one of our members here today
name is ted brown and he was sitting in the other room their tours the back i think
more or less shaved head
he do
he practiced attempts and long time ago and recently came to me and said that he wanted to start practicing again
i heard him talking on the telephone earlier today about his mother and i asked him i asked him what's going on and he says mother took his mother to
emergency room today
and she was short of breath and they took and she stayed
and he said well basically she's in good hands and now
ah just got a call from his wife saying that
she seems to die so he left early
quite critical condition she's in she's become in critical condition
and i'm so we here we here we are you know
we're living in birth and death
and we have the opportunity to vowed to embrace his disdain all beings
in birth and death
the stay close to them
basically stay close to them
and not do anything
which is in other words to stay close and teach the dharma

one of the ways to do nothing is to come to know about and set for a day
and we we did that today we've been doing that now
have i know about for about eight years we've been practicing here
hand
on january
third will have another one day sitting you're welcome to come again and said
at the end of the day there is an optional ceremony
you know and
i do not prefer that anybody do the ceremony
or not to the ceremony i just welcome you if you'd like to in if you do not wish to do it
you are totally supported
do not do it safely some of you may wish may not be able to come to the sitting and just want to come to the ceremony some of you may wanna come to the sitting and leave at the time of the ceremony are just one witness it
and some of you may wish to come to the sitting and also do the ceremony and the ceremony is an opportunity to
formerly invite me and encouraged me to live another year
to play the game a being a teacher for another year
and to yeah i can ask me to encourage me to do that and to run
asked to be able to practice with me
for know dear
and at the ceremony is usually done between
priests and their teacher but i'm experimenting with opening this to we call householder bodhisattvas or z k bodhisattvas
so you're welcome to do that if you like

yeah maybe you would and one day sitting have a little break will recess and then have the ceremony at the end the day like five o'clock
for some reason or other i feel joyful practicing here with you
and i feel grateful to you too
for for your great
warm wholehearted practice here
huh
and i hope to this package place can be a resource
ah
for many
here is to come
although it is in a state of constant
ah deterioration

he is anything you wish to express this this evening
yes
i'd like to offer an appreciation for your kitchen said
cause of this year
the trajectory of those teachings
the face it wholeheartedly dancing with delusion today
does to share that my intention to believe i shared last january this year was to study in darkened
you're teaching says greatly
that
you're so welcome
yes
to offer
my gratitude and i'm sure everybody's got to just for you
you're welcome
and you can offer other people's gratitude to
people who can't be there
you do that said
you are again traditionally are you can send in the mail ah the statement that's so the ceremony involves making some often it is a japanese in the japanese tradition offering mochi rice
ice which is the traditional new year's rice piccolo peace and mochi put it on the altar for three days make the offering and pray for the well for the health of the teachers
and then and then at after three days
i think maybe start on new year usually but it can be before if if you can have the ceremony on new years a bit before new year's by this case you can start on new year's make an offering
offer various prayers in relationship to their offering and then send it in the mail that's my little pieces good
send an email with your ex and with your written statement be written now
statement
so it can be done from a distance
and if people wanted want to have as in our face to face ceremony we could find some time maybe later in the year
but i have i i have had the experience of
a priests who are living living far away sending me these things in the mail
yes two questions one how much he usually present
well you know you know what she's like
he has kind of its kind of sticky and was a presented usually usually a rabbit or in paper in white paper usually rapid and white paper
little bit
an offer it but sometimes people offer i'm you know if if if it's if it's not going to mail you can offer
low mound of it
sunday don't have to be a tiny you can you could be actually like a
it can be quite an a sizable offering on your altar but in the mail usually people just central jenny the like little wafer of it or something
and have another question prompted by some your discussion this morning
would you define the term dharma as applied to a phenomenon
well that's one of the meanings of dharma is phenomena yes so does that mean
phenomena
unreconstructed in silence or doesn't mean phenomena subject to cognition popularized
oh you you know for the most part it means ah
objects of perception that means things that depend on mental amputation that that's that means existing things not not not potential or
why not the probability of gangs but things that have been sort of kinda precipitated by by cognition into a can like entity
so like pain and pleasure and confusion and colors and smells and ideas all these kinds of desert deserve dharmas in the sense of phenomena
all phenomena or objects of since census
so it's this is the diamond a sense of all the objects of of knowing to the senses and through the mind consciousness

