On the way back in the night to Green Gulch, I think it was Tuesday night, on the highway up here, right in the middle of the highway, there was this gorgeous coyote. It was so beautiful, in the headlights, just like this radiant, brilliant coyote. Homa, could you move that way a little bit? May she share your Zabatant with you? And, Hannah, I was going to ask you if you're Hannah's sister, because your hair looks different. Your hair looks different. I thought you were different. I thought it was not you, but it looked just like you. But I thought, oh, Jerry brought Hannah's sister today. So, sometimes before I give these talks,

[01:08]

I talk to people in the talk room over there, and various interesting things are said. This morning I was talking to someone about, of all things, prajna paramita, wisdom, gone beyond wisdom. Isn't that funny that I talk to people about stuff like that? Transcendent wisdom, not just regular wisdom, transcendent wisdom. People bring stuff like that up. I'm so fortunate. So this person was studying the heart of great perfect wisdom scripture, the Heart Sutra. And I became a vehicle

[02:22]

for the following expression. The Heart Sutra says, avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, when deeply practicing prajna paramita. That's what the sutra says in English. And I pointed out, it does not say, avalokiteshvara was trying to get prajna paramita. Avalokiteshvara. But when some people hear about how wonderful perfect wisdom is, they think, now that would be something that would be good to get. Because they think when you get it, what happens, all suffering and distress is relieved. But it doesn't actually say that. It doesn't say when you get prajna paramita, when avalokiteshvara gets prajna paramita,

[03:24]

all suffering is relieved, it says. When deeply practicing it, all suffering is relieved. When deeply practicing it, you see that all the aggregates of existence are empty of own being. And that vision relieves all suffering. So, bodhisattvas aspire to practice perfect wisdom. They don't aspire to get it. Or if they do, they find out that they should confess and repent, trying to get it. It's not something to get, it's something to practice. And practicing it reveals the liberating reality. And does liberate. So part of our training is to get over trying to get wisdom. And to be kind to any impulse to get wisdom. And to be kind to any impulse

[04:38]

to get peace in this world. And to be kind to impulses to get rid of environmental crises. One story is that the environmental crises, the conditions for environmental crises include many people, humans and other beings, trying to get rid of environmental crises. Unkindness to environmental crises promotes... What did I say? Being what? Being what? Did I say unkind? Being unkind to environmental crises is harmful.

[05:41]

Being unkind to environmental crises does not get rid of environmental crises. It might try to, but it doesn't succeed. And it causes harm. Being kind to environmental crises also does not get rid of environmental crises. However, it doesn't cause harm. It promotes the welfare of the environment. The environment becomes well by being treated with compassion. But the compassion doesn't get rid of the crisis. The crisis is not going to go away. It's always been here. We will continue to be in crisis.

[06:45]

But if we practice compassion in the middle of crisis, that compassion will bring benefit to the environment and all the beings who live in it. And being unkind to the crisis, for example, trying to get rid of it, denying it, that will just cause more harm. And there's been plenty of that going on for a long time. There's been plenty of unkindness to the environmental crisis, which is the same as being unkind to the environment. We have, there's a danger that we will be unkind to the environment. There's a danger that we will, which is a danger that we will cause harm. But we don't have to be unkind to that danger.

[07:50]

We can be kind to it. We have the opportunity to be kind to the environment and all beings and to the fact that the environment that we're being kind to is surrounded by danger always. And still be kind. And the environment is surrounded by fear of the dangers of the environment. So again, we have the opportunity, we have the danger of being unkind to our fears. And the danger of being unkind to our fears is going to keep coming up. People are going to be afraid of dangers. And some people are going to say, don't be afraid. And sometimes they're going to say,

[08:54]

don't be afraid in a kind way. And sometimes they're going to say it in a mean way. But we can be kind to our fear that disasters, calamities, horrors will manifest. We can be kind to our fears. And if we can be kind to our fears, that will be beneficial. We have that opportunity. Thank you. You heard of reading tea leaves? You heard about that? These aren't really tea leaves here, but they are in a way. This powdered tea is actually made from tea leaves. So I'm reading the tea leaves. Shall I talk about what I wanted to talk about earlier?

[09:58]

Maybe. I wanted to talk to you about what I brought up while you were sitting earlier. I brought up silence and stillness. These words are closely related. In German there's a word, and I don't remember exactly which one it is, but it's something like either stellen or stillen. Does anybody speak German well? Hmm? And it means both silence and stillness. And in Chinese, there's a character which is in many of our commonly recited scriptures, which means both silence and stillness.

