I was wondering yesterday, why it's so cold, doesn't it? And it's so warm in the rest of California. But then I heard it was twenty-eight in San Francisco today. Colder than here, I think. No? How cold is it here? Ah! Twenty-five. Twenty-five? Who's keeping track? What's the coldest it's been here? Twelve. Twelve, I think. So, you have a ways to go. Twelve without any heat is pretty cold. And the floor burns. I don't know if I've been here actually, what's that called? 14 or 16, I think. The floor really, if you're careful, burnt. It's interesting how we can get into it.

[01:33]

I know a greenhouse which looks pretty cold because I don't do it consistently. It seems quite annoying when it's cold. Here? Not quite the same. I'm not a collector of snapshots, so I don't know if Buddhism is the best way. Someone I was speaking to was talking about when they see things they tend to

[02:59]

If you take pictures, you tend to see pictures here. I think you may know that feeling. I find it difficult myself to... When I was in the merchant ring, I got my first camera. I never had a camera before, but I got one in Beirut, Lebanon, and gave it up in Cape Town, South Africa. Because I got tired of all these people looking at the world through this lens. And then after a while you find you're, even when you don't have the camera to save the trip for later, you are looking at things and translating these two-dimensional possibilities. That's very much like, you know, how we do with our script, our script writing. By the way, excuse me, Gary went to... It's not back, but Gary went to... [...] to

[04:32]

In every situation, there's millions of photographs, if possible. As I said, I think if you start seeing photographs, every time you see it, throw it away. Every time you see it in that way, throw it away. There are millions of photographs. No, if Buddhism is the best photograph, this world is so vast. But I can say that for me, and the way to practice Buddhism is to think it's the best way to practice Buddhism. In the sense that you want to share it or you want to feel it's a gift. This idea

[06:03]

saving all sentient beings. It's, you know, such a funny translation. I think I should talk about it, and tomorrow is Buddha's Enlightenment Day, but to talk about saving all sentient beings, the language is funny, first of all. And it's like trying to explain to somebody why they should be in love with someone. It's the nature of it, it's like that. How do you talk to someone? You should be in love with this person. Well, thanks. I'm not up to it right now. Or explain to somebody why you're in love with somebody. They should agree with you. Isn't that person extraordinary? Well, they're quite nice. It's sort of like that, sort of like being in love. And I don't know how, I can't tell you how you get there, but it's certainly, I would say, the real nature of the practice.

[07:30]

It says in the text, the Bodhisattva should love each person as if they were their spouse. There are certain rules about it. I think this is our deepest desire, actually. My own feeling is, as a child – children, not just me, but children in general – when they meet people, they wonder what they're like. They want to be liked and they want to like the person,

[08:32]

don't want to see the person hurt, and you... like a child feels about small animals. Children are very sensitive to mice and rabbits and such creatures. And for some reason we lose that feeling as we get older. But I think this practice is characterized by someone comes back, either doesn't lose that feeling or comes back to that feeling. And again, to save all beings, you know, the language too of Avalokiteshvara being one who looks from on high. I found a better language for that some time ago, I can't remember what I used, but coursing with beings. But the feeling is not like saving, like you have something.

[09:47]

They don't. One has something, another person doesn't. When you take a vow to save all beings, it's much more like, you know, on a hot day you've found some cold water. It's no big deal to share the cold water, but you really want to share. You know, you find, oh, here's a spring over here! And you come and you share it. That's all. It's that kind of feeling. Sometimes I say, when you have some meditation, you sort of snap into something. Someone said to me yesterday, when they feel some kind of clear experience, they want to snap each person into it. I think that's also something simple like that, to share

[10:47]

some cold water. But that, for a person practicing Buddhism, that effort of the gift of the Dharma, to share the Dharma, it's your sole desire. It says the Bodhisattva always is trying to promote the understanding of Buddha, mature beings in their Buddha nature. Every day, such a person takes a vow to do so. And again, we're talking in very practical, particular terms. a bodhisattva. The enlightenment experience is... the content of the enlightenment experience is said to be characterized by perceiving universals as aggregates of observable particulars. Can I go over that again? It's a very good phrase. Very good phrase. Perceiving universals as aggregates of observable particulars.

