I'm giving my humble thanks for cheering for Love to Packet of Swords. At the beginning, the first Sunday of each month, we have a children's program here at Green Gulch. And that's today. And we begin by giving a short talk, which is then later expanded after the children leave to go and do something more interesting.

[01:08]

Today I'd like to tell a story about an elephant and a butterfly. Do you know that one? You remember that one? You can leave if you want to. And you can too. Some of you adults have heard it can leave also. So once there was an elephant... who lived at the top of a curling road. And that elephant just sat and did nothing all day. This is painful for you, huh? He's sitting in full lotus, this kid. And down at the bottom of this long, curling road in a green valley, there lived a butterfly.

[02:25]

And both the elephant and the butterfly had their own housing units, small housing units. The elephant just sat in his little house. I guess he wasn't a really big elephant because he had a little house. And he looked out the window all day and did nothing. And one day he saw somebody coming up the curling road. And he thought, I wonder if that person is coming to visit me. And it turned out it was a butterfly coming to visit him. And the butterfly came up the road, the long, curling road, and came up to the elephant's house and took one of her wings and gently knocked on the elephant's door, very gently.

[03:37]

and said, is anyone home? And the elephant was very happy, but waiting. And so then the butterfly, again, very gently but a little louder, very gently knocked on the door, a little louder, said, is anyone home? And the elephant was so excited and so happy that he couldn't speak. And then the butterfly hit again with the wings on the door and said quite loudly, is anything home? And the elephant finally said, I am. And the butterfly said, may I come in?

[04:46]

And the elephant said, yes, please do. And the other guy came in and said, who are you? The elephant said, I'm the elephant who does nothing all day. And along this road, this long, thrilling road going up to the elephant's house, there lived seven trees. And one of the trees said to another tree, I think it's going to rain. And then another tree said, I hope it does. Because when it rains, this road smells good. And then the littlest tree said, it's raining.

[05:49]

And it does smell really good when the water hits the earth. And then another tree said to another tree, it's really a good thing that the butterflies are indoors. because they're safe from this water. And so the elephant and the butterfly were up in the elephant's house, and they were looking out the window at the rain, and they were feeling really cozy and sheltered in their elephant's housing unit. And they looked out the window, and they said, oh, it's raining, and it smells really good. And the butterfly said to the elephant, do you love me a little? And the elephant said, no.

[06:53]

I love you a lot. This is a true story, I remember. And the butterfly said, how come you never came down to visit me before? The elephant said, because I just sat and didn't do anything all day. But now that I know you're there, I'd like to come and visit you. May I? And the butterfly said, please do. And then the elephant very gently put one of his arms or trunks.

[07:59]

Trunk, right? They call those things trunks, don't they? Yeah, the limbs of an elephant are called a trunk because they're like as big as a... No, all that. Put one of its legs... Put one of its legs around the butterfly very gently and give the butterfly an elephant kiss. And the butterfly survived. And... The elephant looked out the window and they said, oh, it stopped raining. Shall we take a walk? And the butterfly said, wonderful, let's go to my house. And so they walked down the curly road all the way down to the bottom of the hill to the butterfly's house. And when they walked by, the trees said, do you think that the elephant loves the butterfly as much as the butterfly loves the elephant?

[09:11]

And I'm like, you do? That's what the trees thought, too. They thought it was kind of a mutual thing going on. And then when they got down there to the elephant's, to the butterfly's house, the elephant said, May I come and visit you then?" And the butterfly said, yes. And the elephant went back home and sat in meditation for 49 days, reviewing this new love he had. And he decided, yes, yes. No, no. We already did that part. That's it. OK? Is that all right? So then every girl from then on the elephant went down the road to visit the butterfly. As far as I know, they did not get married.

[10:17]

But that is the end of the story. And now you guys can go and have a discussion group about the deeper meanings. Thank you for coming and being so new. And thank you for listening to it one more time. What's your name? Matt Matthew. Thank you for tolerating that repeat performance. Should I read it? Is something written in here?

[11:27]

No, thank you. Hmm. As many of you know, we have a tradition at Zen Center now in Zen practice of having intensive periods of training every now and then.