[11:04]

And in English, there's two different words. But in English too, they're kind of related. Silent night, holy night, all is calm. So I think there's a sense that the silence and the calmness, the stillness, they're kind of like very closely related. But there's a wonderful difference between the two words too, which I'd like to talk about. So I have been saying for quite a while that one of my recurrent prayers is that we remember silence and stillness,

[12:10]

or that we remember silence and we remember stillness. Today I'd like to mention that in a way there's two kinds of silence and two kinds of stillness. One kind of silence is a dualistic silence. And another kind of silence is a non-dual silence. One kind of silence in a way seems interrupted by sound,

[13:23]

or in particular, a particular sound is interrupted by the sounds of language, by sounds of words and phrases. That's a dualistic silence. You've got silence and then you've got language. So that silence is in a dualistic relationship with language. They're two different things, which most people are familiar with. Like when some people are expressing language, some people tell them to shut up and be silent. By the way, I also parenthetically mention that when I say, I pray that we remember silence.

[14:30]

And even though I say remember it, some people hear the statement be silent or shut up. I'm not saying be silent, because I want us to remember it. And when I say remember it, I'm okay with remembering both dualistic silence, which can be interrupted by language, and non-dual silence, which is not interrupted by language. I pray that we remember both kinds. And I particularly use the word silence to hold up the banner for the non-dual silence,

[15:32]

a silence which is not interrupted by language, but that lives together with language. And as a matter of fact, when we realize non-dual silence, it's the same as realizing non-duality. And realizing it or attaining it or understanding it then makes possible to express non-dual silence in language. We have the opportunity to attain insight about or into non-dual silence, and then to manifest and express it with language. The non-dual silence needs to be expressed

[16:39]

in speech and posture and thought. In order to attain non-dual wisdom, in order to attain this non-dual silence, we need to be compassionate to dualistic silence and what it's dualistic with, language. And being compassionate to dualistic silence, the silence which occurs when there's no language, and being compassionate to the language

[17:44]

which occurs when there's no silence, being compassionate to both of those, I would say is necessary or certainly is appropriate to realizing non-duality of silence and language. And realizing that non-duality makes it possible for us to express the non-dual silence and the non-dual language. That may be perfectly clear to you. However, even though it may be perfectly clear to you, and it's pretty darn clear to me,

[18:46]

but part of the reason why it's pretty darn clear to me is because I've been thinking about this millions of times, and this has been pounded into my body and mind. It's getting down into my cells. What? Non-duality, non-dual silence. So because I've been doing it over and over, I'm going to do it over and over out into the world now for a while, and if you're near me, you're going to run into it. You're going to run into dualistic silence, which I don't have to take care of, but I'm going to be pounding the drum of non-dual silence, the silence which is in an intimate, reciprocal, pivotal relationship with language. And I'm going to be using language

[19:49]

to beat the drum of silence. Not yet. Now, another way I could have given this talk this morning was... There was another way I could have given it. There was another way I could have started it. But we can also pretend, because this is like... This is like kindergarten, right? This is a garden for kids. And so we can play a game called now is going to be the beginning of the talk. Ready? Here's the beginning of the talk. This talk is going to be about, whoa, Zen. Which means this talk is going to be about what I'm saying Zen is. It's not really about Zen, but I'm going to say what Zen is now. Other people use Zen in a different way.

[20:53]

It's a nice word, and it's like, it's an opportunity. That word, Zen, is an opportunity to realize non-dual wisdom. It's an opportunity. The word Zen is a word which is an opportunity to realize non-dual silence. Silence. The word Zen is an opportunity to realize silence. Because that word is in a pivotal relationship with silence, like all other words. But I use Zen as a special word to emphasize that all words, including Zen, is silence.

[21:53]

That's the way the talk could have started. Now here's another way it could have started. Zen is a word that I use for Buddha activity. Zen isn't like, the way I use the word Zen, it isn't like a particular practice. Zen is the word I use for all of the activities of the Buddhas. That's the way I use the word Zen. Zen. Now, in the past, Zen has been used like this. Zen is a special transmission. A special transmission. Zen is a transmission.

