If I were to say to you that I'm sitting, that might be easy for you to understand, is it? If I were to say to you that I'm sitting at the center of a world of suffering, is that easy to understand? No? So Justin doesn't understand? Do you think I'm sitting at the center of the world of suffering? You're not sure? So, he's not sure that I am. If I were to say to you, you are sitting at the center of a world of suffering, does that make sense to you? We are surrounded by many forms of suffering.

[01:04]

I'm saying that. It seems that way to me. I'm also sitting at the center of a world of Buddhas, many Buddhas are sitting around me, and many bodhisattvas. Is that easy to understand? Yes? I'm suffering because there are lots of phones that are going off, and I'm wondering if you could ask people to turn them off. Would you like to ask people to turn their phones off? Okay, so go ahead, ask them. Where are these phones? Everything's taken care of now?

[02:10]

Okay, so you're about to be overjoyed. And I'm also surrounded by a lot of uncertainty. Are you uncertain, Justin? He's not the only uncertain one around me. I'm surrounded by a lot of uncertainty. Now, did I say that you were sitting at the center of all the suffering, too? Did I say that to you? Are you surrounded by lots of uncertainty? Oh, are you surrounded by innumerable Buddhas?

[03:27]

and Bodhisattvas? He said he can understand it, he feels he can understand that he's surrounded by innumerable Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, but it's hard to perceive it. It is imperceptible. You cannot perceive all the Buddhas around you. Also, you can't perceive all the suffering. But you kind of understand there's suffering beyond what you can perceive, right? You've heard about it, and because you've heard about it, you can kind of understand that there's more than you've heard about. You've heard that there's more than you can hear about. We can't perceive the whole world that we're sitting in the middle of. Does that make sense? So there's a job opportunity here, which is to sit at our place, in our Dharma position.

[04:40]

Our Dharma position is at the center of the universe. Each of us has our own Dharma position, our own true place. And because we're surrounded by so much, so much, It's challenging to actually accept the responsibility of our position in this universe. It's challenging. Not impossible to accept it, but just challenging. Part of the reason it's challenging is because the responsibility is constantly changing. Somebody said to me, I'm swayed by all the people around me. I don't want to be swayed. That's an unrealistic want.

[05:42]

We are swayed by everybody. Everybody's swaying us, and we're swaying them. However, even though we're being swayed, influenced, impacted, and influencing, swaying, impacting, even so, we're right where we are. But even though we're right here, we feel swayed. Feeling swayed is right here. What I am is basically infinite suede and swaying. And I have the responsibility to work with what I am. And it's challenging because part of what I am is I think maybe I can get away from my responsibility.

[06:49]

and maybe go someplace where I'm not so influenced and influencing. That makes it more difficult to accept my responsibility is the thought that I could get away from it. But that's just another influence to, where's that one buzzing from, the other room? So that's in the other room, so... And that room doesn't have a door on it. It used to have a door, but... So Breck's gonna... But you're influenced by that, right? It impacts you. She's not alone. She's not alone.

[07:52]

Everybody's with her. Everybody's with Katie. And sometimes Katie says, would you give me a little break? As I have said many times, I am a conversation between me and everybody else. That's what I am.

[08:54]

And I propose you are also. And again, I'm more or less enthusiastic about being this conversation. And I guess I trust that if I could accept that I'm just a conversation, that would be good for everybody. And that would help others accept that they're a conversation, and that would help everybody. I trust in that, somewhat. This place is amazing.

[10:09]

I recently returned from a trip to Taiwan, which is an island about the size of Maryland. Some people think it's part of China. Some people don't. Anyway, there's a lot of people there you might say Chinese people. They live there. And on this island the size of Maryland, which is, you know, mostly deep mountains, there's 23 million people. I went, I recently, before I returned from there, I went there. And I went there because one of my main motivations was I wanted to see the town and the neighborhood where my wife grew up.

[11:47]

I wanted to accompany her going back to where she grew up. She hasn't been there for 50 years. So I went with her and we got a hotel that had a very good location. It was walking distance from her house where she grew up. So we could walk over there. No family members still live in Taiwan, right? Fifty years later, and none left. And we did go, and one of the reasons she wanted to go is she wanted to visit her grandparents grave site, and also the grave site of her mother's brother. So we did go to visit there. I was just going to accompany my wife, but some people told some people that I was coming, and so some people invited me to go to some Buddhist monasteries and give talks.

