May I say again that the bodhisattva samadhi, the one called heroic stride samadhi, is cultivated by cultivating the things of an ordinary person, of ordinary people, and seeing that the things of an ordinary person are neither joined nor separated from the things of a Buddha. Taking care of the things of an ordinary person and penetrating the intimacy of ordinary and enlightened.

[01:06]

The samadhi of the bodhisattva is not about controlling or eliminating ordinary people. And it is not about controlling or eliminating Buddhas. It is about realizing the actual relationship of Buddhas and ordinary people. It is about realizing the intimacy of ordinary people and Buddhas. It is not about trying to control, eliminate or escape from ordinary people.

[02:20]

It is ordinary to try to escape, control or eliminate ordinary people. So it is not even about trying to control ordinary people and stop them from trying to control ordinary people. For example, someone said to me that if he is upset and he follows his breathing or counts his breathing breaths, he feels calmer. And he said to me, is that all right? And I said, yes. Some people think that Buddhist practice is to count their breaths. Matter of fact, it's taught in some Zen centers that that's Buddhist practice.

[03:27]

certainly the practice of a lot of people who want to be Buddhists, to count the breaths perhaps with the wish to calm the mind thereby. It's a perfectly, I don't know perfectly, but let's just say perfectly sweet thing to do. It's an act of compassion. No problem. But it's an ordinary kind of activity. And to think that that is the same as Buddha or different from Buddha is the problem. It's an ordinary activity of an ordinary person who's heard about the technique It's fine.

[04:39]

I'm not trying to stop you from doing something to calm down. There's worse things to do to calm down than that. Sometimes it doesn't work to follow your breathing, as some of you know. But it's okay. It's okay to be ordinary. Matter of fact, if you take care of being ordinary, you're starting to practice the samadhi of a bodhisattva. Taking care of being ordinary And what I mean by that is relaxing with it and opening to it. It's not that taking care... I don't mean by taking care of being ordinary to count your breaths.

[05:42]

I mean to relax with counting your breaths. And if it calms you, relax with getting calm. And if it doesn't calm, relax with not getting calm. You might notice that that makes you calm, but don't worry about that. It's ordinary to reject ordinariness. It's ordinary to judge ordinariness. It's ordinary to prefer some form of ordinariness over another form of ordinariness. It's ordinary to shrink back from the pain, confusion and unpeacefulness of being ordinary. It's ordinary to try to grasp calm. These are all ordinary things, and we're not trying to eliminate these ordinary things in the bodhisattva samadhi.

[06:44]

In fact, we're trying to open to these ordinariness. Relax with them. Be vulnerable to ordinariness. And if you can relax and be vulnerable with ordinariness, then you can start to relax and be vulnerable to the inconceivable dharma of the non-duality of ordinary and Buddha. So the Bodhisattva way is about total immersion in this bodhisattva samadhi, which means total immersion with all ordinary people and all Buddhas.

[07:54]

Getting intimate with all beings and intimate with all Buddhas. But again, as somebody mentioned yesterday, she could understand how intimate is like not being separate, but she couldn't quite see how intimate is not being joined. So get into the soup with all sentient beings where you don't join with them or separate from them. And then relax in that intimacy or relax and enter the intimacy and start playing with them. And in this process of play, the bodhisattva inducts other people into the play, into the soup that they're already in. And this is the practice.

[08:59]

This is the practice of the samadhi. This is how beings are saved. They're saved by the bodhisattva being intimate with them where there's no other ordinary people. They're not other and they're not you. That intimacy is what saves. And practicing this with grandmotherly mindfulness as though the life of the practice and the life of the process of saving beings was right before you. And you're taking care of this Buddha as though it were the most precious thing.

[10:11]

And you take care of the ordinary also the same way you take care of Buddha. When you understand the non-duality, you take care of the ordinary the same way as you take care of Buddha. And you take care of Buddha the same way you take care of the ordinary. For example, an ordinary thing is for a person who used to be a math major, to be concerned with numbers. So I mentioned the other day that this fall, actually in a few days, we come to the 750th memorial ceremony for Ehekoso Daisho. But then my mind calculated that he died in 1253, so it's only been 749 years since he died.

