I traveled all the way from the west side of the San Francisco Bay to come here and not move. It struck me that I was very happy to be here and it was like going to my own funeral. Where I would be living at my own funeral. I propose to you, you heard me maybe, that enlightenment is living in silence and stillness.

[01:41]

And you can hear that like somebody is living in Berkeley, like enlightenment is living in silence and stillness. But the other way to hear it is, living in silence and stillness is enlightenment. Enlightenment is living in silence and stillness. I think that's better, a little bit better than saying enlightenment lives in silence and stillness. Do you see the difference? It's okay to say enlightenment lives in silence and stillness, it's true. I think, in a way, I think enlightenment is living in silence and stillness, maybe it's

[02:47]

less dualistic. Do you see how it's a little less dualistic? Rachel, did you see that? In one case you say enlightenment lives in silence and stillness, like there's an enlightenment which is in the silence and stillness, the other way is enlightenment is living in silence and stillness. The actual living in silence and stillness is enlightenment, they're not two things. And then there's a relationship between the stillness, and another thing is that enlightenment is basically to be still.

[03:47]

Enlightenment is basically to not move. For a sentient being is an unenlightened being. There's Buddhas and sentient beings, the enlightened and the unenlightened. And among the unenlightened, some of the unenlightened are bodhisattvas. So, a sentient being who is a bodhisattva, for them to be enlightened is simply not to move. And also be silent. And then another way to say it is, for a living being to just be a living being is enlightenment.

[05:01]

I hear myself say these things, and I watch myself think these things, and I also think, this is awesome. Awesome maybe in the contemporary sense of awesome, but for me, definitely awesome in the more ancient and traditional meaning of awesome, or amazing. The condition of a living being being a living being is enlightenment. And the condition of a living being being a living being is not moving.

[06:24]

Living beings move, as you know, and they talk, but the condition of being a living being, who does various things, being that way, period, is enlightenment. It occurs to me that it might occur to you that a Buddha being a Buddha is enlightenment. Or an enlightened being, like a Buddha, being an enlightened being, that would be enlightenment. Some people might think, no, I think the Buddha has enlightenment. The Buddha is enlightened, which is true. But I would emphasize here that the Buddha being Buddha is enlightenment.

[07:27]

But it's the same for non-Buddhas. When non-Buddhas, sentient beings, are themselves, just like a Buddha is herself, it's the same enlightenment. Of course, living beings have a, it's really hard for living beings to be living beings. They have a real hard time. Living beings are good at refusing to be living beings. They're still living beings, but their refusal, their attempt to get away from it, counts. However, even when a living being is trying to get away from being a living being, like last week, even when a living being is trying not to be petty, they're petty.

[08:31]

And even when they're trying to be grandiose or great, they're petty. But the fact of them being that way is not moving, and that's their enlightenment. And it's the same enlightenment. It's equal to the enlightenment of the Buddhas. There's quite a bit to say about this simple thing. This simple thing. For you not to move is enlightenment. For you to be you, the condition of you being you, you're not enlightenment, but you being you is enlightenment. Your movement is not your enlightenment. Your being unmoving in what you are, including your movement,

[09:41]

is enlightenment for a living being. One of the additional things we can say is that all phenomena are basically unmoving. All phenomena are basically in a state of peace, are nirvanic, unmoving. Stillness is not made. So an additional comment here would be, enlightenment is living in unmade, uncreated stillness and silence. You don't have to make, as I think I said last week, you don't have to make stillness, you don't make stillness,

[10:46]

you don't have to make silence. When we do the ceremony of sitting still, in a sense, we make the ceremony of sitting still. The ceremony of sitting still realizes the unmade sitting still. When you're doing the ceremony of sitting still, that ceremony, you're doing that ceremony and being that ceremony, and your condition of being that way is enlightenment, and there's no movement in that. The ceremony is made, but what is realized by the ceremony is unmade, unmade stillness and silence. That's a little amplification on the statement that enlightenment is living in stillness. Enlightenment lives in unconstructed stillness. And the enlightenment which lives in unconstructed stillness

[11:53]

is infinitely dynamic and meaningful and has a boundless function to benefit beings. The most beneficial life lives in this way. So this is great dynamic function living in stillness, and unconstructed stillness. Any response? Tell me your name again. Cain? As in the mutiny? No. As in Abel? As in what? As with a K? Cain? King? King. King as in monarch?

