I'd like to begin the way I have begun before and say some things I've said before that you may have heard before. May I say some things you've heard before? Yes. So one vision of practice that I have been speaking about is that we may begin, it's an endless cycle, but we may begin in this cycle by receiving the Buddha's precepts, by receiving the precept of not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality, not lying, not intoxicating ourselves or others and so on, And by receiving these precepts, we enter the Buddha way.

[01:06]

And by receiving these precepts, we may enter into authentic Zen meditation, which means enter into the authentic meditation of the Buddhas and ancestors. So, for example, if we receive the precept of not killing, this means that whatever we meet with our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind, whatever we meet, we don't kill it. And everything is very vulnerable and can be killed if we are not loving and kind and attentive.

[02:13]

So by receiving the precept of not killing, it means we meet everything with utmost respect. Because, as I said, anything can be killed after a while, especially beauty. And from Buddha's point of view, all things are beautiful. So we meet each beautiful thing with a heart of respect, a spirit of devotion and love. If we do that, if we learn how to do that, we don't kill what we meet. We don't kill the fragile beauty of each thing by our inattention and impatience.

[03:18]

When we meet something we don't take, when we meet a beautiful thing, person, animal, plant, breakfast, lunch or dinner, pain, pleasure, we don't take it. We don't take things. We receive what's given. Everything's given to us. If we practice the precept of not stealing, we realize everything's given to us. And we receive, we receive all things with utmost respect and kindness. And this way we receive our life This is called practicing the precept of not stealing. We practice it, we practice it, we learn how to practice it and as we get more skillful at practicing not stealing we enter into a state of being upright where we see that everything that happens is coming to us and giving us life

[04:39]

receiving the precepts, practicing them, we enter into being upright. Being upright, our wisdom eyes open and we see the landscape of Buddha's mind and heart. As I was saying the other night, this means we learn how to say thank you for whatever happens, that we're grateful to whatever happens, even bad things, even painful things. It isn't that we're confused and think they're good. and think that pain is pleasure, we understand this is pain.

[05:46]

But we say thank you because this pain gives us life at this moment. And there's beauty in this pain. Even in evil, if we see evil inside or outside, when evil comes, there's beauty there. If evil comes and we do not respect it, if evil comes and we're not kind, evil possesses us. If evil comes and we kill it, we become a slave of it.

[06:49]

If beauty comes, if good comes and we kill it, if beauty comes and we steal it, same. We become possessed by it and that turns into evil. We must have the proper attitude to whatever comes. A monk said to a Zen teacher, when hundreds, thousands, ten thousands of things, ten thousands of objects come all at once, how do we practice? The master said, don't try to control them.

[07:53]

If evil comes, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand evil things come and we try to control them, they flare up and possess us. If beautiful things come and we try to control them, we kill them and we become possessed by deep shame and guilt at killing beauty in our life because we try to control it, because we try to use it. Beauty is not to be used. If we try to use beauty, our wisdom eye shuts and we'll be very sorry. We are sorry already for all the times we tried to capitalize, exploit, and use a beautiful thing rather than sitting upright and saying, thank you for visiting today.

[09:17]

Hardly even saying, please come back soon. Or don't go. Not killing means not killing any kind of life, beautiful, ugly, good or evil. This is being upright. This is the gate to Buddha's mind. It's like meeting someone and not considering what she looks like.

[10:19]

It's like viewing the spring flowers and the waxing moon without hoping for more color or more fullness. Just waxing moon. Thank you. Spring flowers, thank you. I'm so grateful for you. I won't ask for anything more. Even though I know that if I don't ask for anything more, I'm going to get a lot more. Even though I know that if I have this respectful, non-greedy attitude towards all things, door upon door of wonder and beauty will open. I know that, but that's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it, first of all, because I don't want to kill beauty.

[11:28]

I don't want to kill life. I don't want to steal life. That's first. Turns out that opens into greater wonders than just that. Now this teacher that says, don't try to control them, all those things coming at you, you know, he means that whatever comes, don't try to change it. Whatever comes is Buddha Dharma, not objects at all. Buddha Dharma can come in any form. And whatever comes is Buddhadharma. This is the instruction of an ancient master.

