And Mel is feeling better, but still needing to rest. So, looking around Mel's office, I found a much better translation of the Vendawa. So, continue with that today and read from it. It's much more relaxed. It's a translation by Nishiyama. And I remember that recently when Mel was talking about the koan number 44 in the Blue Cliff Record, knowing how to beat the drum, he used Nishiyama's translation and it was colloquial and easy.

[01:12]

Makes a big difference. So, to continue to talk about GGU Samadhi, self-settling on the self, Nichiyama translates that as self-enjoyment of one's awakening. Now that's a nice way of thinking of Zazen. Self-enjoyment of one's awakening. This principle of including everything. Mahayana inclusion principle. paying attention to everything as it comes, wholeheartedly living in the present. G.G.U. Samadhi. So these last couple of days we've been talking about various aspects of this inclusion principle.

[02:21]

How to allow our minds to settle out down out of their conceptual categories kind of process of foreground and background merging with each other we tend to live and be very much in the foreground of our lives and as we settle down the foreground and the background become more unified. We talked about noticing how we hold on to our various ideas and notions and experiences of ourselves yesterday we talked about the shape of our cages how, as we sit Zazen, we notice we get more information about what those shapes are about and we talked about faith exercising the muscle of faith being willing to

[03:53]

meet the world from the point of view of Buddha's eye rather than our eye even though we don't understand it. David spoke about the soft-hearted honesty that we bring to each moment we bring fresh to each moment makes each moment, making each moment fresh. So all this is GGU Samadhi. And I'm going to read... I'm going to read the last paragraph of the fascicle, some of which I read yesterday, but read it again in this easier translation. If you think practice and enlightenment are different, as ordinary people do, then there must be some sort of mutual perception between the Zen practitioner and his enlightenment.

[05:11]

This is false, because there can be no discrimination within enlightenment. Although disturbances and illusions flow in and out during Zazen, they appear within GGU Samadhi and are therefore transformed into enlightenment and do not disrupt or interfere with anything. They also are the work of Buddha, extremely profound and infinitely strong. Their power permeates the trees, grasses, and earth. All of them shine brightly with the divine light and teach the profound, incomprehensible, and incessant Dharma. Trees, grasses, a wall, a fence, all proclaim the Dharma for the sake of everyone, ordinary people, saints, and sentient beings. The reverse is also true. Furthermore, the boundary between self-enlightenment of oneself and others is permeated with enlightenment.

[06:15]

They work together reciprocally. Consequently, Zazen, even if done for a short time by one person, enlivens and unifies all forms of existence. It covers infinite time and pervades past, present and future while simultaneously working ceaselessly for the enlightenment of all sentient beings. Buddhas, sentient beings and phenomena have only one form of practice. and one undifferentiated enlightenment. And it is not just limited to the practice of sitting in Zazen. Hearing the echo of emptiness is like the wonderful sound of a mallet, both before and after it strikes the bell. In addition, every human being has its own original nature and function that is beyond comprehension by rational means.

[07:19]

Even if all the innumerable Buddhas of the entire universe combined their wisdom and attempted to measure the merit of one person's zazen, they could not fathom it. Now you can see how infinite the merit of zazen is. Although disturbances and illusions flow in and out during Zazen they appear within Jiju Samadhi and are therefore transformed into enlightenment and do not disrupt or interfere with anything. So maybe on this third day we're beginning to really experience that how the mind contents flows and the arguments and the various aspects come and go but there's no interference it's all right so that gradually our thinking minds are deconstructed

[08:51]

taken apart in this sasheen this gathering of the mind what sasheen means gathering the mind but gathering what mind? mind with a capital M? mind with a little m? and so when we awaken to the suchness of things the suchness of our thoughts the suchness of our sensations of our interactions with other people. We are instructed, what we think of as objects, the thoughts, the feeling of the floor under the foot, the interaction with the other people we are instructed by the thought we are instructed by the floor we're instructed by the other person when we allow our thinking minds to be deconstructed then we're in the world of suchness and are instructed each moment

[10:09]

