as you've chanted repeatedly from the first time you meet a master, without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance or reading scriptures, wholeheartedly sit and drop away body and mind. The order is slightly different, but you could maybe say from the first time you need a master, without engaging in the practices of bodhisattvas, the practices of formally paying homage, making offerings to the Buddhas,

[01:01]

revealing and disclosing your own shortcomings in practice. Without doing those practices, by which bodhisattvas practice, just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind. So one way of understanding the ancestor's recommendation is that just wholeheartedly sit, dropping away body and mind, is paying homage, praising all Buddhas, making offerings to all Buddhas, confessing and repenting, studying their teachings, assisting all sentient beings, asking them to teach. So you don't have to do any of those practices because sitting is all those things which he said you don't have to do.

[02:05]

And then later, after he tells you, just sit in such a way, paying homage to all Buddhas, making praise to all Buddhas, making offerings to all Buddhas, confessing and repenting, serving all beings, doing all Buddha's practices, asking the Buddhas to teach, and dedicating the merit of all this to all beings also. dropping our body and mind is all those practices. And then when you're doing all those practices, then also you continue to do all those practices. So when you're requesting the Buddhas to teach, the Buddhas are teaching. So then after you sit, and your sitting is requesting the Buddhas to teach, they teach. So then you listen to the teaching while you're sitting. And then they teach you.

[03:15]

What do they teach you? They teach you to pay homage, to praise, to make offerings, to request a teaching. So after Dogen teaches in his early teaching to just wholeheartedly sit, drop off body and mind, and practice the vows of Samantabhadra, there's chapters on pretty much each one of those practices. He teaches how to make, he has chapters on making offerings, on bowing, on seeing Buddha, on listening, on studying the teachings and so on. It's a very dynamic situation. Sometimes when people come to Zen centers and sit, they may not notice that their sitting is paying homage to all Buddhas.

[04:33]

And if they hear about the practice of paying homage to all Buddhas, they might say, do that at the Zen center. And then someone might say, well actually when you're sitting, that's what you're doing. Your sitting is actually a formal paying homage to those sitting of all time, past, present and future. You're paying homage to future Buddhas too when you sit wholeheartedly, dropping off body and mind. because that's what Buddhists practice. They practice wholehearted sitting, drop the line. So when you do that, you're paying homage to them. But again, how come we don't do that here? And then people say, how come we don't praise the Buddhists here? Well, we do.

[05:35]

In our sitting, our sitting is our central praise place. We also praise Buddhas by saying, you know, and we also say homage to the perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy. We pay homage to perfect wisdom and we sing the praises of perfect wisdom in this temple. But we don't notice it because we are just wholeheartedly sitting, dropping our body and mind. Just like we're supposed to, right? Practicing homage without any idea, without clinging to any idea of practicing homage, of course, is a very excellent way to pay homage. Bowing free of the idea of bowing is a wonderful way of bowing.

[06:40]

Worshipping without thinking, oh, I'm worshipping. Being a Buddha without thinking, I'm a Buddha. So actually, when you're truly worshipping, you're not necessarily saying, oh, wow, I'm worshipping. And when you're being Buddha, you don't necessarily think, oh, I'm a Buddha. I'm Buddha. I'm Buddha. I'm Buddha. You might, but you don't necessarily because you're busy being Buddha. Beyond Buddha. You're more concerned with going beyond Buddha than thinking about being Buddha. So, and we do practice bowing here, as you know. And the ancestor who says, without bowing, just wholeheartedly sit, he also says, when there's bowing, there's Buddha Dharma.

[08:02]

When there's not bowing, Buddha Dharma disappears. When we bow, there's a verse which we can think. We can think it. We can also say it while we're bowing. There's different ways of translating it. One way would be bowing, bowed to, nature, empty, and silent. this body, other bodies, not two. I vow to realize liberation together with all sentient beings. Realize raising the Supreme Mind returning to true nature.

