on behalf of the community that lives here and the tradition that has established this practice place, I'd like to say the obvious, and that is that you are all cordially invited to be here. It seems that you have accepted the invitation today. You are welcome. You are invited into this meditation hall now. I have a question for you, and that is, do you invite me to speak? Now, part of the reason for me explicitly expressing the invitation to you and asking you if you invite me to speak is because today we are exploring the what?

[01:35]

We are exploring the dance of Buddha. Buddha's dancing. We are exploring how Buddha dances with all living beings. And in particular, the tango. Buddha's tango. The tango of Buddha. And in the tango, like in the Buddha way, the meaning of the dance is initiated by an invitation. We invite the Buddha into our life. We welcome Buddha into our life.

[02:39]

We say, welcome enlightenment into this life. And then enlightenment comes. Enlightenment is very gentle and polite in addition to being deep and true. It does not come unless we invite it. And we enact that invitation with each being we meet. And so in the Tango too, the invitation is a key ingredient to initiate the realization of the dance. But again, it's not so well known. It's a rather esoteric point of the Buddha way that the real meaning of the Buddha way is realized in the meeting of the invitation and the response to the invitation.

[03:41]

The crossing of the paths of the Buddha and ordinary people occurs, that meeting of the path of the Buddha and the path of an ordinary person occurs in the crossing of our request, of our invitation, in the Buddha's response. And in that meeting the Buddha way is realized. The excuse of alliteration? The meaning of movement is realized in the medium of meeting. So in dance, again, it seems It seems to me that the meaning of the movement is realized in the medium of the meeting, true meeting. In the same, if for stillness, when we sit in stillness in this meditation hall, the meaning of the stillness is realized in the medium of the meeting.

[04:55]

It's not just that we sit here by ourself. doing the meditation practice of sitting still and silent by ourself. That's not the practice of the Buddha way. The practice of the Buddha way is realized in the meeting of our sitting, which is our invitation. Our sitting still is our invitation to the Buddhas to meet us. And when we enter that meeting, the Buddha way is realized and it seems the same in Tango. However, somehow it takes quite a bit of training to fully invite and be present for the response. both in stillness and in movement, it seems difficult to be present enough to invite and notice that at the same moment of the invitation, there is a response, that the Buddha meets us, our partner meets us, with no delay.

[06:11]

So we need to train in movement and stillness to enter Realizations. Some Zen students practicing sitting still. Oh, that's you in the wheelchair. Nice. Some Zen students like myself practicing for decades sitting still. There are moments when one feels encouraged, when one receives the gift of the meeting to the invitation of our sitting. We make the invitation for hundreds and thousands of hours of silent sitting.

[07:18]

We devote ourselves and we say to Buddha over and over, we're here to meet you. Welcome, enlightenment. We're ready to be enlightened. We realize it's not something for us to mess around with. but we're ready. We try to practice being ready for an awakening day after day, year after year. Sometimes we have trouble staying awake early in the morning, but we want to get an early start. So we get up early and say, as soon as possible, welcome Buddha, rather than sort of being the second shift, you know, the noon shift. Welcome Buddha. Some people get up early in the morning and say, welcome enlightenment into the world. The people want you to be here. Oh, thank you for coming. And then there's hopefully the noon shift, afternoon shift, and evening shift. So all day long, enlightenment is invited into the world.

[08:19]

It isn't realized. It's always sitting still in the world. Enlightenment is always sitting in the middle of the world, but it isn't realized unless we invite it and meet it. But again, if you sit for thousands of hours in this hall, you probably will get a taste of the meeting and that will be very nice. And it does happen. It is great encouragement to give your life, to donate your life to inviting the Buddha and realizing the Buddha way. It's a wonderful thing to do when you're sitting still. But our tradition is also, in some ways, The special emphasis of Zen, I don't know, I won't say that other schools of the Buddha way do not make this emphasis, but it's really clear in Zen that there's a strong emphasis of extending the presence of the sitting still and silent

[09:25]

of the silence, sitting still, and meeting Buddha in the meditation hall with the other practitioners, with the other yogis, a strong emphasis is made on extending that presence outside the monastery, outside the temple, into the streets to see if we can get up from our quiet place and move in the world, move out of the nice quiet valley into the marketplace and engage with the turmoil and still be present and still invite the Buddha away, invite the Buddha in the street, in the turmoil. Without this extension, the enlightenment is not realized as fully as it can be. So again and again, the founder of Zen Center said, Pretty easy in the sitting meditation to realize this meeting with Buddha, but we really have a little bit more difficulty extending it into daily life.