And this is what we're in session for, and it's also rather alarming. When we begin to actually step out of the cage, it's not necessarily a very comforting situation. Remember when I was a child we had a dachshund and she used to sleep in a basket in my parents' room that was just a little bit larger than her body size and every night before she went to sleep she'd go round and round and round in the basket so she was really getting her scent and her being into the basket before she laid down. So when we when we begin to move out of that basket it can be upsetting and Sashina is often a time where we get little clues about that someone was telling me yesterday that she really gets off on doing things she's a very good doer of things and that she had a job here, kitchen

[11:44]

working and then sat down and then suddenly realized she was having a whole day in front of her with nothing to do and suddenly got an insight about what is my life about so you have one of those little moments where suddenly you see Oh, I get it, my inner dialogue is always about some opposition. I always need to make up some story about some difficulty. And then you let that go. And then it feels as if, you know, you've been pushing on a door, and you're pushing on the door, and suddenly the door opens and you're just going out. And what's going on? confusion and fear and often loneliness alienation what am I doing in this world without my habits without my familiar smell from time to time I have a dream that used to bug me terribly

[13:14]

that I was back as an undergraduate in college with parents paying my bills. But I was 40, 50, and somehow there was something a little wrong. I think I've had that dream ever since I graduated from college intermittently. at first I just dismissed it as the trauma of college and then I couldn't, it came so regularly over the years I couldn't dismiss it and now I see something fortuitous about it that it means that I'm engaged in some real process about what is going on with this life Leaving home.

[14:18]

Leaving home again and again and again and again. This is sort of a lonely practice. We began to talk about that one Monday morning and I think we could come back to it. It's a good... It's a good theme. Fortunately, our practice also gives us stability in tolerating, for tolerating these states so at the same time that you are feeling dislodged and baffled, lonely, frightened there's also another quality that's there that's saying, it's all right and that is able to include it this inclusiveness that over the years we cultivate this tolerance for experiencing both sides of the practice the form and the emptiness side simultaneously

[15:45]

You know, the Heart Sutra is really a wonderful experiential document about how we live out emptiness. Chant it every day. Chant our instructions out every day. Buddha's sentient beings and phenomena have only one form of practice and one undifferentiated enlightenment. And it is not just limited to the practice of sitting in Sazen. Hearing the echo of emptiness is like the wonderful sound of a mallet, both before and after it strikes a bell.

[16:50]

That was the line that first got me in the Bendoit, this sound of the mallet before and after it strikes the bell, the sound of emptiness, the sound Thank you. So I would like to end this talk with a story about a friend of mine, Michael, the sound of emptiness.

[17:56]

Michael died about two months ago, and I'd met him at the AIDS Center in Oakland four or five years ago. Michael is exactly my age, 59, and he was born here, I was born in New York, but our backgrounds were somewhat similar, although we were very different people. And somehow, over the years, I felt that he was a sort of a brother, although he was very different. His father was quite a prominent math professor at the university here. And his parents had emigrated from Europe just after World War II broke out. And they had a house up in Euclid Avenue. But Michael was always something of a rebel and something of an adventurer.

[19:03]

And he was also rather spoiled, and he didn't settle down to the middle-class life that he was given. He loved animals. He always had animals, pet animals, and was always an adventurer. And when he left home rather early, I think 16 or 17, he eventually became a stunt photographer in Hollywood. and would come back to Berkeley frequently to visit his parents in the house in Euclid Avenue. and he just liked high adventure. For instance, he bought, I guess while he was, at some point when he was young, he'd found a mountain lion cub and he brought it up, he raised it in his own house until it got too large and then it was given to some pet store, not a zoo, I don't quite understand this, but anyway, he would, whenever he was in town, he'd take it out for the weekend because it knew him well

[20:15]

And so one day he was in his old car and the mountain lion was in the back seat, in the back rest. And someone was hitchhiking. He and a friend were in the front seat. So he stopped with a hitchhiker and the hitchhiker got in, sort of glanced back and figured it was, you know, a kind of throw rug. And they drove on for a while. and all of a sudden the mountain lion breathed in the guy's neck and he screamed and opened the door and got out of the moving car. That's sort of a quintessential Michael story. So by the time I met Michael he was living on disability in an apartment, the bottom floor of a large old house in 63rd and San Pablo, quite a run-down neighborhood.

