So, as an offering to the No Abode Sangha. And yeah, it seems like we really, really have realized No Abode. So, none of us are at the temple called No Abode right now. And I'm in the Valley of the Green Dragon, Green Gulch, sitting in a room in the temple, talking to you, and you're around the country, various places. And we're sharing in this global crisis full of suffering, danger, and opportunities.

[01:26]

And I want to begin by paying homage to great compassion, which is functioning very well these days. Many people are practicing compassion towards many other living beings. And I want to pay my respects to them. And I imagine you also are sharing that respect and homage to the great compassion that's circulating through this world of suffering. A great compassion is an integral part of great wisdom, an integral part of unsurpassed, complete, authentic enlightenment. And last Sunday at Green Gulch, I talked about how the realization of awakening has an indispensable component called

[02:38]

the practice of the Bodhisattva precepts. And let me say again, as I did last Sunday, that I regard these Bodhisattva precepts as the source of unsurpassed authentic complete awakening, the source of all Buddhas, the origin of all Bodhisattvas. Words cannot reach these Bodhisattva precepts. And the Buddhas who emerge from these precepts the buddhas which emerge from the realization of these precepts they use words to guide living beings to care for the precepts the buddhas come forth from the precepts and the buddhas

[04:02]

offer the precepts in many ways, and one of the ways they offer them is in words. For example, the words nonviolence and service to all beings. The words don't do all evil, do all good, purify the mind. They talk that way to guide us to care for these precepts. They encourage us to care for these precepts. They encourage us to be mindful of these precepts and to care for them as we are as though and in the same way as we would care for Buddha. To care for the precepts in the same way that we care for unsurpassed awakening. Caring for these precepts is the way to care for living beings.

[05:15]

Caring for living beings is the way to care for these precepts. Caring for true awakening is the way to care for these precepts. Caring for these precepts is the way to care for true awakening. We have the opportunity to basically just care for one thing, moment after moment. And that one thing has many names, like unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment, bodhisattva precepts, refrain from all evil, When we say, when I say care for Buddha or care for awakening, I don't think of eliminating anything or improving anything.

[06:30]

For example, if I'm caring for a garden, I do not have to think that I'm improving the garden. Some people do care for gardens with the idea of improving the garden, and I don't oppose that. But if I care for the garden the way I care for awakening, then I'm caring for it wholeheartedly, but I'm not trying to improve upon it. I'm not trying to improve upon the Buddha. Caring for the precept of nonviolence, I'm not trying to improve anything. I'm trying to realize everything as Buddhadharma. So these precepts are not in opposition to evil,

[07:37]

They are relating to everything as an opportunity to care for perfect awakening. Everything is an opportunity for caring for awakening. These precepts are like, one idea I had is they're like a magnifying glass. Or they're like x-rays. Or they're like bright mirrors. And the story comes to mind is one of the great ancestors of the Zen tradition, his name is Master Ma.

[09:02]

He was sitting in meditation all the time, and his teacher came to see him. And his teacher said, What are you figuring to do sitting there in meditation? And Master Ma said, I'm figuring to make a Buddha. I'm figuring to realize, to make unsurpassed, complete, authentic awakening. And his teacher picked up a tile and started rubbing the tile with a stone. And Master Ma said, what are you doing?

[10:10]

And the teacher said, I'm polishing this tile to make a mirror. And Master Maha said, well, how can you make a mirror out of a tile? And his teacher said, how can you make a Buddha by practicing meditation? The teacher did take a rock, a stone, and a tile, and he polished, he rubbed the tile with the stone. And he showed the wrong way to work with the stone and the tile.

[11:25]

to use the stone to make the tile into a mirror is not gonna happen. But he could have said, I'm rubbing this tile with this stone in order to take care of this tile. What are you doing? I'm taking care of this tile as though I were taking care of unsurpassedly perfect enlightenment. But he didn't say that. He said, in a sense, something which was not appropriate to the way of practicing with the precepts. In other words, to use the tile and the stone not to care for the tile or the stone, but to affirm that the mirror and the stone are not the same.

[12:42]

And therefore, I should make the mirror and the tile are not the same. So I should make the tile into a mirror. But by caring for the tile, without trying to make it into anything but a tile. We are practicing the Bodhisattva precepts of nonviolence. And we will realize the bright mirror of helping the tile be completely a tile. Just like if we were taking care of the Buddha, we would not try to make the Buddha into a mirror, or into a tile, or into a bodhisattva, or into a garden. We would respect the Buddha, of course, and we would help the Buddha be Buddha. Practicing meditation, we practice meditation to help meditation practice be just meditation practice.