[10:31]

One Zen teacher in Japan used to take his monks for horseback rides into the Tokyo marketplace to see if they could stay present as they charged through the crowds. He was watching them and hitting them if they lost their concentration. I don't know if he was hitting them, but anyway. He did that exercise to see if they could stay present through that very active extension One time I was over in Berkeley, and I was in a, I think I was in a, I was in a grocery store, I think it was the Berkeley Bowl, and I was buying something, I don't know what, and a woman came up to me who was a member, a Zen student, and she walked up to me and she said, are you all right?

[11:45]

I said, yes. She said, but you're in a grocery store. You going to grocery stores? And sometimes when I'm waiting in a movie line, people come up to me and say, you go to movies? Can the Zen priest go to the grocery store and continue practicing? Can the Zen priest learn the tango in the spirit of the Buddha way?

[12:51]

So my wife made the suggestion that we take some dance classes. And I think we started with country western. But somehow we didn't continue. So then we tried the tango. And we are trying to continue in the practice of learning this kind of meeting, this kind of dancing. For me, it's an opportunity to extend the practice of invitation and response and meeting into another realm for me. And in particular, I'm kind of like, you know,

[13:55]

I'm a thinker. And so to do something that has more to do with feeling and relationship and that's more physical in movement area is a little new for me. I must admit, I don't have to admit, but I will admit that I was one of the people standing at the edge of the dance floor in high school. I did occasionally go out there, but I regretted it. Growth, I think growth in wisdom, growth in wisdom, I think requires that we enter into areas of unskillfulness. that we enter into areas where we do not know much, that we enter into actually how we don't know much.

[15:08]

We enter into and look at our ignorance, look at our awkwardness, look at our inability to invite, to respond, and to meet. That we look at this, we enter those realms of darkness and awkwardness and anxiety. in order to grow in wisdom. So when I first came to Zen, Zen sitting was really hard for me. That was part of what attracted me. The main thing, the original thing that attracted me was the glimpses in the stories of Zen people of freedom and intimacy and humor and kindness. And then I found out they had a training program in stillness and I tried that practice and I found it very difficult and I thought now here is a place where you can really have room to grow and so I've been practicing it and still growing still true but now I'm opening another dimension in my practice of movement where I'm even more awkward and more unskillful than sitting still

[16:28]

But I must do this. I must not just keep staying in an area where I have some experience and some little bit of skill. Some of you might even think, for example, maybe you should stop giving Dharma talks because you're skillful at that. But actually, I don't see it that way. I don't see... I see each Dharma talk as another... moving into the unknown. I gave a talk during a retreat not too long ago. Towards the end of the retreat, a woman came to see me and she said, I've been listening to your talks for seven days now. And for the first several days, I thought, I hope he keeps his day job.

[17:32]

And then she said, but now, now at the last day or so, I'm starting to understand what's going on here. I think she actually said, I started to understand what you're doing. And what I'm doing is, I'm trying to be with you and keep moving forward into the unknown with you. I'm actually trying to invite you and watch your response and respond to you and invite you and see your invitation and respond. That's the realm I'm trying to be in. I'm trying to enter And in that way, these talks do not become so stale. It's not me coming in here and telling you and showing you what Zen is.

[18:43]

It's not me being the teacher of Zen. I don't want to do that. And that is the Zen tradition. The Zen tradition is that the teachers do not come. The true Zen tradition, the living Zen tradition, is the teachers do not come and assume that they're teachers. one of the greatest of our ancestors, one of the greatest Zen teachers, came into the hall, big guy, came into the hall with a big stick and started swinging it at the group. And they didn't move. They didn't respond. They froze. His invitation was not accepted.

