Good morning, that was really good chanting. By the way, I didn't know that I was going to be giving this talk until a couple days ago. My name is Tia, for those of you who don't know, and I'm going to be talking with you today. Because I didn't know that I was going to be giving the talk, I had planned already things to do today at 9, 15, and now at 10, and at 11, so I won't be able to be available for questions and answers. So I thought, after I talk for a little bit, saying I'm not sure what, we can have questions and answers here for a little bit, and then from 11 to 12, those of you who all of a sudden

[01:07]

now have nothing to do, you could kind of mingle and mix and meet each other a little bit or enjoy the, we have a little bit of respite from the rain, you can get the air very fresh, wonderful air, so if you want to you could be outside a little bit, or if you'd like to, you can enjoy the courtyard and then join us for lunch, so, business part of my talk. You know what else I kind of thought I would do is, I did plan to say something and I do have stuff to share with you, but, how many people are new to Zen today? You can lift your hands higher so I can see, okay, and how many people have like sat only for a few months, mostly new?

[02:09]

You know, I was thinking of doing, one thing to do is, maybe I'll say something about practice a little bit, and then those of you who have practiced longer, maybe during our questions and answers I might ask you also to share your understanding of some response to whatever the question is. Is that different? That sounds like cutting, cutting, chainsaw? Trees? The tree in the upper patio? Reminds me of, you know, I thought we've been having noise all week at Zen, not all week,

[03:16]

all month at Zen Center because they're rebuilding the wall across the street, so usually on the weekend it's quiet, so today it's not. Reminds me, just the other day I saw the movie Lord of the Rings, has anyone seen it already? I have a foster son, Juan Carlos, and he wanted to see it right away, so we tried to get tickets over the internet and on Wednesday everything was sold out, so I saw it Thursday, and it reminds me, there is a part in Lord of the Rings where the trees come alive, and I was rooting for the trees, and I still root for the trees, and in a way I'm thinking, I mean I hope that actually this doesn't come to pass, but that the earth kind of gives a big

[04:20]

heave, and shakes, and helps human beings to remember who actually is in charge here, and maybe we can have a little bit more humility to how we relate with each other, our behavior, because it's the way that we relate with each other as other that is a cause for the trees to be so upset, and I'm sure they're upset. During session did I talk about fear at all? Did I read from Sharon Salzberg's book, Faith? I did? I didn't bring it with me, but you know, myself personally, what I'm feeling, and I've never

[05:27]

ever felt this before in my whole entire life, I grew up in a very protected sort of environment, and I never, even when I was traveling around the world by myself, I never really thought that I was at risk, you know, I was careful up to a point, but I never really felt at risk, and now I feel more at risk than I ever have because of our political situation. And what I feel like is that if I don't pay attention to that fear, then I will not be able to respond in the best possible way to address what I feel is a

[06:27]

kind of ignoring of our connectedness from our leaders. So anyway, what I wanted to talk about today is just basic fundamental practice. It's not so really difficult to understand what's being asked of us. It's pretty straightforward, actually, and simple. In the beginning, for those of you who are just starting to meditate and new to the practice, all that you're asked to do really is, initially, in the beginning, is just be able to patiently, without too much judgment, continually try to stay present. That's what's being asked. Just try to develop a habit-mind, the mind that habituates to being

[07:33]

present. And in the beginning, as you know, it's really difficult. Some of us have a lot of trouble convincing ourselves that what we really want to do is be present. So initially, sometimes, some of us have to make a great effort to keep the mind present in the body over and over and over and over again. So the first thing you have to do is decide that that's actually the commitment that you want to make. For some of us, it isn't. Some of us think we kind of want to be present, but actually, on second thought, we don't. And we make all kinds of reasons for ourselves why it's too painful, oftentimes just simply too painful. Sometimes we just don't. Our mind is so fuzzy and stuff like

[08:36]

that, that rationally, we just stay up in our heads all the time and are afraid to just drop that, just let go of all the reasons, even though they're good, why we have to think about such and such a thought, or why not being present is good, appropriate for now. We just have to cut through all of that and just develop the muscle. Darlene talks about the being present muscle. Develop the being present muscle and let go of all the rest of it and just be in our body. Be in the body. So the first big job is to really sit down with yourself and think about it. Do I really want to make this commitment, 100 percent, whatever's happening, no past, no future, just be present in the body? Certainly that's true for when we're met a day.