[13:52]

We polish the tile to help the tile be a tile and the stone be a stone. This is, for example, not doing evil. This is doing good. This is clarifying the mind. This is the teaching of all Buddhas. And people give me gifts all the time of telling me how they're trying to improve their situation. And I do not try to improve them when they tell me that. I try to take care of the ones who are trying to improve things. But it is possible to wholeheartedly care for things without trying to get them to be something other than what they are.

[14:59]

What they are, are doors to the dharma. And if we care for them as we would care for the dharma. Most of us are not trying to improve the dharma. I haven't seen people saying, I'm trying to improve the dharma. and trying to improve the Buddha. However, they do sometimes say they're trying to improve the Sangha, in particular cases. And I do not try to improve those who are trying to improve those. I try to care for those who are trying to improve others. And I support those who are caring for others. So now we could perhaps have a little discussion about what I've said.

[16:19]

Or if there's something else you'd like to talk about, we could do that too. And you can raise your hands and I'll call on you. And I'll just say, you can either probably put your hand up, because we have so few people, and Reb, we'll see you that way. If you click, I think participants at the bottom and then. I'd like to raise your hand. Want to raise hands? Okay. Let's do it that way. Actually raise your hand if you want. You can just go like this. Yeah. Or even go like this. And I'll unmute people. Tracy.

[17:19]

I'm shy about going first, but I'm going to jump in anyway. So you said we could speak to what you just spoke to or anything, and I'm going to do both. And I'll start with the anything, which is that I notice I've been kind of starving to hear from you. I feel fine. I feel great. And yet there's a part of me that has just been almost desperate to hear you talk in these times and about these times. So I guess I've been wondering if for you, these times show up as something really amazingly different than any Buddhist practitioner in the history of the world has ever had to face. Yeah, this is just business as usual for enlightenment.

[18:24]

The tools that we've used for 2,500 years are as helpful and on point as they ever were. So that's what I've been hungry for, I guess, is the word I would use to hear from you. And if I listen to what you've been saying today, I think you've been saying, yep, same tools. the precepts bring them out now, no more, no less than ever. And I don't know if that's what you're saying, but that's kind of what I'm impugning from what I've heard you say this afternoon. And that's satisfying to me and reassuring to me. And I'm also, there's a part of me that's also curious that wants you to talk about Do these times seem different or special to you? The times do seem different.

[19:28]

Do they seem more different than usual? Yeah, I think they do. But I'm also kind of surprised almost how tradition applies to radical change, and how radical change is part of our tradition. We have a tradition which is set up to deal with radical change. And sure enough, it seems like, yeah, it can stay sort of abreast of these changes. That's how it's seeming to me. And another part of our tradition about the precepts is that part of caring for living beings as they're changing, part of the care is to be asked questions like you're asking me right now.

[20:37]

To call the tradition into question is traditional. To say, is the tradition appropriate to this new situation That's an ancient question, which is now being asked today in a way that's never been asked before. And yet it's exactly just like all the other times that it was questioned. Basically, the tradition is built for being questioned. The tradition encourages questioning itself. If our tradition doesn't question itself, and question its relevance, I would say that's not traditional. So if you hear about a Buddhist, a presentation of Buddhist tradition that says, this tradition is not available to be questioned, I would say, I don't think that's really the tradition I'm devoted to. And actually, I don't think there's much evidence

[21:39]

There's evidence of people in the past who resisted being questioned, but I didn't see them ever establish that resistance to being questioned as a new authentic tradition. So for example, Dogen probably was questioned, but he didn't say, you people shouldn't be questioning me. And you might meet some people who are devoted to what they consider to be the Buddhist tradition, who do not seem to be open to being questioned. That can happen. That's like a illness in the tradition. Or not illness in the tradition, that's an illness in a person who's trying to practice the tradition, is they do not want to practice it. In other words, they do not want to be questioned. So you just questioned me, but I was not opposed to you questioning me. And you could even say, you know, I don't think the tradition is doing very well.

[22:41]

That would be your view. And you could say, and I don't, I call it the way you're practicing and the way you're responding. I call it into question. And I would say to you, thank you. I mean, I want to say thank you. You're enacting the tradition when you do that. And you say, I don't want to. I say, well, you are. The tradition includes you not wanting to practice the tradition. It welcomes that. So, yeah, the word strange does come to my mind a lot. I've never been in a situation like this before. And then I think, well, hasn't it always been that way that I've never been in a situation before? Maybe now we understand that we've never been in this situation before. And then sometimes in the past we think, oh, I've been here before, but was that a delusion when we thought, you know, that we were there before?