[12:54]

King. Yes, king. Does this mean that movement is delusion? Yep. Movement is delusion. However, the condition of delusion being delusion is enlightenment. The condition of delusion being delusion is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not enlightenment about enlightenment. Enlightenment is about delusion. And it's not just that you are enlightened about delusion,

[13:57]

it's that the delusion is delusion, and you're with that. You're not moving away from delusion being delusion. Sentient beings are almost synonym for delusion. Delusion is not like... Dead people aren't really deluded. They used to be. And probably will be soon, again, in a way. But living beings and sentient beings and delusion are kind of the same thing. But not completely, because... Yeah, well, yeah, they are completely. But for them being that way is enlightenment. And those who understand delusion as delusion are Buddhists. Did you want to say something, Daniel? Yes? Can you explain what unconstructedness is? Yeah, it just means...

[15:01]

It's something that... Like, for example, emptiness, insubstantiality. The fact that things don't have some inherent existence on their own, but depend on other things for their existence. That emptiness, that lack of self, is not constructed. It's a dependent co-arising. Insubstantiality depends on the things which are insubstantial. And they also depend on other conditions to exist. But also their insubstantiality depends on them. But insubstantiality isn't put together, isn't made. So there are some things that are unmade, even though they're dependent co-arisings, like things that are made. Like people are put together by causes and conditions, and constructed by mind. But stillness isn't. Stillness is unmade.

[16:04]

It's always part of the deal of us being what we are. And usually we're also constructing movement. But we don't always construct movement. Sometimes we construct some idea of stillness. Space is another example of something that's unconstructed. Nirvana is unconstructed. Peace is unconstructed. War is constructed. Does that make some sense? Yes. Thank you very much. Any other responses? Fran?

[17:07]

You said that part of the quality of enlightenment is that in the stillness it's very dynamic. And I'm wondering, is that what you're saying? Is dynamism a different kind of movement? It's not a movement. What is the dynamic quality? Well, it's like the dynamic quality is that enlightenment is not stuck in stillness. But that's not the same to say that enlightenment is movement. It can move. But it's not movement, it's something different. Dynamic means that it can change. Enlightenment can change, can adapt. And so it can be movement, but the dynamism isn't necessarily movement.

[18:11]

The dynamism could be stillness. And the dynamism of enlightenment lives in stillness, but enlightenment can blossom into movement. It doesn't have to. So the dynamism of enlightenment, the great function of enlightenment, can be anything. It can be movement, stillness, silence, speech. Basically, whatever helps beings be like enlightenment is enlightenment. Enlightenment encourages beings to be themselves, to be in accord with reality. And it is setting the example of that. How do we know the difference between ordinary and movement? And that kind of movement. Well, do you have ordinary movement and ordinary stillness?

[19:16]

Do you have an ordinary stillness? Probably not. Pardon? Probably not if it's complete stillness. Well, if you contemplate, and you can do this, because we do have periods where we are actually kind of pretending to be sitting still. Have you noticed? So when you're pretending to sit still, you can kind of look to see, is this like complete, true stillness here? You could look at that. But there's something about it that makes you feel like you're sitting still rather than not even trying to sit still, right? Right, although the mind is moving. Yes, the mind is moving, right? And you can do the same with the mind. You can try to have the mind be still. But you notice...

[20:18]

Part of being a sentient being is to have a mind, which can think about sitting still, and then it can think about this not really being sitting still. Right? And it can think about, that when you're thinking about sitting still, the fact that you're that way is not moving. But that's not something you're calculating. That's just a kind of logic of enlightenment. However, this logic of a thing being itself is enlightenment. I also mentioned, which you brought this up, is that the dynamic enlightenment, it's not stuck in the stillness. Things aren't stuck in being themselves. As a matter of fact, when things are themselves, they are liberated from themselves. Enlightenment is closely related to liberation.

