At Green Gulch now, we have an awesome autumn practice period, and I'm sort of emphasizing ceremony, or practice as ceremony, or emphasizing the practice is ceremony, and hopefully ceremony is the practice. So sometimes in the tradition of this person, this Ehe Koso Hotsugamon person, the Zen master, Ehe Dogen Zenji, the way he taught his close disciples was that Buddha's ceremony, or the ceremony of Buddha's, is

[01:28]

the Buddha way. The Buddha way is the ceremony of the Buddha way. There's not another Buddha way. And if we don't do the ceremony of the Buddha way, the Buddha way is sort of lost in the world. And this actually is a teaching of Ehe Dogen, which some of his best students had difficulty understanding. So I think that it won't be surprising if we have trouble understanding this too. On the cover of the book Being Upright, there's a Chinese character

[02:31]

which is a character for ceremony, or ritual, and has two parts. The part on the right is a character for person, the part on the left is a character for meaning, or righteousness, or justice. And you join the person together with justice, you get character for ceremony. So there's a background in Chinese culture that the way to connect meaning or righteousness or justice, the way to connect it to a person, or the way to connect a person to justice and meaning is through ceremony. And this character was in China before Buddhism, before when it got transmitted, part of what happened was that the teachings of Buddha, the truth,

[03:39]

the meaning of the Buddha Dharma, was also united with the person through ceremony. Ceremony was the vehicle, and still is the vehicle, in Asia, to join, to unite the person and meaning. Or to embody the meaning in the person, and embody the person in the meaning. So there's not a person in addition to the meaning, or a meaning in addition to the person. The ceremony is the meaning and the person. Yes? Is ceremony etiquette? Etiquette is one kind of ceremony. Is that what Dogen means? I think my understanding of Dogen would be that etiquette is one example of the way a

[04:49]

person unites with meaning. That would be one way. But strictly speaking, we don't usually call sitting meditation etiquette. But you could, you could say that sitting meditation is a certain form of etiquette. Or walking meditation, like we've been doing, that's a kind of etiquette. You could say it that way. I would be open to that. But if you have some other meanings of etiquette, I think I would also be open to those. And if you didn't consider sitting meditation, if you didn't consider yogic exercise as etiquette, then I would say, fine, but let's make that a ceremony too. So, in the case of etiquette, or in the case of certain yoga practices, like sitting, what I mean by it being a ceremony is that you're doing the form, like a form of etiquette,

[05:55]

or a form of posture. You're doing the form, a physical form or a vocal form, to manifest something which is not a form, like justice, or compassion, the truth, and the meaning of the truth. So it's not just the truth, it's the meaning of the truth. The truth's around all over the place. Where's the meaning? Well, the meaning's there too, but we need to add some form to manifest the meaning in our human life. So if I say to you, welcome honored guests, and I say that in a really kind, gracious way, you could say, well, that was a nice expression of etiquette. And I felt that that etiquette manifested something more than just this person welcoming me. I felt that it manifested

[07:00]

a great truth of our relationship, a great meaning comes with this nice welcome. So then the etiquette is a ceremony offered for this great realization. And another way I think you've heard me say before is that, well, you've heard me say before, and you've also said before, when we chant our Heart Sutra, we say, given emptiness, this is the current translation, given emptiness, there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. Another way to say it is, in emptiness, there's no eyes, no ears, there's no colors, no sound, in emptiness. Or another way to say it is, in the context of emptiness. So in other words, if you're actually aware of emptiness, if you're aware of the ultimate

[08:04]

truth, like if you're looking at the ultimate truth, what's the ultimate truth you're looking at? Nothing can be found. No dharmas can be found. I see Gordon, I see Charlie, I see Tracy, I see Bernard. But all these beings that I see are marked by emptiness, and when I see their emptiness, I can't find them. I see, I understand, I see and I understand Bernard cannot be found. In that context, there's no Bernard. It's not that he's non-existent, it's just that he's ungraspable, I can't find him. And in that context, when I'm aware of the truth, then my words and my gestures are rituals. When you're engulfed in the radiance of ultimate truth, everything you do is in that context. Everything you do cannot be

[09:08]

found, cannot be grasped, and yet you speak and make gestures. But these gestures are ceremonies celebrating the ultimate truth. Which, of course, they always are, but people don't see it. People don't see that the fact that you can move your hands and stretch your arms is because of the truth. The truth sponsors all your action. When you see the truth, you feel it sponsoring your action, and then your action is a ceremony manifesting the truth in your action. So again, if you or I or if one understands the truth of vast emptiness, then in that understanding, no actions can be found, no people can be found, no colors can be found, and then all actions in a place where actions can't be found are rituals, are

