I heard you say that the dharma is vast and subtle. The truth and teaching of the truth is vast and subtle. Nobody has a chance to see it. Originally, this dharma is unconstructedness in stillness. And it's like a river, a luminous river, a river of light.

[01:11]

But then a road is built over the earth, and the road covers everything. But because the road is originally a river, the road is always hovering. We live together in this vast truth, in this river of light.

[02:18]

We live together in this river. The way we live together, the way we support each other, is radiant. But in this originality, there's no practical meaning. As you reach out to get something other than yourself, you find your own nose. If you try to touch your nose, your hand is on somebody else's head. There's meaning here, but it's not practical. So we build a road over the river. so they can have graspable meaning. But because originally, although he's a rigid or hungry, we yearn.

[03:34]

We yearn for happiness, which means we yearn to seek truth. with no obstruction. When we see the creek with no obstruction, we are happy and fearless and non-violent. But when a row gets disrupted, or a current disrespect between us and truth, we yearn, we yearn to see it. And we're somewhat afraid, at risk of being violent in our fear.

[04:40]

The role is the result of what we call khan, of action. The activity of our mind construct a story about our relationship with the world. We have a relationship with the world, and the world supports us to be creatures who can dream up stories about our relationship with the world. And we do. In this dream and this construction of our relationship with each other, the story we make every moment of our relationship with the world, is our basic action. And the story can be conveyed to our speech and our postures. The basic activity of our mind is what creates the world. the bay of the curtain, which separates us from the truth.

[05:57]

The most important common consequence is that it obscures our vision of the truth. The enlightened ones have studied this veil, have studied these stories which our minds create. They've generously studied these stories, wholeheartedly practiced with these stories, which obscure the truth, and realized these stories are empty, are open. They have re-entered the bridger. They've seen the light dancing on the bridger. And they're happy.

[07:00]

And they have taught us that the way to see through the veil which our mind creates, which obscures our vision of the truth which we want to see, which we yearn to see, which will be happiness when we see it. The way to see nature is to study the stories which our minds are constantly creating about our relationship with each other. To practice wholeheartedly and generously, integrally, in the delusions that our minds create about our patterns of relationship with the world. Again, karma is our intention, our story, our cognitive version of our relationship that obscures and also has the consequence of obscurity.

[08:15]

All right, there she should put it through. telling stories, our stories are rising in our mind every moment.

[09:40]

We're all active every moment. Our minds are active. They don't need to be any more active. And although we're all active and all constantly telling stories, we're not all paying attention to the stories. We're driven by the stories, but we're not necessarily aware of being driven by stories. We might think we're being driven by the world, which is true, in a sense, we are driven by the world. But also, we're driven by our story of the world, and we think We tend to think we're driven by the people rather than what we think of.

[10:55]

One time, my daughter had one of their girlfriends stay open for the night, and they had a very nice time together. They enjoyed each other's company intimately. And the next afternoon, the other girl's mother came and picked her up and when the girl saw her mother she ran to her mother and jumped on her mother's lap and hugged her and then the visiting girl and her mother left our house and after they left my daughter said she did that just to hurt me just to hurt my feelings do you understand? They were so intimate with each other.

[13:14]

And then the girl went and gave her mother a hug. And stayed with her mother. And I battled my daughter. Viciously. I battled her mother just a person. So my daughter. such was the story that arose in her mind. That's what she thought, and she thought what she thought was what was happening. But you can all see how silly that is. If I may praise her parents on that occasion, they just generously observed the story of their daughter telling them a story that was upsetting her.

[14:24]

Because she didn't realize the story was not really her friend, but just the story of her friend. She didn't understand that at that time. Then a little while later, the daughter got on my lap. So-called my daughter got on so-called my lap. And my wife said to her, did you do that just to hurt my feelings? And the eight-year-old girl understood and said, okay, I'll give her another chance. I'll watch it at school tomorrow.

[15:40]

When she got home from school, we said, I thought of your observations about me. She said, I thought that I was getting angry at her for what I thought of her. Even an eight-year-old girl had the opportunity to see that what she's looking at when she looks at people is normally what she thinks of them, and that she would get angry at what she's thinking at them, as though she actually thinks she's angry at them. And this is, of course, a big problem. even though an eight-year-old can notice this, more mature people, supposedly, can get distracted from this and actually think that what we think about somebody, like, you know, that they're trying to hurt us, that our version of what they're doing is what they're doing, and not notice that's what's going on.