[19:49]

He was a Zen failure. And he said to the group, he said, you are a bunch of dreg slurpers. In other words, slurping the dregs of the tradition of Zen, having some idea of what Zen is, and so you can't respond. To me, it must be the same in tango. And then he said, don't you people realize that in all of China there's no teachers of Zen? And finally one monk responded and came forward and said, but what about all these Zen centers all over China where thousands of people are practicing with teachers and carrying on the way? And

[20:59]

the teacher said. The teacher who said there's no teachers said. I didn't say there's no Zen. I just said there's no teachers of Zen. And today I just want to say that part of the spirit of me entering into tango dancing is that there's no tango dancers. in all of Argentina. But there is tango. Now, I'm living proof that... I'm proving it. I mean, I'm not a dancer. That's obvious to anybody. I'm not. Clearly. And yet, sometimes there's dancing. Not because I'm a dancer. Not even because my partner is really a dancer. And people think she's a dancer. No.

[22:02]

That's an illusion. Some dances, it looks like there's one person standing there dancing. That's an illusion. The nice thing about tango is you kind of get the picture that it doesn't really work unless there's two. It's not one tango dancer. It's not even two, really. It's just there's a dance. And it's the same in Zen. There can be Zen, but not because there's a teacher and a student. But you need a teacher and a student for starters, but that's not when there's Zen. When there's Zen, you get over teacher and student. And when there's tangle, you get over leader and follower. One of my teachers plays often the role of a leader. His name's Daniel. He's sitting way in the back, I think.

[23:04]

Are you back there, Daniel? And Daniel says, you know, when you're leading, the center of the universe is the follower. You forget about yourself and just think about the follower. So again, our founder here said, you know, well, he didn't actually say this, but I'm going to rework it. He said, Zen is not one of the isms. Zen is not one of the isms like Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism, Confucianism, Judaism, Hinduism. It's not one of those isms. Zen is actually also not Zen.

[24:07]

There is Zen, but it's not Zen. It's not Zen to be Zen. Maybe some of you people have realized that. Some of you, I think, are still into being Zen. It's okay for a while, but eventually you have to sort of get over that. What Zen is, is Zen is when Zen transcends Zen. But it's also Zen is when Judaism transcends Judaism. Then it's Zen. And when Tango transcends Tango, it's Zen. When the partners, when the dancers transcend being dancers, there's the dance. But this is not easy for us to let go of this duality. Is it? Because we're built to sort of feel, I'm over here and she's over there, he's over there. There's an invitation. Yes. Where is it coming from?

[25:11]

Easy to locate it. Hard to just feel it and see the response instantly arising. Not even instantly. The same moment. I don't always remember this, but I think it's a good thing to remember when you're practicing Zen, or Tango, at the beginning of each moment, or at least each dance, or each meditation period. I don't know anything about Zen, and nobody knows any more than me. I don't know anything about tango, and nobody knows any more than me." Again, the mind rails against that and says, well, doesn't the Buddha know more about Zen than you?

[26:19]

That's what being a Buddha is, is you don't need to know more about Zen than other people. Regular people kind of like need to know something about Zen if they're Zen people. And regular tango people need to know more about Tango than non-Tango people. Otherwise, you know, we'd have problems, right? But actually, no. I don't think so. I think if a Tango teacher can actually remember that she doesn't know anything about Zen, she can be a great Tango teacher. And after that, maybe she could realize she doesn't know anything about Tango. and then be a really great Tango teacher and realize there's no Tango teachers. But again, a Zen teacher or a Tango teacher might feel kind of embarrassed, like, I'm a teacher and I don't know anything about what I'm teaching? Yikes! How can I get by with that? It's not exactly you can get by with it.