[10:12]

ceremonies to manifest that truth in these actions. Turning it around, when you do a ritual, if you do rituals long enough, you start to realize the emptiness of all your activity. When what you do is a ritual, if you make and offer all your actions as rituals to the truth, to realize the truth, you will realize the truth in the ritual. And that's what the rituals are for the ones who realize the truth, so those who don't yet realize the truth, if they realize everything they do as a ritual, then they realize the truth. So I'll be working with this particularly this fall, and I'm also going to be at Green

[11:14]

Gulch for the practice period. I'll also be working on the Lotus Sutra, because the Lotus Sutra is a sutra which very much says, make all your daily actions a ritual of the Lotus Sutra. And I mentioned here before that when this ancient teacher, Dogen, was dying, he recited the Lotus Sutra, and the part of the Lotus Sutra he recited was where it says, wherever you recite the Lotus Sutra, that is where Buddha is born, that is where Buddha is enlightened, that's where Buddha walks. So he was walking, reciting the scripture which says, when you recite this scripture, Buddha is walking here. This place where you're reciting the scripture is the place where Buddha is walking. So he was walking, reciting

[12:15]

the scripture which says, by the fact of reciting the scripture, Buddha is walking here. Which is a simpler way to say it, which is not quoting the Lotus Sutra, but quoting me earlier today is, when you're doing walking meditation here, that walking meditation can be walking as Buddha, and that walking meditation can be Buddha walking as you. If you need a scripture to support that, to recite the Lotus Scripture while you're walking, then you're walking as Buddha's walking, and Buddha's walking as you're walking. The Buddha sent a message to us that the Buddha's walking is not other than our walking, and our walking is no other than Buddha's walking. That's the situation. But we have to practice that,

[13:21]

otherwise we won't realize it. We have to dedicate our walking, make our walking an example of Buddha's walking, our walking. We have to think that. We have to offer that, even though it's already true. So, someone who is very impressed by death because of the death of people close to him, close to her, asked me recently, what is the great matter of birth and death? On that

[14:26]

wooden board up there, which we call a han, which is a Chinese word for board, on that board, which we strike to call people to meditation, it says, great is the matter of birth and death. And that word matter also can mean meaning, affair, reason, thing. Great is the thing of birth and death. Great is the meaning of birth and death. Great is the affair of birth and death. And birth and death, I think all of us are somewhat familiar with birth, right? It happened to us not too long ago, and also happened this morning. And death, we have some experience of death, we hear it's coming, we see other people manifesting it. Birth and death is the way the Chinese wrote samsara. Samsara means going around and going around birth and death. The Chinese wrote birth and death, it's understood. Cyclic

[15:32]

birth and death, going around in birth and death. So you could say great is the matter of samsara. Now also, nirvana is a great matter too. And some people might say, well, the great matter of samsara is nirvana. But also, sending a message to you from nirvana, birth and death, samsara, is the great matter. So this person says to me, what is the great matter of birth and death? And I said, the great matter of birth and death is the presence of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. So we've got birth and death, plenty of it, spinning around. We're in a birth and death crisis. What's the great matter here? The great matter

[16:34]

is that the Buddhas are present. And because the Buddhas are present in birth and death, there's no birth and death. And because the Buddhas are present, we can practice with them. They are here to practice with us, they manifest in birth and death to practice with us. And we can practice with them by just offering our life to the Buddhas, making our life the Buddha's life, making our life the way of the Buddha. The Buddhas are, of course, practicing the Buddha way. So the Buddha way is present to us, is present with us. However, we need, in order to realize that, we have to give our life to the Buddha way, moment

[17:37]

by moment. There may be other great matters. Great meanings or great matters of birth and death, but that's the one I mentioned the other day. Someone also said to me recently that sometimes she feels she has a view which she finds nourishing. She has a nourishing view, and the nourishing view is that she's her life is supported. She has a life that's supported. That's the kind of life she has,

[18:38]

a supported one, rather than an unsupported one. And she finds that view nourishing. She finds the view that she's being nourished, nourishing. And I don't know if she said this, but I think she probably would agree that she has a view that her life is nourishing, that her life also supports and nourishes other life. Sometimes she has that view and she finds that nourishing and healthy and healing and groovy. Does that make sense? Does it make sense? That she would find such a view nourishing, the nourishing view nourishing? And she has another view, the unnourishing view. It's the view that she's not being nourished or that any moment her nourishment might be cut off. She's not being supported. She's alone.