[11:15]

How come we're doing the 750th memorial? And the reason is, which dawned on me in a very deep state of samadhi, was that the first memorial ceremony is done at the moment the person dies. So after one year, you do the second. So it's all going to work out. And it really is the 750th memorial ceremony that we're doing on the 749th year after he died in Kyoto. Now, I bring this up because it's so ordinary that my mind does these calculations even in the deepest samadhis. the calculating mathematician mind is non-dual with the Buddha mind. But still then there's another ordinary mind which says, oh yuck, don't tell them about this mathematician mind.

[12:23]

But the Bodhisattva Samadhi says, tell them so that they also can be open to their calculations. their mathematical dilemmas. And treat them with the same respect that you would treat the Buddha. When we make an offering on this altar to, for example, to the Buddha, we do ordinary things. We like take pieces of paper and fold them. We take nice pieces of, pieces of nice clean white paper and fold them to make a little, a little screen around the offering as a gesture of respect to the offering.

[13:34]

And at that time we have an opportunity to fold the paper as though we're folding Buddha's robes. Now, if Buddha was sitting there and watching us fold the paper, if we get too involved in folding the paper really carefully because it's going to be paper that's going to be an offering to the Buddha. If we get too concerned with it, the Buddha might tell us to relax. We're getting too concerned with making the nice offering. But some other people, maybe when it's time to make the offering, they do it, but they think, this is just a piece of paper.

[14:44]

This isn't Buddha. So they don't make that offering with the same care that they might if they were actually touching the Buddha. How can you adjust the Buddha's robes without giving it too little attention or too much? How can you do some ordinary thing without giving it too little attention or too much? How can you ring a bell calling people to the meditation hall?

[16:15]

An ordinary thing of hitting a bell. Some people might think, well, that's a spiritual thing. Well, it is, but it's also kind of an ordinary thing, just a person hitting a bell. The hitting of a bell is not the Buddha. The sounding of the bell is not the Buddha. It's not united with and identified with the Buddha. And it's not separate from the Buddha. On many levels, it's not separate from the things of a Buddha. And on many levels, it's not the same as the things of a Buddha. But the main thing that Buddha's concerned with is that we realize this non-duality.

[17:30]

Not just that we know the things of a Buddha, the wonderful things of a Buddha, And not just that we know the things of an ordinary person, like sounding a bell or bouncing a checkbook, but that we understand the non-duality and treat both from that non-duality. Not exactly the same, because Just like you treat different things in the world differently, you treat the Buddha sometimes differently, but it's basically the same. Namely, relaxed and playful. Again, I would suggest also you could say that it's not playful to be separate from things, or conjoined with them.

[18:36]

When is an activity conjoined with Buddha? When is an activity conjoined with Buddha? There is no conjoining with Buddha. It's just an illusion that you're conjoined with Buddha. And it's also an illusion that you're separate from Buddha. Well, you know, I mean, Buddha's very warm, we could say, you know. Buddha's very compassionate, right? Buddha has this quality of being very compassionate and warm. We settled that yesterday, right? Buddha has the attribute of being warm and compassionate. But the attributes of Buddha are not Buddha.

[19:49]

Just like the attributes of you are not you. So, even though Buddha is warm, generally speaking, we don't go up to the altar and hug the Buddha. And we also don't go up to the altar and spit on the Buddha. And we also don't just walk up to the altar any old way. We, generally speaking, walk around the altar. We want to be close to Buddha. We want to be intimate with Buddha so we don't separate and we don't join. We walk around We're in this intimate relationship. So we're not conjoined with Buddha. That's the meditation, how you're not conjoined and you're not separated. You're in the dynamic, the intensely dynamic relationship with Buddha.

[20:57]

That's the samadhi that we're trying to develop, deepen. We're trying to penetrate into this non-duality. You look... You're having a look on your face, which I don't know what it means. What does it mean? I'm still wondering. You still wondering? That's more like it. Wondering. Wondering. Wondering. Yeah, wondering. Wondering. Wondering is more like not conjoined and not separate.

[22:00]

So, separate Not separate? Okay, I don't wonder about that. That makes sense. Not conjoined? That doesn't make sense. But this is not a matter of sense. This is a matter of wonder. Whoa, whoa, whoa, I wonder. That's good. It's ordinary to put wonder away and get a hold of something. Or if you can't get a hold of it, just get rid of it. Then there's no more wonder. I wanted to parenthetically mention that I often hear from people, especially when they come to Green Gulch, that when they take walks during retreats, they feel really good when they go up in the hills and so on. Well, we do. And I thought, part of the reason why I think we feel good when we're taking walks is that we don't feel so ordinary.