[09:07]

So we bow to Buddha, but we can also remember that the one bowing, the one bowed to, have the same empty nature. No nature. And the one bowing, and this body and the other body are not two. But you don't have to think that. You can just think, I offer my homage to all Buddhas. And then your body can express that. And your voice can express it by being quiet. And the way to bow to Buddha is to just wholeheartedly bow and drop away body and mind.

[10:12]

Just bow and thus drop away body and mind. So when you bow that way, you don't have to sit. or offer incense, or study scriptures. And when you offer incense, same thing, wholeheartedly offer incense and thus drop away body and mind. Just... From the first time you meet, just wholeheartedly offer incense and drop away body and mind. without practicing sitting, without practicing kinin, without practicing orioke, just wholeheartedly offer incense. And also, it's in the

[11:27]

amazing ancestors' verses on arousing the mind, he says something like, what is it, revering Buddhas and ancestors, we are one Buddha and one ancestor. Awakening bodhi mind, we are one bodhi mind. Looking at the Buddhas, we are one Buddha. Looking at the bodhisattvas, we are one bodhisattva. That's the same as wholeheartedly look at the Buddhas and drop away body and mind. Cultivating, contemplating bodhi mind, we are one bodhi mind. We're only two bodhi minds, or a bodhi mind and not a bodhi mind, when we're not engaged in cultivating and contemplating body-mind.

[12:34]

We're really one body-mind, but if we don't practice contemplating body-mind, it feels like body-mind and me. Two things. And as I mentioned in Noah Boat a while ago, someone told me that he was asked what he was doing at Zen Center. And he said, worship the deities. And the person said, you're in the wrong school. I don't know if the person was kidding, but let's say that he wasn't. No worshipping of deities in Zen Center.

[13:39]

No worshipping of Buddhas. We don't do that here. The priests go up and offer incense and bow and say all kinds of mumbo-jumbo. But the rest of us don't do that. We just watch and snicker and resist. This worship of Buddha is giving me a break. That's not Zen. What is Zen? Zen is just so cool that we do not worship Buddhas. Zen is, let's go to North Beach. and listen to Lew Welch's poems. Or I guess... Is it Alan Watt?

[14:45]

Did you write a whole book called Squares Down and Beats Down? Is that a whole book? Squares Down and Beats Down? It's a small book. It's a small book, yeah. Did anybody read it? Read it? So in a sense Alan Watts is one of the Bodhisattvas along with Lu that got this country ready to receive Zen. So we love them and honor them for their great contribution. And they had, I think, a lot of opening, but they didn't find a teacher, as far as I know. And so they couldn't stand their openness.

[15:50]

They had to medicate themselves a lot to tolerate what they opened to. They couldn't be soft and upright. So it's... They showed us the way not to go. Or they showed us the way to go and then where not to go. Open up, but then instead of medicating yourself with drugs and alcohol, practice being upright and honest and very, very gentle with all this painful stuff. And this is the part that also I pay homage to all Buddhas. Alan Walsh was a great guy, but he came into the Zendo one time at City Center, and he walked in and stood on the sutras, and he didn't even notice he was standing on them.

[17:02]

He was, you know, explaining to some of his friends about the Zen Center. I just, you know, here's this wonderful guy who just, nobody taught him, you know, to pay attention to where he put his feet. And he had opening and very good understanding, but no training. I have this book here. I told you it was a big book. This is a book in which someone wrote out the Lotus Sutra, the Saddharmapundarika Sutra. And this is one of the books. So back in the late seventies we were studying the Lotus Sutra in the city center and of course the Lotus Sutra recommends reading the Lotus Sutra, reciting the Lotus Sutra.

[18:21]

And Dogen also recommends in this lifetime make one copy of the Lotus Sutra. I don't think he meant make just one copy, but as one of the things to do in your life. A copy of the Lotus Sutra. He also recommended to make a statue of Buddha. And I was a little bit surprised to hear him say that, but he grew up in the Lotus Sutra. And he was devoted to the Lotus Sutra. So in our meal chant, we chant the ten names of Buddha, but actually we chant eleven names. And the eleventh is the Lotus Sutra. And the Lotus Sutra is listed with the Buddhas. And the last Buddha on the list is the Mahayana Sadharmapundarika Sutra, the Lotus of the Wonderful Law.

