Zen Meditation - Sitting in the Middle of Fierce Flames

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i was talking to some friends
over there a few minutes ago
and i say well seems like it's time for me to go to the class and so what's cross about so well
it's about
being surrounded by
lot of suffering and how to respond appropriately to it
and one of the people said
can you teach that and in one meeting
i said no it takes seven

so now we're in the middle
of the seven lessons want to come close to linda
linda want to come closer

so here's a basic principle
that i offer to you which is
here that that that we are each of us living
surrounded by all the suffering of the world
that's our situation and then sort of like
accepts that
and then wonders how to work with them in a way
in a way what that down
in a way such that
the
most beneficial
ah response to the situation can arise or no way to put it is so the situation
can be benefited
most appropriately

so i just thought of it of an ancient sad story about this very sincere
you can call present student anyway he was a he was a buddhist monk yogi and he meditated a lot
and
but he still hadn't found
a place of peace and a friend of his
to make a long story short said you know
just let it come out
from here and
cover the whole world
and it was just he was ready for that and from then on that's what he did
so all of us can do that but
we have to be here completely
in order to let being hair completely just come forth
of course it's already going on
and yet if we don't accept being in our position where we actually are
then
then the realization
of this teaching coming forth somehow seems to be not yet
not yeah the case

there are
hey have you heard of you probably all heard of the term nirvana right
there any but not heard that word before
so nirvana or is is defined often as peace or freedom

and anything you any idea you have about this nirvana
it's not nirvana
so you can say
nirvana's peace but that idea that nirvana's piece is of course not nirvana even though that's maybe accurate
in other words piece is something that nothing that we say about it
is it
nirvana the beyond anything we can think about it freedom and peace
what are the article the piece which passeth all understanding that's the king james bible version i think a piece which passeth all understanding but i would say it's a peace that passeth all ideas
we have about it
nirvana's
free of all of ideas

in order to be free of all my ideas i have to
i guess completely accept all my ideas as such as just ideas
is that right near the rumors that can be
or to your class going up against a wall
victory
ah
so the the another sort of that the principle is that when you when we get into our actual
proper position with oliver yoga props
that the appropriate response will just flow out of us without us figuring it out

one time i was getting kind of improv theater improv workshop and i think the the the instruction was
pick somebody and start dancing with them
and then start in as your dancing start on
expressing you are expressing a poem together
and so i was dancing with this why i think it was a woman and we're trying to ah
you're trying to do this poetry creation and i felt like it was kind of like it wasn't flowing very well
and so i felt like i needed to get more into the dance
so i picked her up off the ground and held her above me and turned danced with are like that and that required a lot more a presence on my part
then just the way out dancing with her before and then
the poetry was unhindered of course it was a temporary poetic expression because i couldn't hold her up very long
but in that turn right on the edge a catastrophe
np giving all my presence to holding her safely in the air with the music
by the way this poetry just came out i don't know what it was but it was really beautiful and it was effortless and it was smooth and i didn't have to think about it
but when some of my thinking power was not been completely absorbed into the dance he had actually gotten the way of the poetry

so the again the basic principle is if we completely
settle into our position
we will become free of our position and when were free of our position our position
respond appropriately draw the suffering that's around us we are surrounded by suffering
if we can see em each of us has our own position in it a unique position and if we can politely accepted it will just flow the appropriate response would just flow forth
and as a proper response cannot be figured out intellectually
this appropriate response
the
when when our life is completely settled into his position that
is not reached by discriminating discriminative thought
but discriminate just thought it doesn't reach it but also it's not this position is not someplace other than our discriminative thought it's just that we don't use our discriminate some thought to try to figure out how to have discriminative thought
we just have whatever discriminating thoughts are going on completely we don't use them to figure out how to get out of outlive them we aren't trying to figure out how to live we are just living
and there is quite a bit of intellectual
history and the terms of lots of stories about intellectual activity in the buddhist tradition
but today i would suggest that these stories about this intellectual activity our stories about people
in conversation trying to settle into that intellectual activity
not use the intellectual activity
to be at peace but settled into the intellectual activity
just like settle into emotional activity and not too many people try to use emotional activity
it's not so common for them to use emotional activity to try to access peace but you could but not use it to do that but use it as what you are letting yourself completely be and incompletely being your emotional activity
the appropriate response will flow out with guarantee we don't use deliberate with our emotions
but we often do deliberate with are deliberately equipment with our intellect
so there is records of people having intellectual discussions and then the middle of the intellectual discussions they settled into the discussion
and realized this natural flow and then they demonstrate the flow by the intellectual is by the intellectual
the intellectual activity isn't coming from the intellect
is coming from settling into the intellect and then
in from this not intellectual place the intellect comes out and the intellect proves that it didn't come from the intellect
but it's not an intellectual expression it's a proof of what is beyond in a lot it's not a discriminative conceptual conscious activity it is using the conscious activity
to prove that this is coming from a place where contests activity has dropped off
and similarly to enter that place which has happens to be where we are we have to completely embrace our intellectual activity or emotional active are sensing activity or intuitive activity
we was fully engage them in order to enter the place which is beyond them and then we use them
again to demonstrate that we've reached the place beyond them