[12:29]

And we're having one here at Green Gulch now, which is a little bit more than six weeks old. It's an eight-week practice period. And we've done a little bit more than six weeks now. I wanted to give you a short history of the practice period so far. At the beginning of the practice period, I gave the first talk on Sunday. And it was before I actually talked to each of the members of the practice period. And it was also before they got into the practice period much. My first talk was about, in a sense, it was about ultimate truth. My first talk, I started with ultimate truth. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did. Ultimate truth, by ultimate truth, you mean the truth which one understood.

[13:36]

I set you free from suffering. It's the ultimate truth in the sense that it's the truth from the point of view of Buddha. And the ultimate truth is that we're all one. We all love each other very much. That's the ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is that throughout our entire life, we support all other living beings, and all other living beings support us, that we are intimate with each other throughout our life. That's the ultimate truth. All of us living beings are intimate with each other. We're not separate. We have identities, but we only get to have an identity because everybody's helping us have an identity.

[14:44]

Living beings teach us what our identity is, and we teach them. So we've got these identities, but these identities are interdependent identities. We even support each other to ignore the fact that we're supporting each other. We even tell each other that we don't support each other. And we even believe that we don't support each other. Even though we support each other. So anyway, I started with the ultimate truth is that we're intimate, loving each other right now, always have been, and always will be. And that all the Buddhists are practicing together with us all the time. And we're practicing together with them. And in a way I, you know, that's not usually where you start, but that's where I started during the practice period. Then I talked to some of the people in the practice period and I found out that some of them wanted to understand and wanted to, what they really wanted to do in life was to love.

[15:56]

And to be loved. They wanted what they wanted to do was love thoroughly and be loved thoroughly. That's what some of them wanted. Quite a few, actually. I wrote down what they said. Quite a few wanted to love and serve beings and be loved and served thoroughly by beings. Some others wanted to be free. In other words, some others felt like they wanted to be free. I think what they wanted to be free of was free of the constraints and fear and anxiety that we feel when we don't feel supported by all beings. They wanted to be free. Some others said they wanted to just be themselves, but that's also love. To be yourself is to be into it with yourself. And to be yourself is the fruit of love.

[16:59]

And after not too long in the dark spirit, less than a week, the head monk told me that he felt like he was in prison. The person who's training as the head monk for the dark spirit told me he felt like he was in prison. And I said to him, please be a model prisoner. In other words, in prison, please be yourself. Be kind enough to yourself to let yourself be who you are. I'll let you be who you are. I'll support you. And also, be loving to your inmates, to your co-convicts. Be a model prison. Accept that you're in prison. Don't complain about it. Love all your comrades. And he's been doing a good job accepting a situation and loving his comrades heavily.

[18:20]

I wonder, do you still feel like you're in prison? No? So my second talk and first talk, which is about how we're all supporting each other and loving each other, was about the Green Dragon Cave. About what it's like to go down into and face up to what it's like to be in prison. And finally realized that If you can really completely face what it's like to be in prison, you're really facing what it's like to be you in prison. You really become intimate with this prisoner. You're a model prisoner, and you're released.

[19:30]

So then I started to emphasize love in my teaching during the practice period because I wanted to help people become intimate with their prison situation, to become intimate with what it's like to be a human being, to feel limitation, to feel separation, to feel anxiety, but give ourselves enough love and give others enough love so that we can face the situation. So I continue today to talk about love. And I would like to share with you something that Dostoevsky said. And that was something like, of course, I think he wrote it in Russian, actually.

[20:36]

So this is a translation. That one must love life. before one can love its meaning. And Camus read that and said, yeah, and if love of life disappears, then no meaning in solace. One must, I would say, one must love life in order to understand it. One must love life in order to, before one can love the truth of life. And if you don't love life, even if the truth came to you, it wouldn't work for you. Because if you don't love life, you're not home. And when the truth comes to save you, to set you free, you're not there.

[21:40]

It doesn't count. Bodhisattvas, the beings who aspire to Buddhahood in order to help all beings, Bodhisattvas who are those who are on the path to realize Buddhahood, they vow to be intimate with every single living and non-living thing in the universe. What I mean by love is intimacy with life in all its manifestations.

[22:40]

Each particular one. Be intimate with it. These days, and also I hear in Zen Center, a lot of people say that they didn't get the love that they wanted or needed in this life so far. Or maybe now they're getting the love they need, like there were times when they did. Or maybe there were times when they did, but they don't anymore. People seem to feel a shortage of love often. Not enough love coming to them.