[19:28]

It's one of the Buddhas for Dogen. He worshiped the Lotus Sutra, and in worshiping the Lotus Sutra, we are one Lotus Sutra. So this is the English language handwritten copy of the Lotus Sutra, and the person did it on every other sutra. There was no room for me to write other sutras, so I wrote in here part of the Albatam Saka Sutra on the vows of Samantabhadra. So Sudhana, which is translated from Chinese as good giving, su, good, dana, giving, good giving, true giving, Sudhana said to Samantabhadra,

[20:32]

please explain the course that we follow from paying homage to Buddhas to turning over the merit to all beings. And Samantabhadra says, noble-minded person, in regard to paying homage, one should, remember what one should? What? One should think. One should think. So I quoted yesterday when I said, I said that with deep faith and understanding and by the blessed power or with the blessed power of Samantabhadra's vows, I see all Buddhas as though face to face in past and in the ten directions throughout the realm of Dharma and throughout the realm of space in infinite universes equal to the sum of the dust motes in all Buddha's lands. I said that you should think that there are Buddhas, infinite Buddhas, in each dust moon.

[21:48]

But this one, the first one says to think of all the Buddhas, you know, and by the power or with the power of Samantabhadra's vows, because the power of Samantabhadra's vows, according to this, are available to us. We have that power of the vows of the great Bodhisattva by which we can deeply, deeply trust that we see the Buddhas face to face, we can see the Buddhas face to face, and we can see all the Buddhas infinite Buddhas, we can see them all as though face to face. And there's infinite numbers of them to think about. Or you can think about infinite numbers of them and think about meeting them face to face. And then, with all the merit and virtue of our body,

[22:53]

speech and mind, we pay sincere homage without cessation to all the Buddhas. In each and every Buddha land, I shall transform those bodies and with each body I shall venerate, I shall give my veneration to incalculable Buddhas throughout infinite Buddha domains equal to the total number of Dasmots therein. So, I think actually, although I wrote it this way, I think it means I shall, my body shall be transformed into countless bodies and these countless bodies shall pay homage to the countless Buddhas.

[23:59]

I will allow my body to be made into countless bodies, and those countless bodies will pay homage, sincere homage, to countless Buddhas throughout space and time. Homage will be ended when the realm of space is ended. But since the realm of space is boundless, so my homage to all Buddhas will be boundless. Likewise, if the sphere of beings is ended, the karma of beings is ended, the sorrows of beings is ended, the passions of beings is ended, my homage will be ended. But as these two are endless, so my homage to all Buddhas moment after moment, without interruption, in body, vocal and mental actions, without getting weary. Or, I wrote, jaded.

[25:04]

we're not trying to get anything and yet we're not seeking anything and yet energy starts flowing. And a traditional practice for people who are feeling kind of like, I don't know what, depressed, is to do lots of prostrations to the Buddhas. And start with, you know, like a thousand a day. because you might hurt your knees and not be able to do any the next day or the next day. Start with a small number like nine and then increase it up to about a thousand a day. And when you get to that number, most people are kind of like... That's a pretty good number for most people. And then if you do that for about three months, that's about a hundred thousand.

[26:18]

Is that right? A thousand times a hundred? And most people somewhere during that time don't feel much resistance anymore. resistance of course you feel rather exuberant about what much about this practice of this this practice of vowing and bowing bow to pay homage bowing to pay homage and bowing to pay homage to all buddhas and allowing your body to be transformed into infinite bodies paying homage to infinite Buddhas. It's like, hey, yeah.