[12:14]

It means to... It's exactly what I mean by... What? Convoluted. What? What word is that? Conjoined. And dharmas has this meaning too. Dharma is a very, very difficult word to define because it's an aspect of this yogic seeing. To see things in the aggregates – I don't know how to say – that move. I sometimes say karma is form perceived that leads to samsara, and dharma is form perceived that leads to nirvana.

[13:25]

So it's said, again, about the content of enlightenment, is that you know all beings, or you know people when you see them, you know their destinies, and you know, you see people living and dying, living and dying, countless people living and dying. Satori experience is often preceded by that feeling, some feeling of tremendous hopelessness, of so vast a world of suffering, and maybe you cry, you just feel dissolved. And then you feel this gift of dharma, and you feel this universals are reached through observable particulars. Now all this raises questions which I don't know how many directions I can go in at once. I can try. Someone asked me a very good question, I thought.

[14:54]

One day you said, to believe in your own thinking is delusive. Next day you said, trust your experience. I think that's good. I was completely perplexed on how to explain it. I know it's a problem when I say it, but how to explain it? Some people come to me or in some conversation with a program. The brighter they are, the more subtle the program. The program is something like, they'll ask me a question, but in their mind they already have worked out the answer. And then I'll say something, then they'll pick from what I've said what they want to hear, and they'll say, Ah, I already had that. That's the delusive thinking. And I usually say, oh good, I'm glad you have it. What else can I do? But it's thinking in which you justify one point in your thinking by other points in your thinking. And usually it's thinking very deeply involved in what others think of us.

[16:23]

in needing to be, you know, peer of the world. The five fears that one is supposed to overcome, or hopefully one overcomes, are fear of death, and fear of livelihood, how you'll earn a living, fear of your destiny, and fear for your reputation, and fear of embarrassment before an assembly. All of these are part of your program, part of your script, in which, you know, it's one thing, you can rather catch somebody, you can have the illusion you've got one... If you're talking to only one person, you can have the illusion you've got them wrapped up in your script, and then you can sort of watch their face to see how they're feeling about what you're saying. But when you're talking to five or ten or twenty You know, you're a little nervous because your script may be out of hand. So this concern with your destiny and how you're going to earn a living and your reputation and so forth, all part of this program or script we have.

[17:50]

So maybe to think, to see everyone's brain as part of your brain – you know, you have a left lobe and a right lobe, and Mark's my front lobe, and you're my side lobe, and you're my left side lobe – that feeling is more, we can say, is not delusive. Mark makes my decision for me, but what Mark says, Mark's perception of me or the situation has a weight the same with me as my own perception of the situation, and Mark's thinking becomes part of my thinking. It's maybe a difference between small mind and big mind. Big mind is treating everything as mind. Now, to trust your own perception, in a simple sense I can say it's like you drink water and you know it's wet, but it's also to give some blood or life or muscle to your thinking. And I have to explain what I mean by that, don't you?

[19:16]

Practice, I can suggest to you, for trying to... Again, we're talking about observable particulars. So to practice something like, how do you think non-conceptually, you take small opportunities that come up. That's the only way to do it. To enlighten all beings, you just relate in as friendly a way as you can with each person you meet. Not getting mad at them because they're not following your script, or the script you think they should. So, for instance, we eat oreo cookie meals. When the server comes around for the second serving, Don't think, should I have it, is it good for me, is it bad for me, etc. Just, if the person comes and you find you're holding your bowl out, have seconds. If you're not holding your bowl out, skip it. And if as the person goes down the aisle you think, oh shucks, I should have had some, drop it.

[20:42]

Now, if you find you don't have seconds for several weeks, you can't make up your mind, you get hungrier and hungrier, at some point you're going to just thrust the bowl out. Baby bird. Even before the soju comes to a boil. At that moment, you will be also thinking, I want seconds. Now that thought has some muscle in it. It has some blood in it. It's identical with you, what you want, phenomenal world, it's not some, you know. In the consciousness it says, you know, in Lew's text again, consciousness arises from the meeting of the I and object, the I and phenomenal world. But our consciousness takes off after that. And practice is to bring your consciousness back to that kind of simplicity.