[23:43]

Not enough love coming to them. Or even they might say, I don't give enough love. Or they might say, I don't give enough love. I don't love thoroughly. I'm not loved thoroughly. Or I wasn't, so I don't know how. And, you know, somebody said that to me recently about feeling that he wasn't, he hadn't been loved. Feeling that she hadn't been loved. And I thought, yeah, maybe you weren't loved. I don't know. Maybe nobody loved you. Well, maybe I said that, but of course I don't really believe that. But I think it's more like, I think it certainly is true that sometimes that he or she did not feel that she had received the love that she wanted or needed.

[24:46]

I think that's true, that she didn't feel that. But what came to my mind was, you know, I even don't know if the love wasn't given to you. I don't know. I don't know. But I think that even if it was, the funny thing is that even when it is given to us, sometimes we can't stand it. Sometimes when our dream comes true and the love we've been waiting for shows up, arrives right in our face, we can't stand it. We can't face it. That seems to be sometimes the case. How do you face this love? How can you tolerate it?

[25:48]

It's hard for a lot of us. We don't have so much practice. Some of us. A few weeks ago I was with someone in a group of people and she asked for some help. And the people in the group reached out to her and tried to help her. All of them tried to help her in the way that she asked for help. And I talked to her a few weeks later, and I said, you know when you asked for help that day, did you feel that you got the help that you wanted? And she said, yes. And she said, but you know, it was hard to tolerate the kindness. And I said, tolerate? Tolerate? Tolerate kindness?

[26:59]

And then she said, change it to face the kindness. It's more like tolerate the way you feel when you get it. Not really tolerate the kindness. You can feel the kindness. That's how you feel it. It's hard to tolerate the way you feel. It's hard to tolerate the way you feel. To face the kindness, I feel like you feel when you feel it coming. And she said, I felt embarrassed. And look up the word embarrassed, and embarrassed means the definition, the first definition is to be caused to feel self-conscious. If we don't understand ourselves really well, one of the things that kindness does for us is often makes us feel ourself. We dare to feel it, and sometimes it's a surprise because we haven't been checked into ourself for a little while. And the kindness wakes us up to that we have a self, and we feel awkward. We've got the self not to deal with. It's embarrassing. Also, the other day, I looked at a person.

[28:10]

I was in, again, I was in a group, and I looked at this person, and she said to me, shut up. I didn't say anything, I just looked at her, and she said, shut up. Some people are nodding their heads. Okay. And then a few weeks later, she said to me, I want to apologize for saying shut up. And I said, what does shut up mean? When she said shut up, I didn't bother at all because I knew what it meant. I said, what did it mean? And she said, it meant, don't look at me like that. And I said, what does it mean, don't look at me like that? I said, like what?

[29:14]

And she said, like you love me. Like I'm beautiful. Don't look at me like that. Shut up. It's just what we want. When we get it, we say shut up. It's such a shock sometimes. We go, shut up, or we say, oh, you're so beautiful today. And what do we say? Oh, go on. Oh, go on. Say, get out of here. Get out of here. Oh, get out of here. Oh, get out of here. Oh, don't say that. Don't say that. Sometimes we even actually hit the person with And then we say, why did I do that? Why did I hit somebody when they loved me? Just as we're getting close, really, really close, as we're starting to close that gap, that illusion that we're separate, as we get close to it,

[30:33]

The last little bit is almost like war. It's almost like hate. That last step in love, in the thoroughness of love, we react to sometimes in a strange way of saying, get out of here. Bodhisattva's vow to keep trying, even though it gets that hard, when you give yourself completely, and when someone else is giving themselves, but you give yourself almost completely, and someone gives themselves almost completely, you veer away from that and vow to come back and try again. This kind of love has a quality of equanimity, which includes that when you blow it, you accept that you blow it.

[32:00]

And this is hard for people. I want to say it over and over and over and over until until I'm done saying it over and over. And that is, one way to put it is, is it possible to be intimate with someone without attachment? I say, yes, yes. Is it difficult to be intimate with someone without attachment? Yes. Is it possible? Yes. As a matter of fact, real intimacy is not attachment. On the way to this kind of intimacy, attachment probably arises. When you take care of something, a rock even, or a plant, or a dog, or a person, or yourself, take care of yourself for a long time, you start to think you own it.