[27:22]

Now if you feel that way already, you don't have to do so many vows. But if you have some resistance, that's one practice that might help get over the resistance. Maybe nine will be enough for you. Or, you know, usually here we do quite a few every day. We do nine plus three and get up to around 20-some most days here. That might be enough for you to feel like, yeah, no hindrance, no resistance to paying homage to all Buddhas and letting my body be transformed into infinite bodies by homage to infinite Buddhas. And then also this practice simultaneously with this

[28:32]

the freeing us from resistance, it also frees us from the ingrained sense of duality between ourselves and others, between ourselves and the one we're paying homage to. It cuts through that. In our resistance to whatever, paying homage or meeting somebody is very closely related to feeling separate from others and separate from Buddhas. As we do more and more prostrations, more and more homages, we perhaps become more and more wholehearted and body and mind thus drops away. So this is actually, Luminesol gave me a copy of this chapter of the Aptam Saka Sutra which has these vows in it and the way they translated it was conduct and vows of Samantabhadra.

[29:43]

So there's a character for conduct or practice and then there's a character for vow. So you could read that as the practice and vows of Samantabhadra. But you can also read it as the practice of vows or the vowing practice of Samantabhadra. So these vows, in one sense, are intentions or wishes to pay homage, but they're also the paying homage. But it isn't just that you're paying homage now. You also vow to continue to pay homage. You want to pay homage, and you are paying homage, but you also want to continue paying homage until all beings are liberated. So you actually want to keep being around the machine and to keep working the homage practice until everybody is liberated.

[30:46]

You want to do that. You are doing it and you want to do it. And in our ordination ceremony here at Zen Center, for various practices that the ordinees practicing in the ceremony, they do the practice in the ceremony, and then after they do the practice, like taking refuge in the Buddha, for example, or confessing and repenting, for example, then they're asked, will you continue this practice even after the Buddha body? So it isn't just a continuous practice couple days, you continue it until you become Buddha, and then after you continue. At the beginning of the ceremony we pay homage to all the Buddha, but we don't ask the people if you will continue the practice of paying homage in the ceremony.

[31:47]

And so this Sunday we'll have a ceremony like that, I probably won't ask the people will you continue this practice of paying homage until all beings? That's the context. So we pay homage in the ceremony. But the spirit is also that we want to continue this practice. So we don't just go to ordination ceremonies once. We go over and over. We keep attending them and keep practicing homage. Also, for our morning meals here, we pay homage. For the lunch meal, we pay homage to the Buddhas. We say the ten... But we don't say, and I wish to continue this even until all beings are liberated.

[32:52]

So there have been times at this Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, when people have done more than the usual number of bows together. And also individually, some people individually have done lots of bows. And sometimes together we do lots of bows, like when we do bodhisattva ceremony, we do a little bit more than usual. At Tassajara, the whole group has done bowing practice for 40 minutes or whatever. And at Sonoma Zen Center, I guess they start the day with 108 bows. And at Korean Zen Centers, they often start, I think, in the morning with 108 bows. So anyway, we don't do lots of prostrations as a group here. But sometimes, again, as I said earlier, when people don't seem to have much energy and they don't find practice very interesting, and they're just basically kind of like low energy, sometimes I recommend that they do prostrations, carefully, gently do prostrations to help clear the cobwebs from your heart so that you can exuberantly

[34:33]

exuberantly make offerings to Buddha, like, you know, it isn't exactly that you're looking forward to it, you know, like, oh boy, we're going to go in and have noon service, and offer incense and flowers and candlelight and chanting. This is just going to be great. Not necessarily like that, but it could be like that. During the service, you're wholeheartedly participating in the offerings and the praises and the homages, that you're wholeheartedly doing what you're doing. But if you don't feel that wholeheartedness, maybe it might be good to do 100,000 incense offerings. I know some of you are allergic to incense, so you could just offer the incense unburned. But although we don't do lots of bowing, we do do quite a bit of sitting during sesshinis. Have you noticed? So during those sittings, every period of sitting, the whole thing, every moment of it, non-stop, ceaseless, ceaseless, seamless, wholehearted homage.