[21:20]

So things being themselves, and the unmoving quality of things is very closely related to their liberation. And this unmade stillness is always present with the made movement and made stillness. So I'm going to make some stillness now, watch. Did you see the stillness I made? Did you? Did anybody miss it? Huh? Everybody saw it? That was my stillness. Here it is. There it was. And it had an end. Did you see it? Here, watch it start. And now it's over. Made stillness has beginning and end.

[22:24]

It arises and ceases. But it was pretty good stillness, I felt. You know, I kind of like, there it was. And then I dispersed it. But that's not the stillness, that's not the stillness which is there before I went into the stillness and which is there after I came out of it. However, as I was approaching the stillness, me being the way I was as I was approaching the stillness, in the moment, each moment of being that way, that's not moving. And there's the enlightenment. It's living there. However, it's not, the enlightenment isn't still and isn't moving. But it can be both still and moving. Enlightenment can be whatever we need. It's our best friend. But we have to kind of like

[23:25]

do a little meditation in order to tune into it. And we must be willing to be ourselves. It's required. We are all day, but we must be willing to be. Otherwise, we get dislodged from the stillness. Does that make a little bit of awesome profound sense? Yes, Elena? Enlightened movement can be said to be empty of ego? Enlightened movement be empty of ego? Or enlightened stillness? Yes. But unenlightened movement is also empty of ego. Huh? All movement is empty of ego.

[24:28]

People may think, here I'm moving and there's plenty of ego here, but they're wrong. That's a delusion. That there's an ego in this thing I'm doing here. There's not ego in this. But you could think so. You could think that about me or about yourself. I could too. But that's an illusion. That's a delusion. And to think that there's not ego in this movement is another delusion. However, being willing to be the deluded person who is moving, you realize that there's no ego in your movement. King? I think you said that bodhisattvas don't move,

[25:29]

but obviously they move. So when a bodhisattva moves, is that the dynamic movement of enlightenment that you were discussing in your talk? No. I mean, yes, but when an ordinary person who's not a bodhisattva, when they move, it's the same. If somebody who hadn't signed up to be a bodhisattva was somehow willing to be themselves, completely, then their movement would be the movement of coming from their enlightenment of them being themselves. Now, if we saw somebody like that, we might try to sign them up as a bodhisattva because they're doing bodhisattva practice of being... Bodhisattvas come into the world to play at being sentient beings, to teach others how to play at being sentient beings.

[26:31]

But if somebody somehow hadn't previously committed to live for the welfare of others, but was actually somehow willing to be themselves, they would be doing bodhisattva work, Buddha work. So it's the person who's willing to be themselves, then their movement is enlightened. It's the movement coming from enlightenment. Enrique? Before we go further, I just wanted to mention something. May I? May I mention something? You being confused, the condition of you being confused is enlightenment. Enlightenment. Did you have...

[27:31]

No, no, go ahead, go ahead. Go forward on the path of enlightenment. Being totally and thoroughly myself. Being totally and thoroughly yourself, yeah. At all costs. You can say at all costs, fine. At all costs. The main cost is the cost of being you. That's the big cost. That's awfully expensive. Being me? Could you lower the price a little bit? Right. Or pleasant. Yeah. Or scary or unknown. Scary or unknown, right. Sentient beings seem to be able to

[28:33]

kind of have a feeling of something unknown or not knowing. They seem to be able to feel like that. But not for long, or not wholeheartedly. They kind of shrink back from the unknown and make it into something edible. Something controllable. Something to get their hands on. And they have that ability. Sentient beings have great imaginations. Especially humans on this planet. My big obstacle seems to be moving. Not to be still and silent, but to be a human being. How do you do that? If you don't move? Well, did you say your challenge

[29:38]

or your obstacle is in movement, not so much in being still? I move a lot and I do a lot. Yeah, you move a lot and you do a lot. So it's challenging for you to find stillness when you're moving. It's not necessarily easy to find stillness when you're sitting still either. Some people have a hard time finding stillness when they're sitting still. Because you can't find stillness. You can't find anything, not to mention stillness. Or mention stillness. We can't find anything, but we like to. So remembering stillness when we're moving is possible. Not easy.