[33:18]

It's natural. It's a little sloppy, but it's natural. Is it possible to take care of something without thinking you own it? Yes. Is it difficult? Yes. After the last time I talked about this here, someone came up to me afterwards and said, what if you love someone and you love someone and you give to someone and you love someone and, you know, you don't get a response? What if you hope for someone to be well and happy and they stay miserable? This kind of love is not to get an effect. It has no gaining idea in it.

[34:22]

It is to give love to what's happening now. It is to be intimate with what's happening, and that's it. It's not to be intimate in order to get something. It's not to be intimate with something to own it later. And another way to say this is that it is possible to look at a person or a plant or an animal or a landscape and wish it the very best without wishing it was different. It is possible to look at a sick person physically or emotionally or spiritually sick person and wish that they would be healthy without wishing that they would be different. And I even say, if you wish that someone who is sick is healthy and you wish that they were different, I say that that wishing that they were different is healthy.

[35:33]

not intimacy, and undermines the process of love. As a teacher, you can look at a student and you can see a student studying something. And you can see that they want to study something and want to learn something. And you can want to help them learn it. And you can know that it would be an inconceivable joy if you could be there in the neighborhood when they learn it. And you want that joy for yourself, and you want that joy for them. You want them to learn this thing. But not even because they'll know it, but because it's so wonderful to learn. And you want to be part of that wonderful process called learning. Now, if it's about learning who they are, well, unbelievably wonderful.

[36:38]

A Buddhist teacher wants the student to learn who they are. A Buddhist teacher needs the student to learn who she is. They need them to learn this. And when they learn this, no greater joy in life. But the way the student is now is already beautiful, And if they never learn this thing, the love for them will not deteriorate or decrease at all. And the student really needs to know that somebody, as a matter of fact, somebody who wants them to learn this will love them forever even if they don't learn this. And that even this, somehow the love will not even grow, will not increase when they learn it.

[37:46]

Because it can't increase. It's already complete. And this love, however, can blossom and evolve into learning. You don't love the person more after they learn this. Buddha does not love us more after we're enlightened and before we're enlightened. Buddha wants us, more than anything, to be enlightened. But Buddha is patient with us. And we have to, some of us, are seeing how long Buddha can wait. We're testing Buddha to see, will Buddha hang in there if I take a really long time to understand who I am? And the answer is yes. The Buddhas will never lose patience with us. And we need to know that. We need to know that. Because we want to be like that, too. That we can love the world as long as it needs to wake up.

[38:57]

Now, it's true Buddhists sometimes play a few tricks. Like sometimes they say, I'm going to die now. Bye-bye. A little trick to get us to take the medicine. But when they die, it's not because they don't love us, it's because they do love us. They die so that those of us who won't practice unless they're dead will start to practice. So they give us their death to get us to practice. They give us their life, their death, their life, their death, their life, death. whatever, they give it all to us so that we will learn. So we will wake up and do the wonderful thing that they want us to do. But they don't hold it against us if we don't. It's enough, you know. We get our, you know, the fact of not being enlightened is enough as it is. No Buddha doesn't have to make it more difficult. That Buddha, in a way, is trying to make it not exactly easier, but to try to help us learn how to feel what it's like not to be a light.

[40:14]

In other words, to be a model prisoner. In other words, it's okay to sling in prison. It's okay to love your inmates. It's okay to love the warden. It's okay to love in prison. Bodhisattvas enter prison. They voluntarily enter prison in order to save all prisoners. And it is a joy for them to love the prisoners. Baby Buddhas love the prisoners. They go into the prison to save the prisoners, to become intimate with the prisoners, and to help the prisoners become intimate with each other.

[41:14]

That's the process. Prison of the delusion that we're suckered. So anyway, in Zen, if you look at the sort of stereotypic Zen talks, they don't talk about love so much. They don't talk about love. And so I'm talking about love. I'm talking about love. I don't know what it is, by the way. I don't know what it is, by the way. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. But I'm talking about it. But I'm talking about it. I don't know what it is, but I'm telling you nobody else knows what it is either. Nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows what it is. But it's going on. But it's going on all the time. I'm sure of it. Even though I don't know what it is. Even though I don't know what it is. So you tell me something that Zen doesn't talk about.