[17:12]

You think we're actually seeing a person, whether the the action of our mind. Actually, we are seeing the person, we're totally with the person, relating to the inner flowing river of relationship, but we also put a road on top of it and think that the road is the river. And so we'd yearn and suffer without such a question. But if we start paying attention and observing our storytelling, we have a chance to see, oh, it's storytelling, oh, it's storytelling, oh, it's storytelling. And there's a chance then, by continually watching this, it will become clear, it will be revealed, the rigor will be revealed. It will become clear.

[18:12]

Nothing exists independent of everything else. And when we see that, we may be shocked because, again, the things aren't separating each other entirely to get any meaning of a graphical being. You get meaning, it's not graphical. You get the meaning of your life of radiant, mutual. or you're not used to it, you might think your ordinary life will be gobbled up in your river. So then you might react or recoil at them and you go back to the road. Rather be hungry and scared than be totally consumed in a relationship with all beings. Or to explode by consuming all beings. who are supporting.

[19:18]

So there's a, you know, challenge there as you're open to the light about how to deal with it. And, so I would say to you, as some Piji Zen masters say, you all, every one of you, is a beam of light. A light, you're beating out of light, and the light is beating into it, and you're nothing in addition to that light. But if you look for it, it's stuck in the dead. All we're not going to recommend you is look for the light.

[20:19]

The light's here, but don't look for it. Study the darkness. Study the obscuration. Study the illusion. Study what we're thinking. Study the storage account. Study the karma. Study possible every moment of action. Notice that every moment train yourself to notice that every moment you're packed up, every moment of your mind is synchronized to a story of your life. And it will become clear that nothing is independent of anything else. It will become clear that we have this great, vast, harmonious relationship with each other. And you will be happy and you will be fearless when you see this.

[21:24]

And then you can help others see it. On the way of seeing this, we must be very generous towards our delusion. Practicing wholeheartedly and generously and intimately each norm with delusion. And delusion is basically what we think is coming up. Not seeking anything. Generous, right? Generous is not seeking anything, not expecting anything. And in the process of noticing, study everything. Study how you discriminate between yourself and others. Study how you discriminate between good and bad. Notice if you're stuck on the discrimination between yourself and others.

[22:36]

And be generous towards being stuck. And be generous towards being stuck. You will find what is called unstuck. And you will learn to not prefer self over others or quality over self. You will learn how not to prefer enlightenment over delusion. good over bad. You will study very bad that your mind is presenting you generously. Again, not expecting anything for your study. So all Buddhas have done this practice of studying delusion. Buddhists, before Buddhists, the Buddhists, they're just like us.

[23:41]

They live in story land. They live in the road. And they yearn for happiness, and they yearn in hunger for the river. But they studied the road. They studied the road generously. you can find the world to be empty and in that realization it opens to the river again and there they live in the river where they enjoy practicing with the river as the river where they enjoy practicing absorption concentration in this light the radiance of our relationship our unproductive relationship they meditate on how their meditation is the same meditation as our meditation they're aware of how they're practicing the same as all of us but we're all doing the same practice we're all the practice is what we're all doing together we're doing different things

[25:05]

True. But the practice is what we're doing together. The practice is the thing we're doing the same. The enlightenment is the enlightenment which was shared. Buddhist enlightenment is not other than your enlightenment. Archibudity was there. But the enlightenment is of the same. There's one enlightenment. It's like a river. Of light. And we're all expressing it and receiving it. And we express it and receive it the same way. But, we caused each other to create different worlds.

[26:06]

Different versions of the world. We have our own stories. And, as I mentioned to the people on this retreat this weekend, many people came to talk to me, and almost every one of them told me a story. And some of them didn't like the story they told me. Sometimes they told me a story about themselves. Sometimes they told me a story about somebody else. But oftentimes they told me a story they had a problem with, a story they wanted to get rid of. So a number of sad stories we'd like to get rid of. Or some of the sad stories we'd like to hold on to. Some of the sad stories we love and some of the sad stories we hate. Love, I mean, I don't think you've got any thoughts we're attached to. Loving your stories is to let go of them.

[27:09]

Holding on to your stories is not loving, it's attachment to your stories. And then you can hold on to your stories of what's going on, moment by moment, that will effectively blind you to the God's subtle truth. You can try to get rid of your stories, that will effectively, for the moment, not forever, just now, and probably later too, Now, and it will have consequence of probably, again, challenging you with obscuration. But when the obscuration comes, if you generate some of it, that's the practice for those who are not fully immersed in the play. You need to keep generously relating to your delusion. Practice wholeheartedly with your delusion. Remember that you're in delusion. and be gentle with it. You will plunge through the delusion back into the practice that the Buddha is doing with you right now, but we start to see.