[13:12]

And I accepted the invitations, and I went there to these monasteries and gave talks, which are now on YouTube. So I can tell you about what I talked to the people in Taiwan about. If you like. Some people would like it. Would you like it, Justin? You're sure about that? Finally, he's sure of something. Temporarily, maybe. After I started talking, he said, wait a minute. And One of the invitations was to participate in a dialogue, which I did, and the other was just to give a Dharma talk, and they asked me for a, kind of like a title for the talk, and I said, what would you like me to talk about?

[14:18]

And they said, they suggested, I thought they said, Zen and Me. But then I think what they said was, Zen practice and me. That was the title they suggested. And I thought, that's a very good title. A very good title. So I knew that when I came, and I was thinking about it, and so then I gave the talk, and one of the things I said to the people there was, Well, in some sense, there's various me's. That I have various identities. But one of my identities is kind of a spiritual identity. So you could say I have the identity that, for example, I'm a citizen of the United States of America. I'm a citizen of California. I'm a white male with all those privileges.

[15:24]

which I'm struggling with, and I'm also a Zen student. Being a Zen student is kind of like, you might say, my prototypic spiritual identity is Zen student, or Zen disciple. And I said, told the people that I met with, In this talk, I said, I brought a spiritual identity with me to Taiwan, and the spiritual identity I had when I left San Francisco is not the one I had when I arrived. It changed on the airplane. And then, when I got to Taiwan, I met the Taiwanese people, and they swayed me.

[16:26]

they transformed me. They transformed my spiritual identity. I could watch my spiritual identity changing when I met the people there. And this talk I gave was the second talk I gave. The first talk I gave was at another monastery. And when I got there, the people there, these, I guess, people who you might say are Buddhists, they swayed me. They transformed me. my spiritual identity was transformed when I met them. I could watch my spiritual identity change as I met them and as I interacted with them. And again, it wasn't just the people in the Buddhist centers, but the people in the subway and the people on the street. I could see myself being, I could see my spiritual self being transformed.

[17:31]

And then I went to visit another organization on the, so the city I was in is in the north, the north part of the island, it's called Taibei, which means, I think, north platform. And then I went to the east side of the island and went to another Buddhist organization, and that organization's called Siddhi, or Compassionate Relief. It's the biggest charitable Buddhist organization in the world. I went to visit there, and when I went there, I met these lay people and nuns, it's all nuns there, I met them, and my spiritual identity changed. And then I said to them, now I'm here in this monastery, and my spiritual identity, the spiritual me,

[18:34]

has changed, is changing. And now I'm meeting you, people, face-to-face, and in this meeting with you, I've watched my identity, my spiritual identity change, which is pretty much the same as I watch my Zen practice or I watch Zen practice change. So Zen practice and me, they're both in a constant state of being transformed into a new person and a new practice. The practice is always a practice that has never been here before. I'm not keeping it being the same. I'm not making it change into something new. I'm not making myself change, I am being changed, and I am changing. You are changing me, I am changing you. I said this to the people in English, and a lot of them, even before it was translated into Chinese, were nodding their heads, yes.

[19:44]

I guess they could understand that I was changing them, and they were changing me. And this meeting together, which is going all the time wherever we are, that's what we are, is that we're constantly being transformed by the world that surrounds us, and in the transformation of us, transforms the world. This is what I am. I suggest this is what we all are, and this is Zen practice. Zen practice is the way we are actually in conversation with each other. And each of us has our own particular position in this unlimited conversation, our particular position and our particular responsibility, which I share with you and you share with me, but yours is yours and mine is mine, and you have the irresponsibility

[20:55]

for the whole universe as you, and I have the responsibility for the whole universe as me. I'm responsible for all the suffering, I'm responsible for all the blessing, and so are you. And it's constantly changing. What's constantly changing? It. It is Zen practice. But also, it is me. I'm constantly changing. You're constantly changing. We're constantly changing. Zen practice is constantly changing. And in a sense, Zen practice is always the same. It's unchanging, because it never stops being that way of constantly changing. It never stops being our relationship with each other.

[22:01]

It always is that way, and it's always changing. Yes. I just wanted to share a story about change. I was driving across the Richmond Bridge recently and I was thinking about my father. Can you hear him back there? Could you speak loudly, Eric? He was going over the Richmond Bridge and he was thinking about his father. Yeah, my father recently got cancer, and so I've been feeling him, and I was feeling pretty tender, and... Can you hear that? Hmm? Could you hear that, Michel? His father got cancer, and he's been feeling... That information of his father, that situation of his father being sick, is impacting him, he's feeling him.