[30:38]

It's not even easy for people who are sitting pretty still in a meditation hall. It's not even easy for them to remember stillness. Sometimes it is, but a lot of times it isn't. And people who are moving, it's also, you could say, generally harder for them to remember stillness. But I don't know. Actually, I haven't really done a study to see which situation is harder. Ballet dancers, when they're spinning around, I think they often have pretty direct access to stillness. They can't find it. They can't find it, because nobody can find it. But they're definitely manifesting it. And they can remember it. They can remember, and they can be awestruck by the realization of it, even though they can't find it. Correct.

[31:40]

It isn't like when a Buddha gets up and starts dancing that the Buddha loses the enlightenment. Buddha can go and never forget stillness, and never forget being who she is, each moment remembering being who she is. And that's part of the dynamism of enlightenment, is that it can take, it can be, it can sound, whatever helps people. And in unforgetfulness and presence with what's happening, it's illuminating the universe. And we can remember that, and we can appreciate that, and we can really have a good time at our own funeral, which is happening. If you practice this way, you're doing a ceremony, and it's your own funeral,

[32:49]

because you just died, and now a new person's here, who is very happy to have attended the funeral. And the funeral was remembering that being yourself is enlightenment, and that it's all over. And now we've got a new opportunity to do this very hard thing of being myself. It's the hardest thing. It's easier to be somebody else. Now they have a hard time being themselves, but you wouldn't. You might say, I think it's hard to be somebody else. Okay, fine. But it's harder to be yourself. It's harder to attend. And when you do that,

[33:51]

when you practice that way, you're doing the ceremony of being yourself, which again is your funeral ceremony, because now that's done, and you've got a new self to be. But I just think it's totally wonderful to do this ceremony. It's wonderful, but not necessarily fun. It can be fun, but even when it's not fun, it's wonderful, it's marvelous that you should care for yourself. Completely. Be yourself. Yes, Steph? I guess there isn't really an alternative to being yourself, except to lose touch with that. Yeah, there's not really an alternative to be yourself, but there is the opportunity to distract yourself from being yourself.

[34:53]

We can do that. We can be that kind of self. We're still ourself, but now we're a self which is, with a lot of help from our friends, we're totally distracted from ourselves. And that's who we are. So we're not getting away from ourselves, but the self we are is totally into not paying attention to ourself. We can be that way. We can be that way. It's amazing that we can totally be the person who is totally distracted from herself. We can be totally unsuccessful at what we're doing, and that's called misery. But being that way, completely, is enlightenment. And I wonder if you have a comment on how you tell the difference. That's what Fran wanted to know. Tell us both again. Tell us all again. There's ways you can tell the difference, but these ways are indeterminate.

[35:58]

Okay, so you can tell the difference. Okay, so that's the difference between... What are we telling the difference between now? Well, the non-alternative of being yourself. So, the difference... Being awake to being yourself. The difference between being awake to being yourself, and what? And not noticing that you are yourself. Or being obscured. You don't have to notice that you're being yourself, just start to be yourself. You don't have to be noticing it. Not noticing is not equal to not awake? You can remember to be yourself without noticing that you're being yourself. You can remember... What's your job, Steph? To be me. You can remember it. And you can feel like, that's my job, and I'm willing to be here.

[37:00]

And I'm not trying to get anything else than that. But I'm not really noticing. I guess I noticed that, that I wasn't trying to get away. You can notice that, but you don't have to. So you could have some sense, some kind of sign that showed you that there was a coherence in the way you are with this practice. However, that sign that you're using isn't the only sign you could use. There's infinite signs you could use. There's infinite ways you could know that you're being yourself. There's infinite ways to be happy. And this happiness is the happiness of knowing that you're willing to be yourself,

[38:03]

and knowing that being yourself is what you really want to do. And also, it's easy to know, I think. I think it's pretty easy to know that being yourself is hard. Most of you probably know that, right? But without taking that difficulty away, having no resistance to that job, you might have a sense that the resistance had dropped away, and you've dropped into being yourself. You might have a sense of that. But to me, it's not too important that you would have a sense of that. The important thing is that you have done it. So, if you help somebody to become Buddha, I don't think it's so important that you know that you helped them. I think the important thing is to remember to help in the next moment. Remember to try to help in the next moment. But not be concerned that, well, I just helped them,