[21:23]

And a good part of his monthly disability check was going to the upkeep of animals because he took care of every stray cat and many stray dogs in the neighborhood. And since people were always packing up and leaving the neighborhood, there were many pets, many cats. It was very strange to go into his house. and everywhere you looked there was a feline face looking at you. And he lived in this house with two guys who sublet from him. One was a very good-hearted drunk and there were always mountains of beer cans around and bottles and full ashtrays. And another man who was a writer I'm sure that a novel is going to come out of this someday. He was always writing away in his night notebooks. And the second guy had been a tenant of Michael's when he still had his parents' house and used to have borders.

[22:29]

Anyway, these guys essentially took care of him. At first, they just sublet, and as he got more ill, they really took care of him in an extraordinarily detailed way. So, I used to meet him, Michael, once a week at the AIDS Center, and I was doing a Write Your Life Story group once a week, which was very poorly attended, but Michael really liked it. And so we'd get together and people would write for 10, 15, 20 minutes, some episode of their life. So over the years that this went on, I really got to know quite a lot about Michael's life, and vice versa, because I would write too. And he weakened. His story was, to me, that he'd been a stunt photographer, he had liked his liquor,

[23:33]

And that one day, 15 years or so ago in LA, he was one night, he had left his favorite bar, was walking across the street and was struck by a drunk driver. And his legs and pelvis were terribly broken. He had several operations to restore them because he didn't want to give up his work. His work was his life. And his legs were pretty well restored. but as the years went by he was more and more crippled and he always was in pain and he told me he had gotten AIDS in the course of several transfusions that had happened during the surgery so in the last years he was more and more crippled had to go around sort of hopping around he was a very light man, limber and light, hopped around with a crutch.

[24:38]

And then in the last months, he really wanted to come to the center, but he was less and less able to write. He'd need to sleep. He'd just be shaky. He just was not in good shape. And then it became apparent that some dementia was setting in, and that he just he couldn't write. But he still wanted to come and before it was clear he had to mention his last fling was a photographer friend was going to Paris to shoot some film and invited Michael to come along and with his crotch and his basket full of medication he went along and He had French cousins and had a series of adventures in France and insisted on climbing to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral and sticking his head out the window with a cigarette butt in the middle of two or three gargoyles. So he has, I have this wonderful photography, photograph of him as a gargoyle.

[25:47]

So then he really weakened. And then he really wasn't able to come to the center and so I would go and see him once a week or more and do what I could to support him and to support his caretakers who really were very loyal and doing very well. Somehow Michael was not an easy man to relate to and also people loved him. And then I went one day and it was pretty apparent that he wasn't going to be around. And we hadn't been able to talk because he didn't like to talk in any close kind of way anyway. And then he was so slowed down. But I realized it was the last time I was going to see him probably.

[26:52]

So I sat in his bed and I was aware I'd sat down in some cat poop but that didn't matter and I took hold of his wrist and I said to him the things that I wanted to say to him and he looked at me and I could see that he knew who I was and his wrist kind of moved and I knew that in a certain way I was intruding on him I was holding him but I said the things I wanted to say and the expression in his eyes was this funny kind of little shy liking it and go away expression and the next day he died and

[27:54]

So there was... and we had a ceremony here and his card was put up in the altar. And three or four days later there was a gathering of his friends at Kordnicev... well, whatever the park is above Regal Street. And we were to have a party and then go scatter Michael's ashes in the Euclid Street house that were just below the park and so there we were gathering at this park at sundown it was well orchestrated wonderful sunset and his friends come and suddenly I realized that Michael was gay and all this time that we I had known him He told me very carefully about three women in his life, all named Carol, and he told me little stories about these different Carols. And he'd written a little piece saying that he didn't like to be in love with people because it just made him gaga and he couldn't do his work.

[29:04]

And then suddenly I'm aware that all these friends of his are former lovers and he was gay. And they were really nice men. and I got along with him very well but I just felt so, you know, you get a picture of somebody and then you learn something sort of fundamental about them and you just have to put it all together somehow, include it somehow. So we went to his house and scattered his ashes and I don't know if you've had ashes. They're not of someone in your hand. They're not ashes. They're ground bones. And it's rather satisfactory, actually. They're littler pieces and smaller pieces, but they're quite substantial. And so this house had been sold, and what we were doing was illegal, which would have pleased him. Well, he'd thought it up, so it was his idea to have this illegal funereal act.