[23:43]

I think so. Now we're a little less deluded in seeing that we're on the frontier of a new world day by day. We see wholesomeness, we see unwholesomeness, and all of it is calling for care, for compassion, I believe. And when I see people being compassionate to what's going on, I think I want to pay homage to that. If people see unwholesomeness and they're compassionate to it, I pay homage to that. But the compassion doesn't mean you don't call unwholesomeness into question. Compassionate doesn't mean you don't question what appears to be unskillful. But if I see the appearance of something unskillful, it's my feeling, I want to take care of this sentient being. I want to help them. I want to give them as much kindness as I would give to a Buddha, and as much respect as I would give to the Buddha and awakening.

[24:53]

I look at myself and ask that. And if the answer is yes, I feel right. I feel I'm on the ball. How are you doing there, Tracy? Great, great. I had a thought that I'd like to share with you that in these last six weeks or however long it's been, I think like everyone else, I've gone up and down, up and down. I felt a little bit like I'm cheating, that's one way to say it, or I have a leg up due to our practice, due to all those years looking at the wall. um that given how terrified a lot of people are with the uncertainty of these times and I have my moments but there's a basis of all I could say is you know the teaching in my head speaking instead of my fear or what the media is spearing at me there's a there's a place where I'm

[26:00]

I feel like I have something to fall back on or stand on. And I don't know why I'm using the word cheating, but I feel like, ooh, lucky me. Cheating, huh? I mean, yeah, such a terrifying situation. I should be horrified at every moment. It's like you're cheating. It's like you're cheating. What is it? You're cheating, falling into the pit of misery. Yeah. Yeah. You're cheating demons. But not really. You're actually, instead of falling in with the demon, you're giving the dharma to the demon. I hope so. Like, you know, there's various stories about demons harassing people.

[27:02]

And then when the people get angry, the demon goes, I got him. And when the people are kind to the demon, the demon goes, oh no, I'm unemployed. There's a lot of survival guilt going around among the survivors. And I don't, I don't think we should try to get rid of survival guilt. I think we should care for survival guilt with the bodhisattva precepts. And the survival guilt may stay until we're not a survival anymore, until we're not a survivor. And then not being a survivor, we won't have survival guilt maybe. So then we can practice compassion with not being a survivor. A way out. Well, I'm sick, but at least I'm not a survivor.

[28:05]

Don't want no more survival guilt. One, I'm relieved of that. Enrique. Thank you for doing this. This is a wonderful opportunity to see you all. I think it was a year or two ago, you told me to listen to the cries of the world. And I think it was in response to some, I know I was having a lot of trouble at the time, personal trouble, not for me kind of situation. And you told me, I'll listen to the cries of the world. And I thought, well, how's that gonna help? But I'll try it. I did find it helpful, and I've tried to practice that, you know, a certain understanding and compassion.

[29:13]

But I feel like lately, as I practice listening to the cries of the world, that those cries have gotten a lot louder and kind of are overwhelming to me, to the point where, I mean, Some of it's kind of easy because I can relate to Tracy's feeling like you almost, because you can fall back on the practice, you have some tools to deal with some of the pain that you hear other people experiencing. But I've been seeing and hearing things that are kind of overwhelming to me. One example is a situation going on in Michigan at the state capitol in Michigan. I saw a photograph of this man screaming in the face of a police officer and the police officer just standing there.

[30:18]

And it just, you know, we were talking earlier about violence and nonviolence. And I said, there's such a violent, seen to me, and it feels like these times have more violence and more pain. Is that really so? I mean, has it just been the same all along, or are we just, it looks like it's more intense now than it was before? even if it is more intense, or even if it's less intense, even if it's less intense, you're still feeling somewhat overwhelmed, right? Yes. Yeah. So I don't know how, if it's more or less intense, but I hear that you find it intense enough. I hear you saying it's intense enough for you.

[31:22]

Is that right? Yes. You're not asking for the violence to be more intense, are you? No. No. So it seems like you have enough violence around you for the time being. Matter of fact, you have so much that you're feeling almost overwhelmed by it. Is that right? Yes. So I think that what I hear is that you think that listening to the cries of the world is good, but then at a certain point, you get this feeling like you're going to get overwhelmed by it. Yes. So now the next thing now that I see that's presenting itself for your care is the feeling of being overwhelmed. And I hear that word from a lot of people. Are you with me?