so here's an intellectual thing to say it's kind of intellectual for me peace dash in nirvana
is not something that you enter after you leave
samsara so we have some sorrow and nirvana nirvana's paste some sorry is not peace time sorry is
his war is his stress is conflict
his confusion is suffering
it's birth and death and birth and death that's one
when somebody call that that's one
that's one word for our life
and another word for our life is nirvana
so one of the teachings for people who are
living in the middle ball suffering and want their life to liberate all beings that they're living in the middle of a teaching for them is that
peace
and war
are the same
peace is the way war really is
war is one of the ways piece really is
war is beyond your idea of peace

and in early buddhism and seem like a lot of people thought leave the realm of birth and death and misery and suffering you leave that and then you go over to nirvana
so the teaching for body surface is that
well i guess one thing is really we don't leave the world of suffering and go to nirvana
if if we did than nirvana would just be another form of suffering
we don't leave suffering to go to nirvana we wake up to that suffering is peace
some people say yeah so one one meaning for the bodhisattvas is that the suffering is never separate from the peace the suffering has never separate from great compassion there's no floating great compassion or here and suffering some
place else
compassion is always completely
in substantially in solidarity with suffering
compassion is always with suffering is never someplace else and i said that before the other side's harder for people that suffering is never someplace else from compassion there's no orphan suffering
suffering always has compassion with it
pick because compassion have no place on to be
i'm talking to myself well then if compassion is no place to be it wasn't they can just be no compassion but it does no compassion does not suffering there is no suffering with our compassion so that's nirvana some sorrow
are inseparable another point people some talk to talk about it is this two different ways of seeing our life
that's okay our life is actually not too different lives there's two different ways of seeing it
and you can say this two different kinds of life misery and peace
but thomas to two different ways of seeing the life but there's another way which is
these ways of seeing
like the way of seeing
our life which is misery is diluted way of saying
and you can say and the enlightened way of saying our life is nirvana
but the diluted way of seeing our life so that it looks like suffering it also is actually nirvana in our delusions actually
our delusions are actually something to wake up to as peace
and these comments sort of to meet for now they seem to go along with our job is to be totally here
which includes the entire universe kit includes the entire universe so no matter what it is that you mention that's something basically anything you mention is an opportunity
anything you mention is not nirvana but also anything you mentioned isn't your mana but let's start with not nirvana because we have a hard time we're not nirvana
so anything is an opportunity to realize with this thing

anything is an opportunity to realize what is the case with this thing and sometimes said we had this term you've heard about a zen on and who had not heard the word co on please raise your hand
so call on actually means public case it's a public example of reality
which are offered in the forms of
conversations
where people are trying to help each other
be the on be the case realize that this is the current case of reality

so real to say that this is the case means this is real
this is the case
to be realized

last week at the end of the class people were asking some questions or and also making some faces and
right last week i was in europe and people were making faces
but the last meeting here which was two weeks ago people were asking questions and making faces in the faces they're making
made me feel like they were struggling that there are struggling that they were
yeah struggling trying to understand
their life
and also trying to understand their life in relationship to what i was saying
and i felt the the flames
kind of
being turned up
just like now i feel
the the heat big turtle
it's getting hot under here
you it's okay how just taken i'll just take some my closer
he's can carry on without me on be right back
i don't want to shock you
with lightyear modesty
so not nine in different room for the sake of it's recording equipment
and i'm taking off my some my clothes

sam iraq silly great

and so
yeah and i in response to the pits seeing the struggling people i was struggling
to meet them
i guess i would i do in lieu of this example i just gave their a ago i was trying to find a way to dance with them you know that completely
absorbed me so that the poetry could come
but i must admit i i didn't quite get there
i think if i pick book one or both of them up and held on by my head and turn either clockwise or counterclockwise i probably would we probably would have found
yeah we probably would have found the right place
and all of our problems would have dropped away and we would have left was going us come out
but
i don't know if i could pick these people up i'm not i'm not as a deluxe like quite a few years ago that i did that
okay water
who wasn't to day she wasn't too big now she was
not to be a waitress she was quite i think she was pretty tall but she wasn't very heavy
cause and i don't know she and i don't even know if i asked her if i could lift lifter
but we're already dancing so you know it's kind of like it just sort of flowed into
levitation
sure to serve float up there she was part of the it wasn't like me imposing this she was like ziemlich guy was fine with her she as she started to lift off she didn't say wait a minute
nasty she's heard of went with it and and it over time

