you'd like to have your own copy. Please take it with you tonight. Also, there's one copy here that says on the bottom of it, it's autographed, it says, Received 7-1707, Yoga Room, Berkeley, California. Anybody want that one? It's for Marjorie back there. So about six or so of the people in this room were at Green Dragon Temple last week for Seshin. Lenore? I mean Louise? Lois. Lois, can you hear me okay? And so we were talking about the close relationship between Bodhisattva vows in general and Zen meditation, and in particular the ten great vows of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra.

[01:34]

And so that's sort of in the room now, that all those discussions are sort of in here someplace, and I will be careful not to actually overwhelm you with a whole week's-a-sheen's worth of talks tonight. But just say, for starters, that I really appreciate your warm and sincere presence during these seven classes. And I am very happy about the disclosure, the revelation of the relationship between these vows and Zen meditation. And you probably are too.

[02:52]

I think, I don't know at what point in the class I brought this up, I think I started off by saying that the bodhisattva vow is basically opening, and the great vows of bodhisattvas are a great opening. That bodhisattvas proceed along the path of enlightenment for all beings. They wish this for all beings, but also they open to all beings. They don't just wish it and then stay away from all beings. They wish it for all beings and then they open themselves to all the beings they have this supremely wonderful wish for. And then I also mentioned that they have this big openness and also they have a big acceptance of a big responsibility. So it's a responsibility

[03:53]

open as a responsibility for our contribution to all beings, but it's also a responsibility that we accept that we can respond to all beings and we do respond to all beings. So the bodhisattvas proceed and carry out the vow which is to open and accept this truly vast responding that we're doing with all beings, to learn to open to this and accept this and fully participate with this truly wonderful relationship we have with all beings, to learn that And also somewhere along the way, I brought up this teaching from the Lotus Sutra, which is saying that those who practice all virtues, and practice all virtues means those who open up to all beings with the wish to help them.

[05:10]

And then in that openness and responsiveness, they practice being very tender and gentle, being harmonious and peaceful, being honest and being upright. That this is the way they live in this open, responsive field with all beings. And that in doing that, in being open and being that way in the openness, we will see the Buddha. and not just one Buddha, but we'll see the Buddha's teaching us right now. In other words, we will receive instruction in Dharma about how to carry out our life in this openness. If we're open and not upright, then it makes it harder for us to hear the teaching. If we're open and not gentle, it makes it harder for us to see the Buddha and receive the Buddha's teaching.

[06:16]

It's not impossible, but those who do open up and accept the responsibility and conduct themselves in this way will see and receive the Buddhadharma, and that will enable them to work even more effectively to act out this tremendous responsibility we have. I wrote out the Chinese characters for gentle, peaceful, honest and upright. So if you like one of those, you can come up here and get it after class. It's starting from... Chinese starts from right to left and goes down, so gentle, harmonious, honest and upright.

[07:24]

And then down the corner is my name, which is the whole works, which is apropos. Are those the same ones that are on the one that you're wearing now? It's the same, these same characters. You're welcome. And I was thinking also that, you know, tonight we were sitting here, as we often do, and there's this sound accompaniment occurring from the ballet classes and also street sounds coming in and sky sounds coming in. And we're sitting here and kind of maybe opening to it. And we're being upright and gentle with it and peaceful. We don't go down there and attack the piano player. So far, we've never done that.

[08:26]

We're open to the piano player and the music which comes from the piano and the street. So in this class, actually, it's a little bit like this Bodhisattva vow that we don't go to some place where there's no awareness of the variety of sentient beings. We sit with this group, but we also hear the street noise and the dogs, the cars, the trucks, the airplanes, and the ballet class. And sometimes we even have daycare next door with the children screaming. So it's kind of like a nice place to practice meditation of the Bodhisattva. And then one other thing I... Well, one thing I pointed out in the Session, which I don't think I pointed out here, is that there's a trigram, you know, like the I Ching has trigrams and hexagrams, and there's a trigram in the I Ching which is used to express the meditation of this Zen school.

[09:43]

And that trigram is called the fire trigram, and it has three lines, that's why it's called trigram. And the center line, the center of the trigram is a receptive line, it's a broken line, so it's receptive, feminine. And it's surrounded by two masculine lines, which are solid, and they're active, or responsive. So the core image of our meditation practice is that at the center is there's receptiveness. And that receptiveness or that openness is surrounded by activeness or responsiveness. So the trigram is a pictorial representation of the bodhisattva vow. But it's also a picture of the meditation of the school. And this trigram is called the Fire Trigram, partly because it represents the fire of our nature.

[10:51]

The fire of our nature, how we are basically an openness that receives the whole universe. And then in this reception, there's this response, our being and our activity. So that again is to say, which I said earlier, is that this is an image for the Zen meditation. And also the topic or the content for this meditation is the realized universe or is the universe the universal truth manifested now. Another way to talk about this meditation is that we're meditating on how our present experience is the manifestation of the whole works.