[22:12]

And in any... Again, I say we're rather unconscious, in the sense, again, that any time you're thinking about anything, there are aspects of your thinking which have muscle in it, shall we say, or blood in it, and aspects which are just fabrication. Do you understand more what I mean? practice to trust your own perceptions is you begin by a series of small things like that, to know when your thinking is identical with that you want seconds. By experimenting in that way, you come to know when your thinking has that in it. You can just see in a pattern of thought which has the, shall I say, muscle in it and which doesn't, and you can trust the thinking that has muscle in it. Your thinking is more and more related to the phenomenal world, identical with the phenomenal world and identical with possibilities, the actual possibilities of what you see. So this is dharma more, the perception of dharma, the possibilities of aggregates, the going or coursing of aggregates.

[23:38]

So then universals are, or a person's destiny, or to understand somebody, are observable particulars, aggregates of observable particulars. I think in contemporary thinking we call it holographic. Like you can see in the right-hand corner of a bumper of a 46 Buick, and no, of a car, no, it's a 46 Buick. Or John can tell you some obscure sports information, what the game was that he was playing, or I think he can. It means also, you know, in Zen we say, holding up one, you know three. Because it's very simple. Universes are aggregates of observable particularity.

[24:54]

So we say, it's said, enlightenment is characterized by knowing the lives of other people. So enlightenment, as I said last night, is not the ultimate goody, the ultimate feel-good. If it was, it's all right, you could go to some growth center and have that experience. It wouldn't be bad, of course, but it would have little relevance as the basis for a world religion, or concern for the gift of dharma. Some people, you know, they can't get their script together at all. Call such people crazy. And then some people get their script together. And then there's a script in which... which is, maybe I can say, informed by

[26:22]

Let me just say for now, yogic perceptions, and a script. And then the fourth would be a script which is, the whole purpose is yogic perception. One is a... The second would be a regular, usual person. The third would be a Buddhist layman. The fourth would be a person who is Buddhist. Now, I want to say a little bit more about yogic awareness or perception, which I don't want to belabor the point, but I don't talk about it very often, so when I talk about it I feel I should talk about it with some thoroughness and care.

[27:36]

And also because I'm confronted by a feeling that Suzuki Yoshi expressed when he gave a lecture at various times, when given what he would say, I have the feeling I'm fooling you, or I have the feeling I'm robbing you. He meant that he's talking to you about something you're not going to get. that you listen and it doesn't, it's not something that's going to be part of your life, so it's kind of not believable or later you'll feel. Buddhism is something you can't depend on, it doesn't really hold together. Why I don't feel this is so... I mean, I feel this way sometimes, but then why I speak about it is because... Two reasons. One is, this kind of yogic perception, shall we say, is much... is very common. Very common. And in many cultures, much more used than in our culture. Again, we're very unconscious.

[29:03]

For example, visualization. Again, Michael's book came out recently, you can read it. He talks a lot about athletes who come to visualization, but what's interesting is they're not taught to visualize. In Japan, people are simply taught to visualize. I mean, the athletes who do, for instance, what Athlete talked about, when he has the ball and he's going to run, He has a crystal clear image of the goalposts and the path he will follow. And he just runs that visual path. And he says, when that clicks in like that, he says, I feel unstoppable and so far I've been. Something like that. I think it's Ben Hogan who at some point came from behind in a golf game. and passed somebody who was ahead of him, and played extremely good golf. And then afterwards, ran into the person he'd played in the locker room, ran into the person who'd nearly beaten him, and kind of said to him, oh, hi, whatever his name was.

[30:26]

How did you do today? Were you playing or something? He wasn't really even conscious of who he was playing with, he just... he would get... It's used in all the martial arts, visualization. And as I say, it's such simple things as learning to write. U.S. Public Schools? They were held on visualization. You know, do sports... coaches teach you? I don't think so. I think it's partly the... that we're living in a period of tremendous mind control and we're not aware of that. that a mass culture or media culture as we have, there's tremendous mind control and very little freedom. There's a kind of thought control, and if you think certain kinds of thoughts, you yourself get nervous and call the psychiatrist. Thought control is quite... I mean, it's very effective, you know? You yourself will only allow yourself to have certain kinds of thoughts, and if you have others, you think you're crazy, and you don't know how to deal with those other thoughts.