there
so again when you were each of us is in her position which is composed of psychophysical events
ideas
all kinds of perceptions emotions feelings and physical sensations
intellectual and intuitive all that's going on
and it's called all of that calling for us
to be present with it to be present with it and again when can book the present with it
the blessings of this life
come forth
being pleasant with
the blessings and been blessed present with the not blessings
if we think something's not a blessing that equally as calling for our presence as the so-called blessings
to all blessings are calling for compassion to
the good children are calling for compassion along with the naughty children
and some good children give up on being good because they think they'll get more compassion if they're naughty
there you know even though they're good children they're not that good that they're not doing some calculations on how much love they're getting
and one pattern is at the the first born child plays the good card and that's working pretty well and they're getting a lot of love for playing the good card
they're playing the good card as a way of saying please listen to me compassionate parents and then the next child comes along and says you know i see that that works for her
but i think if i do it our gifts for like the leftovers
so i'm going to try a different technique from what they're doing
and then they'll get all the that then the parents will listen to all their good cries and i'll draw the nasty naughty clock cries and i'll get all the attention to the nasty cries because i'm the only one is doing those ones
whoa
i have a young granddaughter won the first words she learned was oh
and i think i'm going to have a couple here
yeah somehow these are these hearing his gut
closed and therefore their den
huh
can you show me the kind you have
anyway so far i haven't had too much heart trouble hearing because i've been doing all the talking
i've been listening
yeah let's try
let's see
think mine are smaller

can you show me one
is comes up to big okay so that's that
thank you very much linda
thank you kim or barry
he thought
and i'll watch your lips
i'm another way of saying this is
which i've said before
is
being observing the observing all living beings which means for example you are you observe all of us and beyond with eyes of compassion
the that and that means eyes of compassion while i just bought finish the sentence that observing with eyes of compassion create an ocean or blessing
it doesn't it doesn't say eyes of compassion the eliminate living beings highs of compassion observe living beings doesn't say if you watched living beings by the way it means not buddhists
many people who are haven't yet become buddhas so there are still suffering
so actually eyes of compassion are observing suffering beings and the suffering bands can be like other human beings but also yeah it can be observing your own struggles
it can be observing like that you that you know you're hearing aids got closed and they aren't operating it can be observing
earlier today i was
are charging my car had michelle linda's house
and on
the korg the charging cord went into their garage and the michelle close the garage door and that it came out and it couldn't get the garage door open because a little struggle we had was a garage door
and we felt a little struggle their it like
michelle started tearing his hair out
oh my garden
have trapped this got here
and i'm thinking know he's got my charging cord forever
etc we were having all struggle around that
the way i felt the way he felt and the lender did you read and you have got also got you had some feelings about that
those feelings that we had for those emotions that arose in us those are those are living beings
those are
those hours suffering
not too bad but and also the suffering we had at the end of class not too bad but it was insignificant
was the flame of the our
these are these are the opportunities how we feel and how other people feel this is what we can observe with eyes of compassion
and when that observing
is really
fully operating then blessings arise and develop into oceans of blessings
and the eyes of compassion or eyes that really like they really look at the suffering and not they don't look at it too hard and they don't look at it too easy
so like the example i gave of looking at my daughter's face
when i said to her if you don't get a job in a week i want you to move out i really like i didn't so much think i'm looking at or with eyes of compassion but now i'm telling you i think i did because i was looking at her knowing that what i was saying to her was not particularly uncomfortable for her to hear
to hear her father say
first of all her father said your mother and i would like you to move out of the house in a week if you don't get a job and her mother said i changed my mind
just go is just your father me
i'm looking at your face telling you not a real fun message what is a message i want you to move out of this house at the end of the week and end of a week if you don't get a job but i looked at her and her
and i didn't expect to face to be smiling or at ease or i didn't know what it would be
i didn't know what it would be but i really looked at it
and she could tell that i was really looking at it and she was she gave me back her face