[19:39]

And she finds that view not very nourishing and terrifying and cramped and uncomfortable and painful. Now some people see that view and they don't even open to the pain of it. They just start blaming people. They see that they're not being supported. They have that view. They feel bad about it. And then they go around telling people that they've got a problem, that they're not being supportive. But I don't tell you you're not being supportive of me, do I? I don't think you're not being supportive of me. I don't have that view, so I don't tell you that you are. But if I have that view, I would feel very bad. I used to have that view sometimes, that some people were not supporting me. Fortunately,

[20:42]

I almost never had that view anymore. However, if I did have that view, I would encourage myself to take the nourishing view. Seeds are nourishing, have you known? You can eat seeds. This nourishing view is a view of being nourished and it's nourishing. I would take the nourishing view and bring it over to the unnourishing view and plant the nourishing view in the unnourishing view. That's one of the best uses for the nourishing view, is to plant it in a field of unnourishing views. The nourishing view is great and it feels comfortable, but it doesn't really do its thing unless you take the nourishment and put it where there isn't nourishment. To plant this seed of, hey, I am supported

[21:43]

and I want to support and I am supporting, put that seed, that happy nourishing seed and bring it over to the muddy field of, hey, there's not enough nourishment here, I don't want to nourish you if you don't nourish me, but put it in that field of suffering. Bring the Buddha and plant the Buddha in the realm of beings who do not appreciate Buddha and put that seed in there and let it embrace, let the nourishing view fully embrace the unnourished and unnourishing view. Put down roots and deeply embrace and engage the unnourishing mud and then that seed will germinate and will send up a sprout and that sprout will make a great lotus or a great tree and this tree, this is the Buddha, this is the Buddha

[22:45]

way. It's not just, hey, we're in support-ville, we take support-ville and put it in unsupport-ville. We plant it and we keep planting it and keep watering it until the support-ville completely permeates and then develops this great lotus out of the world where people do not appreciate that they're being supported and supporting. So we do a ritual. We bring the Buddha view into a form in the world. I also wanted to just mention to you, here's the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Flower Adornment Scripture. In this translation it is only 1600 pages and on page 1226 there is a discussion

[24:10]

about, in the end of the scripture there's a bunch of stories about this young man, his name was Sudhana and Sudhana I think means rich or wealthy in talent, very talented young boy and he's going around to visit, he visits 52 or 53 teachers, 52 or 53 Bodhisattvas to learn the Buddha way from them. And number 11 of the 53 is a monk named Sudarsana. It's well, and Darsana means vision, so skillful in vision, a monk named Sudarsana, he goes

[25:14]

and meets this monk, he's looking for him and so finally the sutra says that Sudhana saw the monk and he saw the monk walking around in the woods and this monk was, to Sudhana this monk was really good looking, very handsome monk with the characteristics of a great person, the appearance of a great person, walking in the woods. And his gaze was steady and mindful and his gaze had vast intelligence and his gaze was intent on the insuperable

[26:16]

knowledge. And his mind was free of vacillation and vain imagination, idle fantasies, false ideas. He saw that when he saw this monk walking in the forest. He saw him walking and he could see that he was walking and he was fully resolved to guide all beings to full development of the vast spheres of great compassion. He could see this monk was ever mindful of the Buddha way and that this monk was treading the Buddha way for the sake of all living beings, walking quietly, steadily. So I bring this up as a Mahayana scriptural source for

[27:25]

the walking meditation of the Bodhisattvas. So we can practice walking meditation and so I encourage myself and I would like to encourage you to when you are doing walking meditation, look into your heart and see if you feel a firm resolution to walk in order to guide all beings to full development of the vast sphere of great compassion. I'm walking now. I resolve, or at least I consider the resolution, I consider to firmly resolve to walk in order to guide all beings to full development of the vast sphere of

[28:50]

one of his teachers. This is what he saw his teacher showing him. So in Soto Zen we do walking meditation, often times between two periods of sitting. So we have a scriptural source here now for how to practice walking meditation as this Bodhisattva teacher practiced it. To make the walking, the form of walking, a ceremony to manifest the Bodhisattva. And of course, Bodhisattvas are walking the Buddha way. They are mindful of walking the Buddha way, right? That's Bodhisattvas. It doesn't mean they never forget, never slip, never get distracted. But anyway, they are, when their Bodhisattva is on the job, they are