[31:43]

But in cultures which went so, connected by one mind, you know, people got into all kinds of things. They lived here and there and they didn't hardly know what was going on a few blocks away or a few miles away in another village. They spoke a different dialect, you know, 20 miles down the road, in both Europe and Germany. And there was, you know, not this... The more... There's an advantage to having a certain number of people. amplifying your experience. But when you have a lot of people setting up this one model, and there's a control factor, a government who wants to keep you in place, they don't want you to think too many unusual things. And an overall kind of model of how we should be gets promulgated. I think Buddhism is revolutionary in that. This is Gary Snyder's point. The radical individualism of Buddhism, because such things as visualization or trusting your own experience are tremendously private and not controllable. I mean, to practice Buddhism, you have to find out for yourself

[33:16]

Not me, not the teacher, not Buddhism. You say, to heck with Buddhism, heck with everything, I have to find out for myself. The more thoroughly you do that, the more you're a real Buddhist. So all of this that we do here is merely a means for you to be free of the five fears. Not to worry, you have enough to live on, but you shouldn't be indigent, but you should have enough. Not of excess. and the wealth and resources of your life should be shared or you shouldn't have absolute control over what you do. Others should participate in making decisions about your life. So you create a situation where the practical details of your life are more or less taken care of and then then there's a roof, I say just a roof over your head. And then the freedom to throw Buddhism aside, everything aside, and just find out what to do. And each thing you do quite independently. The four stations of mindfulness are you meditate on the body as the body,

[34:44]

And really, you just meditate on the body as the body, how you eat, what happens when you eat, what happens, you know, going to the toilet, what happens with certain kinds of thoughts, etc. But just the body as the body you meditate. And then you meditate seconds on sensations as sensations. And thought as thought, and dharma as dharma. Then you put those together. For example, someone said to me today, you said, I want you to trust me. They said I said that. Maybe it sounded like I said that, but that's not what I meant if that's what I said. What I would say is, How I would put it, let me say it again, is I want to be a person you can trust. That's a fact. I can say that. I want to be a person you can trust. I'll try to... I don't want to be predictable in some simple way. I want it to be a little difficult, trust me. But I want to be a person you can trust and I try to live my life in that way.

[36:13]

Whether I'm trustworthy or not, I don't know anything about. All I know is I want to be a person you can trust. That's a fact. That's a kind of fact. That I know, I want to be a person you can trust. Second, I can say also that I think you need to trust someone. But whether you choose me... So I would not say, I want you to trust me. That's your want. You see? That's very similar to meditating on the body as the body. Then it's very characteristic of Buddhist thinking. You follow what I'm telling you? You limit yourself to observable particulars that you yourself know. I know that. I don't know, and I'm not really concerned with whether you trust me or not. I can only be concerned with, I want to be a person you can trust. And I can also say that, from my experience, I think it's important to trust somebody. The rest is up to you. You choose me or your friend. But a friend is, again, a friend is one of the characteristics of, is one of the major, a major aspect of the bodhisattva path.

[37:36]

is the friend who, on the path, you can trust. It can be the teacher, it can be somebody you practice with, like Dogen and Myozen. And often, within the community, you can see a person starting to practice through or with a friend, and how that flow happens. Now, if you have some, again, some idea of the teacher or of your friend or spouse in Santa Claus, you know, that you won't trust anything. If you're waiting for Santa Claus, it won't happen, you know. It's like, again, falling in love, you know. Am I going on too long? Not so bad.

[38:46]

One buddy told me, said to me the other day, my lecture was a blur of pain in the last half. Somebody else told me I'd give them the same lecture three days in a row. I thought there was some difference. They're very intelligent, so probably it's true. I can't. When you first fall in love with someone, I think you are too... usually the confusion and power of first falling in love is you identify that person with the ideal man or woman,

[39:59]

And then you see that that's not the person who's there. When it works, when a really ideal relationship works, I think, is you find that that ordinary person is there, but they are also able to sustain that universal. This would be universals through observable particulars, again. That the person becomes for you all women or all men. but remains ordinary person. And one of the... This is very parallel to Jung's idea that if you're the prophet or the poet or the whatever, it'll destroy you, like an archetype will destroy you. And Buddhist teaching at one stage is about how to allow an archetypal projection or anima the Buddha or a Buddhist or whatever, to exist simultaneously with the remaining ordinary person to avoid that inflation otherwise could occur. And no one, your own child, if you have a child, who is so close to you physically,