[23:15]

And I had also read recently about Tzu Chi, what's the name? They translate it as compassionate relief. They raise a lot of money and send it all over the world. And it just really struck me as a beautiful organization, reading about it. Yeah, I was feeling really tender, and my tooth was also feeling very tender, just crossing this bridge. Could you hear that, Michel? He was feeling very tender driving over the Richmond Bridge, and also his tooth was feeling tender. So I really, I was kind of in a swirl, feeling all these things, and then I lifted my head, and right in front of me was this dental truck that said, Tzu Chi.

[24:22]

And I'd never seen it in America anywhere before, but it was right in front of me, and it was saying, like, we can fix your teeth. And it said, like, compassionate vow. And I just, I was so moved. Could you hear that, Michelle? Yeah. So they're also in America, this organization, probably administering free dental service to people who need free dental service. And there again, he was feeling tender, he was feeling tender, I might say, in relationship to his father. his fragile father, our fragile father, our fragile mother, our fragile self. We've got, we've got fragile parents and we are fragile. And we can feel tender towards this.

[25:28]

This fragility is calling for tenderness. which is also saying it's calling for a conversation. But the conversation that it's calling for is a tender conversation, where I talk loudly enough for people in the back to hear me, but somehow find a way to speak with some volume and some tenderness. It may be easy to whisper tenderly, but sometimes we need to shout tenderly. so people can hear us. I love you, granddaddy. Can you hear me? Yeah, I am. I feel tenderly towards your fragility, grandfather, grandmother. I hear you, thank you, thank you. And then pre-dental service shows up.

[26:35]

I'm so glad you didn't look up and hit the truck. That's really great. Yes? Well, I have a question about the idea of steadfastness and consistency. Steadfastness and consistency she's questioning about. to cling to our sense of ourselves and that there's a conversation and that we're influenced by one another. And I also have this feeling that I want to know that I can come to see you and that there's going to be a consistent compassion at least. You wish that if you come to meet me, there will consistently be compassion in the meeting. You want that.

[27:42]

And I want that too. So we both want that. Yeah, how can you, what, be sure of something? Well, one of the main ways you can be sure is by opening to unsureness. the more you're open to uncertainty, the more confidence you will have in what? In being open to uncertainty. If I am really open to uncertainty, it isn't that suddenly things become certain, but rather simultaneously with uncertainty, if I'm really open to it, there's certainty. What's the certainty? It's confidence that it's good to be open to the uncertainty. It's uncertain that every time we meet, there will be compassion.

[28:44]

That's uncertain. But if we're really open to the uncertainty that the compassion we want will be present, if we're really open to that, there will be certainty that we want to be compassionate. If you feel compassion to me, it's because everybody supports you to feel compassion to me. But that's opening to that support, that everybody wants you to be compassionate. Opening to that support means you have to open to the uncertainty of compassion. Opening to the uncertainty of compassion opens to the support for compassion to be present. Not holding on to my current compassion, but being open to it being changed when I meet you.

[30:01]

So maybe I'm sitting by myself, practicing compassion, and you walk in, and I get changed. I'm a new person. I mean, that's what I'm saying. I might be taking good care of the... I might be sitting there, listening to the cries of the world, and then I meet you and I change. If I accept that change, then I will be steadfast in the practice of compassion. If I resist that change, then I resist the support for me to be steadfast. But it's an art to learn how to be changed in every meeting and accept that. It's an art. But again, I'm suggesting if you are changed in every meeting, and if you get skillful at accepting the change, you come up, compassion is there.

[31:09]

and you can be steadfast in that to the extent that you can keep accepting your steadfastness being changed. Now my steadfastness looks like this. Now it looks like that. But also, now it looks like this is what's being asked of me, and this is what's being asked of me. Now I'm being asked to turn my cell phone off. Now I'm being asked to turn my cell phone on. Now I'm being asked to listen. Now I'm being asked to speak. I'm constantly being asked for different things and being given different things. I'm constantly changed. And if I can open to that, I will be steadfast in the middle of this intense impermanence, intense impermanence. If I'm open to it, there will be steadfastness. And the steadfastness that allows itself to be transformed every moment is more steadfast. A steadfastness that resists being changed is unstable steadfastness.