[23:06]

And part of the reason why we don't feel so ordinary when we take walks in nature... is that we don't feel the impulse to eliminate it, to control it, or to escape it. So when we're in nature we feel like kind of a spiritual person. I mean like you go up the tree and you say, hey man, you're okay. I'm not trying to control you or eliminate you or escape from you. I could like be with you forever. It's so comfortable here. There's no ordinariness. But that's ordinary, that we like to get away from the ordinariness. And when we're in nature, we get a break. It's nice. But again, it's okay to be ordinary. In other words, it's okay to take breaks from being ordinary. Like, for example, follow your breathing. Take a walk in nature. Fine. As I said, those are relatively good ways of doing it, better than heroin.

[24:14]

Because in heroin, too, you're no longer trying to escape ordinariness or control it. It's kind of like, fine, this is cool. Sure, go ahead, no problem. Excuse me. You're excused. I think Vivi's trying to say, may I hope that... Is it okay, Vivi, if she said what you're trying to say? We all have Buddha nature, it's within us, it's there, it's permeating everywhere. Is that what you're trying to say, Vivi? Good. So in a way it's conjoined. So in a way it's conjoined. Conjoined with what? Huh? It's not conjoined, it is Buddha. Buddha nature is Buddha nature? Is that what you're saying? We are Buddha nature.

[25:21]

We are Buddha nature. So, in that sense, we're conjoined. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Okay, great. Now, yes? Were you saying that walks in nature and following the breathing live fine? But that's not the ultimate samadhi or understanding. It's like a great and real work. I'm not going to say it's not the ultimate samadhi. I'm just saying the ultimate samadhi is the non-duality between, for example, following your breath and Buddha. and taking walks in nature and Buddha and also taking walks in the city and being really upset and wishing you were in the country.

[26:22]

It's the non-duality of all that ordinary stuff. It's a perfectly ordinary thing for a human being to have a body and a mind and to turn their attention towards their breathing. It's a perfectly ordinary thing. And generally speaking, when people do that, it kind of like, their worry subsides. They feel more relaxed and at ease. This is a perfectly ordinary thing. All right? The samadhi of the bodhisattvas is is the development of the understanding that those states, those nice ordinary states, plus the other nice, not so nice ordinary states, like not following your breathing, for example, maybe more following your worries and becoming very tense and shrinking back from all the pain of your worries, that those states, those ordinary states of suffering, they are non-dual.

[27:27]

with the Buddha. That's the samadhi. But I'm not going to say the samadhi is the samadhi itself. It's also not really separate from anything either. The samadhi is to be in the midst of all relativities. The samadhi is not excluding any situations. The Bodhisattva Dhritamati in this sutra asked the Buddha, where does the heroic stride samadhi go?

[28:32]

To where does this heroic stride samadhi extend? Actually, he didn't ask the Buddha, he asked a son of the gods named Manifest Mind. And this son of the gods called Manifest Mind says that the Heroic Stride Samadhi goes to the minds and practices of all beings, but does not take for its object those minds and practices. And minds and practices are two Chinese characters.

[29:49]

One character is for mind, and the other character means either practice or walking or working or taken care of. So it could be translated as minds and practices, but it could also be translated as mind activities. Either one. The compound could be translated as mind practices or mind activities. in activities or mental activities. I think it's good to keep in mind both of those possible translations. So one would mean that in the samadhi, the samadhi extends to the minds of all sentient beings. and their practices or to the mental activities of all sentient beings.

[30:51]

It extends to them but doesn't take those minds and activities or those mental activities of this object. Is it like teacher fanning? It's like the teacher fanning, yes. So, the samadhi goes to each person and to each activity of each person, but it's not really focusing on the activity. or the practice of the person, it's focusing on what?