[09:37]

It's also true, really, the rest of the day. Ultimately, our job is to have this continuity of presence. And I'm distinguishing here between what I call consciousness, which is dualistic, and the wider awareness that's non-dualistic, that is our birthright, that is what we take refuge in. We can say it's a Buddha mind, a Buddha. We take refuge in that, because everything else changes. We can't take refuge in feeling good, because we can't sustain that. We can't take refuge even in feeling bad about ourselves, because sometimes if you admit it, you feel actually happy. But, you know, a lot of people go right over that. They pass right over. Every time they're happy,

[10:42]

they just pass right over it, and they go right back to whatever the dark side is. No, but sometimes we're actually happy, and we have to know it when that happens. We can't take refuge in mind states, in positive thinking, it doesn't work, in even pleasant sensations. We also have aches and pains. There isn't anything in our body sensation, in our emotional energetic world, energy is up, sometimes energy is down, in our mind. Nothing in our body, in our emotional life, in our thought process, is countable on. Certainly countable on in a pleasant way, but none of it's countable, and it all changes. The only thing that actually, can I say, doesn't, I can't say, doesn't change, the only thing is this kind of magical awareness

[11:51]

that is our true nature, that is the nature of our mind, is simply this ability to be awake. That's our birthright, it's who we are, all we have to do is unpeel it. So anyway, in the beginning, even in the midst of our delusions, even in the midst of dualistic thinking, even in the midst of happiness, even in the midst of sadness, even in the midst of pleasant body sensations, even in the midst of unpleasant bodily sensations, it doesn't matter, always we're aware, always there's awareness there, that's what we take refuge in. So anyway, the first thing that we have to do in practice is decide whether or not we really want to be present. Then when we decide yes, and if you decide no, that's perfectly okay, not a problem, you're a Buddha anyway, if we decide yes, then we have to actually put the effort out. Takes a tremendous amount of effort.

[12:58]

You have to make the effort. Every time you find yourself slipping away, you just have to notice that, oh, at some point you wake up, oh, I'm not here, okay, fine, back again. Doesn't need to be judgment, doesn't need to be any, I can't do this practice, doesn't need to be impatient, doesn't need to be goal-oriented, as a matter of fact, shouldn't be goal-oriented. And you understand why this is almost redundant, but I'll say it anyway. Not goal-oriented, because as soon as you're goal-oriented, it's dualistic, it's me over here trying to get whatever it is, to get being present. So, as a matter of fact, one of the things I brought is this wonderful Bernie Glassman book called The Infinite Circle, it's a great book, and in the end of it he says exactly what I'm saying about taking refuge, and the way he and Maezumi translated

[14:02]

taking refuge in Buddha is just being Buddha, being Dharma, being Sangha, which is actually our truth. We either in the beginning don't know it, or we do. And the only difference is, if we don't know that, we're miserable. And if we know it, it doesn't mean that we're not miserable, it just means that we know it when we're not. Really, I tell you, it's the only difference. The last session that I sat was really an amazingly, I don't even know what to call it, I think I told some people, it was amazing. I was just completely present every period. I didn't care if the bell rang,

[15:06]

I didn't care if it didn't ring, I wasn't in some kind of concentrated state, I wasn't absorbed in anything, I was just breathing, present, open, relaxed, the whole entire time. And at the end of it I wasn't any more happy at all, I didn't even feel more connected, nothing. And I thought to myself, you know, what a disappointment. And then I remembered, you know, so what? So disappointment comes through, and not-disappointment comes through, and it's just life. Sometimes it's wonderful. Like right now, I'm looking out the window and there is, Ron, can you see this? There's a diamond hanging off this bush, it's just basically water. You know how water, what do you call it when it, yeah, when it makes little circles, what are they? Bubbles?