[42:24]

Zen doesn't talk about. And I'll talk about it. I'll talk about it. One time I... Sorry if you've all heard this story before, but anyway, one time... One time I... I was in a sashi. I was in a sashi. And tonight we're starting a sesshin here, a seven-day sesshin. One time I was in the middle of a sesshin, and a Zen teacher in Minnesota was supposed to do a wedding ceremony in Minnesota. I was in a sesshin in San Francisco, downtown San Francisco, sesshin, sitting in meditation for seven days. So there I was, one of the leaders of the sesshin. So this teacher in Minnesota called me and asked me if I could do this wedding because he was sick, really sick. He couldn't do it. So he asked me to fly to Minnesota to do the wedding.

[43:25]

So on the fifth or the sixth day of Seshid, I flew from San Francisco to Minnesota to do this wedding. And then I came back the night of the sixth day of a seven-day Seshid. When I got back, People told me about this thing that happened while I was gone. And what happened was that in a San Francisco Zen Center meditation hall, like this one, next to the meditation hall is an alley and also a street. And in the alley, people were playing music really loudly during the silent meditation retreat. So the people were trying to sit there with this loud music, particularly Aretha Franklin. I-E-S-T-E-C-T. I-E-S-T-E-C-T. Really loud, you know, hour after hour loud music, you know.

[44:26]

And these Zen students are trying to sit there, you know, trying to calm, be so calm that there's music blasting in their ears. Blasting in their ears. When I got home, they told me about this. And they said, if Eson was here, Eson Dorsey is one of our priests who's also gay, he could go next door and talk to those guys because the guys who lived back there were gay. Most of the street was gay men living on the street in the alley behind Zen Center. They said if Isan was here, he could have gone and talked to them and got them to turn it off. Right? They're gay, he's gay, the gay guy can get the gay guys to turn it off, right? That's what people said. So here I am, I'm not gay, so I can't do that, right?

[45:30]

So I said, oh yeah? Right. Isan could do it, huh? Isan could do it, huh? So I said, let's see what happens tomorrow. Let's see what happens tomorrow. So in the early morning period, you know, starting at 5, 5 o'clock in the morning, we're sitting and we had breakfast, and there was no music. No music. So that was that. Then I came back after breakfast, and there was music. There was music. So I went next door. And I went up to the house where this music was blasting. I knocked on the door, you know, gently. And then finally I said loudly, hello, is anybody there?

[46:35]

And the guy said, I am. And I said, could you please turn the music down? He said, I'd be happy to, but it's not my record. That was back in the days of record. He said, the guy who was a record player and he left the street. I said, okay, and I started walking up the street. And then I saw coming down the street, the guy. It was a movement of what we call mutual recognition. Because we were both wearing black dresses. But he saw me, and I saw him.

[47:38]

But he saw me, and I saw him. It was long at first sight. It was long at first sight. The only difference between our outfits was that he had a dog collar on with big studs. I had no hair. And I had no hair. And he had a lot. And I said, would you please turn your left leg off? Turn it down. He said, I'm not going to turn it down. I'll turn it off. And he's doing a big shift. So that's what he did. That's what he did. And he went and turned the record off. And I went back to the agenda and told the military what happened. And they thought it would be very, very, very important. Therefore, we sing.

[48:42]

Therefore, we sing. And based on his teaching of the fact that we sing because we don't sing, a choral group has been born, and these people don't sing either. And today these non-singers are going to sing to you a song. Are you ready? Good. Please listen carefully.

[49:46]

Please listen carefully, everyone. The name of this group is Dharmatons. If you can't read this from a distance, it's also to mention the life unit in train. The more I read the papers, the less I comprehend.

[51:01]

This world and all its papers, how well will it end? Nothing seems to be right, but that isn't our thing. We've got something permanent, I mean in the way we dance. Very clear, for love is here to stay. Not for a year, whatever end of day. But with you, I hope to come home and be there. Thank you for watching. Thank you. Would you like to sing it with us?

[52:32]

Thank you. Thank you. You know, when I first did it, when I first did it, when I first did it, I had to get up like this. I was like, oh, why can't I do this? Why can't I do this? Why can't I do this? Why can't I do this? I don't think that's what you're talking about. I think that's what you're talking about. I don't think that's what you're talking about.

[54:03]

And I want to thank you for leading us in this journey. Thank you. [...] We need to know what are the problems we've got to work with. [...] I think that is one of the best. I don't think it's possible to make it happen. I think that it's possible.