[31:55]

The relationship of it? Yeah, the relationship of what? The dynamic of the practice of... It's focusing on what? The event. It's talking about the dynamic of what? The person. The person, the activity. And the activity. And the activity. And what else? Huh? And Buddha. It's focusing on the non-duality of the person's activity and the Buddha's activity. But it doesn't just go over to the non-duality someplace. It tests the samadhi on actual people practicing or functioning either way. and on herself too. So you actually are like opening to your own stuff or other people's stuff, but you're not really focusing on the stuff, even though the stuff is very attractive for focusing, even though people are offering you various things to make comments on.

[33:16]

And and you do have comments to make. So you make them and you go close. The samadhi goes to you making comments on these other people's behavior. The samadhi goes there, gets intimate with what people are doing and your comments on them. It gets intimate with other people's ordinariness and your ordinariness about their ordinariness. The samadhi goes there But it doesn't take that stuff as its object. Somebody else is taking that stuff as its objects. That's the ordinary person. The ordinary person is like, there's somebody who is doing that and I have this to say. So you got that. This is like the mind and activity of an ordinary person. So the samadhi is there. How about karma? That's tomorrow. I wouldn't want to introduce the term right now, but that's a good question.

[34:30]

It's implied here. So, you see how the samadhi... This isn't you. You are me. You're like... You're a sentient being. You and me are sentient beings. and we have minds and activities, minds and practices. The samadhi goes to our activities and other people's activities and doesn't take the activities as the objects. But the people who have minds, their activities are the objects of their mind. The samadhi goes there and becomes intimate. We don't need any more We don't need any more minds who have minds as their objects. Or we don't need any more minds that have activities as their objects.

[35:34]

That's already going on. We've got plenty of that. What we need now is this samadhi. And this samadhi does reach all this activity of all these beings. And it takes as its object the non-duality of all this stuff and the Buddha. Yeah? When you say the samadhi goes somewhere, it sounds like the samadhi is a thing. Take it easy on that going someplace and the samadhi being a thing. There's more than that. I'll tell you when to ask that question. Don't forget. Okay, the next thing is... What a manifest mind says, it goes close to all the Buddhas.

[36:35]

It goes close to all the Buddhas. The samadhi goes close to all the Buddhas. All the Buddhas means all the Buddhas in all the universes. Goes close to all the Buddhas, but does not distinguish the bodies of those Buddhas with their primary and secondary marks. Buddhas have 32 primary characteristics and 80 secondary characteristics. It's just, you know, part of the deal. So the samadhi goes close to these Buddhas, but the samadhi does not distinguish the primary and secondary characteristics of the Buddhas. Ordinary people do distinguish this, but not so ordinary people.

[37:43]

You have to be pretty advanced to be able to see these qualities. But anyway, it's still pretty ordinary to see these qualities of a Buddha. The Buddha is not the primary and secondary characteristics of a Buddha. But Buddhas do have these characteristics. The Samadhi goes close to the Buddha, though. And what is the Buddha? The Buddha is the Buddha practice. That's the Buddha. They don't go close to the Buddha in the sense of going close to the thing that has these characteristics, like, you know, whatever you want to say. We can agree on what the Buddha's characteristics are — wisdom, compassion, gold, golden aura, or whatever. They go close to the Buddha and so their characteristics are there. But they don't put their distinguishing effort.

[38:46]

The samadhi does not distinguish these qualities of the Buddha. The samadhi goes close to the Buddha. And what's the Buddha? The Buddha is Buddha practice. That's where the samadhi goes. It goes close to the Buddha practice, which is actually the Buddha. It goes some other places too, but if you'll excuse me, I'd like to not go there, the other place it goes. If it's okay, can we skip the other places it goes for now?

[39:51]

If you really want to, we can come back, but they're challenging locations. I think we'd better just skip them for now. Can I ask you a question? When a teacher, like a student of mine, The student said, why do you fan yourself? The teacher said, although you understand that the nature of wind is permanent, you do not yet understand that it reaches everywhere, or how it reaches everywhere. So in the end, Manifest Mind says to Dhridhamati, you ask me, where does the samadhi go?

[40:59]

To where does it extend? Well, everywhere the Buddhas go, this samadhi goes as well. And then the Buddhas, where do they go? The Buddhas, because of the suchness of all things, does not go anywhere. So the samadhi goes where Buddha goes and Buddha doesn't go anywhere. This is part of the emptying of the samadhi being a thing.