and i and then there's a wonderful happy ending happened but before the happy ending happen
the blessings were being were arising from me just telling her who i was
which is who i am
and i had the job of showing her that
and when i show it to her though to look at her when i give it
and to see how she handles it and if depending on she hadn't handles it depending on how she handled how i give myself to her
then i will give her depending on that i will give her another version of me
because it did that the job doesn't end there
it goes on
and to see what my next who the next person i am i'm in the next person either who's looking at her
or who's not
so looking at
your own struggles and the struggles of others with eyes of compassion i think take it to the take it all the way if you really are there for the person and you're facing
how they are dealing with you and how they are dealing with other people
louder
have you missed last week
maybe you missed the last class
anyway just let me say briefly
a very happy ending but i was talking to i think katie maybe or maybe i'm talking to carmen and i thought maybe i shouldn't tell the happy ending because it's not like when you do look at somebody like that there will be a happy ending like in the next day
but in this story
well actually the happy ending happened that night the happy ending was of that conversation where she stayed there with me and she did not which i did not flinch
and turn away from her and she stayed with me and went and then she got up and walked into her room and did not slam the door that's already a blessing
a and then a whole bunch of other blessings came after that but maybe i shouldn't tell all the blessings because sometimes you can't see him
you can't see how the person changes inside sometimes you can see are you change inside and then sometimes if you do change inside you might change what you give so you might say if you don't get a job by the end of the week i want you to move out and you look at the person's face and then you say no i don't
because somehow
you you when you look at a new change and someone you don't you know if that person anymore
so i'm in my case yeah i said your mother and i and her mother said on i'm not there anymore
she she wasn't on their page but if i had changed and said and looked at her and said
it okay your father wants you to move out of the house
if you don't get a job by the end of the week and i look at her and something about her face and something about the way i'm feeling between us to thing happens which is our relationship it's not so much her or me is this relationship that's the truth and the truth can shake and then i might say oh i'm not there anymore and that her mother say i am
i'm
now i know i came i do want you to so it but you have to be there to move with it
so the poetry keeps coming because you're with it
and
i had had many conversations before where i told her something which i didn't think she wanted to see and i turned away and and women in those cases i feel like i didn't do my job i have to deliver the message of who i am to her and then i have to be there for the consequences
which i think might be kind of like a not very happy face in the location where you want happiness you want that person to have a happy face
because when their faces and happy you're not happy
but it's not so much you're not happy it's service painful because i was very happy to do my job
a big her father
and later she said
dad is tough love not hard line
so i gave her a from thing but hard line is like you put it there and you want the woman of move
i think she could feel that i was
this is just my offering for the moment and this is it
but it's getting it's hard to deliver that message to someone you're really love and who you don't want to see the slightest bit of pain in the face
but if your but that's that's our job our job is to look at people's faces
because we gotta we gotta face looker this is for meeting faces
it's our responsibility use this to look at faces and sometimes we look at the face to face says would you please stop looking at me and then we go okay
like not like her like my daughter's son when he was about seven
you know he was having breakfast and i was looking at em
adoringly and he he and he goes ideas
would you please stop staring at me and adam and i stopped
i took my face and turn it up towards the ceiling
and that's what he asked for and i i was okay giving them
it was easy for me to look away and then after he saw that he he could take that look away if you wanted to than he be engaged me
by making some critical comment about his cousin
but he was he was an invitation to come back
i just want to know that i can turn that face off if it gets to be too much
and wish when the when loved one says this is too much i think generally speaking we we can take a break look away
but not because we're checking out but because they wanted to look away and we have the courage to look away we're now looking at them to in order to defeat our narcissism
we're looking at them to meet them
and to be there for the consequences of our of our face and what comes out of our mouth
yes
earlier
yeah living beings
we what we can it's just hard it's hard to face to look in the face of suffering face especially if you're really are in touch with how you want this person to be at peace is hard and we can do it we can it's are
that responsibility which means we have that the ability to respond to a face with a face
but hard i guess i'm
i refuse tiger so often that offices
the
it's
yeah basically you're saying all perceptual everything you are receiving his valance
is that what i'm hearing that though everything
you mean like the perception of blue involved suffering who is that all living beings all emotions all relationships
yeah i think i can go there like up the color blue
which means the perception of the color blue because there's no blew up floating out in midair separate from perception
so the perception of blue i would say yeah that's suffering how are the suffering because it looks like a doesn't include
all the other colors
it looks like it doesn't include the whole universe
and that's suffering
why oh why because it does include the whole universe
but why they suffer is suffering it's so i guess it's suffering if if there's a holding to that thing does exist without including everything that's suffering
that's stressful it's like resisting it's like it's like something that appears in some a foreground event
is rejecting it's background
and for a foreground event to reject his background is stressful
blue has a background not just have all the other colors
but of the entire universe so you can see the blue
but when you look at the blue and adhere to it the blue being the blue independent of other things is suffering
so blue and context is not suffering
just like me are you in context is not suffering because you are in the context
you are the foreground of the background of you
the background of you
it's the entire universe
and the foreground of you is the entire universe as you
and when we look at something in isolation and don't realize that and everything that surrounds at which we can't see is included will we when we ignore that that ignorance is this is a suffering
i guess the first summer that it seemed like you're shooting something into it into a person to be and i'm getting
the holiday
i'm i'm you could say i'm in prime from imputing to and i'm imputing to ignorance suffering could say that
but i don't which i don't want to do
in a way ignorance is suffering
an ignorance means again that we basically
ignore how each for each person is the center of the whole universe and includes a whole universe and and is included in our universe and this is why each person has actually ungraspable
and and in that on grasp ability we have freedom from suffering without getting rid of it because even the sufferings the same because suffering includes everything to so it also
is not suffering
but in order to realize this we have to do the job of seeing blue and seeing pain and feeling hot and feeling cold
and feeling confused and feeling righteous and feeling disappointed
oh you name it again
if you're completely that thing you will realize that everything's included in that thing and that thing is included in everything which is similar to the more you accept this color blue the more you realized it's not blue it's the whole universe as blue
and that his piece that realization
and not realizing that
ignoring that is suffering but again if you apply the same practice to the suffering suffering is not suffering
yes
well i wasn't here two weeks ago so i'm going on what you just now said about your daughter that storing okay
so i have a daughter to and we we we struggle to and it's painful to
if i were facing her in this little thing like that difficult situation you seem very very confident that you could be there you could present yourself fully
if i say something to my daughter in that situation i'll be i'll think oh maybe that was too judgmental and meanwhile she'll go and slam the door you know you have you how a kind of confidence that you can be appropriate in that situation i'm an ordinary living being i don't have it's not so much that i
it's not so much that i have a confidence that i will be
i have a confidence that i can be
i'm with you yeah it and it's a kind of a concept well i mean in other words sometimes i do not i have sometimes looked her in the face and then looked away because they didn't want to see i didn't want to see unhappiness in the face so i didn't look at it so
i could have looked at it but i didn't so when you say i have confidence that i will be it it's more like i sometimes i can be in sometimes i can't and if i can't then i practice confession and repentance i say i'm sorry i wasn't therefore you that seems to
to be your answer to me frequently practice confession and repentance practicing confession and repentance is the pure and simple color of true practice it's the true mind of faith that true body of faith which is i want to be here for you and just now i for
lynched and looked away and i'm sorry
and
actually one time back in the seventies i was there for you and i was really glad like one of the things that women sometimes have the great
opportunity of delivering a baby without too much medication
and often times i've heard that in the middle of the pain is sometimes happens that they stop resisting it
they start thinking about let's go someplace else shall we they learned that this pain is not this pain is to be present with not to try to get away from
and they give up trying to get away and maybe for one time in their life they're totally there
which is called nirvana
and so a mother might remember i was totally there for a few seconds when i was giving birth to you and i find know i can be i know it can happen and every time it doesn't i'm sorry
so i have some confidence
i have i have some actually belief that i am occasionally quite present
which i always feel good about i have some experience that i'm sometimes less than that present which i feel sorry about
but i also have confidence that everybody can be
fully present but i know there's some people are rarely pleasant i talked to people sometimes and they're sitting right in front of me
you know in a little room nobody else is there and they're trying to get away from me
there they are you know and they're just
they're not leaving the room but they're trying to like hide and i sometimes say this is not a good place to hide if you want to hide god's god time i won't be able to see you
and they and even saw they're still trying to get away and there just totally wiggling and running it's like they're just don't want to be there right in front of me but i know that it can learn that but sometimes i feel like he's gonna take awhile
ah they came in his room but they didn't realize what they're getting into and now they think maybe i'd rather get outta here and go be with somebody who will let me hide
because some people kind of the yard if you can hide that i can hide so we can be in the same room and hide from each other okay let's play hide and seek
we can think of that right even little children can think of that
like okay you can't see me now grade dirty
and so maybe granted he says yeah where are you and then they go i'm here or
can see me enough now you can it's that when we know how to do it from the but to actually be there and face somebody we have to learn that from somebody who can do it at least occasionally so my greatest confidence is that when is that way that's the way i want to have to rely
i want to live his life of being there i i don't have some sense of what percentage i am able to do it so far but when i feel like i'm getting there i feel good and when i don't i feel sorry because i'm not doing my job which is to be here for you and me
that's my job and if i'm your father is to be your father and if i'm your friend to be your friend if i'm your husband is to be your has i have all these different responsibilities all of which
are fully
fully calling me to do
then they're calling me to do wholeheartedly not halfheartedly unless the other person even if the other person says don't be wholehearted because then i would have to be that's still calling mental fully listen to that
let me hide his single listen to me say that i want to hide like really pay attention to me
trying to hide in other was really make it impossible for me to hide while i'm telling you what i'm trying to watch me try to hide and tell me and show me that you love me even when you see i'm trying to hide from you
that's what i want