[55:27]

I don't think it's possible to do it again. I don't think it's possible to do it again. I don't think it's possible to do it again. Thank you. It's not supposed to produce a result, although it will. It will have a result. It will have a result. But if you're doing it to produce a result, that's not love. But the first time, maybe, I don't know. I don't know how you did it the first time. I don't know if you did it to produce a result.

[56:28]

Yeah. Can you go visit a sick person in the hospital or in a physical or spiritual, psychological sickness? And if you can go there with the purpose of having a good time, that's your reason for going? if you go to create affinity or enjoyment this I would suggest is going to be an unreliable mode of love love is more like you take your brother's hand and you walk into birth and death with him you don't take his hand to not go someplace or to go to some other place you take his hand to take his hand

[57:33]

If you take his hand to get something, that's just more power, more manipulation. So to talk to him just for this conversation is love. To talk to get some effect is just more power and brokering. It sounds like that's probably what you're up to. Which is quite common for having a conversation to get an effect, to get the conversation to go a certain way, rather than having a conversation to have a conversation. Love is in the realm beyond success and failure.

[58:39]

That's why it's here to stay. And there already is affinity. If you try to make affinity based on that you don't think there is affinity. If you think there's not affinity, well, is that true? If it's true, you're not going to be able to make something be different. There is affinity, however. What you have to do is you wake up to it. How do you wake up to it? You enjoy it. When you're talking to somebody, if you just talk to him to talk to him, you're enjoying the fact that you have affinity. In fact, in this whole universe, you're talking to this person. Talk about affinity. My God, you know. How did that all get worked out? You're not talking to an ant. You're not talking to a gorilla. You're not talking to a rock. You're not by yourself. You're not talking to six other billion people. You're talking to this person. This is called affinity. If you try to make affinity, you're saying, okay, reality, take a walk.

[59:40]

Move over. We're going to have something else going on here called affinity. My kind of affinity. The latest issue of The New Yorker is a cartoon issue, and one of the cartoons is this guy's talking to this woman, and he says, I have no problem with intimacy. I just like to do it alone. But you're not the only one who approaches, you know, friendship and love this way of, like, I'll love you so that we'll have a nice time, or I'll love you so that you'll love me, or I'll love you so that... Yeah, right, good, good. Like, you love somebody in order to get them to stop being upset. And they'll keep... Some people, especially to your brother or your son or something, they'll keep you being upset until you stop trying to get them to be upset. Yeah, or until you stop trying to stop stopping them from being upset and so on.

[60:49]

When you really feel, you know, you're upset, yes, I'm here and I'll be with you forever and that's it. If you stop being upset, I'll be with you. If you continue to be upset, I'll be with you. I'm your brother and that's it. Including if you change into my sister. That's it. I'm not trying to get anything out of this relationship. I'm just having this relationship. That's all. That's it. And if you keep being upset, you keep loving him. You keep being his brother because, in fact, you are. And if you want to talk to him as a way of being with him, fine. You want to think of him, fine. Whatever you want. It should be the way you really want to be with him. If you don't want to talk to him, then Then why don't you just admit you don't want to talk to him?

[61:55]

But to talk to him to get him to stop being upset is saying, I don't respect you. Stop being this way. Get over it. Get a life, et cetera. No. Like some people even come and they say, some people come and tell me, you know, I'm really terrible, I'm really a jerk, I'm really a criminal, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, sometimes I look at them and I say, gee, you don't look like criminals. You don't look that bad. But they really like it when they say, yeah, you really are a criminal. I see that. They say, oh, you get the picture. Good. Don't try to talk people out of what they are. That's not love. Love is to be with what they are. So, you know, I'd like you to sit up straight, but if you don't, it's okay. Yeah, fine. Just stay there, you know. When I ask you to sit up straight, I'm not doing that to get you to sit up straight. I'm doing that so you know I want you to sit up straight.

[62:56]

You got that? That's it. That's enough for me. Okay? It's so simple. You're a little bit too smart for Zen. It's just so simple, you know, you can't believe it's that simple. Does he really mean that? He keeps saying that over and over. And so, can you keep testing me to see if I'm really serious about this? Oh, yeah. You can also say, no, you can say, well, if you're there, you are there to take it, right? If they're being mean to you, in fact, you can say, they kind of get the idea that you're there to be mean to them because they're being mean to you, right? But you can mention that that's what's going on, and then you can say, and I don't like it, and I'm going bye-bye now. You can go bye-bye. Well, if you're doing it because you want to show them what you're... Now, watch what Rene is going to do now.