[28:36]

You will re-enter your light and enjoy it. you know, since I'm supposed to stop at 1025 or something like that.

[29:37]

And it's not 1025 yet, so maybe I'll say a little bit more. Basically, I think that I've said something, you know, and I really don't know if you understand me or not. But not too many people have a little distressed look on their face. So it looks like maybe I didn't understand it, though. Yours did me just tell you that you don't understand. And then, if we studied how you don't understand full-heartedly, but not like, oh, I wish I didn't understand that there'd be a different life than this one. It does not be, I don't let be in this world. I just want to be more generous. Okay, I don't understand, but if I'm generous with that, I don't understand. And the way I don't understand is that I understand my story.

[30:41]

And the stories I told you, I told you some stories, like I told you about my daughter, and I told you a story about the river and the road, and I told you a story about a lot of things. I told you many stories. I have a story that I told you many stories. I don't want you to believe my stories, but I do actually have a story. But I want you to tell me my story. Tell me the stories that gave you. I want you to understand these stories, not believe them. Because the way you believe me now is your story about my stories. So I don't want you to believe your story about my stories. I want you to contemplate your story about what I told you and understand, which means because Three. Most Zen stories are about Zen people who have stories and are caught by them. They have stories about what Zen is. And they're stalking them.

[31:43]

And then in the story they meet somebody and they have an interaction and they deal with their story. Sometimes they meet someone The so-called teacher, and the Zen teacher is somebody who helps people get over their stories. And sometimes Zen teachers who are trying to help people get over their stories are having trouble. The student refuses to get over their story. So sometimes then the teacher gets stuck on their story to tell the student how stupid it is, and the student gets over their story. And if you could say, stop your story for the sake of the student. I think the student helped teach her story. And again, I've said this several times when this began, but it was also said to me that we're telling ourselves stories all day long, even at night when we're dreaming.

[33:12]

When we're in the dreamless sleep, that's when I guess we don't tell ourselves stories. Take a little break. Sometimes we're alive, but we're not always telling ourselves stories. But the times when we're not telling ourselves stories are not the same as enlightenment. Enlightenment is, one function of enlightenment is to be able to tell stories and not be caught by them. To be able to tell stories and not to defend against the earth. to tell stories not to get meaning, but to tell stories in order to help people get three of them slippers. So telling stories is not contradictory to another one, but more any attention to it, postpones awakening.

[34:14]

If we don't attend to our stories, they generally degenerate and become more and more unhappy, unfortunate stories. Same world as before, but the stories get worse and more and more upsetting and frightening. Unobserved stories evolve negatively. Observed stories evolve positively. And when we don't observe our stories, our vision gets less and less fearful and dark. And when we do observe stories, when we do observe our action, our vision gets clearer. And our stories get better. But it's not so much that, you know, the better part of the stories is the point. The point is that you can create a distinction between good and bad and not be attached to evil.

[35:18]

It opens to what is the island also is. And what else is the island? It's enough. I have been feeding you I have a story that I've been feeding you. Do you want feedback to me? I'll end up on what you just said about the point isn't that you're not going to tell stories. And also, I think on Friday you said something about fully expressing ourselves. Can you hear him?

[36:22]

No. Stand up, Mike, and speak louder. He said something about fully expressing it. Yeah, and probably he said something about fully expressing yourself. And it reminded me of something that when I teach drumming, I ask my students to make mistakes. Yeah. So, because otherwise it It seems what I observe is that they learn slower if they go back. And I'm wondering if you could say something about that in reference to studying our stories and how we do that in a skillful way. Because I also can see that teaching can be misunderstood. It sort of gives people a license to be loud and kind of wander around and make mistakes that might be comparable to them for other people. So even when she said, I heard conviction. You encourage people, she said, I encourage people to make a mistake to make a lawsuit.

[37:29]

I was trying to say, well, how can't we make mistakes without making mistakes? It's tough. We don't want to tell people to make mistakes. I vow, I committed to be generous to people so that they're not afraid of making mistakes. I don't want to make mistakes. I try to provide an environment where if they're trying to express themselves, they won't make mistakes and won't harm themselves. Not generous. I don't want them to make mistakes. I really don't. I don't want them to hurt themselves. Of course I don't.