could you speak i'm pleased
do you sometimes try to
look at people on the street for for example
a river
berkeley there so many celebrate the sick people street i try to look at the people in straighten i do and
and that sometimes is difficult to look at that suffering face
and some people notice i'm looking and they see i'm smiling and they appreciated other people
are frightened
and i don't walk up to people on the street and say are you present
i don't walk up to them as they would you like me to just your posture
i don't say this is not a good place to hide
but i do look at them and but i
if they seem to not wanted i look away or looked down
but a lot times they've really like it
and i often and walking down the street smiling i don't know why but i am and people see it and a smile and often usually
but some faces are really difficult for me look at and partly because i think the persons may be saying don't look at me and i respect that but i still watch to see how they're telling me not to look at them i'm watching enough to see that they are saying please don't look at
me but i need to watch a little bit to see them
and then if i feel like they're short is are saying when you please look at me i also look at that but not necessarily the way that they want me to book the way i think it's appropriate
and
i said think appropriate really what i'd like to do is to look at them in a way that is appropriate without me thinking of it and if i'm doing my job i learned to think of what's appropriate the appropriate gaze just comes out of me
but time is that to walk on the street taken care of myself listening to my own struggles and
observing my own struggles with eyes of compassion including my own struggle saying you're not look at me now it now
you're looking too closely okay that doesn't happen so often but
can you hear me