[41:30]

necessarily likes you or shares your feeling, their life goes in some different direction. But it's essential to the child's development that you trust the child, and the child trusts you. Even your own child you don't know. And though I trusted Suzuki Yoshino, I never knew he may go back to Japan, and he may die, left us. So, trust is a kind of faith, a kind of enactment or willing, as the whole bodhisattva path is a kind of self or willing. The decision to bodhicitta, the thought of enlightenment,

[42:35]

the vow and the prediction. And this intention, as I've said, the recognition of this desire and the cultivation of it through friendliness, quite worked out, in a way, through friendliness, sympathetic joy, compassion, equanimity. And it really means you can treat each person as your child, each person as your friend or mother or father. But you're not concerned with just the life of your mother. There are thousands of people just like your mother, in a difficult or good situation or whatever. And I feel that if you're practicing Buddhism, you should really practice feeling the same about other children as you do on your own, as your own. I feel in myself, if I feel differently about Sally or Elizabeth, I feel a failing if I felt that. It's natural, naturally I have a particular responsibility

[43:55]

I'm not sure how Virginia and Sally feel when I say this, but I don't say it to threaten them. It's not that my practice is to love, say, Sally less, but why can't I love or feel as friendly or supportive of anybody I meet in the same way? So, I've found what being in love does, or having a child does, which opens up areas of love, is it opens it up for others too. That doesn't mean with your child you're foolish or something. The koan study, say, with a teacher. The teacher accepts you, and you have a koan, or you are given a koan, say, Rinzai tradition, it's worked out in a programmatic way, and you take usually sound of one hand or move to begin with,

[45:23]

And as Yamada Munroshi says, someone asked him, how long does it take for a student usually to answer the first poem? He said, usually about three years. Then he added, if they don't answer it by three years, they probably won't be able to go do something else. That part I don't like too much myself, actually, because I feel that practice should be not so involved with some... Somehow we should, even if you can't answer the koan in three years, there should be some way for us to practice together. But for about three years, quite a long time, the teacher won't accept you. Even though the teacher accepts you, the teacher won't accept you. And everything you do, every answer you bring is wrong. Even if you finally got it, for quite a period of time the teacher will say it's wrong. Until you know, teacher be damned, you know that this is all you've got to say about this bloody problem.

[46:44]

This is giving muscle to me. No, incontrovertible. You don't care what anyone thinks. You know, it's like putting the bowl in, I want seconds. And you can't be daunted anymore. You can't, the teacher can't make you doubt yourself. Then, you say, oh, all right. The sound of one hand, we take that. There's obviously some intellectual content or verbal content. It's not the sound of one banana. It's a squish. So probably you respond with your hand or you do something, and sound. And also there's why does somebody ask such a peculiar question? Why put you in such a conundrum or such a situation which is intellectually perplexing? So how do you respond to something that raises something in you? It raises a kind of question but it can't be answered along the lines of the sentence.

[48:10]

So a customary traditional answer is, you keep sticking your hand out. I'm working on a sound that wasn't but is a sound. So, you know, it's like trying to teach a kid not to touch a hot stove. Next day, you come back. Sometimes, if I took you, you'd go to sit. We don't do doksan that way. I used to sit in the kendo. I don't have much to say today, so you might change your legs if you want. Anyway, say this was the wall, the entryway was right there. It's always open. Snow would blow in, and there's this long thing, and most of the monks sat there and on the opposite side. And when the bell rang for Dotsan, Sanzang,

[49:29]

Everyone leaps into the air, you know, their sandals are in the air. They land in their sandals and then start to run. Their sandals used to fly past them, you know, because they'd start running and they'd kick their own sandals off. And I'd be sitting there going... Because I didn't go. So I would collect the sandals. I would come back. Then the hot drink usually came after that. That was a pretty good hot drink, wasn't it? In Japan you have sake drinks. Which are really good. That was pretty close to a beer. I think that was the best hot drink, by my standards, I've had yet, of a sashimi. But sake dregs are not alcoholic, but they have a kind of fermented quality, very squashy. It's what the rice left over after they make sake, and they serve it extremely hot. And it's quite... it's not... it doesn't... like, milk doesn't make you sleepy. It gives you some energy. When you don't sleep, it's very helpful. I mean to say it, I always forget, you should eat... if you want to go without sleep, you should eat a little more during session.