yes

hmm it couldn't be here i mean i usually like the way the festival his way that would bring these statements
which are most people statements are pretty similar or almost almost identical they offer these pieces of writing
then we we bought to each other three times and then we usually set
together and at that time sometimes people say something
but we don't usually go through each person's stay in their intention for the year
however ah i sometimes when i have time when i'm around i sometimes me with the people each one of them briefly at the end of the year
and here their intention for the next year but if you'd like to individually meat and express your intention for the year that can be in a later event but it wouldn't be part that ceremony
but the sit during the ceremony there atmel after we do the prostrations to each other we usually to sit for a little while
in silence and stillness
to observe
the living enlightenment
and then people sometimes get a little excited and say something
by the way our
window is speaking of the of the working
the dynamic working of the a process of the middle way and he says all this however does not appear within perception because it is unconstructive anise and stillness
it is immediate realization the character for stillness that character also means silence but it's usually translated as stillness
but get the the character means both silent and still
i'm constructed stillness and silence that's where
enlightenment is doing its thing

pardon because you say the translation of the clear
the calligraphy calligraphy says
first two characters are first characters assembly
or a gathering of living of the of living or a birth which means sent in pigs the next character means nature or condition
so the nature of sentient beings and nature of living beings the next two characters
can be translated as immediately is
immediately is or namely
ah in the next two characters mean body enlightenment
it's it's bodhi at last characters like therefore or in consequence
so can be translated as
the condition of being sentient being or the condition of a sentient being namely enlightenment
therefore
the condition of a sentient being immediately is
awakening to the nature of sentient beings
itself is
immediately is awakening
pardon
i found it in the what's called the tire show dizer que
which is a collection of all the scriptures and it's a my honest sutra which i would translate as the non activity of all phenomena
the non the non the non action but this isn't this is this deception is about the on the non-moving of all things
it's about
and the non-moving of a sentient being
the non-moving of sentient being as a sentient being being a sentient big that's what we mean by not moving and that is that not moving sentient being is attaining enlightenment
this sector has been
just translated by very partially
but you know someday i might be translated completely and
in the meantime please be content with little snippets here and there
pieces on the altar
this is this yeah this is a literal transit your of a literal copying of the text
of this chinese text and i took
yeah there's enough available for everybody
and someone reminded me of something i said a while ago
and it was that her one time i was talking to someone
and someone i
really appreciated but i was feeling a kind of out aching in my heart area to my heart chakra
anaconda and eighteen as and deadness and dustin us
in my heart
and ah
i kind of thought this person new
that i loved him
but i felt like i felt like
i felt like i needed a that that my heart needed for me to say
i love you
so
i asked if i could say something and she said yes and i said i love you
and she said
i hope you don't say that to everybody
but not because she didn't
want me to feel that way for everybody but she thought some people should not be told that
and then i noticed that my heart still didn't was still somewhat blocked
so i said
thank you
and i felt it was a little more open but still a little blocked
so then i said i'm sorry
and that seem to open it last three
i love you
thank you
i'm sorry

may i intentionally
the extend to a the embrace a person
the way
the news on the number was
to save them the illusion is are inexhaustible
how doing them dime on the southbound bus
to to them buddha as raids on is massimo
hi to be comics
oh i forgot to mention one other thing about the ceremony and that is when bought to each other three times
and then
we have the buying class priest to then we fold up are buying gloss and put them on the ground and then we say happy new year
and do one more bow