[64:03]

See Rene walking? This is a walking Rene. A walking Rene. Do you see me going away? And I may come back to visit you again, but if you are mean to me again, I'll probably walk away again because I'm not going to stand here and help you be mean to me. What I'm going to help you do is be separate from me when you're mean to me. I'll help you do that. I'll help you do that. Actually, now I'm helping you be mean to me because I'm here and you're being mean to me. But, you know, I'm going to take a walk now. Yeah. It's not that they don't want your love. They want your love in the form of taking a walk. They do want your mother, your father. They do want your love. But the way they want it is in a way that shows them who you are. That's what they want. That's what they need. They need you.

[65:04]

So you need to tell them where you're at. Namely. I don't like this. Okay? And then you start with that. And you say, and if it continues, I feel I want to go. That's the daughter you got. That's the real daughter. That's what they need. They need the real daughter. That's their life. You are their life. The real you is their life. Give them that. That is love. And who they are is how they give you their love too. Even though the way they give it is, you say, I don't like it. When somebody gives you their love, sometimes you don't like it. That's who you are. So you tell them that. It's wonderful. My mother is mean to my sister. She's not mean to my brother or me. She's mean to my sister. My brother is nice to her, very nice to her. But as soon as she starts being mean to my brother, my brother says, Bye, Mom.

[66:09]

My brother lives right nearby her and visits her a lot and takes really good care of her. But when she's mean or rude to my brother, my brother just says, see you later, Mom, just walks out the door. He comes back the next day usually, but if she starts off that way, he walks away. So she's learned not to be mean to my brother because she likes her dear son to come to visit her every day, actually Monday through Friday. Now with me, when I come to visit from California, she lives in Minnesota, it's like, you know, Here he is. Here he is. So she said, last time I was visiting, she said, one thing nice about you visiting for such short visits is it doesn't get boring. I'm going to say hello as soon as you arrive. She doesn't have time to be mean to me. But my sister adores my mother. I mean, if you look at my sister, you see my sister's face when she's talking to my mother, it's like she's looking at God.

[67:11]

And my mother, you know, has problems with that in various ways and says things to my sister like, I don't like that dress and your hair is blah, blah. It hurts my sister. And she thinks she should be able to stay there and take it, and she takes it and takes it, but then finally she just collapses. So recently, she stayed away from my mother for six months. And my mother called me and said, I don't know what's going on with Susan. She's not around. I said, did you ask her? She said, I asked her. She said, there's no problem. She won't tell me. Anyway, she kind of got the picture. And my sister wasn't going to even tell her what the problem was because that hurts. That's dangerous, too. So anyway, my mother now learns that she has to be nice to my sister or my sister's going to go away for a while. And she doesn't want that. So she just isn't mean to my sister anymore much. Because my sister now just said bye to my brother. But my mother knows my sister adores her, and my sister does adore her.

[68:14]

But I think my mother has various problems, and also she just can't, sometimes she gets frustrated. Sometimes it's irritating to have someone love you that much. It's just like, how do I love him back? It's kind of like, yeah, get out of here. Shut up. Anyway, but that hurts my sister. So they're working it out. There's no lack of love. My mother's so happy with my sister and my brother and her oldest son, me. She's so happy with her kids. She feels like, you know, The last time I visited, you know, like you said, well, Monday nights about you visiting is not boring at that time. My sister was there. My brother was there. It was like a... What is it? It was a May... It was a May morning. It was a sunny day in May in Minnesota. We were sitting outside my mother's little apartment. All the four of us. And... We were just there, you know?

[69:20]

And nobody was, like, veering away from it. You know, I almost... What you usually would say in a situation like that is everybody was on their best behavior, but it wasn't really like that. It wasn't like we were all trying to be careful to not do anything stupid. It was more... It was closer than that. It was like we were just all there. And nobody was fooling around or saying what they didn't mean. And we were talking, but it was almost like we were silent together. And we all kind of knew what was going on, but nobody said anything. And I just felt like we finally got there as a family. And my mother said, I have the most wonderful kids. I can die in peace. And later when I called back to talk to my brother, my brother said, Nobody had said anything about it. My brother said, Mother was changed by that time we had together.