[50:49]

Do people eat more during Sashina? Do you have to make more? Anyway, so you go in several times a day for Sashina, and you put your hand out. But part of it is that the other program we Intellectual program is... Closed-off intellectual program is really hard to break through. The other kind of program people have is their pace. And that's more subtle, but not so... If a person's willing, it's, I think, easier to break through, but it's not so acknowledged. And we control the people around us by our pace.

[51:52]

by the number of beats you put between responses and things like that. For instance, it's very much like chanting. You go, bong, bong, bong, and you establish a rhythm by going bong, bong, bong, and then I think you do it just a hair longer, which allows people to come in. If you do it a little short, they can't come in. If you do it the same length, they don't do it. If you do it just slightly longer, everybody can come in and then catch that beat. So when we're having a conversation, and people do that all the time, you say, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and then they say, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and they pace their thing, which makes you enter their rhythm. And some people are quite rigorous about it, and you cannot talk with them,

[53:18]

I mean, until you enter their rhythm, there'll be long pauses, or they'll keep altering the rhythm. It's almost totally unconscious that people do it. They'll keep altering the rhythm until you get in on their rhythm. So, pace is one of the most subtle ways we program people around us. So, part of this koan, of one hand, is when your hand comes out and enters the pace of the teacher. When that happens, he takes you. And until then, you are always trying to impose your pace. Your pace is not the pace of the aggregated observable particularities. Let me say something else about it. Go back to yogic perception again. Again, I think we have this kind of perception quite often. In fact, like there are thousands of photographs available on each moment,

[54:44]

There's actually thousands of these perceptions. These perceptions are going on all the time, because every moment is that. And what I started to say before is, one reason I don't find it hesitant to... I'm not hesitant. I'm hesitant and then I feel okay about talking to you about something like this, is because I want to give you permission to notice that you do think this way. that often key points in your life have been that kind of perception. You know, something so simple as, as a child you realize you can cross the street. And the entire scenery is kind of jewel-like and fixed and trees blowing. You see the street and you realize you can cross the street. Such a perception sometimes, which may remain in your mind extremely clearly, is a kind of yogic perception, in that you've seen the... I can't go on. Conjoined. You've seen the situation in a conjoined way, and your action

[56:08]

But usually we... You know, and some people drink, I think... People drink because it releases them into that. Or concentration. I mean, I think that the main place this kind of tradition exists nowadays is in artists. Because artists find out, and there's a lore among artists about how you induce this kind of experience and how you maintain it while you're painting or writing. But for the most part, our society submerges such, teaches you to ignore it. Our school system teaches you to ignore it. don't know how to function. But the kind of decision you make when you say, I had this big decision to make and I had no choice. That kind of feeling, which is often characterized as points in our life. You made a decision, but you had no choice. You didn't know what to do, but then you saw you had no choice. That's a kind of perception.

[57:16]

So again, this kind of perception occurs quite often. I think it's helpful to have some permission that it's quite normal or usual faculty of us. And an artist or a Buddhist priest or a Buddhist monk is someone who decides to live by those unequivocal perceptions, and to not live... is willing to change their script, has the courage of changing their script. A non-Buddhist may use... would be, in this sense, a person who may use Buddhism as some kind of therapy or to improve your sword fighting or something, but it's always going to be... within your script. you're never going to let it change your script, so you do not allow that yogic experience is then not part of your practice. So, courage... So, yogic experience is not something that's far from you, it's in your blood, it's part of your blood, it's part of actually how you live, but it's not part of your conceptual thinking. And it takes courage of throwing out your script, of being a home leaver,

[58:47]

before you can allow that kind of perception to come in. And it's thought in Buddhism, experienced in Buddhism, that that kind of perception is necessary to help people because it's the only means by which you can actually see their lives. That you can actually see people's destinies and you can see what will affect them and what won't affect them. And you feel this practice is like cool water on a hot day. But first of all, I think it comes from, again, the courage. Courage is the most important factor. Craziness or courage, same thing. To open yourself to your feelings, deepest feelings, whether they're possible or realizable or whatever. And we've been smashed so often and let down so often that it's pretty difficult to do. At some point you say, as a young person, I want to help somebody.