[32:24]

Yes, I am. Yeah. So trying to figure out whether it's actually more than usual or more than ever, that also is another kind of challenging thought, which might add to the overwhelm. But you don't have to do any calculations if you don't want to, because you already have plenty to deal with. Matter of fact, so much that you feel on the verge of being overwhelmed. And again, if I feel on the verge of being overwhelmed, I recommend to myself that I take care of the feeling of being either on the verge of overwhelmed or that I feel overwhelmed. I wanna take care of it. Listen to that too. So if I'm listening to the cries and then listening to them, I feel overwhelmed, then I, in a sense, I would take care of what's closest to me, my own feeling of overwhelm. And caring for that will help me then open to others again. That's my experience.

[33:26]

But feeling overwhelmed is another cry to listen to. And since it's your own, it's good for you to take care of that first, since it's right in your face. And then if you can take care of that, you can take care of, well, not even then, if you take care of that. The difficult to understand point is, in the sutra where it talks about the bodhisattva whose name is listening to the cries of the world, it says that to observe the cries of the world with eyes of compassion, that that observation itself creates an ocean of blessing. How does listening to the cries create blessing? It doesn't explain how that happens. But the suggestion of the Mahayana is that listening to the cries of self and other develops a vast ocean of positive energy and virtue.

[34:36]

And feeling overwhelmed is all the feelings of overwhelmed are in that ocean of sentient beings. So we have an ocean of sentient beings, and we have an ocean of merit. And the ocean of sentient beings is observed with eyes of compassion. And the observation brings to the ocean of sentient beings another ocean. And I don't, you know, it puts the ocean of sentient beings into the ocean of blessings. And the key factor in the integration of the ocean of blessings and the ocean of sentient beings, the key factor there is observing the ocean of sentient beings with eyes of compassion. And once again, in that ocean of sentient beings is innumerable examples of feeling overwhelmed, You feel it sometimes, I feel it sometimes.

[35:42]

The voice, I can't stand this, I can't take this, appears in many sentient beings' minds. That voice is calling for compassion. I say, what do you say, Enrique? Is that voice calling for compassion? Yes, it is. I think what happens to me is I, is some of how I grew up. I feel like I, what I ought to do is take care of others and focus, you know, outwards on other people. And I forget about taking care of myself. And I know in the practice, we talk about that, that, you know, self-care being a, You need to feel compassion towards yourself and get good with that before you are good with being compassionate towards others. And I guess intellectually, I understand that, but in practice, I've always wanted to jump ahead and skip the me part and get to helping others.

[36:53]

And I think maybe sometimes it was thinking, well, they'll be grateful. These others will thank me for it and I'll feel better. So the usual instruction in Zen is, don't skip up what's right in front of you. If others are right in front of you, don't skip over them to take care of yourself. If yourself is right in front of you, don't skip over yourself. Take care of what's right in front of you. And it might be you. And if so, don't skip over it. And it might be somebody else. Don't skip over what's right in front of you. There's one thing that's perhaps good about this whole lockdown situation is, yes, that that's, I'm forced to, what's in front of me almost 24 hours, seven days a week is just me, since I'm here, you know, on my own.

[37:56]

You and also the floor that you're looking at. Yeah. the floor you're about to take a step onto. I've done a lot more sweeping lately. When you're sweeping, don't overlook the broom. Don't overlook the ground. When you're walking, don't overlook the step. Take care of what's right in front of you, and that is in accord with listening to the cries of the world. The floor wants your compassion too. The broom wants your compassion. The dust wants your compassion. The cockroaches, you got cockroaches, right? Yes. Everything is calling for your compassion. And maybe the lockdown helps us not overlook what's going on in our own house. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Linda, did you have your hand raised a while ago? I did.

[38:58]

I did. Thank you. I appreciated you bringing up the koan about polishing a tile. And I realized there's a part of the koan that's always been, it feels like a non-sequitur for some reason. And I thought this might be an opportune time to bring it up, which is after this exchange, I think Master Ma says something like, well, then what shall I do? And then Nanwe says, if you've got a cart that doesn't go, what do you hit the cart or the ox? And Master Mas, or I don't know if he was a master at that time, but Master Mas says, he's silent, you know? So to me, that's like, what, how is it that that's, I've never quite understood the silence and also bringing up that particular

[39:59]

image, or I have, it resonates somewhat, but I would appreciate your commentary. The story does go on. So after the teacher, so there's two versions of the story, by the way. One version of the story is that Master Ma, is Master Ma, at the time of the story, he's already master ma. However, even though he's master ma, he still has a teacher. After becoming a master ma and going beyond his teacher, okay, going beyond his teacher, he went beyond his teacher and he still had a teacher who could still question him. So even when you go beyond your teacher, your teacher still gets to ask you questions to help you go beyond your teacher again. So here's the teacher questioning the master, or maybe not the master, but anyway, what are you doing?