[70:22]

She's been different since. And I didn't know that he knew what was going on. We didn't say anything, but I realized that everybody knew and nobody was saying anything. We just were there. But that's after lots of fooling around over many years, you know? You're welcome. Anything you say we do in Zen, say we sit, meditate. Anything you say we do, we don't do that. Anything you say we don't do, then we do. In other words, you can say what you want about me or about Buddhism or whatever, you can say it, but also we've got to tell you that that's not it. There's no category that's really going to contain it. So, when it comes to a certain level of reality, we say, you know, singing, like in some scriptures it says, singing, singing, has no singing, or is not singing.

[71:41]

The Buddha teaches singing. The way the Buddha teaches what singing is, is that singing is not singing. Therefore, we call that singing. For beauty? The basic thing about beauty is that it's not beautiful. That's what beauty is about. It's not beautiful. Do you understand? You don't? Does it? Does it? I can call something that in many eyes, the ugly, beautiful, beautiful, right? Well, there you said it, you see. You can call something that's ugly to somebody else beautiful to you. What beauty really is, is something that transcends your idea of beauty, not to mention mine.

[72:52]

You can call something beautiful, that's fine. But Suzuki Roshi said, when you call the flower beautiful, that's a sin. And I heard him say that and I thought, what? When I look at you and then I say you're beautiful, I can say you're beautiful. But if I really feel that way, you know, and I say that and think that I'm saying what you are, it's an insult to you. I have to tell you you're beautiful maybe. But in my heart, I feel like what I'm saying is not it. And the reason why I have to say it, the reason why I have to say it to you is because you're not beautiful. You're almost there. You just got to let go and realize that when beauty happens to you, it's not because something fell into the category of beauty.

[73:54]

It's that you're facing, you know, a world that doesn't. you know, that does not come into your categories of control, for your controlling categories. Something breaks through that. Something breaks through your sense of, like, making things be a certain way. You can't help it. You just... Be open to the world beyond your control, and that's beauty. And you may call it beautiful, but that's a cop-out from what you just saw. Now, if you see somebody and they don't know that what they are is beyond everybody's category, including categories of beauty, you might tell them that, that they have just blown your mind, opened your life up. showing you the truth.

[74:58]

So you tell them it's beautiful, that they're beautiful. You might say that, but in your mind you don't feel like, oh, they're beautiful. You more feel like, I'm alive because of you. Therefore I say you're beautiful. I want you to know that. You should know that. So it sounds to me like what you're saying is giving something a word for a description. This is a ministerial Yes. It's a minuscule handle. I'm always being described, but less, quite a bit less than the minuscule handle. And when it comes to beauty, that's the one time when you should, you know, open your hands and leave it alone. If you want to do anything with your hands, put them together and bow to it. Or, you know, blow kisses or something. But don't try to grab it. I shouldn't say don't try to grab it because I'm telling you what to do, but realize if you try to grab it, you're diminishing it. It's kind of like when we see beauty, we feel powerless.

[76:04]

You don't feel powerful when you see beauty. You feel soft. You feel light. You don't have to get in control. But if you're used to being in control, you feel scared because you're not in control anymore. You feel vulnerable to this beauty. So then you want to say, okay, I can get some handle on this. I'll call it beautiful. And a lot of great things happen with people who are basically trying to cope with duty. They don't want to just sit there and feel it. So they fight back with art. Because they can't just sit there and, like, feel it, so they, like, draw a picture of it or something or take a photograph or call it to write a poem. It's a way to cope with it. Which, you know, like, thanks for the poetry. But it's not so good for them sometimes. Because the poetry is kind of a way to keep it at a distance sometimes. Because they go into shock.

[77:05]

Like Byron, you know? He wrote poetry because he couldn't cope with the world, because it was so beautiful to him. It was like a wreck all the time. He had beauty coming at him from all directions. Poetry was like giving him a little distance. So we're saying, thank you. I'm glad you did it that way, rather than just becoming an alcoholic or something. There is beauty, but the main thing it is, all the things that beauty is, the one thing you can say is that basically the most true thing about it is it's not beautiful. That's the way beauty really is. It's like you're done for in the beauty department. It can be anything else but beautiful, and that's good. But when you take your self-imposed idea of beauty and you put it on beauty, you kill beauty.

[77:58]

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