[27:22]

You won't get by with it. You won't get by with it because you're not going to be doing it anymore. You won't be getting by with being a teacher because you're actually going to admit that you're not. And then something more important than you being a teacher will occur. Tango will occur. And the world will be a better place because there's dancing. But you won't get any credit for it, maybe. Which is more important, you getting credit for the dance, you getting credit for Zen, or that there is Zen tango? And that's the motivation part. The motivation part in practicing Zen or practicing tango, if it's really going to be meaningful, the motivation has to be to realize tango rather than you being a tango dancer. Forget about yourself being a tango dancer.

[28:26]

Just only be concerned with tango. Forget about being a Zen student or a Zen master. and just be devoted to realizing Zen. Forget about yourself and just think of your partner. But that's hard. It's hard to take a step and forget about yourself, or to forgive about yourself. and take a step. Or it's hard to learn how to do that. Actually, it's very easy. It's much easier to take a step when you forget about yourself. But if you think about it, you think, well, if I forget about myself, who's going to take the step? Last night I was dancing with Pierre, Daniel's wife. And when I was dancing with her, there were some moments when somebody was taking steps with her. there was like legs leaping into the unknown for every now and then.

[29:32]

Nobody was doing it, but it was happening. And then there was moments of reflex back into, I'm going to take a step. Not so bad. That's the usual way. But that's just the usual way. So, in this practice of There's various elements I see between Zen and tango, or other kinds of dance too, of course. One element is presence, a just presence. Another element is freedom. Another element is intimacy. And another element is precepts. In some sense it's easiest to start with the precepts. Ah, maybe it is easiest to start with the precepts. We do that, we often do that in Zen practice, and actually if I look at Tango practice, it's kind of like start with precepts.

[30:43]

What are the precepts? Sometimes in our school we have three, what we call three pure precepts. The first one is to embrace and sustain regulations and ceremonies. Here, regulations and ceremonies are like one ceremony is a ceremony of like crossing your legs and sitting upright. neither leaning forward nor backwards, to the right or the left. Putting your hands together, forming a beautiful oval and placing it against your abdomen, below your navel. Keeping your eyes gently open and your mouth closed and tongue on the roof of the mouth.

[31:45]

This is a ritual ceremony of meditation, of yogic practice. Also come to the meditation time on time. Don't come in the middle. Don't leave before the end unless you have to go to the bathroom or something. We have forms and ceremonies for our practice here. Entangle also. You do the step like this. You move your feet like this. You don't instruct your partner while you're dancing. You don't blame them, in your mind even, not to mention out loud. That's another precept. Do not praise yourself at the expense of others. Like, I can instruct you in tango, or I can instruct you in Zen. I know more than you. Anyways, tango is full of forms and ceremonies, and so is Zen. And we vow to embrace and sustain these forms and ceremonies to learn them and see if we can practice them and practice them until there's just the forms and no self separate from them anymore.

[33:06]

When people first start practicing Zen, like when people sit up in the meditation hall, everybody's basically doing the same form. When we bow, same form. When we walk in meditation, same form. But each person does it differently. And part of that difference is that each person is holding on to their own self while they're doing the form. After many years of training, It's almost like there's no personal style left. The person's unique, and yet they're not holding on to their way of doing the form. A unique expression without holding on to a self that's doing it. That's the first precept, the pure precepts.

[34:13]

or to dance, the tango, where finally the self is forgotten and there's just the dance. When that self is forgotten through this practice of this precept, there is freedom and there is intimacy. There's not two people doing the dance anymore. I shouldn't say, there's not two selves, two separate selves doing the dance anymore. The second pure precept is to do good, to embrace and sustain all good, to practice this dance with this person in relationship to the first precept, namely to do good, to try to do your best, to try to be kind to your partner, to try to be kind to whoever you're meeting, to try to do something helpful without even holding on to the idea of helpfulness. or the idea of yourself being helpful, because you've already given that up through practicing the forms.