[16:09]

Not bubbles, you know? And before it gets refracted it has to be a little bubble, it has to be, it makes little bubbles, drops. Yeah, it forms drops. There are drops all over that thing, and then it's refracted, did you say being refracted? Refracted, the light refracts and they become diamonds, so there's diamonds on that bush right outside. And that's it. Because, you know, someday I'm going to be dead and I won't get to see that. I was riding on a bus yesterday, and I love riding on buses because you get to overhear people's conversation that you wouldn't never hear. And the bus driver and this guy were having this conversation and the guy said,

[17:14]

you know, the game is half over. Isn't that great? I think that's a great way of putting it. You know, our lives, if you're 40, you're lucky if it's half over, right? It's probably more than half over. So notice while we have it, because it's a real, it's a miracle gift. Okay, so anyway, so you have to decide if you want to be present, then you have to actually make the effort to be present, and then the next thing is what you're present for. What we're present for are all of the habit patterns, the conditioned karmic events, the, you know, reactive tendencies of our conditioning, psychological conditioning. It's all mostly at that point psychological. Our defenses, whatever our fears are, you know, desire grabbings and so on. The next thing that

[18:20]

happens is we're face to face with this psychological event that we have become, that we've become. So then, and then we're kind of embarrassed at it, actually. First thing is we're embarrassed at what we've become, mostly with reason, because we're really selfish. We're selfish, we're greedy, you know, we're hateful. We are, that's what we are. And so, isn't it? It's true, right? That's what we are. So we gulp, you know, and we then sort of, you know, stand up again, and then we have to walk through all, we have to learn about it thoroughly, totally. Where am I caught? How do I hate? Where do I hurt? What do I grab after? Where does it come from? All the patterns, all the psychological stuff, we have to get in there

[19:21]

and really not judge it, nothing, not even get rid of it, just see it really clearly. How does what we think of our self work? How does it work? So for a long time Buddhism looks like a psychological event, and it is. It's a psychological event for a while. We have to really understand who we are in a diluted way. We already know who we are in an awakened way, somewhere inside we know. It's still in there, it never goes away, it's always available to us. Somewhere in us we know exactly, ultimately, who we are. We have the total heart of compassion and we are totally awake, it's there all the time. But in the meantime we have to learn all about the diluted one, and eventually knowing it really well, knowing it's suffering, if we're brave enough to get in

[20:26]

there with it, we actually end up developing a real love for that one. We really do, because the one who's looking at that one, this plain non-dual awareness, is not making a lot of judgments about it, it's just seeing how it suffers so from simply not getting what we want and having what we don't want. We suffer so much. So you end up loving this one, this one that suffers so much, and knowing it really well. And then, just as Dogen says, when we know it really well we can just forget about it. Whatever you leave. And whenever it comes up with its little whatever's-it-is,

[21:31]

we can either pay attention to it, act that way, or not. We have a choice. We're not just reactive anymore. We don't just run after some kind of, oh, I was going to say sexual thing, but you know that's very hard. The sexual one is really difficult. But anyway, we have a choice, we begin to have a choice. And what we do more and more is we rest in this non-identified, we don't identify with consciousness, we don't identify with emotion, thought, we don't identify with our body, we are just awake as our life comes to be. So how it's not psychological is, ultimately,

[22:31]

there's not a self there that we identify with anymore. So... Oh, and I wanted to say one other thing. So far in my experience, I still think it's true, I don't know, maybe people in other traditions will tell me, really, that I don't understand, but I just was reading a book by Achan Amaro, and he was talking about a retreat that he was giving with Sokne Rinpoche,

[23:38]

I think it's pronounced Sokne Rinpoche, but I'm not sure, but he's a Dzogchen master, and they were giving a retreat together, Vipassana and Dzogchen, and Achan Amaro was saying how in his own teaching, listening to his teachers, Achan Sumedho and Achan Chah, that what their teaching is ultimately is, when we meditate, and the point is not just in meditation but to develop the continuity of this awareness, allowing this awareness to be there all the time, that the direction is to basically don't do anything and just let this non-dual awareness be there. And in Buddhism, in Dzogchen, they call this Rigpa, non-dual awareness, Rigpa,

[24:57]

and Achan Amaro said that in Vipassana they don't really ... he didn't anyway at that time, in this talk that I was reading, he didn't name it, they just call it the unconditioned. But, you know, in Zen this is our way, especially in Soto Zen. We sit in Shikantaza, just being, not trying to be something, but just surrendering to what actually is there, letting the awareness simply manifest as us, because it's there anyway, just being life. So, to me anyway, I may be wrong, but all of these traditions, all of the, you know, practice meditation traditions that have come to the West, basically are saying in their essence