[32:16]

It's not steadfastness. The teaching is all compounded things are unstable, subject to change, not worthy of confidence. If you can accept that, then there can be steadfastness and stability at the center of all this instability and change. Yes? I'm curious at your use of the word identity. Isn't identity by definition pretty fixed? Is identity by definition fixed? Is identity by definition fixed? Is identity often fixated on? Yes. Is it commonly fixated on? Yes.

[33:17]

Is it by definition fixated on? No. Even among friends here. Well, I use it because the people in Taiwan asked me to talk about Zen practice and me. So that's why I'm talking about it. But is Zen practice, by definition, your identity? No, not by definition. Well, yeah, by definition. One of my identities, by definition, is Zen practice. Why is that an identity? Why isn't that just one of the things you... I think the things I'm all about are my identity. I'm all about being a man, that's my identity. But that's not my Zen practice, that I'm a man. So my identity is, my job is to be a Zen student.

[34:24]

So that's my spiritual identity. I'm practicing. Being a Zen student, I'm practicing, being a Bodhisattva is my identity. It's what I aspire to be. It's my identity. Am I fixated on it? If I am, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I fixate on being a Zen student, because being a Zen student, you're not supposed to fixate on being a Zen student. But it's not like we don't have an identity. It's like if you got one, that's something to not fixate on. Now see if you can do it. See if you can have an identity and not fixate on it. That's the challenge. That's the challenge of Zen practice is to be a person and not fixate on it. To be a Zen student or not a Zen student and not fixate on it. To learn how to do that. And to notice that if you thought you were a Zen student, whatever you thought that was, it just changed.

[35:29]

when you met these people. To notice that your identity is in flux. It's a temporary, the identity is a temporary, changeable thing. It's not worthy of confidence. Being a Zen student is a compounded thing. It's not worthy of confidence. Except in that, you might notice, oh, the Zen student, which is not worthy of confidence, it's changing all the time. Then you start to realize the changing Zen student, the changing identity, that's Buddhism. That impermanence of the self is what Zen practice is about. And Zen practice is also constantly changing. But it does have an identity. Like, over the hill, there's a place called Zen Center. Here, there's a place called Nohbo. That's, in some sense, the identity of this place. But this place is constantly changing.

[36:31]

The name of this place is that this place is not this place. You know, what do you call it? What's the word? Get with the program. The name of this place is not to be stuck in your place. not to be stuck in your identity. That's the identity of this place. It's not clinging to identity. But you've got to have an identity in order to test your not clinging. You've got to have an abode to see if you can realize non-abiding. And we do have abodes. And everything is creating our abode, and therefore our abode is constantly changing. in relationship to everything that is causing it to sway. Yes? Yeah, for example, a lack of inherent existence is not compounded.

[37:36]

Emptiness is not compounded. What? What? Yeah, they're synonyms. Actually, Buddhas are not compounded. Because Buddhas are nothing in and of themselves. So compounded things are things that are put together. But Buddha is not like put together. So Buddhas, you could say, are not compounded. And therefore, they're worthy of confidence. And the way you're not anything in and of yourself is the way you're a Buddha. You're just like a Buddha in that you're not anything in and of yourself, nothing by yourself. In that way, you're just like a Buddha, because Buddhas are like that. And you're always that way. You're always nothing in and of yourself. And the way you're not anything in and of yourself is not put together. It's actually how the way you're put together is not anything in and of itself, because the way you're put together is the way all the things that put you together are, which are not you.

[38:50]

So the way you're you and not you is not a compounded thing. Yes. But when you start to talk about a Buddha, doesn't that become a compounded thing? My words are compounded things. And the thought of Buddha... The thought of Buddha is a compounded thing. But what I'm talking about is not a compounded thing. I'm talking about how you are nothing in and of yourself. That's not something put together. And you're always that way. You're always not something in and of yourself. But that isn't put together. Now, my words are put together. They need a mouth and a tongue and, you know, 98.6. They need all of you. Everything I'm saying, I cannot do without your support. and what I am is put together, and I'm unstable and not worthy of confidence, but the practice is worthy of confidence.