[35:21]

When the step, when the invitation, when the response is just that, with no self doing it, there is intimacy, there is freedom. But of course it takes lots of training to do the form, to do the step, to do the movement, to make the invitation, to accept the invitation, to make the invitation, to lead and to follow and to lead and to follow over and over again a million times at least with some little bit of self stuck in there until after many, many years it drops away. And there's just the form. And there's just embracing and sustaining the form. And there's just embracing and sustaining good. And the third pure precept is to embrace and sustain all beings. So this is, this embracing the form in Zen of your own posture may not seem like you're doing it with other people.

[36:37]

But in the end you realize this meeting. And it's a meeting with all beings. Not just one partner or one neighbor. Not just the people that you're attracted to or just the people you're not attracted to. Embracing and sustaining all beings. This is the precepts. There's ways of inviting people to dance in tango. There's a precept of how to do that. And again, there's the precept of you do not criticize people. You do not criticize your partner. And in your own head, you do not blame your partner. Another part of presence in Zen and Tango is when you sit in meditation or when you bow. to the Buddha, or when you offer incense, or when you make other offerings to Buddha, or when you do walking meditation, or when you cook lunch.

[37:37]

You do so, you train, you learn to do so with no expectation. You learn to sit still and to move with no expectation. with no anticipation, with no plan. I'm not kidding. And this is exactly what it seems to be the case in Tango. The leader makes an invitation, like, please come into this space here. You're invited. But I suggest that it works best when the leader does not expect how the partner will move in response to that. I invited you to go over here, but I don't know where you're going to go.

[38:47]

And not only is generally I'm inviting you over here and I don't know where you're going to go, but in this precise moment, I don't know where you're going to go. It's not like generally, okay, for the next five minutes to see what you do. It's like in the next moment, to actually watch, where does she go? And then when she goes someplace that you didn't expect, and also you didn't expect anything, and she went someplace that you didn't expect because you weren't expecting anything, but she went where she went. And that's where she went, and because she went there, now you respond to that, and you follow where she went. Now you could say, I'm inviting you to go over here, and I don't know where you're going to go, and she doesn't And she doesn't go where I didn't know where she was going to go. I say, well, didn't she go sort of in the neighborhood? Maybe, yeah, sort of. She was over there in the neighborhood. But where did she go exactly? Where is she really? What foot is she really on? How is her posture really? That's what I have to work with.

[39:50]

And that sort of takes quite a bit of attention. It takes quite a bit of relaxation to be there with how actually she responded. It takes a lot of training to be there for that. If I have an expectation, she may actually do sort of what I expected her to do. I invited her to do something and I expected her to do what I had in mind by that invitation. And sometimes she does that and that's fine, I guess. I don't think it's tango. I think it's just, you know, I don't know what to call that. It's not Zen either. Again, last night when I was dancing, I invited somebody to do something and she, I mean, I invited somebody, I made an invitation and she did something and what she did wasn't what I invited but it was better than what I could have ever thought of.

[40:53]

I mean I couldn't, fortunately I didn't have to think of it and I didn't and something happened which I didn't think of was wonderful and then on and on like that. The follower sort of has a similar situation and she gets invited But also, followers have the struggle to not anticipate what the next invitation is going to be. And even when they get an invitation, do they expect that they correctly understood the invitation? So on both sides, it's a little different, but on both sides, anticipation, expectation and planning need to be dropped in the actual presence of the dance.

[41:59]

And the same thing in Zen when it comes to meeting enlightenment. We need to give up expectations of what it would be like right now to meet enlightenment. In order to meet enlightenment, I have to give up planning what it would be like or what I'll be wearing when I get there. Or what to say to Buddha. Or whether I need to say anything at all. Just presence. And again. And again. And again. What a boring life, just to be present. Forget about myself and think of who I'm meeting. Forget about myself and think just of my partner. Care for my partner.