[25:58]

the same thing. So, I was going to read something. From the intrinsic standpoint, the appropriate translation would be being Buddha. That is, from the beginning we're nothing but the enlightened one. We have to discover and experience this, but whether we do or not, essentially it's always the case. From this perspective you can't not be Buddha. Be Buddha reflects the experiential standpoint. We have to realize that we are Buddha. Being Buddha, we have to be Buddha. We have to deepen our

[27:00]

realization until we are, no longer have any notion of being the enlightened one. Once we experience that state, then being Buddha and be Buddha come together. For instance, the flower falling from the tree in Los Angeles means we are falling with it and as it. From the perspective of one body, three treasures, Buddha is the world of emptiness. This is not some sort of void, but rather the whole universe, or in mathematical terms, the universal set that contains or is everything. If this universal set is full to overflowing with everything without exception, in what sense is it empty? In the sense that it contains everything before we name things, this or that, completely independent of all labels, concepts, or categories. That's what

[28:08]

we were studying with Vasubandhu, remember? Without notions, there is no way to exclude anything. To exclude something requires the notion, the knowing, of something being this or that. Being this universal set without separation is not knowing. And the way Trungpa put it one time, I like this phrase, you probably remember it, it's been said a lot. He said, good, bad, happy, sad, vanish like the imprint of a bird in the sky. Isn't that great? Anyway, so that's our practice, and so it goes in from the beginning. Beginning and end is the same, and a little bit different. So I hope that we continue practicing and doing our best to try

[29:21]

to be this person we are really inside. We just do our best and we fail all the time, but that's okay. As long as we are awake, it's okay to make mistakes one after the next. Somebody here wanted to be called when they were ordained. They wanted their name to be falls down, gets up. So we have like just a couple of minutes for questions and answers. Yeah, that's a good question.

[30:41]

Well, you're talking on two different levels. We have to understand that there is a conventional level and ultimate level. Ultimately, greed, hate, and delusion are not innate. I would not say they're innate. When we are truly who we are, we are good, totally good, and completely forgiven everything, because it's all dependently co-arisen. In that way, we're totally forgiven, absolutely. And I can say to you, inside, you're good, and no one should ever tell you anything else, ever. And, you know, in the conventional world, we do things based on greed, hate, and delusion. And when we do those things, they often are harmful. So we don't even have to say good, bad. We can just say,

[31:49]

when we do something that we feel in ourself is harmful to ourself or to anyone else, the next time we'll try to do not harmful, non-harming. And that's our effort over and over and over and over again. We don't have to have any judgments about it. We can just stand up in our is Buddha itself? Buddha nature? No, that's not Buddha. I've never heard that be Buddha nature. No. But greed, hate, and delusion are there. Definitely. That's definitely how we often respond to the

[32:57]

world, when we live in delusion. Okay? But as soon as delusion drops away, when we really understand that we are not separate from anything else, ever, and that what we do actually matters, then we live, we vow to live to awaken ourselves and everybody else. Greed, hate, and delusion is not your fundamental nature. No. And in fact, from the point of view of just simply awake, okay? There's no certain... I shouldn't be saying this, it's too much. The ultimate... I'm not going to say it then. It'll be too confusing. Never mind. Anybody else have a comment? Yeah? Other than sadhana, what's your experience of how to craft a sane, authentic life?

[33:58]

How to craft a sane, authentic life? Well, the first thing that comes to mind, pops right up into mind, is don't know. Just really be present and meet your life as it comes to be in this present moment, as awake as you possibly can, and really, you know, be awake to how you feel and to have whatever is as clear as you can with everything that's happening, and then respond the best you can. Appropriate response. I don't know another way of doing it. I keep really in touch with it. I'm really right now aware of it, and I am trying to, with it, do, you know, activity toward what might prevent a real risk from actually happening. But I don't

[35:11]

ignore my feeling. I take my feeling, I tuck it under my arm, and I go forward. It's the same thing with... that's what we have to do with fear. The definition of fearless is not not having fear. It's being afraid and going forward with the fear. I think what I was feeling was the difference between love and compassion, you know. When you're in love, I'm just going to define it this way, it's like you have an object, so you have these feelings. I wasn't feeling feelings, you know, I was just... so maybe it's not like I wasn't connected, it's just that there weren't like... I wasn't like

[36:24]

loving everybody or anything like that. I was just there. So maybe not connected is not quite the right thing, but just there with this and then this and then this, but not, you know, there wasn't a whole bunch of, you know, feelings happening. That's what it's like. Gratitude, maybe, I'm glad. Gratitude. Well, you know, sexual energy is just very powerful, you know, and we all have done, I'm sure, stupid things. You know, actually, sexual feeling is actually uncomfortable, and so you want it to be resolved. It's like, in my experience anyway, it's like, you know, in music, there is like...