[40:01]

So I might not be compassionate when you meet me. I might not be. What's the practice with that? The practice is to be compassionate with me not being compassionate. The practice is accepting that I'm a compounded thing, I'm unstable, I'm fragile, and be tender with me. Then the practice is alive. Okay, Linda? Yes, Joe. It's easier to be compassionate than certain Well, at a given point in time, it might be easier to be compassionate to one person than the other, and then a moment later, it might be reversed.

[41:05]

Like, it might be easier for you to be compassionate to me if I say, Joe, I'm in a lot of pain, would you help me? That might be easier for you to be compassionate to, maybe. It might be easier than if I say, I hate you, Joe, go away. In both cases, I might be asking for compassion, but one case might be easier for you. Some people actually have easier time with, I hate you, go away, than, would you please help me? So you could say it's easier for some people at certain times to be compassionate for this rather than that. Yes. You could say easier, but anyway, you could say, in one case, you respond with compassion, in the other case, you don't. Yeah. In one case, you're fooled. and you think you're not being asked for compassion, you're fooled by circumstances. You always are being asked for compassion, never not. But sometimes you see, no, no, this is not asking for compassion, this is asking for something other than compassion, whatever that is. You're fooled, you're tricked by circumstances to not understand that you're being asked for compassion.

[42:14]

So then it's hard to practice it, because you don't get it. In other cases, you know, it's so clear that they want my compassion. It's so clear, and I'm up for it. And so then it just flows out. Sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it's hard. But the request is always there. It's basically hard when we don't get, we don't understand our assignment, or when we understand it, we just feel like, I can't do it. That makes it harder, right? But compassion can manifest in different ways. of having a more firm compassion, a traditional form of compassion? Can you repeat? Compassion can appear in, I would say compassion has no fixed form. It can appear in any way. And also the request for compassion has no fixed form. It can appear in any way.

[43:15]

And if I remember that, that helps me remember that there's no moments when I'm not being given and asked for compassion. And that contributes to steadfastness in the practice of compassion. But it's a learning process to understand that. When you understand that, then we have these examples of people, no matter what you do to them, they respond with compassion, because they're no longer fooled. by anything. They always understand that that's what they're doing, and they're always willing to do it. By training we can get to that point. So that all the different forms of request of compassion are understood as such, and then all the different forms can come forth. We're in the process of training to learn that. Jeff, did you want to say something? I was not clear on when you were having a conversation around the idea of something being put together.

[44:22]

I'm really not clear on that. Well, like you're put together, you're a man, you have a certain history, you have certain body parts, other people have different history, different body parts, all these things are compounded to make you, and also that's impermanent. So your body parts change, the people around you change, your history changes, you change. And so we're always changing in that way. We're always influenced by everybody around us and that makes us. And that's the way I'm a compounded thing. So my impermanence is a compound thing, but the way I'm compounded is also the way I'm compounding others. That conversation is actually the reality of me, which is I'm compounded and I'm unstable, but I'm always unstable.

[45:27]

So it's not that you should trust me, but you should trust the practice. The practice is to accept that I'm a changing thing. I'm an unstable thing. To accept that would be appropriate to the practice. And whether you accept that or not, you support me to be what I am. And if I can accept that, then that's compatible with the practice. And if I can accept that I'm made by all of you, that's compatible with the practice. Listening to that teaching and remembering it, I'm still compounded, unstable, not worthy of confidence, but you might say, even though you're changing all the time, you seem to often have confidence in the practice. And I would say, yeah, I often do. I have a history of often having confidence in the practice and often remembering to practice.

[46:39]

That's part of what makes me. But I'm still changing all the time, even though I have a history, kind of a nice history. that I've been able to listen to these teachings and remember them. But also part of my history is that I have, there's been innumerable occasions from beginningless time where I forgot the practice or where I didn't hear the practice. That's also part of my history and everybody's history. Even the Buddhas have a history of where they didn't hear the teaching. And then they had a history where they did hear the teaching and where they kept hearing it from then on. Yes? So as you're speaking, what I'm realizing is that we have, as humanity, issues that we have not practiced compassion.

[47:45]

That's why we live in the world of hostility or anger, or the way it is, because of tremendous amount of not being compassionate. Yeah, so compounding phenomena, which are all of the compounded phenomena are compounded phenomena, and they're all calling for compassion. And to the extent that there's not a compassionate response to these compounded things that are calling for compassion, to the extent there's a lack of compassion, there's disturbance and disharmony. Emptiness is not calling for compassion. The lack, you know, the way we really are is not calling for compassion, because that's nothing in and of itself. But if we practice compassion towards things which are also nothing in and of themselves, but which are compounded, if we practice compassion towards them, we wake up to reality, which is not, reality is not really compounded or uncompounded.