[35:54]

That's the way the bodhisattvas sit. That's the way Samantabhadra, if Samantabhadra comes to Seshene, she sits down on her elephant seat and sits every moment ceaselessly. Now maybe she doesn't, but her vow is ceaseless homage, whether sitting, standing, walking, or lying down, whether speaking or thinking, thinking, speaking, in any posture, it is ceaseless homage to the Buddhas, all the Buddhas. Ceaseless offering my body to be infinitely transformed into homage payers. This is what Samantabhadra supposedly vows to do. Now maybe Samantabhadra slips up and There's a moment when she's sitting and she's not wholeheartedly paying in some way.

[37:03]

But then she vows to practice confession of that. So when you vow to make every an act of homage to all Buddhas, You're not saying that you'll never slip. You just say, I want to actually pay homage. You're thinking, I'm thinking, I want to, I vow to, I intend to, I want to ceaselessly be aligned with Buddha. I want to ceaselessly return to Buddha, respectfully, worshipfully, non-dually return to Buddha. And I want every moment of my sitting dedicated to that. That's the first bow.

[38:06]

So sashi is kind of, in some ways, it's a better opportunity to pay homage than bowing. because you don't have to confuse. You don't have to bow to pay homage. It's just that bowing is a traditional way. It's pretty clear when you're bowing. But when it's not clear, if you can remember that what you're doing when it doesn't seem to be bowing, homage paying, it is. No matter what it is, on the way to the bathroom, on the bed in the toilet, continue your gommage paying on your way to the zendo. See if you can ceaselessly, seamlessly pay homage to Buddhas throughout the session. Now the kitchen workers see if you can ceaselessly, seamlessly make every step on the way to the kitchen and act a wholehearted homage paying to the Buddhas.

[39:11]

And when you're making lunch for the Sangha who are sitting in the Zen room paying homage to Buddhas, you're feeding the homage payers that you're also ceaselessly paying homage to Buddha. it's possible that you could practice that way. And then it doesn't say so here, but there could be the vow that I wish to keep talking about this vow endlessly. And then comes the next vow, number two, to praise all Buddhas. And this is the one where you think, through this one you think about

[40:19]

In this one you think of in each particle of dust in all worlds, in all times, in all directions dwell infinite Buddhas. So in the praising of the Buddhas now the instruction is to think that in all the particles of dust throughout the universe there are infinite Buddhas in each particle of dust. And then again these Buddhas are surrounded by bodhisattvas who are circumambulating them. And I'm laughing because it just seems funny to think that. And it seems funny that people think it's funny to think that. But actually that wasn't what I thought was funny. What I thought was funny my comment that you guys don't have anything else to do during these periods of sitting.

[41:26]

You know, you're not asked to do any Sudoku or anything, or crossword puzzles, right? You have no telephone calls to make or receive. You're available, like, thinking of all these Buddhas in every particle of dust surrounded by these Bodhisattvas. You could be thinking this. You don't have anything else to do, do you? And thinking of these bodhisattvas and Buddhas, infinite in number, in each particle, in each atom of oxygen coming into your body and going out of your body. Someone's told me they're meditating that way. As they breathe in, every particle that comes in as they breathe in, infinite Buddhas in every particle that they breathe in, infinite Buddhas, every particle they're breathing out. Infinite infinities of Buddhas coming into the body and going out of the body.

[42:29]

You don't have anything else to do besides breathe and be aware of all these Buddhas entering you and leaving you. All these teaching Buddhas and bodhisattvas entering you and leaving you all day long. And that you want you welcome them and you praise them. And so the vow is to think of that. To intend to continue to think of that. And to continue to think of praising and then also thinking of praising is very closely related to praising. So think of praising and praise all Buddhas ceaselessly. until all beings are exhausted. But since they won't be, your praise will not be exhausted. And again, that's what it means to wholeheartedly sit. And if you think you're wholeheartedly sitting, or if I think I'm wholeheartedly sitting and dropping away by, and then someone offers me this opportunity, and I say, wait a minute, I don't want to take that on.