[22:59]

And using Zen the way I did before, Zen is Buddha activity. Buddha activity is a transmission. It's a relationship. It's a face-to-face transmission. That's what Buddha activity is. That's what Zen is. But again, that's just what I sang in kindergarten. That's just me talking. Zen is Buddha activity. Zen is a transmission. Now, it has often been said in the past thousand years, it's a special transmission. There's lots of transmissions. This is a special one. Yeah, it's special. It's the Buddha transmission. It's the transmission of Prajnaparamita.

[24:11]

It is a transmission of practicing perfect wisdom. It's a transmission of not trying to get perfect wisdom. It's a transmission of practicing it. It's special. And then the phrase goes on. Blank. Zen. Blank. Buddha activity. It's a special transmission. Anything more you want to say? Oh, yeah. Well, what? I want to say that it doesn't depend on words. It's a transmission that doesn't depend on words. And it's outside the scriptures. What scriptures? The Heart Sutra. All the Mahayana Sutras. Zen is the blooming of all the scriptures.

[25:14]

And it blooms in a way that's hard to find in the scriptures. Like everything that we told here this morning, it would be hard to find anything I said in the scriptures except the part about Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. When practicing deeply the perfection of wisdom, clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty and relieved all suffering and distress. You can find that in the scriptures. Right? I quoted a scripture. However, Zen is not the quoting of the scripture. Zen is the special transmission that occurred while I was quoting the scripture. So there was a scripture quotation. The Zen part was the transmission that occurred during the quotation. And the transmission isn't in those words.

[26:21]

However, while those words were occurring, those words were in a non-dual relationship with what? Silence. The transmission is going on in silence, in stillness, and in language, simultaneously in the relationship. So in the Buddha activity, in the Zen activity, words are given as opportunities to not fall into words.

[27:22]

Zen is a special transmission of not falling into words. And words are used as opportunities and words are used as dangers. In the crisis of our life, the Buddha activity brings up words and asks you to balance between the danger of falling into the words and the opportunity of not falling into the words. Silence. It is possible to be balanced between falling into words and not falling into words.

[28:26]

To be balanced between the danger of falling into words and the opportunity of not falling into them. But in order to fully exercise that balance, we need to offer some words so people can work with the danger and the opportunity. So the words are offered. But these words are offered as an expression of the non-duality of the words in silence. However, we also offer silence, which is an opportunity to not fall into silence. And there's a danger of falling into silence. We have such a wonderful life of crisis. Environmental crisis, silence crisis, opportunity crisis.

[29:30]

And also there are the words which are given with the aspiration of giving them in such a way that people don't fall into them. The words of watch out for falling into words. And then we also have a silence. We give a silence, which is watch out. We don't say it, but the silence is actually saying, watch out, don't fall into the silence. And so now let's have some silent sitting. And while we're sitting, see if you can sit in that silence without falling into it. And there's the language which we don't want you to fall into, the language which says, it's possible to balance between silence and stillness

[30:37]

and language and movement. It's possible. But we have to practice it. And we are, we're practicing it. And we have a whole bunch of stories which are offered to us as opportunities to not fall into the stories. We have really, and here's another story. Ready for another story? We have really good stories, period. That's one of our stories. We got lots of stories. We got excellent stories, period. And I hope you didn't fall into that one. But here's another one.

[31:39]

But it's true, we do, period. We have good stories and these stories are truly good stories. However, I don't say these stories are true. They're just stories. They're wonderful stories which I don't say are true. However, I could say they're wonderful stories and they are true, but I don't say that. And that's another story, is that in Zen, we often say what we're not going to say, period. And I'm not going to say these stories are true. But I am going to say these are our stories and they're great and they're offering an opportunity to not fall into them. And in order to not fall into them, it's not going to work to not listen to them. That's not going to work. If you run away from the Zen Center, where people are... whoops, you've got to be careful. For those who are not here, you've got to be careful. I can't move my finger recklessly

[32:43]

and still balance this kotsu on my finger. I have to be careful while I'm getting excited here. I'm not really getting excited. I'm just getting very, very dynamic. And to stay balanced in this dynamic situation with this kotsu balancing on my right index finger. Is this the index finger? Is this the index finger? In order to realize Zen, Buddha activity, we need to practice balance. And we can. And that's the story. To encourage you to practice it without falling into that story. Because that wouldn't be balanced. So I said this stuff about stories

[33:46]

because I was thinking of telling you some of our stories. And I think I will. I'll just tell one. Maybe six. But maybe one. You'll see. And I might be here too. It's a story that I brought up earlier this fall over at the center of the universe, Berkeley. The story is about a Buddhist monk named Mi-Hu. Or somebody might say Mi-Hua. Anyway, Mi-Hu was a Dharma brother of the great, wonderful monk named Yangshan.