[49:02]

It's free of all those categories. And the practice which deals with compounded things is also the practice that deals with uncompounded things. Same practice. So it's constantly changing. And the path of peace has no fixed form. The path of compassion has no fixed form. compassion responds according to the circumstances, and we sometimes miss, we feel we missed a chance of being kind. And then we confess that, and say we're sorry, and try again. Yes? I think you just said we wake up to reality when we practice compassion. How do those two make an equation? I mean, yeah.

[50:07]

Well, like... What if I wasn't practicing compassion? Like, you might be trying to tell me something, okay? In reality, you're a compounded person who's asking me for something, and if I don't practice compassion, I don't hear what you're asking me. But if I practice compassion, I realize, you're actually asking me for compassion. If I practice compassion, I realize, oh, you just asked me for compassion. If you ask me for compassion and I don't give you compassion, then I might not realize, actually, the reality is that you're asking for compassion. And also, that I'm asking you for compassion. So by practicing compassion towards you, who I don't see as asking me for compassion, And I don't see that I'm asking you for compassion. I don't see the reality of our relationship. If I don't see that, the thing to do is to be compassionate with not seeing it.

[51:14]

If I'm compassionate with that, the practice of compassion will open my eyes to the way we're actually calling to each other and responding to each other. That's That's the actual Zen practice. That's reality. Zen practice is reality. Zen practice is the way you're making me and I'm making you. And if I practice compassion towards me and you, I'm awakened to that. Like some people say, so-and-so doesn't respect me. You don't see that the person's being respectful of you? And they say, no. I say, well, do you want to see it? Yeah. Well, be more respectful to them. If you're really respectful to people, you realize they're being respectful to you. But the way they're being respectful, you couldn't see it before. And without changing the way they're being respectful, you wake up to it. People are, like, being very respectful to me.

[52:19]

They're giving me life. That's very respectful. And also, after they gave me life, they realize I'm calling for them to do it again. And they do. But are they awake to that? Well, if you don't practice respectfulness, you don't notice, you don't practice compassion, you don't see it. So if you practice compassion, you realize everybody's compassionate to you. And also, they're asking you to be compassionate to them, which you're doing, and you're happy to do. That's reality. which includes the fact that I'm calling to you and you're calling to me. and I'm listening to you and you're listening to me, that reality is nothing in and of itself. You can't get a hold of that. You can't get rid of it. You can't avoid it. You can ignore it, you can try to get away from it, but you'll never be successful of getting away from the fact, from the reality that you're asking everybody to help you.

[53:24]

There's nobody you don't want to support you, which is good because there's nobody who isn't. Reality is you're supporting everybody, they're supporting you. That's Zen practice, that's reality. And that's the same as there's no substantial self and there's nothing to get a hold of. Which means that you're not grasping this ineffable, ungraspable process, which we try to grasp and then we turn away from this way we're mutually, reciprocally giving each other life. Is support the same as practicing compassion? You say everybody's supporting us, we're supporting everyone. Are you equating that with practicing compassion? I think I'm willing to say that it's the same.

[54:44]

There's no way to not. There's no way to not be what you really are. So if I'm being an idiot, that's the way I'm asking. When I'm being an idiot, that's the way, if you're around, if I'm actually meeting you face to face and I'm being an idiot, that's the way I'm asking you to be compassionate to me. At the moment I'm being an idiot, just in general now, for you to know, whenever I'm being an idiot, I'm simultaneously saying, would you be compassionate to me? I may not think I'm an idiot, but even though I look like an idiot, and I'm talking like an idiot, like I'm saying, do not support me. Do not be compassionate to me. I don't want your compassion. Okay, that's you, but over here, I could either then be compassionate to you or go run away. And you're saying they're both the same? Okay, so I'm calling for compassion.