[29:51]

mindful of the Buddha way, and they walk the Buddha way for the sake of all beings, and they are resolved to guide all beings to the vast sphere of great compassion. Today, we can walk that way. We can walk with that resolve, to walk for the benefit of all beings, to walk to guide this world of beings. We can walk that way. We can think that way and walk that way, and when we do, we are walking like this Bodhisattva. And I think this is, I feel, completely in accord with the Bodhisattva vow of Dogen that we just recited. His disciples are bringing our attention to this scripture as instruction on how to do walking meditation as a ritual to manifest the Buddha way. I say to manifest the Buddhas

[30:55]

in the world as the Buddha way. And then another scriptural source is the Lotus Sutra, but before I go there, I just awoke this altar. We put a Lotus Sutra inside of Shakyamuni Buddha. So there is a Lotus Sutra inside of Shakyamuni Buddha, and here is the Abhidhamsaka Sutra. And both these texts are encouraging us to make our walking a ceremony for manifesting the Buddha way in this world. I'll bring this up later, that Lotus Sutra thing, if you'd like me to. But now I feel

[31:59]

like I should say, I seem to have given a speech, and now that I've given the speech, or now that I've given the speech, let's go back and see if answers or some kind of response comes. So I see Linda, and I see Robin, and Homa, and you had your hand raised quite a while ago. Do you still want to bring something up there? Maybe? Erin? So Erin, do you want to start? I was just thinking, a couple of times ago, or maybe last time, you were talking about fear. I was talking about what? Fear, yes. People were bringing up a lot of fear with you, and I was just wondering how ceremony might help cultivate fearlessness? How does ceremony cultivate fearlessness?

[32:59]

So if I'm walking, I'm laughing because I just said, if I'm walking, and then boom, a sutra comes to mind about the Buddha walking. I didn't mean to bring this up, but it's so lovely how the mind, when it's trained in a certain way, and somebody asks a question about how ceremony would go with fearlessness, that I think of talking about walking, because I was just talking about walking, and then I say it, and then boom, a sutra comes to mind about the Buddha walking, and the Buddha says, when I was walking in the forest, and fear came, I would continue to walk. I was laughing how beautiful and funny it is, how

[34:19]

the mind works when it swims around in the teachings. Isn't that cool? The Buddha said, when I'm walking in the forest, and fear comes, I just keep walking until the fear goes away. I don't stop walking when I become afraid. I keep walking. I keep doing the ceremony of walking. I'm walking in the forest as a ceremony to realize the truth, but still fear comes. But the Buddha stumbled upon, now this Buddha that's telling the story is a historical Buddha who had past experience studying with Buddhas. Buddhas told him before, when you're walking in the forest and fear comes, keep walking, boy. So he remembered that somehow, it came to him, stumbled upon again in his life as Shakyamuni Buddha, when fear comes,

[35:22]

keep walking. And he said, and when I was sitting, if fear came, I would continue to sit until the fear passes away. And if I was standing, I would continue standing until the fear passed away. And if I was reclining, I would continue to recline until the fear passes away. This is the Buddha way. It isn't that you're walking in the forest to get from one side to the other. You're walking in the forest to manifest the Buddha way in the forest. That's why you walk in the forest. Now you do walk to the grocery store, but you don't walk to the grocery store to get to the grocery store. You just happen to be walking to the grocery store. The purpose is not to get to the grocery store. The purpose is to do the ritual of walking meditation to realize the Buddha way every step between here and the grocery store. Now when you get there, then you have another practice called shopping. And then you do the practice of shopping, not to get the things you're shopping for,

[36:26]

but to manifest the Buddha way in the shopping center. And if when you're shopping, fear comes, the Buddha says, I continue to shop until the fear passes away. So this is how ritual opens us to the whole world. And fear comes to be treated respectfully by continuing the practice and helping the fear calm down. The practice is not so that I won't be afraid anymore. I just practice it until there's no fear. I do this to guide all beings. The Bodhisattva walks in the forest to guide all beings and when fear comes, this is a Bodhisattva. This is a Buddha who was a Bodhisattva at that time. He continued to walk in the Indian forests to guide beings, to show them, and he found the way in the

[37:33]

forest. By that ritual, the ritual of the Buddha, that's a Buddha ritual of walking in the forest for the welfare of beings, and it realized Buddha. And he became the realized Buddha by practicing that way. And if we practice that way, we will realize fearlessness, and not just fearlessness, but what comes with fearlessness, the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas who practice this way. What's your name? Sudabe. Say it louder. Sudabe. Sudabe? Yes. Okay, you are number four. Take a ticket. Linda. Maybe it's past now. It is past. Do you have something you want to say? The passage that you read, I was going to ask you to read that little part again.