[11:56]

Our present experience is the perfected, the realized universe as our present experience. So that's the content of the meditation, and it's also the context of the meditation. So again, we open to all beings. We open to the universe. We open to the universe realizing itself in each one of our experiences and in all beings we meet. So that's kind of a summarized, I talked about that before, it's just kind of a reminder. And then these ten vows that I brought up of Samantabhadra, there was some response to them which I thought there might be.

[13:04]

Also at the session there was some response to these. There was some resistance to this teaching of the 10 great vows of Samantabhadra. And so what I think might be helpful to say is a couple of things. One is that Sometimes people think of meditation as like sitting, you know, being aware of your posture. Let's just start there, that they think of sitting as being aware of their posture and having a posture of uprightness. Just like in the yoga classes here, people can think, oh, you go to the yoga room and you do these various postures and you're mindful of them. And it's, you know, it's a wholesome thing to do. So the vows are that when you make a posture, which hopefully you do uprightly and tenderly and honestly and peacefully, you make a posture,

[14:29]

And then you also open, not just to all beings, but you open to all beings, you open to all suffering beings, but you also open to all Buddhas. So you stand or sit with openness and so on, but you open to all Buddhas. You're not just paying attention to your posture, you're paying attention to your posture and you're also opening to a relationship with enlightened beings and also opening to a relationship with unenlightened beings. And I think we all know or have had some experience of some difficulty in opening to unenlightened beings. We've had some difficulty with that or more than some.

[15:32]

and some resistance to opening to all suffering beings. But strangely, it sometimes is the case that people seem to have more resistance to opening to one or more enlightened beings. They think, what are you talking about, opening to Buddhas? Now, if we say, open to Shakyamuni, well, he's far away. Okay, yeah, fine. But how about Buddhas right now? And then how about lots of them? And how about lots of them in every dust mote and every dust mite? So one of the people in the class who generously pretended to resist, later actually discovered lots and lots of Buddhas he discovered in one particle of dust, and he took a picture of it.

[16:37]

Here's a picture of all the Buddhas he found in a particle of dust. He made copies and brought them here for you to see all the Buddhas he found in one particular particle of dust. He didn't say that he found this in all particles of dust, That's what Samantabhadra is suggesting, that if you wish, and I think these are for you to have, so you can have these too, if you like. So Samantabhadra says, if you wish to realize the inconceivably vast merit and virtue of the Buddhas, if you want to do that, if you want to realize that for the welfare of all beings, well, then just think like this. So whatever you're doing, if you want to realize the virtues of Buddhas, whatever you're doing, for example, if you're sitting at that time, also think that right now you are paying homage to Buddhas.

[17:45]

You can start with one if you want to. You're paying homage to Buddha. Your sitting is paying homage to Buddha. And if you're walking, you think that you're walking is paying homage to Buddha. And if you're running, or you're doing a triangle pose, or you're buttering toast, you think, I now pay homage to one or as many Buddhas as I can stand to think of making homage to. But I'll start with one. I pay homage to one Buddha while I'm buttering, did I say? Buttering this toast. And I pay homage to two Buddhas when I put peanut butter on. And then when I put jam on, I pay homage to infinite Buddhas in every particle of dust.

[18:47]

This is the way of thinking which one great Bodhisattva suggested that one enter into if one wishes to realize, not just enlightenment, but all the virtues of the Buddhas. They're not just enlightened, they're not just a great understanding, they have this tremendous, inconceivable virtues also. And then on, if you wish to, If you wish to accomplish this, make your standing or sitting, also make it praise to Buddhas. One Buddha, two Buddha, three Buddha, make it praise to infinite Buddhas in every particle throughout the universe. And then, onward and upward, make what you're doing an offering. If you're standing, make it an offering. If you're walking, make it an offering. If you're chewing, make it an offering. If you're shaking hands, make it an offering.

[19:51]

If you're saying hello, make it an offering. If you're turning a car on, make everything you do an offering. In other words, make every moment an offering. In other words, every moment make an offering. So you could say, while you're doing these things, make offerings. That's fine, too. While you're driving a car, make offerings. While you're driving a car, praise the Buddhas. But also, you can make your driving an expression of this homage, praising, and offering. In other words, make everything you do, remember to think that everything you do, everything you think, everything you say, every posture you make, is expressing and remembering to think of your relationship with Buddhas and all sentient beings, but they're number nine on the list. Number nine is whatever you're doing, accommodate to

[20:56]

all sentient beings, serve all sentient beings, make whatever you're doing that way, or think that whatever you're doing is that way, or while you're doing whatever you think, wish that to accommodate and serve all sentient beings, and so on. These are ways to think. And this way of thinking, which I point out in the Seshin, is what we call in Soto Zen meditation, non-thinking. This is a kind of thinking which we call non-thinking, or it's a kind of thinking which we call beyond thinking. It's a kind of thinking that's beyond thinking, or it's a kind of thinking that frees you from thinking and frees you from the karmic consequences of our thinking. So the problem in our life is that we do think, And our thinking has consequences, and the consequences obstruct our experience of the Buddha way, our realization of the Buddha way.