[60:17]

And most of us, I think the common experience is, some people hardly anything ever happens to them, but somebody tries to really help someone and fails. They commit suicide, or die, or just go into another life, or remain crazy, or whatever. You make a tremendous effort. Or you see what you could have done for somebody, but it's too late. Most people see that, try that, and give up. Again, I think of bodhisattvas characterized as somebody who may give up temporarily, but then decide, give up or not, I'm going to keep trying with each person I meet. And the opportunity to practice this is all around us, you know, among the many irritating people we meet. Each person you can meet, like they were your mother or father or spouse or child, and they are. They're somebodies.

[61:41]

Grandmotherly kindness, grandmotherly mind or soft mind. Last night I almost, when I was talking – I feel foolish when I talk about this emotional stuff, but anyway – I almost said, and to open yourself... After one of his lectures, Tommy has these marvellous planning sessions with me. He gets very confused. The day stretches on. Can we get out computers? So anyway, we talk about some soft mind, some soft mind or grandmotherly mind. Sri Krishna said once,

[62:57]

A thief, even a thief is stealing for his mother. And that's sort of namby-pamby, you know. But in some way it's true. And to practice this, to try to appreciate people in that way. So what could be the difference? A person, I think, practicing Buddhism, whose script was a layman's script, but he was a Buddhist, he was bringing this kind of pool of water, yogic pool of water, to his work, her work, would be rather unconcerned about the goals of the organization, except insofar as that was what made the whole thing stick together. And it was a good thing to do. But you'd be equally concerned with how people had lunch together, and each person's life. You'd sort of think of the office as a small sangha. And you couldn't really fire anybody.

[64:24]

You couldn't sacrifice the people to the goals of the organization. I think we need more people in organizations like this. More of us who could have that feeling and go out working in banks and so forth would be great. As you know, one of my hopes, one of those unrealistic thoughts that's probably skipped off the phenomenal world is that we infiltrate the San Francisco Police Department. We have a number of these non-violent cops with rubber guns. So, I'll finish.

[65:24]

What is dust? What is trust? What is bodhichitta? We're not caught by some identity or script in practice. Our life itself is intention. There's no life without intention. So what intention has muscle? What intention includes all intentions? What intention is your heart's physical contempt, your body's contempt? What intention is so clear it's like putting, having eaten, putting your hands up? I don't know if that intention is to save all beings or bring people the cool drink of the Dharma. I don't know what it is. You each find out. That's what Buddha did. And Tsukyoshi did. If it turns out to be Buddhism, okay. If it turns out to be something else, okay. But our practice is to find out that desire which includes everything, or intention. And if this is your heart's content, you vow to realize it.

[66:49]

and if it happens to be the thought of enlightenment, bodhicitta, which is both identified physically with your body as well as... I could go into bodhicitta as part of your meditation, but just I'll say it has physical reality as well as the thought or aspiration. Aspirations are already physical, And you vow, crystallize it, and vow, and sustain it, and every day renew it. And if that's your aspiration, then this, your leading Buddhist way of life, and you practice it in very practical terms, just with the people around you. Your practice most fundamentally is, what blocks me from being open to such and such a person? Why can't I feel about this person as their mother did? It's pretty simple-minded, but quite difficult. And only in this specific way does save all sentient beings have any meaning.

[68:17]

Because universals are aggregates, observable particulars. So the action of a bodhisattva is always through these observable particulars. And the quality of your life, you know, it's like, I like the expression, a bee flies into an unkempt hive and flies right out. That example you used, I mean, are you following the Paramitas? Are you following the precepts? Precepts are just some instruction manual, you know, for how we function as human beings. The Paramitas, the practice of the Paramitas allows experience. pass through us. Allow us to have the courage to feel as deeply as we can, as we do about people and things, and to know how to express that.

[69:43]

It's out of this kind of concern, this feeling, that the enlightenment of Buddha arose. I can say maybe it's identical with the working of the world, it's not some great good feeling of something. That's all I do. comes out of opening yourself to your fundamental inclusive intention that you discover by yourself, through yourself and you know the birthing and dying people everywhere and this is part of your contemplation So I suggested that to myself. So, realizing tonight, evening or before, who doesn't like it? It's a good time to think again, practice again, look again at what is

[71:10]

my fundamental intention, heart's contentment, do I have the courage to throw in a five-fear system, the courage to follow that, to vow that, to sustain that. This is the practice of the person, of the buddhisatva.

[71:27]

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