yes
he reached me
he didn't reach me last lacerate deja mean two weeks ago now you reached me
questions how much we're all right
to use plastic
sure

well one definite one ways that buddhas are those who understand delusion
they're greatly awakened about about diversion
their vert there or you could say they're greatly awakened about suffering
and central bags are greatly diluted about awakening
okay
our buddhist living beings
ah

do and bodhisattvas are living beings who are in the path to become buddhas
a day
well that that's fine that's that's that's a perfectly good diversion that you have
so living beings have delusions which they have not yet fully understood
and they have and one the as and one of their kind of interesting delusions is what enlightenment is
like a living beings can all held this but many living beings have the delusions that you need to leave suffering in order to enter peace
that's that's a common delusion that living beings entertain
buddha's have understood that that's a delusion
they see as that's not that's not the case that you have to leave so you don't this is the bodies to become a buddha you walk the path of realizing that you don't have to get away from the suffering to have peace
the piece is back here in suffering land because suffering is actually
freedom from suffering put his have awakened to that
and some sentient beings the bodhisattvas are unpacked the buddha they've gotten over some of their delusions but they haven't gotten they haven't awoken to the delusion to all the delusion yet there's some delusions which they're still kind of like not seeing what they are yet the the
path as a it to go through all the delusions and one by one could say
oh it's a delusion oh it's a delusion oh it's a delusion buddhists are thoroughly awaken to delusion
and they've gone through a long practice of practicing observing delusion with eyes of compassion observing delusion with eyes of compassion
it's m generating this blessings
the blessings which made more observing with either compassion which make more blessing which make more buddhists
that they've gone to their path so now they're greatly or wake and thoroughly awakened to delusion that all of them they've nailed all of them
a delusion and become free of all of them
the other sentient beings aren't as path to buddhahood and i'm currently of the mind which is that we're all in this path to buddhahood or all bodhisattvas and buddha's teaching is for us who are on the path
the path the buddha hood is the path of not getting away from samsara and art to get into nirvana
there is other paths which are the which in early buddhism there was a path of get away from suffering and enter
freedom from suffering and other words freedoms and sufferings here over here and being stuck in sufferings over there and you go from there to here or here to there there was an early version and later teaching sing while that was just that was just a skillful means to get paid
if you told him at the beginning that it's not about getting away from the suffering
that that does not the real freedom real freedom is found in the suffering not going someplace else
and that teaching is for living beings who are not buddha's who are becoming borders if not for living beings who are not buddhists who are going to actually successfully get out of suffering and go to nirvana it's not for them there's other teachings for the people who are trying to get out of suffering
and go to peace
a lot of early buddhism is like that you leave birth and death you escape it and then you go over to
reno peace over here great but you learn to get here you have to get out of there
the later buddhism is not about that path but the path of buddhahood which is you find the freedom in the middle of all the suffering which is where we happen to be and were buddhists are sitting in the middle of all suffering turning the wheel of dharma they're not turn
the wheel of suffering in the suburbs
the so
the direction of suffering is eternal
ah i don't know about eternal
but certainly omnipresent for the time being omnipresent
in every moment is here