[43:45]

What? You have some limit in your whole heart and sitting. You've dropped away body and mind, and there's something you're not too busy to do. You don't have a body and mind, but you can't do something. When you don't have a body and mind, there's nothing you can't participate in. That's the advantage of it. But if you're holding on to your body and mind, then, well, I can only do so much. Right. So hand it over. Hand over your body and mind so you're not limited anymore. So you can be an exuberant, crazy person, unlimited by body and mind. And again, in this one it says, in the previous one it says, with the power of Samantabhadra's vow, I will pay homage and I will see the Buddha as though face to face. In this This time, though, I say it slightly different.

[44:47]

It says, I shall apply my profound thought and insight to know and see all these Buddhas face to face. So when you first think of these Buddhas, you might see their faces a little bit, but as you get more into it, you actually start to see them as though face to face. They get more and more intimate as you praise them more. They come into being through your homage and praise, and you know them, and you see them. And then, when you see them, you praise them. That's the second vow of Samantabhadra. That's the second vow, or the practice vow, or the vow of practice. These two, homage and praise. How are they different?

[45:52]

See, like I said yesterday, I think you can praise something but not put it away. And also, I think this praise is particularly, I think it's actually emphasizing verbal. that you're actually praising the virtues, speaking of the virtues, so you're actually then praising them. The other one, you're saying, I want to be like these beings, but you're not necessarily mentioning the virtues or singing the praises of the virtues. So it says, through the power of... practice and vows and with deep understanding. Oh, excuse me. So it says, to the great assembly sing the praise of the Buddhas with a tongue more eloquent than those possessed by maidens of heaven.

[47:07]

each tongue emitting boundless oceans of voices, each voice emitting boundless oceans of speech, all proclaiming the ocean-like merit of the Buddha." So it's emphasizing speech. Boundless speeches of praise. And since the kitchen left, that means it's about 11. So just let two of the vows be enough for this morning, and then maybe in the future we can talk about the other eight. We may have to extend session a little to get them covered. What did you say? What is this? No way. No way.

[48:09]

How about one more? No way what? No way extending Sashin? No, I have to go there. What? I would like to stay, but I have to go there. Actually, I have to go to England too, so... Okay, well, that's very kind of you to not let us go on without you. So is there anything you'd like to express about the marvelous Mahayana teaching of Samantabhadra? By the way, some scholars who don't consider themselves to be disciples of Buddha think

[49:28]

The form of Doksan that we have in Zen comes from ancient times. People would go to the teacher and privately confess. Because in the Buddhist tradition there is public confession, but then also there was private confession. And in some other traditions too they have private confession and public confession. if you're welcome to privately and publicly confess your resistance to any of these boundless bodhisattva practices. And by revealing your resistance to ceaselessly paying homage to all Buddhas, by revealing our resistance to wholeheartedly sitting and thus dropping away body and mind, by revealing and disclosing our resistance to praising all Buddhas and so on.

[50:39]

Before the Buddhas who we are resisting, you know, praising, the root of that resistance will melt away and will become an unhindered homage praising, offering, confessing, being. But you have to practice the confession in order to remove the resistance and then when you remove the resistance you can do the practice and when you do the practice, the practice removes further resistance until you're just one one with the great river of bodhisattva practice. I have great resistance

[51:53]

to the theistic part. Theistic? Yes. Oh, this isn't theistic. It sounds so theistic. Yeah, well, it's not. Well, you can help. It's non-theistic. I have always understood that, but I'm not helping. It's not theistic, and it's not atheistic. Well, I think I understand that, but I'm still having trouble when I hear you say Buddhas as... Yeah, deities, deities, not theists, not gods. Okay, then I need some help on the difference. Well, I think the main difference might be... If you think of God as a prime mover, something that has a beginning and makes everything happen, something like that, that kind of substantialistic view of God we don't have in this tradition, or actually we don't have anyplace.

[53:05]

And then to think of gods as spirits and so on, we have those. But those are beings that Buddha teaches, the spirits in the land. But we don't worship those types of gods. We respect them, but we don't worship... Those aren't the divinity. The divinity is... that which illuminates and teaches gods and humans, gods in the sense of divine spirits. But dharma in some sense is more divine than beings who are highly evolved. But the idea that there's a god, a substantial god that causes the universe or something like that, we don't have that, we have the pinnacle arising. So if you see God as the pinnacle rising, or if you see the soul as the pinnacle rising, again, we don't worship that. We worship the teaching of that, those who teach it.