[55:46]

and I look like an idiot. And the way I call for compassion is saying I don't want any. You might say that's a stupid way to call for compassion is to say I don't want it. I wouldn't necessarily say stupid, but you could say that. I would say it's kind of like, kind of a deceptive way. It's kind of a contradictory way. I want you to love me, so I say do not love me. And I'm being kind of silly or stupid. Okay? Then you look at me, and you think, oh, he's not asking for compassion. He's just an idiot, and I'm gonna bye-bye to you. You might do that. And when you walk away from me, when you walk away from me, that's the way you're calling to me for compassion. There's so many Zen stories where the student-teacher are interacting and the student walks away to see if the teacher will keep loving them when they walk away. Vice versa, there's many stories where the teacher walks away from the student to see if the student can see that that's the way the teacher is expressing compassion and the student can feel compassion for the teacher who is running away from his responsibility.

[56:55]

There's many stories like that. I thought you were abandoning me and now I realize this is the way you helped me wake up to the omnipresent compassion and omnipresent suffering. Suffering's omnipresent because compassion, compassion's omnipresent because suffering's omnipresent. And part of suffering could be I'm trying to get away from it. But when I try to get away from suffering, that's the way I'm calling to compassionate beings to be kind to me. I got the calling from them, that's clear. But then, regardless of how they respond, that's compassion? So if they're nice to me, that's compassion? If they're mean to me with me calling, that's compassion? Yeah, so I call you for compassion, and you walk away, and I feel compassion for you, and I also realize that your walking away from me is the way you responded to me. So for example, if I say, go away, go away, and you walk away, then I say, oh, you responded to me.

[58:01]

Or I can say to me, I do not want you to listen to me anymore. But I do want you to listen to me tell you that. So I realize, oh, I told her I didn't want her to listen to me, but actually I was asking her to listen to me. I wake up to that. So if I ask you for compassion in a way, in the form like I don't want it, and you see that I'm asking for it in the form of I don't want it, and you say, oh, what an interesting way of asking, and I just feel a lot of compassion for you. And also, I'm asking you for compassion, and the way you're giving it to me is I don't want to see you anymore. That's the way you give me compassion. It's a question of waking up to it. You're always listening to me and always calling to me. This is something to wake up to. Everybody in the world, Zen students are doing that, and non-Zen students are doing that. That way that we're always calling and listening, that's Zen practice.

[59:07]

But some Zen students don't do Zen practice sometimes. I mean, they're asleep to Zen practice. Zen practice is there. They're calling and listening, and they're being called to and listening. The Zen practice is there, but they don't get it. They don't think the person's asking for help, or they don't think they're asking for help. I had this great conversation at Green Gulch. I had to question and answer one time. This young man was calling for my help, and I said, no, you're calling for my help. And he said, no, I'm not. And then he just kept calling me again and again. I said, you're calling for help, and he said, no, I'm not. His no, I'm not is calling me to say, well, do you want something from me? And he said, yes, I do. And I said, oh, then you're calm. It was wonderful. Yes? So when we kill the other person, the other being, I understand how that could be asking for compassion, but I guess I don't understand how that's giving compassion.

[60:13]

other beings when we kill? If I were involved in killing something, okay, I would say that that thing actually asked me for compassion, and I gave it in that form, which it was not asking for me to kill it. It was asking me for compassion. But that's the way I responded, given my level of understanding. But that person or being might understand, oh, that's the way he responded to my call for compassion. He didn't understand it. So it's possible that I would call you for compassion and you would feel, I don't know, resentment towards me when I called you for compassion. I wasn't calling for your resentment, but that's the way you responded to me. The way you listened to me was such that you didn't understand what I was asking for. But you did listen to me when I asked you for compassion.

[61:19]

And then you think you killed me, because you listened to me call you, and you thought, I hate him. I want to kill him. But right when I called you, you did listen to me, and you did respond to me by listening to me. But you didn't understand it. You would never be involved in killing if you understood this relationship. There is no killing there. You would never do that. When you understand that, that relationship is the same as not killing. Zen practice is not killing. When you understand Zen practice, you understand and practice not killing. If you don't understand, you might find yourself in a world where you think you're killing or someone else is killing. That's the way things might look to you when you don't understand the way you're sitting in the middle of all beings, calling to them for compassion and being listened to.

[62:28]

Yes. Pardon? That's very hard to understand. Yeah, it's very hard. This reality is one of the most difficult things to understand. There's nothing more difficult to understand than reality. Because we have a mind which has all kinds of delusions and attachments in it. But one reality is But I just told you, this is what we're really doing, and in this way we fully possess the wisdom and virtues of Buddha. The way we're supporting everybody and being supported by everybody, the way we're calling to everyone and being called to, the way we're listening and being listened to, we already have that. And that's our Buddha virtue. Does it make sense to you that Buddhas are listening to everybody? Do you know that they're also calling to everybody? Yeah. And everybody's calling to them?