i am aspiring to not move away from it that's my aspiration the body self affirmation is i evolve to not turn away from suffering
which is similar to i vowed to liberate all suffering beings you don't liberated by turning away from deliberate liberated by looking at him with eyes of compassion and you're in the process with them so yeah the path i'm on is not turn away from it not get away from it and also not
go towards it
don't go towards it it's already here you know to go some place sounds to find suffering
you have enough
and if you don't think you do i come and see me
and i'll help you find it
but i'm mostly mean people would think not they have a lot of suffering and they're just wondering how to deal with it and know
and they're tempted to try to get out of it
and
oh if you want to get out of it i can i can refer you to somebody who is into that
getting out of suffering i'm into not getting into it
i'm into accepting it you've got enough you've got a whole universe of suffering and you have to move into a worst neighborhood this is a bad enough neighborhood
and if you open up to the suffering you realize there's more suffering than you realize before and then your reward for that will be to see more and your reward for that will be see more you don't have to go someplace else buddhists actually
i've learned to open to it all
and accept that all of it and all that all of it's always here
but to get into the eternal thing i think that's another class maybe that summer clay with a summer class
about the eternal
the eternal but this more like the omnipresent is always hear you can't get away from it really
and really accepting that you can't get away from it
his enlightenment
none more not only that you can't get rid of not number one you can't get away from it but it's here so if one is
one is anti negative an anti trying to get away and the other is accepting that is here and it is calling to us that all this suffering is calling to us
and the buddhas and bodhisattvas are sitting in the middle of all the calls trump and bodhisattvas are trying to learn to listen the boot is already knew how
and they're teaching us to to learn how to listen
wholeheartedly to the cries
they're teaching us how to observe wholeheartedly
with eyes of compassion