[12:32]

And Dogen Zenji said, don't try to understand this teacher's words as merely a brilliant admonition, but realize that it is the truth. Even if we try to control things, they cannot be controlled. They can only be killed and abused. Now, I have a little visitor in the house. It's a Jack Russell Terrier. And her name is Rosalyn. Called Rozzy for short. Anyway, she's in the house and we were trying to learn, we're reading a book about how to take care of a dog.

[13:35]

And, you know, one of the things about dogs, I say, I say, you know, don't try to control her. But let's be realistic. A dog's a dog, and we're humans, and we're not the same. Dogs, according to this book, are totally into power and love. What they want is to have complete control over the whole universe and have everything love them. All they care about is love and they think that they deserve it from everybody and that they're the center of the universe and everything they do is trying to make that happen. But dogs don't understand, without the help of the Buddha Dharma, that they're not in control.

[14:40]

They need to be trained, they need to be shown that they're not in control. You have to be clear who the alpha male or female in the house is, and it shouldn't be them. If dogs think that they're the alpha male or female in the house, they'd be very unhappy, because they're not. They can't go shop for food. They can't drive a car. They're not in charge. They're not the alpha person. They're not the head of the pack. And once they find out who is, and that it's not them, they're very happy. Because that's reality. When they live with humans, they're not in charge. But we aren't in control either.

[15:43]

What we need to do is just make clear what's going on. And not as an act of control, but as an act of love to make things clear. So you're not supposed to, you know, like, hold the dog up in the air with their face at the same level as yours. Otherwise, they'll think, hey, I'm a giant like them. Maybe I should take over. If they can take over, if they can enact the drama, the illusory drama of being in control, they would go for it. And if they do, they'd be very unhappy. So don't confuse them. Don't put their head up at your level. They're not that big. And if they try to stand up, it is power trip. When the big dogs stand up and put their hands on your chest, they're trying to say, well, that's what the book says. Big dogs have to get down.

[16:50]

Even though they're bigger than you, they have to walk on all fours so you're taller. They need that. They need you to take care of them because, in fact, that's your job. You are the master or mistress of the dog. That's the deal. You can't change places. No matter how much you love somebody, you've got to be you. And that's not easy. But one of the things that comes, one of the things that comes as Buddha Dharma is you're you. And don't try to control that. You can't. You can't control yourself. You can receive yourself, though. You can receive yourself moment after moment. You can be strong enough to receive who you are right now.

[17:53]

This is what we call upright sitting, is you receive what you are right now with respect and gratitude. Thank you for this body. Thank you for this mind. Thank you for this feeling. Thank you for these thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. I get it. I get it. I receive it. I receive it. I receive it. And you do that strongly because you are strongly who you are. You are indestructibly who you are. You can't control it, but you can accept it, and you can accept the responsibility of being a being that the universe has gone to a lot of trouble to produce. And it will not be argued with You can't get out of this right now, whatever it is. And now it's gone, and you can't hold on to it. So, the basic...

[19:20]

gate of this not stealing, not killing of whatever is happening, this upright sitting, is a combination of strength and vulnerability, of self-assertion and being sensitive to everything in the environment. Sensitive and responsive. These two aspects are what it's like when you don't kill, you don't steal, and so on. We have to be strongly who we are. And the stronger we are, the more strongly we are who we are, the more vulnerable we are. If you're weakly who you are

[20:23]

If you shrink back from who you are, your vulnerability becomes more and more obscure. Also, your beauty becomes more and more obscure. But the more beautiful you are, the more vulnerable you are. And the more strongly you are who you are, the more beautiful you are. So I saw an example of this. Somebody sent me a video. Green Gulch does not have television reception, except for maybe certain people who live down towards Muir Beach. As you get closer and closer to Muir Beach, I guess you can get television reception. But if you live in Green Gulch, because of the mountains, you can't get anything on the TV. Well, you can get something, but it's not like a picture. It's just... Anyway, somebody sent me a video of the women's figure skating in the Olympics.