[41:06]

And then after he says, how can you make a Buddha buy something? So again, you have, are you taking care of sitting meditation? Or are you trying to make sitting meditation into Buddha? And he, it seems like, you know, he was talking as though he were, what do you call it? Using Siddhi meditation to make a Buddha and that there were two things. It seems like that, you might say. And then the teacher says, okay, let's play this out. Now I'll do the same thing. I'll take something, a tile, and then I'll try to, make the tile into something else. I'll do this polishing of the tile to make the tile into a mirror."

[42:07]

And Matsu says, and again, when Matsu looks at him, it looks like the teacher's saying that the tile and the mirror, excuse me, yeah, the tile and the mirror are two different things. So they're playing, one way to read this is they're playing pretending duality. So Matsu's sitting there and he's not really trying to do anything with anything. He's just taking care of sitting meditation. He's just taking care of Buddha. So then the teacher asked him this dualistic question, what are you figuring to do with this? And he knows he's not, but Matsu plays along and says, Oh, I'm trying to make a Buddha. I'm trying to make this sitting meditation into Buddha. And then the teacher plays this game of, okay, now I'll do the same thing with this tile here and the stone. And then, I'm reading this non-dualistically.

[43:12]

And then the teacher says, and then the monk when he's, Matsu says, what are you doing? And then he tells him. And then he says, well, how can you do that? In other words, how can duality be that way? And then the teacher says, again, how can duality be that way? And then, where did you go? Oh, there you are. You keep moving around. And then the teacher says, and then the monk says, the student says, well, what's right? And again, he says, well, what's right? Okay, ready? One, two, three. Well, what's right? Well, don't skip over that. Don't skip over that. That's not dualistic. He's saying, what is right? Right is what? So again, he's not really being looking for something other than what he said as what's right, as what's Buddha. What is right is Buddha. Buddha is what is right. Or right is what?

[44:16]

Buddha is right is what? And right is, and what is right? And then, Then the teacher does this thing about the, well, if you're, he doesn't say exactly, but if you're driving an ox cart, should you hit the ox or the cart? Right? Most people hit the ox, right? Most people don't hit the, if the cart gets stuck, most people don't hit the cart, right? But the teacher isn't saying it's that obvious, right? Ready? Are everybody following this? You got an ox cart. Most people, when they get stuck, they hit the ox, right? Because the ox drives the cart, right? So which one do you hit? Almost nobody would hit the cart. But there's a question, and Matsu, I think, again, gives a non-dualistic answer by being quiet.

[45:20]

When you're practicing the Bodhisattva precepts to realize Buddha, if you're practicing the precepts as a way of caring for Buddha, do you hit the precepts or do you hit Buddha? If you're practicing bodhisattva precepts to demonstrate as a way to care for Buddha, and you get stuck in your practice, do you hit the getting stuck? Do you hit the precepts? A lot of people hit the precepts. These precepts aren't working. Or do you hit the Buddha? Well, you don't want to hit Buddha. Well, maybe I will hit Buddha. What do you hit? Precepts. I don't know, you could hit everything. You can hit the cart, you can hit yourself, you can hit the Buddha, you can hit the hitting. The thing is, you care for everything. You care for the cart, you care for the horse, you care for the donkey, you care for the rabbit. Don't you have to just check the cart to see- How you doing, Linda?

[46:35]

No, that's me, Diane. I'm calling on Linda, that's her question. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, well, I really appreciate what you're saying. And, you know, this last question of if it doesn't go, what do you hit? If your precepts, if your practice is stuck, what do you hit? What do you care for? I'm just turning that, those two are turning on each other there. So if your practice, It, you know, it, is there any different way you would care for the cart? Is there any different way you'd care for Buddha that you wouldn't care for your practice? And if I care for my practice in a different way than I care for Buddha, I think my practice might get stuck. Yeah. Yeah. And if I care for Buddha, again, if I care for Buddha in a different way than I care for my practice, I think my practice might get stuck and then we're stuck.

[47:37]

Then what do I hit? I think I would hit both. I would care for both. And I think when I care for both, I'm not stuck. And if I care for being stuck the way I would care for both, that's Buddha and that's the precepts. Diane, did you? Does somebody have a question? Karen? Thank you. This sort of follows from the story about polishing the tile. I have a friend who asked me for help with something that's rather difficult. And I thought about it, and I thought that the thing that she wanted help with sounded good to me, so I said yes.