[39:04]

and then maybe not notice about being yourself, thinking that you're helping them, and miss the next opportunity because you're trying to get a hold of that. And again, trying to get a hold of it as you're being a sentient being again. You can recover, but telling the difference is possible, but it's tricky. I wouldn't put a lot of energy towards that. I'd put more energy towards trying to remember to be yourself. What about if you care too much about that? If you care too much about that, you're distracting yourself from that. If you care too little about that, you're distracting yourself from that. So most people care too much or too little about being themselves, and that too much or too little is a distraction. Or people care too much or too little about knowing whether they're doing this job,

[40:05]

and that's a distraction. Even though all along, they're completely there being themselves. So there's an art to it. There's an art to it, which we might have a few more moments to develop this art. Would you tell me your name again? Ted. Ted. So another definition of enlightenment is anything that helps people. Anything that helps people. You can say anything that helps them, or you can just say helping people, particularly others, partly because others are who you are. So helping others, by this logic,

[41:11]

lives in silence and stillness. So when you give somebody recording equipment, if that activity is living in silence and stillness, it's enlightenment. And it is living in silence and stillness, so it is enlightenment. But can you not be distracted from it? And the answer is, I hope so. May I not be? I know I can be. May I not be?

[42:28]

Any more gifts you'd like to give me? Yes, Michael? I was wondering what the relationship would be between stillness and silence and emptiness. What's the relationship between silence and stillness and stillness and emptiness? Silence. Silence. Silence. Your willingness to be yourself. If you're really willing to be yourself, to wholeheartedly be who you are, is not to move. So your willingness to be still

[43:42]

and to use your stillness to realize stillness, that wholeheartedness will realize emptiness. In carefully, in caring not too much about being yourself, or too little about being about yourself, in finding that art of being yourself completely, in the completeness of being yourself, you realize your insubstantiality. So by practicing trying to not move away from yourself, or practice being with yourself, and not distracting yourself, as you get more and more wholehearted in that, you come to a place of realizing the insubstantiality of yourself, how you're not an independent person. But when we're half-hearted,

[44:43]

we usually continue to be caught by a sense of substantiality and separation from others, of independence. When our delusion of independent existence, independent self, when our delusion is not fully exerted, it continues to distract us. But when it's fully exerted, it is enlightenment itself. I feel that I haven't quite got to the stillness, but I'm getting towards a slowness to allow me to experience the kind of layering that I've had to come to what I consider myself. For example, there's this white egret flying over the free web, and I saw it land.

[45:44]

And as soon as it landed, I had already written a story about it, about how the poor egret was living beside the roadway, and it was going to have a difficult life, and its children were going to be born, and now it's warm. All this layering. And then this hammer of sadness came over me. And I just was kind of aware of all that layering that had come on. So for me to slow that down was to kind of pull that hammer off a little bit of the emotion, and go back just to that experience of seeing the egret. And in that stillness, just seeing that egret, that's kind of where I thought, that's also where the emptiness lies. That there wasn't really the egret and me, there was just the experience of seeing the egret. Did you hear his example?

[46:46]

Okay, now watch this. If you're looking at the egret, and you can remember to just be yourself, completely looking at the egret, then you will realize what you said, that there won't be a separation between you and the egret. So you're right. However, the other part of your story is that you missed the opportunity there. When the hammer of sadness came, you thought, I have to take the hammer away and go back and be wholeheartedly with the egret. You did what with the sadness? Okay, yeah. Before going back to the egret,

[47:49]

you've got this sadness egret. You don't have to get rid of the sadness egret. If you wholeheartedly feel the sadness, it's the same result. The sadness is actually telling you that you're still holding on to the egret, or you're holding on to having a better relationship with the egret than you had. You're not letting go of the egret or the self that was there with the egret. And the sadness is saying, you didn't do it before, now would you feel the sadness? Would you please accept this hammer and feel this hammer completely and not distract yourself from being the person with the hammer of sadness on him? Would you please be this person? The sadness is saying, would you please feel this? This is kind of like a giant egret