[21:28]

And I must say I found the women's figure skating more moving than the men's figure skating, which I saw a few weeks ago. To me, what these women demonstrate is, well, of course, they're beautiful, but it's not just beauty. They are very, very strong. I mean, they are incredibly strong. And not only that, but they look not strong. They look, well, you can sort of, if you look at their legs and their butt, you can see something, but they don't look like, you know, big, heavy weightlifters. but they're stronger than almost any weightlifter. Not only are they strong, but when they're on the ice in the Olympics, they express their strength. They do things with their strength. They push their strength up to like the limit over and over and over again.

[22:41]

And with that strength, they do these amazing things. But whenever they're doing something which, like, pushes their strength all the way to the limit and they're doing something very strong and very much themselves, at that moment they are in the ultimate state of vulnerability. And you feel that. And it's so moving to see someone so strong and so vulnerable. It's just so moving. And all three of the medalists... When they finished, they all three sort of went, you know, you know the word triumph? It has oomph at the end, you know? They all went, you know, they knew they did it. They knew they'd used their strength right up to the perfect point, and they knew it. They could feel it.

[23:42]

They almost perfectly realized themselves. And then right after that, they burst into tears. We are so strong and we are so vulnerable. We are so much who we are and that changes so fast. And everything is supporting it when it's happening and then everything supports the change. When you sit, when you walk, that's your job too. Just like, what is it, a dog's a dog and a human's a human. Some of us are Olympic skaters and some of us are not. You're not Olympic skaters, you're Zen students. You have a different job. You have the job of Buddha. You gotta be yourself, not just in the Olympics, but every single moment.

[24:48]

You don't get to go on vacation ever. They do four minutes of this stuff and then done until the next practice. Your job is to do what they did every moment. And you can do it because you've got yourself to be. When they're skating, every moment, you know, and there's certain times when they're skating when, you know, they're doing things which are not expressing, in a sense, they can rest a little bit while they're skating. Like when they're getting ready to do one of these incredible feats, they can like just do some, they can do something, they can rest a little bit.

[25:56]

And they don't get marked off too much for resting just a little bit before they do one of these things. But I think they get marked off a tiny bit if they rest because they should be beautiful the whole time. But still they do rest a little bit. And then sometimes they ask them, you know, They ask him afterwards, what were you thinking about? What was happening for you right at that time? And they sometimes talk about the way they were just before they did certain things, certain amazing things. And they were actually sometimes thinking about something a little bit like, well, they're. And then usually they say something like, and then I just forgot everything. I just dropped it all and let it happen. So sometimes they fool around a little bit too, even in these very high situations. But they're so vulnerable, they're vulnerable to everything.

[26:59]

They're vulnerable to the quality of the ice. They're vulnerable to the quality of their body. They're vulnerable to the sharpness of their skates. They're vulnerable to everybody in the audience. They're vulnerable to having all those people looking at them. They're all this vulnerability. And the reason why all that's happening, the reason why everybody's looking at them is because there's so much expressing themselves. If they wouldn't do that, people look away. And the vulnerability becomes obscure. We're always vulnerable. Always. But if we don't express ourselves, we don't notice it so much. And not noticing it, then the life runs out of us. And we're not really saying, thank you, thank you, thank you. We're saying, well, can I have something else? Can I be someplace else? Can I be somebody else?

[28:00]

Can I feel something else? Or if not say that, we just become dull and sleepy and don't notice it. So we have to be very alert and very attentive without trying to change it. and then we're very vulnerable. I want to say that what I think is happening here is that we are creating a great, brilliant Buddha mind.

[29:17]

We are creating a great compassionate Buddha heart here. Those words have been said just now. Did you hear them? I want you to understand that you, that you made those words happen. And not only did you make those words happen, but those words are not really important. Those words are Buddhadharma. What we're doing here is creating the Buddha's mind and Buddha's heart. And you you are contributing to that. And everybody else is too.