[22:04]

It's all pervasive. But because of our past thinking, we sometimes don't see it pervading everywhere. We think, well, it's not pervading Bernard. It doesn't go that far. But that's because of karmic obstruction that we don't see the Buddha way pervading Bernard and seeing infinite Buddhas in every particle of his body because of karmic obstruction. This is a new way to think. which will free us from the ways of thinking and the consequences of ways of thinking which obstruct us from seeing the Buddha's teaching coming through everything. Everything that comes is the Buddha's teaching. Like Tori Zenji says, nothing, there's nothing that's not the glorious revelation or the revelation of the glorious light. Everything is bringing you the Buddha's teaching. Think of that. In other words, vow that, think that.

[23:06]

So that's another dimension of this vowing, is that remember to make everything you do, or while you're doing anything, also remember to think of your relationship with all beings, all Buddhas, and by the way, think of a wonderful relationship with the Buddhas. Don't think of, you know, how you hate the Buddhas, how you don't want to serve the Buddhas, how you don't want to be like the Buddhas, how you don't want to make offerings. Don't think that. You already do think that. That's what people usually think. They're going around thinking, I'm not making offerings to Buddhas. Are you crazy? I'm making offerings to myself. This peanut butter sandwich is for me, not for Buddha. This isn't an offering to Buddha. That's weird. That's what people think. Some people think that. What if you? When I say I like you, I'm not praising Buddha. I'm saying I like you. When I'm praising myself, I'm not praising Buddha.

[24:08]

And also when I hate myself, I'm not praising Buddha. I just hate myself. I'm not going to praise Buddha while I hate myself. That's the way to go. Hate yourself and just let it stop at that and suffer. Don't hate yourself and simultaneously praise Buddhas and be happy. Don't do that. You're okay? You look stressed. Are you okay? Really? Maybe I should stop now. Maybe I'll stop, because it looks like Anne might have a question or a comment. I went too far. Like I said, I knew this might happen, so I'm going to try to cool it now. Anne? You actually addressed a question. I did address a question? What was the question? The hate question? Yeah.

[25:10]

I'm not saying that hate is a good thing. Hate's not a good thing. But why you hate somebody at that moment, open to all sentient beings. And one of the sentient beings to open to is the hater. The hater is a sentient being, and also the hate is a sentient being. Hate is a being. a deluded being, not an enlightened being, a deluded being, a sentient being, is hate. So when there's hate, open to it and accommodate to it. That's one of Bodhisattva vows. Accommodate to this hate. Serve this hate. Not serve it like help it do more hate, but help it become free of hate. And also, while you're at it, you're doing Buddha's work, so do Buddha's work. And while you're doing that, Pay homage to Buddhas while you're being open to hate, while you're being warm and soft and upright and honest.

[26:18]

This is hate. This is hate, but I'm gentle with it. I want to be gentle with it, and I want to be peaceful with it, and I want to be upright with it. Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention is that this fire, this fire trigram, which is representing the fire of our nature, the radiant, brilliant fire of our nature, which comes from the way we receive and give, which comes from the way we receive and respond, that's actually a fire. That fire at the center of our meditation, we're also instructed to be upright with it, In other words, don't lean into that fire and don't lean away from it. So we say turning away and touching are both wrong, for it's like a mass of fire. This bodhisattva vow, don't lean into it, be upright with it, don't lean away from it. And also we say, if you get excited about this fire, because it's a pretty fabulous thing, this fire, if you become excited about this radiant, brilliant, warm, true nature of all of us, if you get excited about it, it becomes a pitfall.

[27:39]

You fall into a pit. You get burned. And if you hesitate, you're lost, you fall into doubt and vacillation. So again, the way to be with this topic, the way to be with the Bodhisattva vow, the way to be open to all beings, the way to be with the core of the meditation, the way to be with all the Buddhas is upright. The way to be with the Buddha is don't touch the Buddha and don't go away from the Buddha. walk around the Buddha all the time, every moment, walk around the Buddha, paying homage to Buddha. That's again, traditional Buddhist practice is walk around the Buddha clockwise, as an act of homage. We don't have the people going up and hugging the Buddha. Usually, maybe special occasions where you get to hug the Buddha, but mostly you walk around the Buddha.

[28:43]

Don't go away from the Buddha. Do not go away from Buddha, please. Also, don't go touching the Buddha. Don't lean away. This is the way to be with the Buddha, right? This is the way to be with hate also. So if you don't see the Buddha to be with in this way, learn to be with hate properly. And as you do, you're open to the Buddha. And then practice the same way with the Buddhas. In that way, develop your relationship with the Buddhas. And I think Fran said this before she went on vacation, and also Tracy said this at Green Gorge, this meditation, this thinking about these bodhisattva vows, sometimes people say, it seems a little busy. Did you say busy? It was complicated. Yeah, busy, complicated, or like an imposition, or a super imposition on our situation. It is busy. It's true, it's busy. Our relationship with Buddha is busy.