yes
but fortunately we have a little bit more

khan was literally call on minutes public example so it also meant like a judgment of a judge in it's a legal term originally so it means this is this is the case so case of ms example but also means
this is this is what's going on so call on in one sense means reality and so the co wants
our stories that are examples of reality being enacted by people
which then we study to see if we can observe them and awakened to the reality which they're trying to to reveal to us
some people think they're riddles but i guess the riddles before you understand them
as
this
the way i've understood in my guess i just need some correction if i'm off base here but
a coin is presented to astute as then student as sort of
an opportunity to make a jump
yasha from illusion to the reality that be
the a call on is like a delusion has offered to the student to wake up to a delusion took to to it's an opportunity to leap free of what's being offered
and it might be offered repeatedly until the person leaps
you'd like the person might try this set in the you still you're still stuck in the assignment you haven't been able to let go of it and i'm pushing you did to stay with it which makes it harder for you to let go of it
but really i'm pushing you to stay with it to help you like go of it but i don't want you to trick yourself into thinking you let go before he really did going back to your daughter one way i i have sometimes thought of it is situations like with you're done this the situ
oh ation is a core yeah exactly it is it's a cone is a call on manifesting i've got this daughter nineteen years old strong healthy intelligent energetic
unemployed
partying all night and also saying i want to work i want to get a job this is the this is a situation this is the reality for me to understand what's the reality here and part of the reality is i ever response to this
and am i stuck in my response so some people
they feel response but they they don't accept it fully so then they get stuck in it so they can't give it
yeah i know what is it
aren't there is because passion and had seen his their compassion in other compassion enhancing drugs
are either compassion and handsome the exercises yesteryear are compassionate action a good has a exercises here's one
homage we we say cans a on both sides so noisy
guns a on normal butcher
kanzi on it is short for namu guns a on
the the it's like your sort your you don't have you can insane nama which means homage you forget to say i'll and you just guns a on
which means listening to the cries of the world so that's it
a compassion enhancing exercise is to say listen to the cries of the world listen to the cries of the world homage to listen to the cries of the world homage to buddha homage to listen to the cries the world
meditators sit still and they are thinking in their head sometimes
listen to the cries of the world which is the name of a bodhisattva but it's also an instruction
listen to the cries of the world listen to the cries of the world listen to the cries of the world can't say on cottontail a on listened to the cries of the world
and so i have this chant and the end of the chat goes nan nan nan nan which means
moment after moment comes a on moment after moment but also that character for moment which is a chinese character which has two parts the top part means now and the bottom part of his mind so it means now mind also means a moment
but also means remember
remember remember remember remembered listen to the cries of the world remember listened to the cries of the world remember listened to the cries of world moment by moment day and dead night listened to the cries of the world in the morning listen to the cries the world moment by moment that's it and that's
compassion enhancing teaching
so
we sit still and silent in this class and while we're sitting we are remembering the cries of the world i were sitting
cause that's the class is about that were here sitting listening to the cries of the world remembering that which you can also understand we're remembering a great being a great enlightening being who has that name but that great enlightening being is that practice
the name of the big is the practice of that being
and we can remember that
when we're sitting and then we can get up in a walk and remember when we're walking we can we can learn that
but we had to do we have to exercise our memory what is it that was both true oil listened to the cries of the world cons a on
cons a on
bodhisattva enlightening being remembering the cries crisis enlightening being listening to the cries of the world listening to the cries of the world is becoming enlightened
that's the path to budo in but as do that and they became buddha's by doing buddha's remember to listen and they become buddhas by remembering to listen and we are learning to remember to listen aren't we and sometimes we forget
and we forget where sorry maybe
but then we start again yeah
yeah
oh
and then where are right now listed across a world but rather tonight i felt like you can listen to the grass in the world there's there's suffering everywhere at all time you don't need to go anywhere else to find it and so i know and that i feel like ask your message but then my question is in winter are you were wearing a bow
social justice or what now in their hand it was the cries in the world but is it if there's if we're saying the separate all around us all the time we don't need to listen or open ourselves to he slipped off the boat there you just said you don't need to listen you just say
for you don't need to look for you look at your to let me worry you know from what i can come tonight at every moment like right now there's suffering on i don't need to worry about the guy in the street or the know you don't urinate you don't need to worry about the guys in the room either observing with dives into fashion isn't the same as worrying
bodyshop for as i'm worrying about us they're watching us
they're like they don't have time to worry they've got enough job to to be with us they're completely with as they're not worried about us they're working on us to teach us how to listen and you said we don't have to listen i'm talking i'm natalie i'm not saying you don't have to listen and i'm not even saying you
do have to listen i'm just saying that's to a bodhisattva do with they do listen and they listened to the guy and the street
they listened to him or her in the street
and if he calls you if you're in the yoga room and isn't the other room sounding like a rat you listen to him and if he says tracy would you come over here you might respond by saying okay i'm coming
that's the way you respond sometimes when somebody says which come over here
you listened they said come over here and you went over there other times they say would you come over here and you say nope i can't do that but i'm listening to you and they feel heard maybe they really feel heard even though you say
i want you to move out at the end of the week if you don't start doing your job
so you don't have to move
to do this work but if you're not moving and you're doing this work and somebody says would you move you very well might say how do you want me to move tell me about it say i want you to stand in place
i want to take big steps
and then if you forget to say aye captain may they say go back to steps
so the point is if you're doing this work you can respond appropriately and there's nobody that you're not listening to
and there is many cries which you don't really feel like you can hear
how do we want you
he said to me aside
ah
you learn you aspire to learn to what you can't see you would you aspire to learn to listen to what you can hear and to see which you can see this practice is a way of conduct it's a way of department beyond hearing and seeing
but that doesn't mean pushing away here he can sing it means by fully engaging with the cries you could hear you open to listening to cries you cannot hear with your ears and by observing beings that you can see with your eyes with eyes of compassion your your wisdom i opens
to the invisible beings that you can't see retina with your eyes but you can see them with wisdom politicans buddha
excuse me for saying and buddha can see everybody that's what the seeing everybody is enlightenment
and you open to enlightenment when you accept the omnipresence of suffering in whatever form it is apparent to you
and if we resist the omnipresence than we resist being able to hear all the cries and see all the suffering bangs which is buddhahood
we turn to move to be in piss poor good enough to move to open to all the cries and all the sites
but if you ask buddha if you say the buddha was you please look at me the buddha michael yes would you want
but before you call didn't need to turn their head but when you call they turn their head
like a that story often tells suzuki roshi said sometimes when i'm sitting i feel like i can sit forever
in other words is quite peaceful and that
you know and i'm doing my job
i'm not just get peace in nirvana i'm with everybody in nirvana i'm fine said but when the bell rings at the end of the period i get up and walk
so the responses we had periods when the bell rings we don't keep sitting we get called to get up and walk with the group and we do it but you didn't have to move before the bell rang
and you don't have to go in the other room before somebody calls you
he got a full time job here and then when somebody asks you to do something you've got a full time job listening to them and responding appropriately and if you're fully hear you were that's where the appropriate software flow out of you which might be to do it they ask or my pity given
some different or somebody may say can i have money and you say why don't have money but i have
a really good apple or i haven't really good lunch than i just bought or give it to you
and they might say okay thanks where they might say i don't want them and then you deal with that
are you like okay no
oh
it's a work in progress
all right well sorry to keep your late i'm not blaming anybody
the
i accept responsibility that's why i say i'm sorry that we went late please forgive me for my responsibility and going wait and whoever owns his