[38:35]

Which part? Where he saw the monk, and he saw what kind of person he was. He saw the monk, so Sudhana was looking for Sudarsana. Sudhana was looking for Sudarsana, and he saw Sudarsana walking in a certain forest. And he was handsome and had the marks of a great person. His gaze was steady and mindful of the vast intelligence. And his intention was on the sphere of insuperable knowledge of the Buddhas. And his mind was free of vacillation, and free of vain imagination, and idle fantasies, and false ideas. And he

[39:35]

was aware of the vast range of enlightened knowledge, and firmly resolved to guide all beings to full development of vast spheres of great compassion. Ever mindful of the Buddha way, treading the Buddha way for the sake of all beings, walking quietly and steadily. And it also says, neither quickly nor slowly. In Sotu Zen, we walk neither quickly nor slowly. In other words, we walk super slowly. Super slow, beyond slow and quick. We walk without moving. We walk unmovingly. Our walking is an expression of immovable sitting. Which means our walking is an expression of the Buddha way.

[40:40]

And then, Robin? You said that trying to sow the seeds of nourishment in the not-so-nourishing place. Yeah. I'm just wondering how to do that. How to do it? Well, for example, if you ever had a vision, a nourishing vision, like, Oh my God, all these people in this room are supporting me. Oh my God, I'm willing to support them all, and I am supporting them all. This is a nourishing vision. Then you might, a little bit later, you might be walking around, and some of these people do not support me here. And, you know, I could say more about them, but basically I feel pretty bad about these people. And these people are a source of irritation and repulsion, etc.

[41:44]

But I feel supportive of this nasty little thought I'm having now. And I'm supported by this nasty thought. And I'm going to bring my gracious, nourishing view right over to this narrow, narrowing, tightening, tense, unappreciative, strangling view. I'm going to bring all my warm, supportive views over, and I'm going to plant them in this land of pollution. And I'm going to just keep engaging this area which seems to be a problem. I bring the nourishing view to this so-called problem area, because I can see from the nourishing view that this problem area is actually an opportunity area. It's an opportunity to grow something that cannot grow in better neighborhoods. The lotus grows in mud. It doesn't grow in sand.

[42:52]

It doesn't grow in air. Air and sand are fine. And the view of being supported, you can have that in vast space, but to take that wonderful view and to bring it into the most difficult, narrow, tight places in our own body and mind and in other people's body and minds, to bring it there and engage those areas. We had a guest speaker at Gringotts the other night, and the thing he said which I appreciated most is he said something like, I don't know, he said something like, I don't wish my children to be happy, I don't wish them to be unhappy, I wish them to be engaged. So bodhisattvas, of course they want people to be happy, they don't want people to be unhappy, but the main thing is that they engage everybody,

[43:54]

they embrace everybody, they bring their nurturing view, their healthy view, they bring it into a close relationship with everybody, all sentient beings who have these whatever kind of views, somewhat limited views, false views. Does that make sense? Good. Homa? I have a question. So I'm just wondering in the context of being engaged, how could one be engaged so open and so vast

[44:57]

that... Excuse me, you said how can one be engaged so open and so vast? It's to use the openness to support you to be engaged. So first of all, I have this open attitude. I'm open to supporting everybody. I'm open to everybody supporting me. I'm opening to Sarah Palin and Joe Biden supporting me. I'm open to them supporting me. I'm open to Barack Obama supporting me. I'm open to John McCain supporting me. I'm open to them supporting me and I'm open to supporting them. I don't just support one candidate and not the other. I'm open to supporting them all and being supported by all. And that openness, that vast openness,

[46:01]

sponsors my willingness to engage. For example, just now talking about them, I just engaged in particular language about particular people. Hopefully from the place of openness to them all. And wishing that they too will also be fully engaged with all beings. I want that for them. And I have confidence that that will be helpful in this world. But the openness is what allows me to be not exactly not open but to get particular. So emptiness makes me open to all situations. The truth opens me to all situations and makes all situations open to me. And that's what supports me willing to be particular to some particular place,