[29:45]

We're busily relating to Buddha. That's the fire. We're busily relating to each other. We're busy bees relating to all the beings. We're really busy. That's the fire. We're busy yawning, right? We're busy. We're busy coughing. We're busy listening to each other. We're busy teasing each other. We're busy, we're busy, busy, busy. That's the way we are. We're busy paying homage to Buddha. But most people are like, give me a break. I just want to have my breakfast. Fine, fine. Now, how are you doing with your breakfast? Is it delicious? It's not too good. Well, now you're ready to open to your busyness, now you're ready to open to... Are you ready? So, this actual relationship of paying homage to Buddhas is what you're already doing.

[30:54]

You're already... Your nature is that you're all day long serving all beings, all day long doing Buddhist practice, all day long paying homage to Buddhists, praising Buddhists, that's what's actually going on, but it's implicit, and we don't realize it unless we practice it. By practicing this relationship with each other, not the relationship of being mean to each other, that one we do know about, that's not implicit, that's explicit. were explicitly mean to each other and petty with each other. Got enough of that? Fine. Open to that. And open to that, you are open to the implicit relationship with all beings, that you're generous with them, and that you're open to them, and that you're serving them, and that you also have this wonderful, busy, intense relationship with all Buddhas.

[31:57]

Open to it. practice it, and the implicit, all-pervading Buddha way will become explicit, and then you will realize it. The realized universe, which is implicitly what's happening, will become explicitly realized. So the way is already going on, but it's implicit, it's very subtle, it's very It's our intrinsic nature. We have to practice it for it to become revealed. We have to enact it. So maybe that's enough. And so now I welcome your feedback on whatever. Yes? Could you speak up, please?

[33:00]

Could you speak up, please? Maybe you should come closer. I'm having trouble hearing you for some reason. Maybe the digital recorder is having trouble. Give it a try. Going back to the subject of hatred, Yeah. The being of hatred. The being of hatred. Yeah. Trying to figure out how we'll try to work with that. You're trying to figure it out? Well... I already told you how. Do you remember what I told you? That's what I'm trying to see if I understood you correctly. Okay. So, I have a moment of hatred. Yeah? I'm generous with that being of hatred, so I allow it, I allow feeling the hatred, but not wallow in it, not go forward, not go into it or away from it.

[34:25]

Don't wallow or reject. Be upright with it. And, if possible, at a certain moment, when that being of hatred will allow it, then I could offer it to the Buddha? Could I say I offer my hatred to Buddha? Sure. You could do that, or you could say, I offer my uprightness to Buddha, which is a little bit more usual. To offer your practice to Buddha, rather than offer your poison to Buddha. But if you want to offer poison to Buddha, in the spirit of offering is fine. But usually we offer our practice rather than our problems. Our practice of being with our problems, the way the Buddha teaches, then we offer that practice, which we're doing, to the Buddhas. Could I say I offer my practice with hatred to Buddha?

[35:26]

Yes, definitely. I'm experiencing hatred in myself or others. I'm open and generous with that. I'm upright with that. And I offer this practice of generosity and openness and uprightness and gentleness, I offer this to the Buddhas." And the Buddhas say, right on. This is the best offering, the offering of practice in accordance with the Buddha's teaching. They love that offering. that you are practicing what they teach you. Other offerings are great too, like peanut butter sandwiches, lamps, flowers, incense, great incense, wonderful incense, wonderful flowers, those are all great. But the gift of Dharma, the gift of your devotion to other beings, the gift of your kindness to suffering beings, the gift of your practice of Dharma, this is a supreme gift.

[36:29]

Offering to Buddhists, yes. Could I ask a sequel to that question? A sequel? OK. Something related. Suppose I feel hatred, or hatred comes up in me, as I'm speaking with somebody right in front of me. I would want, unless... Under some circumstances, probably I wouldn't mind for the person to see my hatred, but as a bodhisattva, or even as a person who wants to be liked and who realizes that this hatred is sleazy, it's not right, I wouldn't want this being to see that I'm feeling hatred. Yes, that's not practice. That's another unenlightened being to open to. So now we've got two. We've got a hating one and a hiding one.

[37:32]

So open to both of those. Don't get involved with either one of them. Just open to them, be gentle with them, be generous towards them, but do not lean into either one of them. So now you've got two sentient beings. Any more you want to add? There's more. There's an infinite number of suffering beings. There's hiding suffering beings, disguising dishonest beings. I'm not angry, you know, all these different types of unenlightened beings. We have all of them. But we have some other ones who are honestly admitting that they're angry. So it's another kind of angry person. So all these beings, the same practice with all these beings. Any other feedback you'd like to offer? Norbert? And then, did you say your name's Lois? Norbert and Lois. I do, yes.