[30:22]

That's what we're doing here. We're doing a practice which all of us are contributing to. And that's what Buddha's mind is. Buddha's mind is all of us practicing together. And all of us practicing together is Buddha's mind. And we more and more fully realize this Buddha mind, the more each of us realize that each of us is realizing it with everybody else. The more we appreciate each other's contribution and the more we realize that we are contributing to this, the more it's realized. And the way we work to do that, besides being aware of that, is each of us does our job. Each of us is willing to be who he or she is.

[31:23]

Each of us is willing to be grateful for what's happening and also to be grateful to be participating in this Buddha way. We are all participating in it But the more grateful we are that we're participating in it, the more fully it's realized. The more we give up trying to manipulate and control what's happening and just be lovingly attentive to it, the more fully it's realized. You come to this sashi, you sit here, you work with who you are moment after moment, and the more you say thank you for that moment after moment, the more you do your part to realize this Buddha mind.

[32:29]

If you don't do that, the more you notice it, confess it, and drop it, and go to work again, the better. I'm getting older and I'm losing my marbles, so to speak. My brain is gradually drying up and there's consequences of that like slurred speech and memory loss and so on.

[33:36]

But I'm not so worried about that because I'm practicing with you. And even though my brain may go, Buddha's brain does not. Because Buddha's brain is us all practicing together. All I have to do is remember a few stock phrases and keep everybody working. And as long as everybody's working, Buddha's mind is healthy and so we'll all be okay. It does help, though, that there are some young people here who still have brains and that after they get old, more young people will come. And what they'll be attracted to is the beauty of the Buddha's mind and heart. they'll come and they'll think that somebody's smart and brilliant.

[34:40]

But it's not somebody smart or brilliant. It's the Buddha that they're so happy to see. And the Buddha is not a person. The Buddha is all of us practicing together and each of us doing our job. And our job is hard. It's hard To be an Olympic skater, it's hard to sit at your place and be who you are without messing around. It's hard. But it's possible to be that way because you don't have to do anything. You've already got it. You just have to stop messing around and trying to control. You just have to say thank you for everything that happens. It's simple and it's hard. And we're all of us quite close to that. You're all quite close. Just a little bit of, just a slight doubt away. Just a slight manipulation away.

[35:42]

Just drop that and you're already there. Just a slight, could we have a little bit more sunlight away? Just a slight stealing away. Just drop that and you'll be right on the place. So congratulations to us for being able to aspire to the Buddha way and to practice the Buddha way together. Congratulations to us. And you know what congratulations means?

[36:46]

The gratulous part is to rejoice. And the khan part is together. Congratulations means to rejoice together. It's okay to be happy that we're practicing together, even though it's hard. And it's okay that it's hard, even though we're happy. The Buddha way is the greatest joy, and I mean that in a non-sectarian way. No matter where people are, whether they call it a Zen center or Buddhist temple or whatever, when they really practice together and say, thank you for whatever's happening, this is the Buddha way. And so this is a great joy, but it's hard because of our deep genetic power programming like those dogs.

[37:53]

We think that by power we can get everybody to love us. But the one advantage of being a human over a dog is we kind of know that it's not by power that we get everyone to love us. Actually, it's something like everybody already loves us, and if we would just drop power, we'd realize it. But the way they're acting is actually something to say thank you for rather than try to get them to do it better. We kind of know that, and that's why we can practice. And we should share our practice with the dogs by not trying to control them, But by loving them, and part of loving them, big part of loving them is to be a human. And say, I'm a human. I got to be a human. So I do stuff like, say stuff like, off.

[39:04]

but it's not to control you. It is to tell you that I'm a human and I don't want you on that couch. It's not to get you off the couch, it's to make clear our relationship. And we need to be clear about the difference between that you're trying to get the dog off the couch and you're trying to make clear to the dog who you are. Once a dog knows who you are, the dog will be happy, you will be happy. The dog won't be under control, you won't be under control, but you'll both be happy because you'll be who you are and the dog will be who she is. So there'll be more dog stories for a while. because this is a healthy young dog.

[40:16]

Her master is very sick. Her master's liver doesn't work anymore, so we're taking care of her for a while until he feels better or gets a new liver. So, any comments? Thank you.

[42:06]

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