[34:47]

They were both students of Guishan. So the story that I was going to tell you goes like this. Mi-Hu had one of his monks, one of his students, go and ask his Dharma brother, Yangshan, a question. Does anybody know the question? You remember it? You can try. She's going to try to say the question that was asked a thousand years ago in China. Yes? She said quietly, Is there enlightenment or not? Which is close. Another translation would be, Mi-Hu said, go ask him if people these days need enlightenment or not. So Katy remembered it as,

[35:50]

is there enlightenment or not? Slightly different. Do people need enlightenment or not was the question. So the monk went some distance and asked the teacher, Yangshan, do people these days need enlightenment or not? And Yangshan said, it's not that there's no enlightenment, it's just that one needs to be careful not to fall into the secondary. One example of the secondary is the word enlightenment. So it's not that there's no enlightenment, we just need to be careful not to fall into the word enlightenment.

[36:52]

Or the word delusion. It's not that there's no enlightenment, we just need to be careful not to fall into words. But again, the way to not fall into words is to meet them with compassion, to run away to some place where there's no words, which is called sometimes death. If you cut your head off, there'll be no more words for a while. But that's not, then you can't practice compassion towards the words. The way, generally, for most people, for most humans, the way to not fall into the secondary is to practice with the secondary, to practice with it, to practice with it, not turn away from it or touch it, to listen to it, to look at it, to clearly observe it

[37:56]

with great compassion. If you observe the secondary with great compassion, you will not be falling into it. I wouldn't say that you will not fall into it, because if you observe it with great compassion and then you take a break from great compassion, you might fall into it. At the moment of practicing great compassion with the secondary, you're not falling into it. And before and after that, we don't say there's no enlightenment. But at the very moment of being compassionate to the secondary, to the words of our life, at that very moment, we are not falling into it. And then we don't say there is no enlightenment. And we don't say there is enlightenment. We just realize it, which everybody wants us to do, because realizing it

[38:56]

brings benefit to this world of crisis, where we live together all day long. All day long, there's an opportunity to be compassionate to the secondary and not fall into it. Have you heard of Cirque du Soleil? They have not yet invited me to come. They think, oh, you think that's something special that you can balance that koizu on your finger? You should see what we can do. We can balance six amazing young women on our one finger. It's now high noon

[40:00]

by coincidence, and we are in crisis together. We have a great opportunity to practice compassion with this crisis, to not fall into the secondary, which is swirling around us and gushing out of us and raining down on us all day long. We have this great, good fortune to have this opportunity, and we also have the great fortune of having this danger, because that's life. It's danger and it's opportunity. Life is crisis, and we have a teaching for how to practice in the middle of it. We have crisis, don't we? Don't we? Don't we? What? Don't we?

[41:02]

I'm not trying to force you to respond. It's not that we do. It's just that we need to not fall in the secondary. It's not that we do. It's just that we need to not fall in the secondary, and we need to, because other people want somebody to teach them how. People say, if anybody knows how to not fall in the secondary, would they please demonstrate it? And we say, yeah, maybe, if you ask me again nicely, maybe three times. Okay. Now it's past high noon, so we can call on Homa. I'm trying to remember... The time in September? Your exact words at the moment,

[42:06]

but I tried to capture it as much as I can capture it. Yeah. Why don't you forget about what I said, and just say what you want to say. A mind which knows nothing but compassion is the mind of compassion. Yeah. However, the mind which knows nothing but compassion, which is compassion, deals with things that are not compassion. Yeah. It's non-dual.

[43:07]

Exactly. Exactly. And exactly is non-dual with not exactly. There's a logic, by the way, to duality, and there's a logic to non-duality. And the two logics pivot on each other. They both have... The word logic is related to the word word, right? Doesn't logic... Doesn't logos mean word? Yeah. So there's a word, a logic, for duality, and there's words for non-duality. We got it all. We got the whole universe in our hands. And the whole universe has us in its hand.

[44:14]

We're just in the right place at the right time. And now we can have lunch just at the right time. And it can be the best lunch in the history of the universe. I mean, it could be.

[44:40]

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