[38:35]

Well, again, you say that's so, but really you're being told to think about that. I'm not really saying that that is the case, although we do have photographs of that. But you open your mind to thinking that way. We don't get into that there is or isn't that many Buddhas, but we do get into thinking about that. Yes? using it as a key to unlock the gate and let yourself out of your thinking. Intending and vowing, yeah. Just saying that and then saying thinking, when we think, like when we take in perceptions and think, as the mind works or as the sense organs work.

[39:53]

Innumerable things, you know, this innumerable stimuli and innumerable thoughts. Going back to the Buddhist, going back to the, I think I may say it, not what is, but the dust mold that the innumerable Buddhist, innumerable ascetics opening to this. It's like a web. It seems like, I think of a web, It's like a web, yeah. We think we're the one jewel not in a web. We just think we're the jewel. There's the jewel and then there's the universe. There's us, the jewel, and then the rest of everything else. which may or may not be jewel-like. But anyway, it's us and them.

[40:56]

That's the way we think. And that's the kind of thinking that we're trying to liberate beings from or with. So this web, we are the web. Yeah, we are the web. We are the web. We're not really the web, we're the web realized as us. So I'm not the web, I'm the web as Reb. So you're not the whole universe, you're the universe realized as you. The whole universe is based on you and inseparable from you, but you're not the whole universe. The whole universe is based on Roderick and separable from Roderick, but Roderick isn't the whole universe. He is the realization of the universe in the form of Roderick right now.

[41:59]

And we want to learn how to open to this realized universe. These thoughts create the web, but also thoughts of not being in relationship with other beings. They also create the web. No matter what you do, you're creating the web. If you're close to other beings, you're still contributing to the web. You're responsible no matter what you do. If you feel closed and don't want to relate to people, and particularly don't want to relate to enlightened beings, if that's the way you're thinking, you're still contributing to the web. And the web is also supporting you to think that you're not in relationship to beings. All beings support you to think, I don't want to relate to anybody, or I only want to relate to certain people.

[43:07]

Everybody supports you to think about relating only to certain people, when you do. But also, When you think of relating to all beings, everybody supports you to relate to all beings. So you're responsible no matter what happens. And there's an instruction coming called, open to your responsibility, accept it. It's there anyway. Open to all beings, accept them. They're there anyway. But if we open to them, we will receive the true Dharma, and we will be able to help all beings. If we close to what we're actually related to, we'll blind ourselves to the truth which would set us free and set others free. But we're still in the same situation, whether we open or not. I see Nancy, but I think Lois is first, then Nancy.

[44:15]

Thank you. I've lost my mornings. I'm totally in this. Because I started out with one question, but I realized a childlike moment that I think I've brought into the rest of my life in which I would discover something in the present. Somebody would say, I'm not angry, and I would know that he or she was angry or something, and I would try to say, but you are, or I feel it, and I would be denied, and I kept trying. And that feeling of isolation ultimately has prevailed in my life. I feel that. And when Raymond was talking about opening to hatred and how to not let the other person see, I feel defenseless in, you know, just raising my hands and saying, well, how can I be open to this?

[45:29]

What am I open to? And I find like I, what you said about hiding, I want to hide away, I want to go away from that. So I don't feel like I'm contributing anything, because if I say something that's opposite, the person is fighting me, and otherwise I'm fighting them. It just feels like a little bit of a war, rather than an openness that you're describing, which is what my sense of the initial feeling is, of oh, let's get it on the right track. Or, you know, we may not be able to get it on the right track, but we may be able to open and see the right track, and then once we see the right track, then we may be able to help others see the right track. What do you think? Well, I think that, you know, you were young when you first discovered certain things, and you were honest about it,

[46:30]

but you hadn't been taught how to be upright and gentle and harmonious. You hadn't been taught that yet. So you tried to be honest, which was part of the game, and you actually opened to the anger, for example, which is part of the game, but you weren't educated about how to deal with the openness. And if you don't relate in the openness properly, you are not going to be able to see the right way to respond to what you're seeing, which is really kind of tragic. But now you're able to hear the teaching and learn a new way to relate to what you didn't have instruction about or couldn't hear instruction about when you were younger. So that when you see someone, who's angry, you don't necessarily tell them that they're angry. You open to it. And you're very gentle about it.

[47:33]

And you're very upright about it. You're not leaning into or away. And you're peaceful with it. And then you hear instructions about what to do. Like, maybe ask a question. Like, are you feeling angry? And they say, no! And you say, oh. And then they say, well, maybe a little, or whatever. But you proceed very gently. You learn to do that anyway. And then when you learn to do that, you start hearing instruction from the Buddha about how to proceed. So now you're ready to learn this and do this. And it's sad that there were these past times when you saw things and didn't know how to relate, and then people rejected your reality, and that was very confusing. So it's nice that you survived, barely, to hear the teaching, to hear the wonderful teaching of the Bodhisattva vow.