[30:12]

and we scattered the ashes. No, I guess it was before that, before the funeral. Before the funeral, we'd done a service here, and put the card up. It was the next day after he died, and the card was up, and I was Doshi. And as I came to the altar to do the morning greeting, Rebecca was sitting here, and I heard this little beep, beep. And I looked at Rebecca, but it wasn't Rebecca. And I looked at the altar, and there was a cricket on Michael's card on the altar. And I did the rounds and sat and then it was service time and I stood up here and the cricket was right above on that flame right above Buddha's head. So anyway, then we scattered the ashes and it's night and we're all sort of a little bit creeping around and hushed.

[31:24]

And so I told the story of the cricket, and that was just right. And then we all went to Brennan's, and I have not been at Brennan's in 20 years. It was not my place. And there was lots of alcohol and cigarettes and men. It was a really good evening. And then I helped somewhat. I tried to do what I could to deal with the disposal of the cats. There were 12 cats. three of whom were wild. And at home we had a very aged cat that a housemate had brought in, so I couldn't bring another cat into the house. So, well, that finally worked out. I kept in touch with the household pretty well. Then the old cat that we had died, and I get a call, and there's one cat left. and they're going to have to take her to the pound and she was one of the two cats that was on Michael's bed when he died most of the cats at the moment of his death were not around but there were two that were on his bed and this was one of them so they called and by this time it was about ten days after cat number one had died in our house so I said well I asked the people in the house and my mother likes cats

[32:47]

My mother lives with me. She's 91. So we took this new cat. We took Michael's cat. And my mother named her Callie for Calico. And I thought, she's really K-A-L-I, but we won't tell mother. And so she's turned out to be a very wonderful cat. Because unlike cat number one, Callie is willing to spend most of the day in my mother's lap and be a wonderful companion. But, from time to time, Callie hides. So I came home last night and spoke to Jean, a housemate who's looking after my mother, and Jean said she'd come home at three and my mother was frantic. She'd been looking for Callie for two hours. Callie never goes out of the house. But she was beside herself, so Jean helped find Callie. Callie has one or two hiding places that are beyond my mother's capacity.

[33:51]

And that settled my mother down. But I thought to myself, Callie is Michael's cat. Michael is still around. So, what was in there? that's the Sound of Emptiness talk and I'd like to spend the rest of the time hearing your experience of emptiness of how the world that you've made breaks down One of the major things that I do is worry about my past abandonments and potential future abandonments.

[36:05]

And I know that I do this, but it's something that's an old habit. And today, sitting here, probably because I was feeling a lot of headache and some pain, it became clear to me that how I abandoned myself. I don't know, it's just in thoughts, I don't have a lot to say about it, but it was very calming both to see that that's really what it is. Not that old habits go away easily, but at least in this moment and this morning,

[37:21]

And I would have thought that the practice of leaving home She had a larger home to leave. That's very nice. Somebody said to me recently, or I read somewhere, we're not ready to receive the light until we empty ourselves. And for me, it seems like I'm not ready until I'm ready.

[38:53]

It's not until I'm ready to hear something that I hear it. Like the other day when you said to me, it makes so much sense. Just stop tormenting yourself. Let go of the thoughts. Just stop tormenting yourself. It makes sense. wise things I've heard are, do what you want to do, or don't hurt anyone, or, you know, just really simple things. But we hear those things in so many different ways, but sometimes it's that, sometimes it's just the way the person says it or something, but also there's, unless I'm ready to let go of something, I'm not ready to let something in. Yeah, those moments are quite mysterious.