[48:41]

And then I see that, you know, if I care for her in a way that lets her be her, there's a very good chance that what she asked me to help her with won't actually happen. So I'm trying to understand how to keep my eye on her and at the same time keep my eye on where this might go. you know, to pay attention to both of those things, and I feel uncertain about that. You have two things? Yeah. One is to... One is her? One is her, and one is the thing that she asked me to help her with. So she's got this thing she wants to help, and you want to help her. Which is most important? They're both kind of important.

[49:43]

Well, what's the thing she wants you to help with that's important? To make a big change in her life, and it would be a hard change. But isn't that change about her? Yeah. Isn't the change for it to help her? Isn't that what she's... Yes. Yeah. So you're really about helping her, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. But she had proposed, and I agreed to the direction. for that help. And I don't want to entirely give up on the direction or say, yeah. I don't want to entirely give up on that. Give up on what? On the direction that she asked for help with. I don't see a need to give up on the direction she's asking you to help her with. Seems like both of the things you could care for. And it seems like caring for both of them is caring for her.

[50:46]

Yeah, I see a little bit of conflict there. It's like the polishing. What's the conflict? I think to let her be her is maybe that thing won't get done that she wanted help with. To let her be her, that thing might not get done. Yes. Yeah, right. And I don't want to give up on it too soon, but I don't want to push. I'm not following you about giving up on something. What are you talking? I thought we're talking about taking care of her. Yeah. So I don't see any need to give up on anything. What are you talking about giving up on? On the specific task that she asked me to help her with. And why would you have to give up on helping her with that specific task? Why wouldn't it be appropriate to help her? I think it's appropriate to help her.

[51:51]

I'm not sure that she, being herself, can actually do it without kind of shifting, without being a slightly different person than she is. Can't you help her be who she is? That's what I want to do. Yeah. And couldn't you simultaneously help her with this task while you help her be who she is? I'm not sure. Well, is that what you want to do? Yeah, I want to do both. Yeah, I want to do both too. So if somebody wants to do something, I want to help that person be themselves. That's right. and I might walk with them and help them be themselves, and that will help them do the task too. Which might include, does not necessarily include that they finish the task. There you go, yeah. Because as I often use the example of if you can stand it one more time, my grandson wants to go for a walk here at Green Gulch in the dark in the winter,

[53:02]

And I want to help him be himself. And he wants me to go with him. He wants my attendance on this adventure. And I want to help him be himself. Right. Don't I? Yes. But in this case, helping him be himself, I thought actually entailed me going on this adventure with him. It's a good analogy. But it didn't mean we would do the adventure, it just means I will support him being the little guy who wants to go on an adventure. And then we'll see how that turns out. I thought he would get scared if he went out in the dark and the cold. But I didn't stop him from being the person he is in the house and who wanted to go. And it was not afraid. So I was with the little boy who wasn't afraid.

[54:05]

And I thought, if we go outside, I'll get a little boy who is afraid. But I didn't try to prevent him from being that little boy he would be. And if he wasn't afraid, I would support him in that too. So we go outside and we take a walk. And I'm supporting him to be who he is on this adventure, on doing this thing, which we might never do. That's, yeah. We haven't got to our destination, which is the garden. And as we approach the garden, he says, you know this story, right? Yes. As we approach the garden, he says, what's that? And by the way, a little dog's walking with us, a little dog named Rozzy. As we approach the garden, he says, what's that? And I say, it's frogs. And he says, you mean Ribbit Ribbit? And I say, yeah. And we walk some more and the frogs keep riveting. And then he says, I think we should stop. Rozzy's getting scared.

[55:08]

So he became, I helped him be who he was, which led to us not doing the thing. But it did lead us to entering into the process of ways. So I think the main thing is to help the person and yourself Be who you really are. And then, yeah. I think I have that habit of thinking that process and task are two different things, and they're not. They're not. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions at this time? Denise, and then Deborah. Would you run on, oh, there she is.

[56:11]

You're okay now, Denise. So my mother passed away a couple of weeks ago from COVID. And I had always wanted to be by her side at her death. We were very close, and it happened so quickly, you know, and it's impossible to be by her side, but I didn't get to talk to her. My sister did, and she spoke to the people who were caring for her, and they were so kind. It just melted all of us, how... compassionate they were for what she was feeling, but also for what we were experiencing and held the phone up to my mother so my sister could talk to her and then my father as well. And it just, it just showed me how, you know, I had this idea about how her death should go and my role in it and