[38:31]

Well, maybe I do, but anyway. And what I do is I want them to be afraid of making mistakes. People will make mistakes. But they're afraid of making mistakes. They won't make mistakes. If they're not afraid of making mistakes, they will also make mistakes. Either way, people will make mistakes in joking, in expressing their understanding of Zen, in telling their stories. They will make mistakes. They will. We will. And trying to prevent it is not generous. But if they're not afraid of making mistakes, when they make mistakes, they have some chance, a much better chance, of learning them a mistake.

[39:48]

Also, yeah, of learning them. And a fully expressing mistake. Because sometimes when you make mistakes, you kind of already know the mistake, so you kind of like try to hide it. Because a generous environment, the observer, the teacher can see the mistake and be generous towards it. And the joy of the gentleness towards it. And show the spirit. The joy. Of letting them make a mistake. Of supporting them in making a mistake. Because in fact, every mistake you ever make, every mistake I ever make, is because you support me to make a mistake. I do not make mistakes alone. You support me. So when I make a mistake, if there's enough generosity in the environment, I might be able to see that everybody supported me in making a mistake.

[40:56]

And if you see that everybody supports you in making a mistake, and you get hurt from the mistake, if you see that Earth has supported you, although it was a mistake, and although you did get hurt, you'll be very, very happy. and fearless and nonviolent, you will be enlightened. You will re-enter the river where everyone is supporting you and you will see it. If you fully express your mistakes, you will see that you did not make a mistake by yourself. If you hard-heartedly make a mistake, you may get you may stay stuck in the idea that you've made the mistake by yourself. If you're generous with your students, with your friends and children, that generosity can help them see that you helped them make the mistake, that they didn't do it alone, that you were loving them every step of the way to the mistake.

[42:14]

This is what we need to see. If you don't make the mistakes in the next two weeks, hey, I'll look at that, that's okay. But if at the end of the two weeks you still understand that everything you did during that whole time was supported by the body, then you have two more weeks of misery and fear. and unhappiness. Because you're living in the darkness of the story, that you did it, you did your ashes by yourself, and you make all mistakes by yourself. But if you make mistakes, many mistakes, in the next few minutes, you'll realize. Because of the generosity of your own attitude towards them, or the generosity of your teacher with you.

[43:15]

If you realize that you as a teacher have made the mistakes together, that you and the human made the mistake together, you've just awakened. And you've made these only mistakes in the past, take on mistakes, and she didn't lighten to this at a very low price. How do you do that? You do what? Generosity, because when you see your friends, you know, your friends, you make them a mistake, they might go, well, wait a minute, you're going to make them a mistake, but they need to make them a mistake. I think that's that. Your friends, I can say, I can say a little bit to you, generously. Your friends can be generously to you, say, ba-da-da-da-da-da. You're wrong, girl.

[44:18]

They can do that. Generously. Or they can say, oh, you're right, you're right, you're right. See each other. Their generosity practice is to give to you, to let you be you, to give you to [...] you, and to give themselves to themselves. If they want to say, bad, whatever to you, they can do that as a gift, not to manipulate you, but as a gift, with no expectation. And also to give you to you with no expectation, without seeking anything. They can give you negative feedback as a gift. You can give negative feedback as a gift. You can give negative feedback to encourage the person who did the thing wrong to be wholehearted. That's one of the main forms of negative feedback that Buddha gives to you, the Buddha says, not well-hearted, I was half-hearted. In other words, more generous, being more generous, you're holding back.

[45:24]

If they could say that to you, totally okay, and joyfully enjoying the way you're half-hearted. Really, really, no, no, no, not enjoying the way you're half-hearted, enjoying it. letting you be half-hearted as a proactive gift. They love being generous with you when you're half-hearted. And they might then, in their generosity, say, more wholehearted. Give me more heart. But not to get it, not to get it, but to give that gift of saying more. Depends to see you. Yes, William Mack. I got the tool off when you were telling the story about the job.

[46:29]

Yeah. And you got this report report to, isn't that silly? And I thought to myself, no, it didn't be on the road. It was a privilege for her to make that. Did you think I believed that I said this, that's silly? I don't know. Well, I'm glad I said it then. Did you believe it? Pardon? Did you believe it? No, not at all. But I thought, don't we think that's silly? Can't we see how silly that is? It's not very silly though. But we can think that way. And she answered when her mother asked her the question. She got it. It's the being caught on the discrimination if it's silly or not silly.