[37:32]

One of the things about music that makes it so, I don't know what to say, so much of what it is, is that it has a... we are trained to hear in a certain way in the West. We're trained to hear a chord and then a dissonant that is resolved back to this home chord. It's like home. So a lot of the music, especially music that's... well anyway, it puts you in this place of dissonance and you're waiting and waiting. It's like Tristan and Isolde. I don't know if you know opera, many of you, but Tristan and Isolde leaves you in this dissonant place for really a long time until you're just screaming for it to be resolved. Well, sexuality is just like that. Right? So it's so... when it's not resolved we have this tremendous wanting to just basically get it resolved. So it's very difficult to sit still with that energy and really let it be there and just be able to not move with it and then make a decision based on consequences, for one thing.

[38:59]

You know, have you ever talked with people... people who are in love are very interesting. They're totally irrational. Totally irrational. A person who is in love will tell you hundreds of reasons why they should actually go forward with this, what you know to be a disastrous event. But they will tell you reason after reason after reason why it's exactly the right thing to do. I was just saying that it's very strong. It's something that I think everybody, at some point, you really have to work with. You really have to be able to be with sexual... especially people with visual impairments. If you think they're going to be a teacher, otherwise it's really a mistake. You know, it's really a mistake because you really hurt people. You have to be really careful.

[40:07]

I had that experience last night with my sister. We were talking to each other all about how people need to see the rationality of their relationship. And I said, now that I'm in love with you, I thought I was rational. And she said, no, no, no, it's going to work. I think you can just once maybe tell them how you feel and then love them. Unless a person is really open to listen, they're not going to hear. You just love them. Our job is to love each other, basically. Our job is to try the best we can to accept ourselves and each other as we are.

[41:18]

I'll tell you, this totally changed my relationship with my brother. It was amazing. You know, when you grow up as a sibling, when you don't have a lot of... if your parents are not helping you to learn how to grow up, this is what my brother and I did, we tried to help each other. So we'd say, well, you know, he'd tell me, well, you know, maybe you shouldn't act this way. I'd tell him, well, maybe this way would be a better way of doing it, and back and forth and back and forth. And then when you become adults, if you keep doing that with each other, at some point you really have to stop, because that person really has become who they are and you've become who you are. You've made your choices and you just have to... if you keep doing that, anyway, my brother heard it as judgmental rather than helpful. It became judgmental rather than helpful. So for a long time we were kind of estranged because we couldn't, you know, it was hard to talk to each other, especially because my brother thought right away he'd be hurt by me.

[42:36]

It was terrible. And he was being hurt by me, you know, because I was saying, don't drink, for one thing. And anyway, at some point about seven years ago, not so long ago, I just simply decided I was just going to stop and what I was going to do was no matter what, I was just going to accept him. Totally, unconditionally, that was it. Period. And I did. And for a while I would talk to him and, you know, first of all, he didn't believe it for a couple of years. I was extremely careful, very gentle with what I said, never disagreed with him, just totally supported whatever it was over and [...] over again. And finally he really began to see that I was not going to hurt him. And it was a miracle. And now we can actually, we may be really friends and be able to talk.

[43:43]

We talk now quite a bit on the phone. I tell him pretty much everything and he tells me his feelings now, which is a miracle, you know. So, I think that's, if we can do that for each other, that's really... You know, it doesn't mean that we, you know, that we don't do things that need feedback, you know, and limits and so on and so forth. I'm not saying that. So, it's kind of hard to always talk from two sides at the same time, but... All right. So, no more questions and answers. And enjoy the day and have a happy holiday season and pray that we don't have too much destruction. Amen.

[44:30]

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