[63:40]

But many people do not know they're calling to the Buddhas. And many people do not know they're listening to the Buddhas, who are calling to them to practice reality. The Buddhas are saying, you all fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. They're calling to us and telling us that. They're also saying, you called me to tell you that, and I'm telling you. I'm responding to you by telling you this teaching. Okay? However, because of being human and having erroneous views and attachments, we do not realize it. So it's very difficult to understand. So here, all of you support us having this meeting where we can talk about this and think about it and say it's difficult to understand. And when you say that, it's not too difficult for me to understand that you're calling for compassion when you say that. And maybe when you say that, it's not so difficult for you to see that you're calling for compassion by telling me it's hard to understand.

[64:44]

And I called you for compassion And you responded by telling me, it's hard to understand. Okay? So it's hard to understand that we're already doing it. Yes? There were two things. One is, in the black community, or maybe in more communities, we will sometimes say, don't come for me unless I send for you. Or, don't start none, there won't be none. And what I'm hearing are these really nice calls for compassion back and forth. Just because you need compassion doesn't mean I'll necessarily have it. I might, and I might not. Well, you could say it doesn't mean you'll have it. I would say it doesn't mean you necessarily can see it. Right, right, like that. But it's making more sense to me now.

[65:47]

understanding of it flickers. It's not always there. When I think about Trump, when I think about white supremacy, I do think, okay, these are calls for compassion. But not today. You know, and then it will come around for a minute, but it's not constant, and I can be compassionate with my own inability in that moment and something Okay, not today, okay? That's a call for compassion. So if we're together and somebody calls you for compassion and you say to me, you know, not today. You're asking me to be compassionate to you, feeling not today for that situation, right? And you might be able to see that, that you do feel like not today, but when you feel that way, that's a call.

[66:50]

Now, the person you're saying you don't feel it towards, they might not feel like you're asking them for compassion, but you're also asking, like if you ask me, would you be kind to me, and I say not today, I do know you asked me for compassion and I said I can't give it to you, but then you might wake me up by showing me that although I wasn't ready to be compassionate to you today, you were ready to be compassionate to me. I might wake up and say, oh, I guess I am ready. It's like waking up. It's like not being trapped by our ideas of what compassion would look like. Constantly waking up. or not. So, right now, this does not look like compassion. And me saying, right now, this does not look like compassion, that's my call for somebody to show me how it is. But right now, that's the way it looks to me like it's not. And my job is to say, right now, that's how it is for me.

[67:55]

And I'm calling and I'm telling people that I feel this way, and I'm asking for compassion, for my limited compassion, or for my limited understanding that you're being compassionate. Yes? If words and the mind and perception are ultimately the cause of what separates us from, because I understand what you're saying about how this web includes killing somebody, practice includes that. But then I'm trying to understand how, because the mind is so, you know, um, just pulls us right out of that, that, that understanding of that we're one with the person and that we share this common breath or reality or whatever you want to call it. Um, it just seems like it's so simple, but yet so easy to get hold.

[68:58]

Yeah. into the thought patterns, into the spirals out. Yeah. Well, that's another way to say it. We're in this situation of fully possessing the virtues of the Buddha, of not being anything in and of ourselves, of being in this intimate communion with all beings. We fully possess that. However, because of our thoughts and attachments, in a sense, we pull ourselves out of it. We feel alienated from where we already are, yes. And so, and then again, now we're being asked to be compassionate towards this misled, attached mind. By being compassionate to our misconceptions and attachments, they can drop away. And then we realize the way we always were and always will be. But again, it's even hard for this misconceiving, attached mind to hear the teachings of compassion by which we can let go of what's interfering with the original nature, original reality.

[70:09]

So this is very hard. That's why we are here to help each other do this hard work of being compassionate when our mind has pulled us out of reality. Not really, but seems like it. it seems like we're just caught by our misconceptions and attachments, and we don't see our true relationship with all things. Okay, that situation is calling for compassion. And if we see, oh yeah, this situation I'm in is calling for compassion, oh, well, maybe I could welcome it. maybe I could like be kind to my alienated situation where I see my mind pulling me out of my true relationship with everybody. Is that enough for this morning?

[71:16]

Is that enough for this afternoon?

[71:21]

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