[48:42]

When you speak about not leaning in or not going away, it sounds so simple. Yeah, it sounds simple, but it's not. It is challenging. This is challenging, yeah. If somebody describes to you how to do a headstand, it sounds simple, but then when you actually try it, it's very dynamic. One moment it's this, and the next moment it's that. But we have to learn how to be open, but again, We learn how to open and then we have to learn how to deal with the openness so we can try again. So one of the things we talked about at Green Gulch is that in the transmission of Buddhism, of the Buddha Dharma to the West, particularly during the phase which we call the beat generation, a lot of those people had some kind of big opening, but they did not have education about how to deal with the opening and a lot of them were destroyed

[49:54]

because they could see, but they didn't know how to deal with it. And if they spoke their mind, but not gently and not uprightly, they get a lot of negative feedback back, because they saw something that other people didn't see. So then they started medicating themselves, so that they'd be more gentle. And they killed themselves with their medication. But some of them found a teacher who taught them how to deal with this, and those people you know, survived into maturity. Opening is dangerous and closing is dangerous, but closing is the way of perpetual misery. Opening is dangerous, but it's the way of the bodhisattva vow. It's the way of the revelation of the truth and the joy of helping all beings. But it is challenging, very challenging. because you're really diving into the mess with everybody.

[50:57]

You're really opening to the suffering of the world. That's a very dangerous situation. And closing to it is equally dangerous, but no point in it. It's just dangerous and miserable. This other way is dangerous and liberating. Okay, so Nancy, then Maloa, if there's time. I just wanted to kind of share my train of thought of what happened to me after the last class. Okay. So, I live in Walnut Creek, and the streetlights in Walnut Creek are really long. Are really what? They're like two and a half minutes. You have to wait more than that. Oh, the semaphores. What? The semaphores. Stoplights. Yeah, yeah, right. Aren't they called semaphores? Hallelujah. But anyway, I kept thinking about, this is the universe realized, and this is the universe, the realized universe.

[52:22]

I mean, I just wanted to see if my train of thought is... Yeah, you were doing Zen meditation at the streetlight. And I'm thinking, this is the universe realized. And my train of thought is, someone said, I want these lights to be two and a half minutes long. Wait a second, at that point, that train of thought, when you went to the next thing, I didn't hear you say that that was the universe realized. That's when you lost it. You lost seeing that that thought was the universe realized too. So you tune into the meditation just as the Bodhisattva does at the stoplight. Then you opened to the being of the stoplight, and you said, this is the universe realized. That's right. Then you started thinking, somebody blah blah. But then you didn't tell me that when you thought somebody blah blah, that that was the universe realized.

[53:25]

I did think that though. Oh good. I mean, I thought, this is the universe that they wanted realized. No, no. No, you slipped off a little bit there. When you think this is the universe they want, that's a sentient being that you could open to. You thinking that about those people, that's a being. You can open to that and realize that that being who thinks that thing about those people, that being called, you know, your thoughts, not their thoughts yet, because this is really your thoughts about them, Your thoughts are the realized universe. You seem kind of crestfallen. You could. Yes, it would. But you still missed the point.

[54:26]

didn't like the way they were, that's also the realized universe. And I could do something about it, and that's the realized universe. So you're demonstrating how difficult it is to stay upright with this stuff. So you're practicing seeing what's happening as the realized universe, the universe realized as this, but then something comes up And you think that that's the way things are, rather than that this is another example of the realized universe. So then you start leaning into it. Now, if you don't like the way it is, and you remember that that's the realized universe, you're doing the practice. If you don't like the way it is and you think, I could do something about it, that's true, but you're missing, you've slipped off the practice again at that point. And it's true that all those points would be the realized universe. They are. But some of the points you missed making that explicit.

[55:40]

You didn't think that while you did that. So then there was a gap in your meditation. So whatever you think is the realized universe as you're thinking, But looking back and saying, well, that was the realized universe, is different from, this is the realized universe. This is the realized universe. This is the realized universe. So you're right when you say that that's so, but you miss the practice when you forget to think that. What? Yes, and to remember that makes it explicit, and that changes the way you're going through your thinking. And still the story you told could be the case, that you have this thought, I don't like this, realized universe, I could do something about this, realized universe, and maybe I am going to do something about it, realized universe. But if you do something about it, and they don't change the lights, you're happy.

[56:46]

because you've been practicing the whole time. And you make an offering, like, I would suggest making these lights longer. Oh, that wasn't it, was it? You make your suggestion, but your suggestion is the realized universe, and then not listening to you is the realized universe, too. And you, you know, you're in the practice of opening to all the situations and being gentle with it and upright with it. and receiving Buddha's instruction, and having the joy of the practice, going through this story, regardless of how it works out. I thank you for that. I thank you for it, too. But the final place that I got to was that I could make requests, and I usually don't. And I felt kind of freed up to do that. You can, and you can make the requests as gifts, without any expectation, and have the joy of living that way, of being generous, which means giving yourself with no expectation, which is another way, is a way to train at everything being an opportunity to pay homage to Buddhas.