[48:55]

coming and saying, you didn't feel the little egret, now would you feel this one? So that was a great opportunity that you also could have worked with. If you were with the egret the way you really want to be with the egret, there would be no sadness, at least for the egret experience. But if you're not with the egret the way you want to be with the egret, then sadness will come and say, well you weren't with the egret, you separated yourself from the egret, now here's something, the egret's gone, but here's something else. Now if you can accept this, that will change your relationship with the egret. If you can accept this hammer of sadness. Be Michael with sadness. Just like you before or later, be Michael with seeing the egret, be that Michael. But we've got this Michael with the sadness, no egret, Michael and sadness. This is as good an opportunity

[49:56]

as the previous one and the next one. When you completely accept the sadness, you realize the emptiness of the separation. When you completely accept being a person who sees an egret, or even a person who's doing layers of stories on top of the egret, even being that person. If you're completely willing to be that, we can give names to that guy, right? Michael the storyteller. Michael the super storyteller. If you can be that Michael. So we've got the Michael who just sees the egret, that's it, egret, period. Got that one, if you can be that one, fine. Michael the storyteller, be that one, fine. Michael the sad, be that one, fine. All these things, if you wholeheartedly those, that's not moving. Michael who's slowing down.

[50:58]

Michael who's speeding up. Remember that the slowing down Michael is not moving. Make sense? I think it opens up all these possibilities. It opens up all these possibilities, right. Tracy? Can you demonstrate being totally oneself? If you do that right now. Do what? Demonstrate being totally oneself. Yeah, okay. I'm doing it now. Were you doing it before? Yep. Am I doing it? Yep. Right now? Yep. That's the problem. Whatever you said at the beginning, you said about 15 things, all of it seemed opposite and hard to get. And if I were being myself right now, I would just accept that with the e-grip and be as fine with that as if I totally understood.

[52:03]

Is that correct? Would you say it again, please? Before I say it's correct. Basically, I've been feeling frustrated and very stupid. No, no, stop. If you're feeling frustrated, then the instruction is to feel completely frustrated in that moment and be completely willing to be the person who is feeling frustrated. That person, that frustrated person, of this particular frustration at this particular time, that condition of you being that way is enlightenment. But you can be kind of like, I don't want to be frustrated. I don't want to be in the condition of frustration. In other words, I do not want to be enlightened. I don't want to be enlightened. I want to be un-frustrated.

[53:04]

Of course, wishing to be un-frustrated is perfectly fine too. But I don't even want to be sitting here thinking about being un-frustrated. And I don't even want to be the person who doesn't want to be frustrated either. I don't want to be myself. I don't want to be enlightened. I want to be somebody else because it's easier to be somebody else. I'm in a lazy mood. So if you're feeling frustrated, if you're actually completely willing to be frustrated, then you're completely willing, at that moment anyway, to be enlightened. If you can open to whatever's going on, really, then you can open to enlightenment because what enlightenment is, what's going on, is the condition of what's going on. That's what it is. Does that make sense? And it's hard. It's hard. And if you're feeling un-frustrated

[54:06]

and totally successful, then you feel like, well, I don't need to practice. I'm a success. Forget about being enlightened. Forget about being a sentient being. I'm like, you know, I'm a goddess. This is cool. I'm a goddess. I'm in total bliss. Go do the hard work of being a sentient being. Forget it. It's easy sometimes to be really, really happy. Yeah. I wanted to share a story. I was working with some fifth graders recently and somebody else told them that I was a musician. And they said, oh, you're a musician. I play guitar. And I said, okay, that's great. And they said, you practice?

[55:06]

And I'd be like, yeah, I practice pretty much every day. And they'd say, I don't need to practice. I started practicing last year. I'd be like, psh, I'm better than you. So some people forget that they need to practice, I think. Yep. And some people, while they're practicing, forget to be themselves practicing. They get distracted by the practice while they're practicing. Right? Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[56:13]

Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[56:48]

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