[57:25]

how anyone could fill that role. Any kind person could be there by her side. I mean, it seemed really to calm my mother to have these kind people by her side telling her it was going to be okay. Yeah. And since this has happened, my heart has really opened up. And the dread I was feeling in the beginning of this whole lockdown is not there. It's really reoriented everything. You said that the precepts are like a magnifying glass. But death is too, you know, the thing that we most dread. fear when that happens there's this whole spacious realm that becomes visible if you take care of it that was my question how do you take care of this uh open my my open heart

[58:39]

Well, take care of it as though you're taking care of Buddha. Don't try to improve it. Don't try it. You don't try to improve Buddha, right? Don't try to hold on to Buddha. You don't hold on to Buddha. Don't try to get anything from this wonderful thing, just like you wouldn't try to get anything from Buddha. Don't run away from it. Take care of it like taking care of the most precious thing. That is also precious in a way that it shows you what's appropriate. It shows you how to take care of it. Precepts are telling you how to take care of everything as a way to see through everything to the source of the Buddhas.

[59:55]

And I think you, it sounds like you did look at the situation with the precepts and got to see the Buddha in the situation. Namely, even though things didn't go the way you wanted, you saw, my God, Bodhisattvas were there. Sounds like you did discover the Buddha in your mother's dying because you cared for the process. And also you cared for things going differently than the way you wanted, than the way you planned. So you cared for your disturbed plans according to the precepts and you got to see where the precepts come from. That's what it seems like to me. And now you have this new situation, and it seems like you should take care of this new situation like you took care of your mother's dying.

[61:02]

Any other offerings today? Oh, Deborah, you had your hand raised, yes. Thank you, Denise. I'm so sorry about your mother. I was just gonna ask if, it's hard to remember my question after that. If one does really take care of the moment and practice wholeheartedly, is it effortless? I guess I'm confused whether, I'm not sure whether really taking care of it, if you can really take care of something. Does that make sense? It totally does. And what comes to my mind is that when a woman has breasts that have milk in them, sometimes the milk squirts out Just even at the sound of a baby's crying, milk squirts out.

[62:50]

Even at the sound of other people's babies crying, the milk squirts out. And sometimes it squirts with considerable, you know, energy. It's a big effort on the part of the body to squirt that milk, that nutrition, that love, okay? But it's also effortless. I mean, nobody's like, ugh, Now you can squeeze the breasts and so on and so forth, or also the baby nurses. And you say, well, the baby's making an effort, but the mother's making an effort too, but she's not really working at it. It's just flowing. So kind of according to your understanding, we are effortful beings. We're always making an effort as long as we're alive. We're cooking all the time, 24 hours a day. Right? But if we're taking care of what's right in front of us, it doesn't seem like anything before or after pushing or pulling.

[63:55]

And we can train so that we can be really wholeheartedly effortful beings, but there's nothing in addition to our wholehearted, effortful being. Nothing like pushing it or dragging it. It's more like it's emerging from the whole universe supporting us, and us supporting the whole universe. There's no gain or loss. So in that sense, it seems effortless, even though it's a tremendous effort. The universe makes this tremendous effort to make you, and you make this tremendous effort to make the whole universe. It's a big job. But actually, your effort to do some small thing may be more easily trick you than your effort to make the whole universe. I'm sorry. Go ahead, you go ahead. I'm just saying, so when the overwhelm comes in, that's either pushing or pulling. It's not effort, it's pushing or pulling. Yeah, well, it's effort, but it's understood as being pushed or pulling.

[64:59]

It's sort of a little bit off, but again, it's just something that's calling for compassion. And when it gets enough compassion, it's not pushing or pulling anymore. is just intense life, which can be interpreted as pushing or pulling or turning away or touching. It can be interpreted that way. And then it can be overwhelming or you could say underwhelming, you know, or, you know, too much or too little. So again, if we listen to too much with compassion, and too little with compassion, if we listen to them, we come back upright. But we don't like prohibit thinking that's too much or too little. That can happen. Overwhelm or underwhelm can happen. And those are opportunities, again, for the milk of compassion to squirt out effortlessly. Thank you.

[66:04]

You're welcome. Great to see you guys from all over the country. North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, Southern California, Northern California, where else? Is that it for now? Minnesota. Minnesota, great. Diane? Yes. Can I ask a question? Yes. So I'm trying to determine the best way to care for my son. He's got schizophrenia. He's currently in jail. Every time he gets released from jail, he wants me to allow him to be free. And I don't feel that that's in his best interest.

[67:05]

But what I feel is in his best interest feels like trying to fix him, maybe, being too controlling, maybe, or just caring for the best outcome for him. So how can I find my way through this thicket of, you know, how can I discern the best way to care for him? Well, you said a number of things just now, and while you were talking, were you listening with compassion to what you were saying? Yeah, I think so. That's the way to go. Just keep listening to your own suffering, your own pain about his pain. Just try to stay present with what's being given to you.