[58:18]

to serve beings. You actually are always serving beings, you're always a gift, but if you don't practice it, you miss that moment, at least one moment you miss. And one of the ways you can be a gift is to make a request with no expectation. Maloha? My question had to do with when you were talking about the thinking and the non-thinking, and then you were talking about Bernard, and you said something about if we're thinking that non-thinking way, that it freezes from the obstructions, the karmic obstructions. When we're thinking in the non-thinking way, it freezes from our thinking. Yeah. When we're thinking in the non-karmic way, it freezes from our karma. Because then we're not accumulating the karma that we would be thinking if we were doing the thinking.

[59:25]

Well, that too. That too. But it even frees us from the effects of past karma. Although the karma still has effect, we have a way of working with it that generates freedom. And it has these different names. Bodhisattva vow, meditating on Genjokan, or non-thinking, just different words. I'm trying to tie together different Zen practices into this bodhisattva vow. Yes, Jerry? So, if I encounter another being, and I have a reaction to that being, can I not... Excuse me, could I say something? When you encounter another being, Then you said, I react, but you didn't say, I open to them. You missed that part. No. And I don't open right away.

[60:26]

You don't notice. You react. Instead of opening to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas over there, what about opening to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas over here? So then that changes the whole thing. Yes. So if you encounter someone, you meet someone, you don't open, you react, but if you then open to your reaction, then you're on track. Did you follow that? Yes. Then you're on track. Now you're starting to open. When you open to yourself, you can also open to the Buddhas. Really, when you meet someone and you react, you miss the opening, because when you meet someone, you first open and then you respond.

[61:30]

When you only notice the response and you don't notice the opening, then it seems like a reaction rather than a response to something that was given to you. You miss the generosity of the other person because you didn't open to it. and then you feel reactive. But then, it's not over, because now there's another being to open to, and then you won't be reactive to that one, you'll be responsive to that one. You'll be tuned into responsibility rather than reactivity, because you'll be also aware of receptivity. But if you miss the receptive, and only notice a reaction, and feel like it is a reaction, then you can start then. Find the receptivity there. And now you're back in the practice. Any other feedback from people who have not given me any feedback yet? Elizabeth?

[62:33]

I think I'm kind of building on what's been coming up, which I'm really grateful for the people. And it's been a really painful time for me for a few weeks Something in my life having to do with having my house painted has triggered this immense opening in a way to, I think, a really core theme for myself. And I'm not sure how to practice with it. And it's what's come up is this decision I made so beyond pre-verbal times to accommodate and to let myself be hurt before I would hurt someone else. And I don't know how to practice that in terms of... Even if I can say that publicly, it doesn't stop me from wanting so much to hurt myself rather than hurt somebody else. Well, that's a being. That's a being. A being who would rather hurt herself than someone else.

[63:37]

There's other types of being, but that's one you've got right there. So we do this. We be honest about that. We're being honest. And also be very gentle with that. Be gentle with this person who wants to, in order to not hurt somebody else, maybe hurt herself, be gentle with her. Be very tender with her. And be peaceful with her. And be honest, you got the honest part. And now also be upright with her. Don't lean away from her. Don't lean into her. Just be with her this way, open to her, and then take care of, and then be with her in this way, this is the way. And again, it sounds easy, but it's not necessarily easy. But it is possible for human beings to learn this. You could learn this. So you've got the being, you're open to this being, that's good.

[64:39]

And you're honest about it, that's good. Now you need to add these other three dimensions to your presence with it. Got to learn that, those three. And you can, you can learn it. You can learn to be balanced with this. You already know how to be not balanced with it. How to lean one way or another. Lots of opportunities for that. But the balanced place is difficult to find, and that's only for a moment. Then you have to find it again, and again, and again, and again. Well, the being's changing too, so you have to do it with the next being, and the next being, The next thing that's revealed, the next thing you're honest about, the next thing you're open to. So this is the practice. So please remember that teaching. Open to all these beings, all the beings in you, all the beings that are other people. Open, open, open. Honest, gentle, upright, and harmonious or peaceful.

[65:40]

Over and over. Try to do all these four. And if you're closed, then you have nothing to be upright with, really. So then you've got to open again. But again, it's not easy to open, because you know you might get hurt if you open. Because suffering beings are in pain, and if you're open to suffering beings, you might feel the pain. But that's the Bodhisattva way, is to open to this. It's there anyway, as soon as possible. Not as soon as possible, but as soon as you can gently do so. Anyway, now you're opening to it, so this is good. This is good. How are you doing? Are you upright? I'm remembering gentle and upright, but I keep forgetting it's harmonious. And forgetting, forgetting is also something to be, another being called the forgetting being, be upright with her, be gentle with her who forgets.