[43:01]

Move with the partner without even planning what the next step will be. Again, when we start practicing Zen, we sort of have to plan to go to the Zen center. Otherwise, how do we get there? Sorry, you know, we understand. But there comes a time when you do not have to plan how to get to the Zen center when you can just realize you're there. That's what Zen centers are. It's where you are, right? But at the beginning you think, well, I have to go over there to get to the Zen center. Well, okay. And by thinking that, you move farther away from the Zen center. Right? Everybody knows that. But to practice it. When the teacher is looking at you and says, where is Zen? You start looking around the room. And then I'm suggesting, you know, the precepts when they're practiced realizes presence and intimacy and freedom.

[44:18]

Practicing presence realizes the precepts and intimacy and freedom. And practicing intimacy realizes the precepts, presence and freedom. Practicing intimacy, that dimension of the practice. In some sense, the goal of Buddha, or Buddha's goal, is Buddha's touch, or Buddha's intimacy. Being touched by and touching Buddha is the goal. Being intimate with Buddha is the goal, in a sense. That's what Buddhahood is. It's being intimate with Buddha. together with Buddha, without Buddha being separate. And I once wondered, does Buddha touch anybody?

[45:20]

If you look at the story of the Shakyamuni Buddha, he seems to be sitting in meditation, or sitting cross-legged, giving talks to his students, but he doesn't hug them, usually, at the beginning of the talk, or even at the end. Right? You haven't seen it too often, right? Zen teachers have a reputation for touching their students sometimes kind of roughly, like that. that said, you know, in all of China there's no teachers of Zen. He slapped one of his dearest students. This person, Wang Bo, this guy who said no teachers of Zen in all of China.

[46:24]

When his wonderful, wonderful disciple, Lin Ji, came to see him and asked him what the meaning of Buddhism was, he slapped him. And he came back a second time and he slapped him. And he came back a third time and he slapped him and he said, I'm done with this Wong Bo. I don't want to practice Zen with this guy anymore. Isn't that funny, Diego? Diego's from Argentina. He's come to Zen Center to learn the tango. Not really. He'd come to learn the tango. But no, he didn't learn it in his hometown. Did you grow up in Buenos Aires? No, but in Argentina. Well, that's why. He learned mountain climbing instead.

[47:26]

So anyway, he slapped this guy and then this guy was going to leave and he told the head monk of the monastery and the head monk said, well, you should go say goodbye. And then he said, well, he's going to hit me again. Well, he said, stand far away. And then the head monk scurried over to the master and said, now when he comes to see you, don't hit him again. You know, he has great potential. Of course, Wang Bo knew this. That's why he slapped him. He loved this disciple so much. He gave him his very best slap. A true slap. An intimate slap. A slap where he forgot about himself, as usual. And there was just this great tango. Teacher... It's not always slapping, but it was in this case.

[48:30]

And actually, we have a precept in tango not to slap your partner. Right? Don't you say that, Christy? Don't slap, don't kick. Also, don't kick your partner. Be very polite and gentle. But at the same time, be strong. Strong and gentle together. wholehearted and tender. So anyway, then Linji comes to see Wang Bo, and Wang Bo can't reach him, so just says, you know, I recommend you go study with so-and-so. He lives nearby. He may be able to help you. So he goes and sees so-and-so and tells so-and-so about how Wang Bo slapped him three times, and so-and-so says, oh, my God. Wang Bo is so loving and grandmotherly kind to you. And Lin Ji says, there's not much to Wang Bo's Zen.

[49:38]

And then the other master said, a few minutes ago you were crying and complaining about how mean Wang Bo was, and now you dare to say there's not much to his Zen. So then Lin Ji slapped him Did you follow that? By the way, I forgot to mention that at the point that the other master said, Wang Bo was so kind to you, he was unbelievably, inconceivably kind to you. Inconceivably kind. Kind beyond your idea of kind. At that point, Lin Jing woke up. So then he went back to Wang Bo and slapped Wang Bo. So these guys touched each other.