[42:04]

Okay? Now, there is an explanation also earlier, just a little bit earlier, after saying that understanding that the things of an ordinary person and the things of a Buddha constitute a non-duality, there's a kind of explanation where it says, in reality, between these two kinds of things, ordinary and Buddha things, there is neither union nor separation, because All dharmas have a suchness, a suchness of non-arising, non-ceasing, non-confronting, etc., which I can't read.

[43:16]

Ordinary dharmas and Buddha dharmas have a suchness, have an inconceivable dharma which doesn't arise and doesn't cease. These things which don't arise and don't cease and don't confront anything and are empty, they can't be separated and they can't be joined. The samadhi is to cultivate things of an ordinary person which have a suchness of non-arising and non-ceasing and emptiness and non-confronting. To care for those things, to be open to those things and to be open to the things of a Buddha which has the same characteristics and to be open to the non-duality of them

[44:27]

in that way. This is the samadhi. So this samadhi extends to and goes to where the Buddha is and the Buddha doesn't go anywhere because the Buddha also doesn't arise or cease or go or come or talk. Like it says in the Precious Mary Samadhi, it doesn't rise or sit or go or come, and it can't talk. The next thing about the samadhi is how does it talk, but I'll talk to you about that later. So how can the bodhisattvas in the samadhi talk? How does that work? Okay? The Buddha has characteristics, but the characteristics are not the Buddha.

[45:34]

What's the Buddha? The Buddha is the practice of Buddha. That's the Buddha. So you, who take care of the Buddha practice, You aren't the Buddha, and the Buddha's not separate from you. When you're sitting here practicing the Buddha way, you're not the Buddha, and the Buddha's not apart from you. What is the Buddha? The Buddha is the Buddha practice. And you can be intimate with the Buddha practice and you can be intimate with Buddha. You're not the Buddha, and the Buddha's not apart from you. So you're lucky that you get to actually be intimate with Buddha.

[46:36]

And you do not have to be responsible to be not intimate with Buddha. But if you're not intimate with Buddha, then you have to be responsible for not being intimate with Buddha. But you don't have to not be intimate with Buddha. You can be intimate with Buddha. It's okay. It's all right. You're welcome to do so. And you don't have to be not intimate with Buddha. You don't have to be separate from Buddha because you're not. And you don't have to be Buddha. You don't have to be Buddha. The practice of Buddha has to be Buddha, and Buddha has to be the practice of Buddha. But Buddha doesn't have a problem being the practice of Buddha. Yes, Timo? What is a non-Buddha practice? A non-Buddha practice? Non-Buddha practice. Let me see, just a second. I'll check here and see if I can find it in the book. A non-Buddha practice. Oh, a non-Buddha practice is a practice of being self-concerned.

[47:47]

That's a non-Buddha practice. Worrying about yourself. Trying to eliminate yourself from the planet. Trying to control yourself. Exactly. Ordinary things are... Exactly. Ordinary practices are non-Buddha practices. Trying to control yourself is a non-Buddha practice. Buddha is not trying to control you or me, as you can see. If Buddha tried to control us, wouldn't Buddha be able to? Well, no, he wouldn't. That's why he doesn't try. Buddha doesn't waste his time trying to control sentient beings. They're not controllable by Buddhas. That's not what Buddhas spend their time doing.

[48:48]

That's why we get to do the stuff we do. It's because Buddha's not controlling us. That's not Buddha's job. Buddha's job is to teach us that we who are into controlling us and others, that we who are into eliminating our ordinariness and eliminating other ordinary people, that we who are into war and murder. The Buddha is here to teach us that these murderers are not separate from Buddha and they're also not Buddha. But Buddha isn't some other person Really, Buddha is the Buddha practice. The Buddhist practice is to give up trying to control people, eliminate people, etc. It's to giving that up. Because you see that there's no way to do that because people don't rise or cease or whatever.

[49:52]

The Buddha practice is to realize the non-duality and thereby liberate beings by inviting them into the non-duality. That's the Buddha practice. Yes? Pardon? What? Realize the non-duality. Like to do it mindful. Yeah, okay, so you're saying... No, no. Okay, it's right there. That's what I started with. Some people said that Buddha nature is all pervaded. This is just said here just now. We have the Buddha nature. Therefore, it's there when we murder people. Right? That's true. When you murder people, Buddha nature is there. But that's not Buddha, and it's not Buddha practice. Buddha practice is to practice the way of Buddha, which is not killing.