[47:31]

So let's put out silly there to see if we get caught better. And let's see. Yep. Thank you. Can I say something? I'm not really saying to examine the stories that you're generating. I'm saying to examine the stories that are arising in your mind. I do not say that you're generating your own stories. If you're studying the stories that appear in your mind, you will see someday that you do not make any of them by yourself. That's what you will come to see, is that you are a servant of the universe. You're just not here to be a storyteller. So thank you very much.

[48:35]

Thank you. The fiction? Yeah. The exemplary story is arriving in our mind. Yes. And if we go out and speak into the community with our friends and family and co-workers, They are telling up stories all the time. Yes. I think we call Gotham. And I'd like to suggest how we respond to their stories in a compassionate, generous manner. Yeah. So again, like I said, I've spent a lot of time telling these stories. But there's some influences of it. So one thing you can say, oh, did you just tell me a story? You can say, that's the sound truth. The last thing about this, you're feeling jealous towards the story characters that are coming to you. I've also given the example of, Suzuki Roshi said, if you want to, he didn't say, but I'm going to respect him, he said, if you want to team, if you want edify,

[49:38]

encourage positive evolution and account. Okay? The worst thing to do is to ignore it. Not that to try to control it, but the best to give it a big deal. So if your friend comes to tell you stories, the worst thing to do is ignore it. Not that to try to control it, get it to stop talking to work. The best is to give it a big deal. In that big deal, your funny stories will became, will become, you know, more and more enlightened. Or they will become more and more in an enlightening relationship to their service. But in a big deal, while you're watching, you can still kind of say, I do not want to listen to you tell that story tell the story. I didn't want to listen to you talk to me one bit of a person.

[50:42]

If you can say that from a point of view of trying to control the person, or trying to ignore the person, but you can also say from totally and joyfully letting you be the person who's telling you that story, which you do not want to tell anymore. You don't want to tell anymore. You don't want to support them by listening to them anymore. You'd like to support them by leaving the room. That's the way you want to support them. You do want to support them. And you say, I don't want you to talk that way. It hurts me to be taught that way. Because first, before you talk, you're half of them letting them be the person who's telling you that story. And they feel that generosity. Conventional. They'll feel good. She's actually happy. Not what I'm saying. She's happy to let me say what I'm saying. He can support me. And then when you say, please stop, sometimes they understand the person who's talking to them, who's talking to be loved and loving them, doesn't like them or dislike them.

[51:47]

He loves them. He supports them. He is generous. So that's this thing of I don't want you to talk is coming from such a person. Because sometimes you don't say anything. You just give them space. And you're not supposed to give him the space, you give him the space, and after they give him, they don't give him, give him, I'll give you to you, [...] I'll love, I'll enjoy, I'm happy to give you to you. That joy is a pretty good person anymore. And you, of course, do the same with yourself. When your own mind is gossiping or whatever, In general, it's okay to say to your mind, this is really like I have problems with you talking this way. I'm not saying that to the kid. I'm not saying that to express myself. I get up with my story and to help you get up with yours. Even if you don't mind your own stories.

[52:56]

Okay? Yes. Why does the universe want to be storytellers? I think it's, it seems to be one of the prices of, this is, you know, this is a theory, you know, which I'm getting very scientific research and Buddhist stories. But I think that the reason the universe wants us to do this is to deepen enlightenment. And it seems the price of life is to become more and more conscious. And this consciousness comes with activity. However, there's consequences of the activity.

[53:56]

Consciousness comes with storytelling. Consciousness without storytelling is not a consciousness which is active in participating with the universe. So the universe is active in creating our consciousness, so our consciousness is active in creating the universe. But the consequence of this activity is that it comes with obstructing possibilities. And so far it seems to be, in a way, it requires more enlightenment to understand the process of creation, to see that the universe wants us to understand the process of creation. Actually, I'm writing a preface to a book by my daughter, my brother, the person who's ordained the same time is in the same days, and he's a builder. He builds buildings, builds temples, and he builds a stake. And I said, you know, he being builders, he

[55:00]

He exactifies the dilemma between constructing a building, or work, and wonder. In one sense, it's wonder that we want to realize in the world, that in order to do it, we need to do some work. But then the work, if you get caught in the work, it's a clear wonder. So there's some part of us that wants to realize this verbatim. in some place that has a certain kind of rational meaning, where we live and recreate and reproduce. But then we get caught by the process of construction.

[55:45]

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