[68:08]

And that way of dealing with what's being given to you, when he's given to you in the flesh, then you have a chance of dealing with him, of listening to him. Just like now, listening to yourself. I didn't feel like you were trying to control yourself. No, I'm just trying to share. express the situation. Yeah, you're trying to express the situation. And you're caring for you, you're caring for the expressor. The Diane, the expressor, you're caring for her. You're taking care of her. That way of caring for this person right now is not trying to control her. and taking care of him in the same way you're taking care of yourself right now, won't be time to control him. Because I think, yeah, you can't control him, but you can care for him. And he can't control himself, of course, but he can learn how to take care of himself.

[69:15]

So if he sees examples of people being compassionate for themselves, he can learn to be compassionate for himself. And also compassionate to him. And if he sees examples of people trying to control him, and he tries those, we know he's not going to be successful. So if he's surrounded by people trying to control him, when they get away from him, then what's he going to do? He'll be at a total loss, because all he knows is how people try to control him, and he doesn't know how to do that. So it's good for him to be around people who don't try to control him, but who care for him. Then maybe he has a chance of learning how to care for himself, which he's not very good at. And we're all really sorry about that. But who's going to teach him how to take care of himself? And the answer is people who know how to take care of themselves or Occasionally, people who are so bad at taking care of themselves that he sees their bad example and sees, oh, that's what I do.

[70:22]

Now I see what I've been doing wrong. Occasionally, showing people how stupid we are helps them. But somebody also needs to teach us how to be smart and kind. And you can teach him that. If you can give up trying to control yourself and give up trying to control Buddha and switch to caring for yourself, you can show him how to care for himself, which he might not learn really well all of a sudden, but if he learns a little, that's good. Yeah, the places that they might put him in are usually running short of people who know how to care for themselves. And that's another painful thing for us to be kind to, is the shortage of highly skilled bodhisattvas. To be patient with that, even though we feel sad when we see somebody who's not very skillful, if we can take care of our sadness and be kind to them, they'll become more skillful.

[71:32]

So I don't know, yeah, we're trying to help people learn how to help people. I think I get it. Great. I mean, I understand what you're saying. Putting it into practice is a whole different story. You're practicing pretty well right now. Just keep this up. Just continue this way. Thank you. You all look like you're taking pretty good care. Anything else today? We've been going on for a little while. Is that enough for today, ladies and gentlemen? Can we say how wonderful this is? Pardon? Can we say how wonderful this has been? Yes, you may go ahead, say it. This has been wonderful, Reb. And Charlie? I wondered how we can support you, Reb.

[72:34]

You know, usually at No Abode, there's a little donation box where we can put some energy for you. And I wonder if there's a virtual way for us to do that in these times when we're not gathering in person. Well, I would suggest today donating to San Francisco Zen Center. Because I'm not at Noah Bode. And I'm not at Zen Center. But I think Zen Center, excuse me for saying so, I think Zen Center is having a harder time than Noah. Noah Bode is not really having a hard time. There's nobody there who needs to be fed. Uh, there's no, uh, yeah, there's no contagion there. No, but it's pretty good. So, uh, since now you might make a donation to Zen Center. And that would help me, uh, you know, Zen Center, this is Zen Center's account, right? Yeah. So Rev, Rev, Dan can talk about the campaign that Zen Center is doing right now.

[73:38]

Okay. Sure. Well, I'll just say I, uh, I just posted in the chat for everyone, um, two links, um, to, to where, you know, how to make that donation. And, um, maybe we'll send an email out with that to everyone also, and feel free to share it. And, um, yeah, it's just a big campaign to help raise time, raise money at these times. And you'll see the, there's a whole letter that explains it better than I do. So just, um, Yeah, that's our that's been shared in the chat and we'll email that out. So fortunately, no boats fine. We have no staff to support. No food to buy. Yeah, so it's it noble is fine. And I hope we can get back there soon to meet in person. I'm very sad not to be there. But it's fine. Don't worry about it. And I A few people like Amanda's going over there and Norbert's going over there and Ted, who else is going over there?

[74:41]

Anyway, people are taking care and are bored. I'd like to go over there too, but I'm not allowed to. And so I appreciate your asking, Charlie. And let us know there's some way we can help you too. Anything else today? Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Good to see you, Reb and everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Reb. Thanks, everyone. Good to see you. Good to see you all. Thank you. Good to see you all. Yes. Take care. May our intention...

[75:27]

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