[50:59]

The Buddha way is to practice not killing. Is it the same to do, I mean, if you say not killing, or is it the way you do it? Is it the not killing which is Buddha practice, or is it the way you do not kill? Is it the not killing which is Buddha practice, or the way you not kill? What's the difference between the way you not kill and not killing? Killing and not killing are the things of ordinary people. The samadhi goes to these activities of ordinary people, like killing and not killing.

[52:10]

And it doesn't take the killing or not killing as an object. It attends to the Buddha and the ordinary activity and enters the Buddha practice and goes close to the Buddha practice, which is the Buddha. And the Buddha practice is seeing the non-duality of the ordinary person being involved with killing or not killing. And the Buddha, who can't do anything, And realizing that non-duality is called not killing. The person, the ordinary person who is involved in killing or not killing is in the realm of karma.

[53:39]

And both killing and not killing have consequences that that person must be responsible for. The samadhi is to understand and participate in observing how that works, in other words, cultivating the things of an ordinary person, which are karma, together with the practicing of the Buddha, the Buddha practice, which takes care of observing how the karma works and also observing the non-duality of karma and not karma. And in that space

[54:44]

is the space where the workings of karma are demonstrated and understood in such a way that the precepts live. But not from, in this samadhi, not from the point of view, just from the ordinary point of view, although the ordinary point of view about the precepts is going on one way or another. But from the illuminated space where how the karma works is being demonstrated, is being displayed. This is the samadhi. So the samadhi isn't setting up the karma. The samadhi is focusing on the demonstration of the way the karma works, of turning the karma into an educational display. which is the place of the non-duality of the enlightened beings who are free of karma and the people who are still involved in it.

[55:56]

And then bringing those who are still involved in it into the theater where they can see the unfolding of karmic causation, realizes the precepts. but not just the precepts, realizes the Buddha way. But as I said, I thought maybe tomorrow I could talk about karma. This is just a little natural. This question naturally arises out of this discussion. It's interesting that you bring it up. Does that make some sense, Timon? Yes. Others are not … people are not others, but they're not you. If they are you … They're not others, they're not you. They're not you. If they are you, is that because you are taking a mental activity for an object?

[57:04]

And does that mean that you are making their ordinariness your ordinariness? I don't think that necessarily follows that you make their ordinariness your ordinariness. Their ordinariness, however, is not other than your ordinariness, and their ordinariness is not your ordinariness. They're not you and not other than you. They're not united with you and they're not separate from you. That's the case with other people. That's what the statement says. They're not others and they're not you. So I'm trying to understand how it is that you make them you. Is it because you take the mental activities for an object? You're saying how do you make them you?

[58:05]

Yes. What does that mean, that they're you? Well, you identify with them. And is that because you grab onto their mental activities and identify with them? Well, do you grab onto your mental activities and identify with them? Yes. I do that. And that's kind of an ordinary thing to do, right? Right. And so opening to that and seeing how that works is part of the samadhi. But the other part of the samadhi is to pay attention to the non-duality of that kind of activity, which is going on quite frequently, right? Now we're trying to bring this practice in of seeing and understanding how that kind of activity of you identifying with your stuff, your mental activities, including the mental activities you have of having ideas about what other people are doing, and then identifying with your ideas, those kinds of ideas too.

[59:26]

That's the ordinary realm. So we want to take care of that and do the non-ordinary thing of considering that space a place where we could relax and do something different, like open to it. And cultivate it not with the intention of getting away from it or getting it under control, but to support the samadhi. where we're going to develop the ability to understand that this realm and the realm of Buddhas who are not identifying with their thoughts. The Buddha practice is not to identify or disidentify with the workings of beings' minds. But that's already going on too, so we already have ordinary people churning away

[60:32]

Minds and practices, mental activities are happening and identifying with them, which is part of the ordinariness of it, that's happening. And we have Buddhas. And what are Buddhas? Buddhas are the practice of not identifying or separating from this thought or that thought. And these two ways of being are non-dual. Samadhi is to open to that non-dual realm which includes opening to the realm of ordinariness. So, to come to this realization of the non-duality of identifying and not identifying, you practice not identifying because you're already not identified, so you want to... You went a little too fast for me. To come to the understanding of the non-duality of identifying and non-identifying?