[40:04]

Last night I had this dream that I was by a cliff and I was jumping from the cliff into the water and at first I was scared but I knew that I had to jump off this cliff and then gradually as I back and forth, kept jumping into the water, the distance, the height became smaller and smaller. And then I started jumping with my older son, and as it got smaller, and then he wasn't afraid either. And then it switches into, I get into the scar, And that was just a moment, and then he turns into my father, and we're driving down this beautiful road, and it's very clear and crisp and sunny, and there's the meadow on one side, and then there's this river, this very large and flowing river on the right, and he tells me,

[41:23]

I'm going to take you to a height because I know that you are afraid of heights. And it's very beautiful. And then all these wild animals by the river. And there's this family of gorillas bathing in the river. And then the only thing he says, well, down the road, it's supposed to be close to San Francisco. But down the road is the mission. And the mission still has to be. But it was a very nice feeling of this connection with my father also that I haven't experienced for a long time.

[42:34]

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. The males. Father, son. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that last statement that the mission still needs to be restored. Right. Harks back for me to your mission of jumping. You know, still having the distance. I feel like there's always some length that I'm trying to see if I can get away without going. You know, like, how good can I get without actually being real? Or, you know, how good of a mother can I be without actually needing my daughter or something? And then sometimes I'll just drop that and I'll have some moment. It seems like even if I have some moment where I say, and able to sing, you know, and somehow that moment gets subsumed into the story of... Do you understand what I'm saying?

[43:43]

Does that make any sense? That I'm not doing the full thing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But it's hard to drop that measure and just have a clear experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any very wise things to say, but you know it. I wanted to talk about a leap I made into nothingness yesterday in the afternoon period. I guess it was a 5.40 period. People were sleeping. And people were sleeping so much that there was some danger that they would crash into the people next to them.

[44:51]

And I kept seeing people's head nod. And I knew I had to say something in the room. I can still, I can feel the terror right now. And I said, well, the next time somebody's head nods, I'm going to say something. And somebody's head would nod. I feel my heart start beating and I say, the next time somebody said not. And this just kept going on and on and finally my heart, because I was sitting still and not moving around, it was beating and it felt like it was really big and finally I had to just do it. I thought I might have a heart attack if I didn't. But of course as soon as I did and made that leap, like where Raul was talking about the water, it was immediately I calmed down, you know. Silence is so profound and jumping into it like that. Standing at the brink and knowing you have to do something seems so momentous.

[45:55]

Just one more head has got to nod, then I'm going to do it, then and then. I just have to say, I'm not sure I'd buy this emptiness thing. And I'm not sure I'm interested either. And I'm very confused about that. And I've signed up for a practice discussion. Good. Well, we can really go in. But I guess I just wanted to hear that in the room, because everybody is often talking about emptiness and how great it is, and I'm just like, I don't think I want that. I don't understand. That's all. Good. Good. Well, we'll talk. See, I think it's what keeps me sane. The emptiness is what keeps me sane. Because my various wanderings and delusions and schemes come up against it. And they're not there anymore.

[46:57]

And if it weren't for that wonderful dissolving principle, the mess that I would be stuck with would be lifelong, monumental, inescapable. But we'll talk more. I thought it was supposed to be okay to have that mess. Not too much of it. You don't want to drown in it. How much do you want? You reminded me of something that Eshwaran used to say about the spiritual laws, one of them being emptiness, that it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not. It's like gravity. If you believe it or not, if you jump off a building, you're still going to fall. Yeah, well while we're at it, does anyone else have some more responses to Suzanne?

[48:08]

I would say hang in there. Because I feel like Monday of this And I realized, and what Andrew was saying about how people say things, they go, yeah, yeah, but somehow we don't really click until you're ready to hear. And it just occurred to me, this machine that there is this thing called emptiness. And people have been just going on and on about it for years. And it's very exciting. And it's also scary. It's also related to what Bailey is saying about, Gee, when I thought I was doing it, I really wasn't doing it. What I thought it was all about is not what it's all about. It's also like, let's see, from your first talk, I can't remember the quote, but something about, it's the things that you have to do that you don't do will kill you.

[49:26]

If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you don't bring forth what is within you, what you don't bring forth will destroy you. Right. And I hear echoes of that in also what Grace said about having to talk. I mean, at some point when it's really clear what we have to do with our lives, whether or not it goes Well, usually it goes against the grain of what we're familiar with. It goes against what our cages are all about. And something just really pushes us over the cliff and off the flagpole. It's really a good thing that that thing is there, whatever it is. Thank you and okay. Things are numberless.

[50:30]

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