[54:10]

We want to become teachers of the process of creation. But we don't have dependent co-arising or the process of creation. And we don't have somebody who's in charge of the process of creation. So we're not worshipping that creator. And we don't worship creation. We study creation. And so opening to all beings is part of the entree to opening to the process of creation by which the universe manifests as you and me. So we are opening to the teachers of how we're praising and Those who teach beings how to open and understand creation, we're not bowing and paying homage to. And I guess in Christianity or some religions, you're not supposed to pay homage because you're not supposed to be actually trying to be like God.

[55:16]

Well, that's true. Whereas we're actually trying to be together. So that's paying homage. In some religions like Christianity, they praise God, but you're not supposed to become God, according to some Christians anyway. Does that help? That does help. Thank you. Yeah, I think what is called the soul in Christianity, or maybe even the Holy Ghost, is what we call the pinnacle arising in the Buddha. You spoke about being open and about maybe some people whose temperament was so open and then they didn't know how to, I don't know, how do you put it, like that they needed some way to adjust themselves so that they weren't open all the time and they took care of themselves.

[56:44]

They did not take care of themselves in the openness. and they couldn't see any way to find a teacher who would show them how to deal with the openness which they were gifted with in a way, but without instruction on how to I just want to say that it's really painful when you have artistic work and artistic people have this openness they almost have to have. And then it's like, well, figure out how to adjust it. Can you help me, please? Yeah, I think, Denise, you're able to ask for help. But Jackson Pollock, I guess, couldn't ask anybody. But he certainly seemed to be open. But he couldn't say to somebody, please help me deal with my openness in which all this creation is happening. But you're that assistance. And the Lotus Sutra tells you, be honest about the pain of it, all the pain you feel in this openness.

[57:51]

Be honest and be very gentle and be flexible. And the word that we use for flexible means it is sometimes put together with mind. And the flexible mind, one time Dogen asked Ru Jing, what is this flexible, this soft, gentle mind? And Ru Jing said, it's for body and mind to drop away. So if you're in this openness, and you're, if you have this soft mind, you're actually willing for the body and mind to drop away, and then you won't get torn to bits. So that softness won't get in the way of all this information that's coming to you. Sometimes it feels like that when it's happening. Sometimes it feels like it's dropping away?

[58:51]

Yeah, but it doesn't feel gentle. Yeah, I feel gentle. Pain doesn't feel gentle, but you can be gentle with pain. If something's gouging you, it doesn't feel gentle, maybe. Not everything that's gouging at you is sort of like asking permission before it gouges and changes, but you can have a gentle response to these painful gifts. And if we can be gentle with these painful things, we can realize they're gifts. And also be gentle with them and not hold on to them so we don't hold the gifts. Part of the art is to receive inspiration and then let it flow back without holding it even for a little. I'm at the point where I can't do anything else.

[59:51]

It's not so much anything else, but you can keep asking for assistance to cope with that process. And so like yesterday we were talking about, somebody mentioned that we have this empty space, this receptive space surrounded by activity. And so like the receptive part forms the active part. But we have to be in this receptive place in a way that we don't get in a way, otherwise what's received is disturbed in how it informs our action. So that's the art, is how to be in that receptive place so that the information comes in and gets an appropriate response. What you described is what it's like about the water image. So I think there's a fine line between being creative and being a unabomber or something, I think.

[60:58]

Take care of your creative impulse. There's not really a line even between being creative and being Unabomber because Unabomber is included in the creative process. It's just that Unabomber is grasping, getting stuck in some point there. But those who are stuck are also... The creative process opens to those who are stuck in the creative process. It's like everyone wants to express their love and if they can't, they'll become hateful. There is that possibility, yes. Thank you for the instruction. You're welcome. Thank you.

[61:39]

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