[61:35]

Well, it's not so much that. It's the non-duality of ordinary and Buddha. Another way to put the non-duality is that ordinary and Buddha are not identified or separate. That's another way to speak of the ... It's more verbal designations to give a feeling for where the samadhi is attending. It's attending to the non-duality. And one of the ways that you develop the non-duality is treating the ordinary things like you treat the Buddha. The wonderful Buddha practice, which would be so wonderful for the world if it was practiced, is the Buddha. So we take care of the practice. And we understand that the Buddha is not other than the practice. So we're very concerned with that. We're not trying to control it. We're just devoted to it. And so if we can be the same way with ordinary beings, so the samadhi goes to ordinary beings, goes close to them, goes close to the Buddhas, takes care of both, and in both cases, it's not trying to control anybody.

[62:47]

So it doesn't take the mental activities of beings, including, of course, your own, as the object. That stuff's already going on. It's built in that the mental activities of beings are being taken as objects. Samadhi just goes close to that realm and relaxes with it. It goes close to the Buddhas, but not to the Buddhas in terms of like, well, where's the Buddhas in the room here? Not those Buddhas. You go close to the practice, because that's the Buddha. So you got the Buddha practice, right? So you go close to that, then you're close to Buddha. You're close to the things in Buddha, because the things in Buddha are all around the Buddha practice. So you go close to the Buddha, and you go close to ordinary beings. Like you've got an ordinary being right on your cushion. There's an ordinary being. You go close to that one. You go close to your neighbors. You go close to all these beings. And these beings, the thing you're going close to is the mental activities of beings plus identifying or disidentifying with them.

[63:59]

That's all part of the ordinariness. So you're opening to that and caring for that and opening to the practice and caring for that practice. So you're opening to both Buddha and ordinary beings. But you're not attending to either of them as objects, you're just open to them. The samadhi is now this place between the non-duality that they constitute, that apparently co-arises with all these ingredients. But you're grounded. You're not just sort of off in some space where you have your feet in the mud of ordinariness. And it's from this ordinary mud that you, I don't know, either like Rumpelstiltskin, you jump up and down in the ordinary mud and go right through it into the playground of the Buddhas and sentient beings in non-duality, or you just step off the mud into the realm of the samadhi.

[65:03]

Like it says, in the Prajnaparamita, the Bodhisattva asked the Buddha, from where does the Bodhisattva go forth into the practice of perfect wisdom? He'd go forth from the triple world. The triple world is Pretty fancy triple world, but anyways, it's like, you know, Green Gulch, San Francisco, America, Israel, Baghdad. It's these kinds of places. That's one, that's the first world. Second world is like fine material plane of the first four types of, you know, mundane yogic trances and then the higher yogic trances. These are all the places where worldly beings live. Now some of these worldly beings are, you know, very high quality worldly beings. They're very, like they're very, they're in states of extreme bliss. But it's all worldly. It's all about, like, they control themselves up into these very high levels of karma, karmic retribution.

[66:09]

So, These are all grounded. So we don't have to go any higher. We don't have to go any lower. Just where you are now, take care of it. And take care of Buddha by everything you do. Make everything you do Buddha practice. So that's the Buddha side. You take care of both sides. And don't take care of the Buddha side better than you take care of the ordinary side, because that will interfere with realizing the non-duality. And then open to the samadhi, too. Open to ordinariness, open to Buddha. Take care of ordinariness, take care of Buddha. And then go to the space between. there's the Samadhi that we're being invited to enter.

[67:12]

And everybody's there with you. All the sentient beings and all the Buddhas are there with you. The sentient beings are like trying to control sentient beings. The ordinary people are like trying to get ordinary people to be, you know, under control. And according to the way their mind works, they think, I want these people to be happy and these people to be miserable, or I want everybody to be happier. You know, there's various patterns That's the ordinary realm. The Buddhas are not into that. They're into practicing the samadhi. So you take care of that. And while you're practicing this way, you remember, as I've said over and over, that while you're practicing, there's no Buddha other than that practice. There's no spiritual reality other than the practice And the practice that you're doing, the practice that you're doing is also not it.

[68:17]

And yet

[68:24]

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