[47:04]

with some particular thing and engage it. And when I can't engage it's because I got distracted from the truth. I forgot that this thing is last emptiness. So then I say, well, I can't engage this. Then my relationship with this person is not a ritual, not a ceremony. This is just, you know, lack of appreciation. This is not a ceremony of lack of appreciation. This is just a non-ceremonial lack of appreciation. This is an opportunity to not manifest the Buddha way. And this is a good person to not manifest the Buddha way with. This person does not deserve the Buddha way. No way. I'm not going to practice with this person. This person is not going to get Buddha's love from me.

[48:05]

No. This is a good case for an exception to the rule. Forget emptiness from emptiness. So, there it is. Bodhisattva on break, on vacation. A truant, juvenile delinquent Bodhisattva. So then I confess and repent. Okay, I'm sorry. That's not what I want to do. So if you don't want to do that anymore, then if you ever do do it, then confess and repent it before the Buddhas. And that will melt away the root of doing that. Not sustaining it, not sustaining the truth as me, as I, as is,

[49:13]

is what my root of problem is. Yeah. So sometimes your mindfulness breaks. You lose your mindfulness. So that's why Sudhana sometimes lost his mindfulness. That's why he was visiting all these teachers, is to get help at being more mindful of what you want to be mindful of. And sometimes you forget, so then you confess, I forgot. I want to be mindful, but I wasn't. I forgot that all situations are supporting me, and I'm supporting them. I forgot that all situations are doors to the truth. I lost my mindfulness. I'm sorry. I want to go back to mindfulness of the teachings again. Now, tell me your name one more time. Sudabe. Sudane. Sudabe. Sudane?

[50:14]

Sudane you talked about. Okay. Sudabe. Sudabe, yes. You answered what my question was in regards to the discussion you had. Thank you. You're welcome. And also, I just wanted to say, I wanted to ask, first of all, is Iran part of Asia? Yes. That's what I thought. Is Israel part of Asia? Yes. Is Iraq part of Asia? Yes. Is China part of Asia? Yes. Is Korea part of Asia? Is Japan part of Asia? Yes. Is India part of Asia? Yes. Is Nepal part of Asia? Yes. I just want to say, I'm glad that there's a lot of Asians here today. It's really nice. I think we have about ten Asians here. It's wonderful. Yes. I'd like to have you say a little bit more about the comment you heard the other night.

[51:17]

Because that was kind of significant to me. If the goal is engagement, because I think of male beings be happy. I don't know who said that. I don't know who that's a quote from. But I certainly... Male beings be happy? Yes. Who said that? Yes. Male beings be happy is from the Metta Sutra. Buddha said that. Male beings be happy. To me, that's... I mean, male beings be engaged. That's wonderful. But I feel like that's kind of my personal take on it. And I'm very happy to hear that that's what the Buddhists said. You're happy the Buddhists said what? That male beings be happy equals male beings be engaged. Right. That's right. It seems to me a fair amount of mischief being done in society at large by people who equate being happy with not being engaged or awake. I just think that's just wonderful.

[52:19]

I do too. So we want the nurturing view to engage the non-nurturing view. We want to bring that nurturing view over and have it engage the non-nurturing. But the emphasis is not on us getting happy. The emphasis is we are happy. And we want to bring this happiness to those who have an unhappy view. We want to engage with them. Or another, as I often say, those who know how to play need to teach those who don't know how to play. And the Bodhisattvas are playing in the realm of supporting all beings and being supported by all beings. Everybody supports the Bodhisattvas so they can play together with everybody. But some of the people we're playing with don't know how to play yet, so they have to not only play with them, but they have to play with them in such a way that they learn how to play.