[50:41]

But you know, I hadn't heard many stories about the Buddhist Shakyamuni touching people. So I did some research and I found out that he did touch people. I found some examples of where he did touch people. And also a time when he touched an elephant. An elephant was having some problems. The elephant actually, I believe, was charging dangerously towards some people and the Buddha touched the elephant gently and the elephant calmed down. And another time the Buddha was walking with his attendant and they saw a monk lying on the side of the road or someplace and this monk was very sick. This monk was actually very sick and covered with sores and lying in his own excrement and no one was helping him. And the Buddha, together with his attendant, Ananda, picked up this festering, excrement-covered yogi and cleaned him and put him on a clean bed.

[51:46]

And then he went and told his monks that they should take care of each other, that they should minister to beings. Buddha was a bendy guy. He didn't have time to tell people everything, so he had to tell them stuff when the time arose. He didn't think he had to tell them to take care of people and to touch them sometimes when they needed to be touched. So Buddha does touch people. But how does Buddha touch people? Buddha touches people with no expectation, with no plan. with no anticipation, with no greed, with no hatred, and no delusion. That's how Buddha touches. That's how we touch in Zen, too. That's what we're aspiring to, to have Buddha's touch, to touch and be touched, to touch and be touched with every person we meet, with no greed, with no hatred, and no confusion.

[52:49]

And entangled, too. We're trying to train with the forms and the ceremonies of tango with no expectation, with no planning, just being present, with no self-clinging about how I'm doing, but just caring for the partner. In that space, we touch, we learn to touch, we're trying to learn to touch with no expectation, with no plan, with no anticipation. So hopefully then students will find ways of extending their practice beyond the sitting into tango, into salsa, into Aikido, into tea ceremony, into caring for excrement-covered monks, into meeting every person deeply, intimately, with just pure presence.

[53:53]

and complete freedom. But it takes training. It takes training. So we have these training centers to help us learn how to be together this way, to help us learn how to meet and realize freedom through being intimate in this way. later today. So now we'll have a little break, I guess, and have some tea, and then we'll come back here. My tango teacher, Christy Cody, will come and share the question and answer with me. And you can talk to her about tango and see what tango, I guess, is from her perspective and how it's been functioning in her life and what she can tell you about tango.

[55:07]

And then this afternoon, we're going to have a workshop where we're actually going to touch each other. We're going to touch each other intimately. We're going to try to learn how to touch each other intimately. That means with no greed, hate, or delusion. And there may be some greed, hate, or delusion occurring this afternoon when we touch. But another part of our precept practice is to be aware that there's a little greed or a little hate, a little clinginess. By being aware of our shortcomings, by being aware of our unskillfulness, beings are protected. So it actually is a little bit hard to do things you don't know how to do, but we have about sixty people here this afternoon, most of whom will be doing something they don't know how to do, called tango. But I recommend to you, if I may, that we all share, even the people who are in the class who are very good at tango,

[56:15]

that we all realize that nobody really knows anything more about Kanga than you do, and you don't know anything at all. I'm not telling you you don't know anything at all. Like I'm not telling Christy she doesn't know anything at all. I'm recommending that we think that about ourselves, not about other people, except that they don't know any more than you. That's all. And the Zen students, let's remember that too, that we don't know anything about Zen, and not even Buddha knows any more than us. Zen is about true meeting with each other. And I think that's what tango is about. One other thing I wanted to mention, and that was, we have this expression in our tradition, like a cloud in an endless sky, like a lotus in muddy water.

[57:18]

We live in the clear mind of Buddha. In our tradition, we have the lotus, the lotus as a symbol of what we can become, the beautiful flower of enlightenment. but that flower grows in the mud. And Tango, just like Zen, grows out of the mud of greed, hate, and delusion. The lotus flower grows out of ordinary people who have greed, hate, and delusion. And Tango grew up in, I think, slums and brothels in I shouldn't say grew up, but it seems we're in the brothels of Buenos Aires. And it has grown from that very muddy source where there was plenty of greed, hate, and delusion going on in those brothels, I imagine. But the form, working with this form in the midst of this greed, hate, and delusion, including the delusion of, you know, what I call macho culture.

[58:29]

of the man being in charge of this world and the woman being weak. But through the form, the men have become gentle and caring and the women have become strong and the children are above average. May our intention be believed.

[59:03]

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