[66:49]

She's the law, she's around the law. Yeah, but be honest about it too. She forgot, she forgot, she forgot. And then you practice confession and repentance with her in a gentle, upright, not hedging it, you're upright with her and she did forget. But now she's remembering. There's a moment of remembering now. And we're not leaning into the future when she might forget again. We're right now remembering. And if we forget, then we have something to be honest about. Okay? All right. Tracy? Could you show us the pictograms and describe each one so we might remember them? Describe them? This one looks like a leaf, sort of, doesn't it? Can you see it looks kind of like a leaf? Or grass or something? It's the soft one.

[67:55]

They do, actually. They do. They do often do that. This one, maybe, does this look kind of upright, this one here? Can you see that one, the upright one? This is the upright one. Can you see that that's kind of upright? Huh? Can I ask a little quickly, you're talking about these as beings? Everything, every experience is a being. Emotions are beings. All things that exist are beings. They come into being. An ant's a being, a rat's a being, a person's a being, but all the feelings of a person are also beings.

[68:59]

They're beings. everything, you know, are mountains of being. It's not what we call a suffering being, but it's a being. We should open to all beings, but in particular we should open to the ones that are suffering. But actually bodhisattvas don't just open to suffering ones, they open to the non-suffering ones too. The Buddhas, they're not suffering, they're totally inundated by pain, because they're open to everybody's pain, but they're not suffering because they welcome it, and they know how to practice with it, and they love all these beings who are suffering, so they're very happy to feel the pain of the beings that they love. But they're not suffering. They're cool with the whole thing. They're very happy. They're nothing but connected to all these suffering beings, and the suffering beings are not yet able to connect with all the suffering beings. They don't yet realize the net, the web. They don't yet realize the web.

[70:01]

Marianne? You haven't asked a question yet, so you get to ask one. This weekend you had two families at your house. Is that a total of three families? Yeah. You felt rejected? So there was a rejected being in the place? Okay. So there's lots of people inside me that I'm open to. And then my daughter came up to me and said, Mommy, why were they invited and we didn't get invited? So, I didn't know how to respond, because it was hard for me to tell her that this is arising.

[71:15]

I couldn't explain it in terms that I was trying to deal with it. Honestly, you want to be honest. Yeah, honest. Sounds like you didn't do the honesty thing very well there, Marianne. I think it would be probably to ask her how she's feeling. That would probably have been good. How do you feel about that? And help her to be honest about how she felt. You don't necessarily tell children everything you feel. It's not necessarily hiding not to tell them what you're feeling. But in this particular case, with your particular daughter and this particular you, I think you could have asked her how she felt, and she might have been able to tell you that she felt sad and hurt, and you might have been able to say to her, I do too.

[72:27]

But if we get hurt and we're not upright, then that makes it harder for us to say things like, well, how do you feel? And then we kind of lean into trying to make it okay. They had 23 baboons in their car, so they couldn't take it. I think you lost your balance a little bit, and then because of that, you weren't open to something you could have done, Like you and she could have shared your pain of not getting to feel that they were inviting you. So I think you lost your balance there a little bit, and tightened up a little bit maybe too. But you did open to it, because you can tell us that you felt that pain. You open to that being who felt hurt about this.

[73:31]

that unenlightened person who saw this in a way that was painful for her, and you opened to her, but it seemed like you didn't really stay balanced and gentle enough with her, so that when another suffering being came to ask, you were not fully able to assist her to get to the same place, to guide her, to be open and honest and upright and so on with her pain. But, you know, it almost could have gone that way, that if you'd been able to stay with yours in that way, you could have helped her, and then together, you two of you could have been very, you know, intimate and happy sharing your pain over that. You want to be loving and kind, and those who wish to be loving and kind,

[74:42]

Open, enter, enter the realm of beings to practice. Now, not try to practice being loving and kind with the people. That's what you want. Now enter, open and be this way in the space and you will realize, that vow will be realized. So you are entering, you got that part down. Now you need to train yourself, train your practice to be this way, in this open field of suffering that you've entered. And then you will realize kindness and skillfulness and compassion. The Baha will be realized by this practice. Anybody else that hasn't given me feedback they'd like to? Yes? I guess my imagination is vivid, and so when you said there were innumerable Buddhas in dust mode, I saw dust everywhere.

[75:50]

Again, I'm not really saying that there is. Oh, I know, I know, but the idea of it. Yes, the idea of it. You saw a lot of dust modes. It became almost back to light, because everything around me, and so then when I put my hand out like this, it just made me laugh. It made me feel really, you know, there was just something very joyful about it. Thanks for the feedback. Any other feedback? Okay. I've been fed. Thank you again very much. Thank you very much for your teaching. Jennifer? Thank you very much for making this possible.

[76:41]

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