[53:22]

So they need to bring their playing over to interact with those who don't know how to play until those who don't know how to play learn how to play. And then in the place where they're playing together is where the Great Lotus grows. The healing of eons of being unplayful, and all the wounds that come from being unplayful, that all those wounds are healed in this play space. Yes? I'm thinking of the idea of ceremony in relation to the nourishing side, the nourishing view and the isolating non-nourishing view. The nourishing view is always already here in the non-nourishing view, and the ceremony is remembering that. Yes, the nourishing view, the reality of nourishment, of mutual nourishment is always the case. But if we don't do the ceremony of nurturing,

[54:30]

we don't realize the reality of nurturing. So, we do a ceremony of nourishment. Like now, we're doing a ceremony here of having a Dharma talk, where we're feeding each other. You know, Dharma is being fed to us. We're offering Dharma words, Dharma food, as a ceremony to realize the fact that Dharma food is always being offered. So, I brought you the wonderful Dharma food to tell you teachings about how to walk, in a way to make your walking nourishing to yourself and others. And this ceremony is for you to realize that that was always the case. But without bringing this up, without mentioning this way of walking, you might not realize that this is the way we're really walking. Really, you're always walking to help other people.

[55:31]

That's really why you're walking. That's really how you're walking. You're always helping everybody, and everybody is helping you. But unless you do the ceremony of walking to help others, to help all others, you don't realize you're walking to help all others. Unless you do the ceremony of continuing to walk when you become afraid, you don't realize the reality of fearlessness. Really, you're not afraid. Really, you're with Buddha, and Buddha is with you in a land of fearlessness. But if we don't practice the ritual of that, we can miss it. And even if we practice it mindfully, we can have a lapse in our mindfulness and slip into forgetfulness, and then forget where we are. Yes, Eileen? What you just said, I have been thinking about Dr. Powell's talk the other night, when he talked of patterns,

[56:33]

and the examples he was giving of, for instance, at Stanford, saying that Asian American women score really well in math. And when you talk about nourishing and non-nourishing, it made me think of the patterns that we, in our life, associate with. And his talk, it just resonated with what you were saying, of presenting it in that way, so it's not, I don't know if negative is the right word, but to remember that we're walking in a nourishing place. To remember we're walking in a nourishing place. We can have a... And if we do have a pattern of walking the other way, then we need to bring the bodhisattva walking

[57:36]

to our other way of walking. And we need to bring it there in a playful way, so we don't shove the bodhisattva way onto those who are walking in a non-bodhisattva way. We need to bring it to them in such a way that they open to it. So in this example, these Asian American women were... They were talked to about how Asian American women are really good at math. But they didn't realize that they were being kind of like, I don't know what the word is, primed by this talk. So the conversation was just, they were just talking to them and they just mentioned that Asian American women are good at math. And then they took a math test and did really well at the math test. But the way that the experimenter was talking to them, I guess, was sort of playful enough so they didn't even really notice that they were being offered this view

[58:39]

that they could be good at math. So they opened to this view and then they took the math test and did really well. And then they had another conversation with some of them where they talked about Asian American women being something. What was it? All women. About women being what? What was the other example? Not very good at math. It wasn't not very good at math. They were good at math, but it was Asian men that they were being talked to. There were Asian men, not women, that were taking the test. I thought it was Asian women. Did you think it was Asian men? I think it was Asian women, but I think the second question was a positive statement about women in general. Yeah, so one way of talking to them was a separate group. Positive statements about women, but not about math. And then they took the math test and didn't do well. And then positive statements about women about math and they did well.

[59:41]

Is that right? So the thing is anyway, to engage with people. The thing is, engage with them and make the engagement the point. And the engagement shows all kinds of possibilities. Because when you engage, engaging doesn't mean you engage and impose your view on them. It means you engage and you bring all the possibilities that you bring. And in the engagement they open to the possibilities with you. And you also open to the possibility of the engagement being different than you intended. So engagement doesn't mean engaging in a war or something. In the context of speaking, engagement has a specific meaning to it. It's specific to the situation. You engage with a specific situation. So if there was a war, you might be able to engage with the war in such a way

[60:45]

as to awaken in people a way to be playful and harmless in war. There are examples of people going to war and teach kindness in the middle of a battle. There are examples like that. Where you're in the middle of a battle and somebody is about to do something unnecessarily cruel. You know, it doesn't really help anybody. It's just a kind of thoughtless cruelty. And somebody else can come in and point out, you know, you don't have to do that. You don't have to be cruel. Like when people say, cruel in war, isn't that like, aren't you always cruel in war? No. Some people go into a war situation and demonstrate kindness. I've told you this example before in the Battle of Waterloo. You know, the British had this line and the French were attacking on horseback mostly. And then this one particular case of this French officer who was in retreat stopped to pick up a fallen soldier.

[61:48]

And a British rifleman was going to shoot the officer. And his officer said, don't shoot that guy. He's a good person. He's risking his life to help somebody else. Don't shoot him. And he's in retreat anyway. And so you could think, well, maybe if he takes that guy away, maybe the other guy will get medically treated and come back to fight. But actually, he's not going to come back to fight. That was the last thing. No more from the French for a while. So actually, it wasn't just wasting a bullet and being unkind to a good person. Let him pick him up and take him away. He was basically a Red Cross worker. He was an orderly. He was a doctor. Let the doctor take away the injured people. Don't shoot the doctors. So that's an example of one soldier was not being mindful of being as kind as possible under the circumstances and the other one was reminding him. So those two of them were being kind and one of them was not.

[62:53]

So it is possible to engage in war and make some compassion be there in the field. It's possible. Most people are not fearless enough to go into that field and remember compassion. So this is part of the Bodhisattva challenge, is to learn to practice walking and continuing to walk when fear comes, until the fear goes away and then from that fearless place, in the dangerous situation, to demonstrate compassion. But if you start walking in the jungle or the battle, fear is going to come. So you have to stay there long enough to find the fearlessness in this dangerous situation and then you can teach, then you can help. But you've got to stay there long enough to settle down and that's hard.

[63:54]

Right? It's hard. But we have this opportunity coming to us. We are going to be receiving situations, all of us, where it's going to be easy to become afraid and so then we're going to be able to continue walking or sitting until it calms down and then the Bodhisattva work happens. Now, if you're walking and the fear comes and you keep walking and it instantly goes away, that makes things simple. But it doesn't necessarily go away right away. Sometimes it takes quite a bit more walking before it calms down. And we know from our sitting we do, you know, we sit and pain comes and we don't necessarily keep sitting long enough to see the pain go away. Or I should say, we're sitting and pain comes and we become afraid of the pain.

[64:56]

We're afraid of, you know, is it going to get worse? How much longer is it going to go on? But we do sometimes sit long enough for the fear to go away. The pain may stay but the fear goes away. I think many of you have experienced this in your longer sittings. Sitting comes, the pain comes, the fear comes, you continue sitting. The walking comes, the pain comes, the fear comes, you keep walking. And the fear goes away and you keep walking through the pain. And sometimes the pain goes away. The pain will go away when you realize the truth. It doesn't really go away, it's just there isn't any pain. And then you bring that back into the pain. Apropos of the training for men or women of any ethnicity being good at math,

[66:05]

there's a verse about those who in past lives were not enlightened will now be enlightened. Yeah, those who in past lives were not excellent mathematicians will now be excellent mathematicians. If you can slip that into the conversation and then give a math test. Or in our case, give a Bodhisattva test. Those who in past lives were not great Bodhisattvas will in this life be great Bodhisattvas. So I have confidence in such a practice and I think such a practice will bring about a good result for this country. The practice of respecting people, of having a steady gaze,

[67:14]

of being like a redwood forest, as someone said. This will facilitate a good conclusion, not conclusion, a good turning of this crisis into the next step and the next step if we continue this practice. The practice of the Buddha way. Maybe, I'd love to see that as a possibility, but I don't know how possible and how true it will be. But could humans at some point all realize walking the light? You say, can they someday realize that? Yeah, where did I hear the expression walking the light? I just heard it recently.

[68:25]

Where did I hear it? Do you hear it? Walking the light? I heard it recently. Oh, I think I heard it in Texas. That's where I heard it. Yeah, I went to Texas. So I went to England, then I went to Texas, then I went to Santa Barbara, then I went to Montana, then I came here. And when I was in Texas, we did a retreat up north of Houston and it was in a temple, it's called the Lotus Lake Zen Center. And they have a lake full of lilies, water lilies. They're not lotuses, they could have been, but they're not, they're water lilies. But anyway, they call it the Lotus Pond. And they talk about walking, their practice is walking.

[69:33]

And they have quite a few acres, and they have walking paths out in the woods, the woodlands around their temple. And they talk about walking the light, or walking in the light. That's their practice. And I think, I have confidence that all human beings are going to wind up walking in the light. Now, I don't know if they will be humans at that time. We might have a different name for our successors. Our disciples may not be called humans anymore. But we are all heading in the direction of all beings walking in the light. I have confidence in that. Or, I would say, everybody is heading for the big Buddhahood. I don't think there's no way to avoid it. We're being forced to become Buddhas.

[70:35]

We will not be able to resist much longer. May our intention equally extend to every being and place. With the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[71:38]

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