Do you have any questions from previous readings you'd like to bring up? That question, Ben, if you... Well, I have no idea what I'm going to hear. It was a little bit short. I mean, it got me a little worried. Do you want me to respond? I don't know. So he asked about the story. The monk asked the teacher, what's rebellion? The teacher said, rocks, tiles, walls, tiles, and pebbles. And the monk said, In parentheses. Well, if they're Buddhas, if they can expound, if the walls, tiles, and pebbles are Buddhas, then can they expound the Dharma?

[01:09]

Actually, he just said, oh, can you expound the Dharma then? And the teacher said, yes, they can. And they do so recontextually without ceasing. Stop. And then he once said, well, why can't I hear these inanimate things exploding down? And the national teacher said, well, although you may not be able to hear, don't hear that which does give it. And then the monk said, how about you, do you hear it, Master? And he said, if I could hear it, I would rank among the saints. And then the monk said, well, if you can't hear it, how do you know that they expound it?

[02:22]

He said, if I could hear you, I wouldn't be able to help you. So you're wondering, you asked about, what about this business of not hearing that which hears it? Okay. If you look at the, am I speaking loudly enough? If you look at the floor or a rock, we're not telling you that these inanimate objects, not on the trees and grasses or living creatures, but actually inanimate objects, objects which do not commit karma or no. But these things are the expound of dharma.

[03:31]

And he will say, you may not be able to hear the dharma coming from them, but don't give me that which does for you. So what does it really mean? As it turns out, we, individual creatures, are uniquely responsible for some things and some other things we're not uniquely responsible for. So I, you and I, are uniquely responsible for our capacities, our sense capacities. The fact that we are living in our consciousness is tied up with the fact that we have sense capacities, that we have capacity to receive light and receive sounds and touches and so on.

[04:50]

the fact that this living creature has these abilities is due to the activity of this living creature. And no one else is responsible for the fact that I can see or hear and so on. But the existence of the light, colors which I see, which I think I see, the existence of the sounds and the smells and the touchables, tangibles, these are not uniquely due to my activity. They are due to the collective activity of all living creatures over all time. Physical universe is not due only, the existence of the physical universe is not due only to the momentum of my karma, my action.

[05:56]

What this means is that the arising of individual consciousness is an interaction between the physical universe, which is the effect of all living creatures' activity. The physical universe is the effect of all living creature activity. And that physical universe can interact with an infinite number of individual sense capacities. When these individual sense capacities interact with the physical world, an individual consciousness arises out of that interaction. So when the effects of an individual karma, namely the sense capacities, interact with the effects of universal karma, namely the physical universe, that interaction gives rise to an individual consciousness.

[07:08]

And that individual consciousness is then aware of this physical universe, inanimate objects, which are expounding the Dharma, but it may not be able to tell that they are expounding the Dharma. And if it can't tell that, the instruction is, don't hinder that which can, which does know. Now, how can the individual karma, the individual consciousness, not interfere with that which tends to your... One of the main ways that you don't interfere is to act towards physical objects as you would if you understood what comes to make them.

[08:19]

In other words, If you could appreciate even a little bit what it takes to make color before you at this moment, what it takes to make a sound, all that goes into each moment of little bits of physical world, if you could appreciate what goes into making that, you would be in awe of this physical phenomenon. In other words, you would hear the Dharma. If you can't hear the Dharma, if you can't see that this red shirt, that that cough, if you can't hear all the ghosts that are making you, and thereby you don't hear the teaching of conditioned co-production coming with that sound,

[09:29]

then you should act towards it as you would if you knew. Namely, you should be very respectful of it. If you knew, you would be very respectful. And if you are very respectful, you do not hinder that which hears. In other words, the human body that is very respectful of the inanimate world, the human body-mind complex that acts with great respect for the physical universe, does not hinder that which hears this physical universe expounding. It does not hinder it at all. As a matter of fact, it actually It's like... It's like you... Like this poem on... You know, the temple bell rings.

[10:49]

And stops. And the flowers are still giving off the sound. So if your body and mind show great respect for physical things, it's as though the Dharma that's being spoken is reaching into you. And the part of your body that should manifest the respect totally hears. Some part of your intellectual mind doesn't hear. Let that part step aside and let the rest of your body and mind act with great reverence and respect. Then the body that hears, hears, and the mind doesn't get in the way. So that's why we got show. to our sitting place, to each other, two walls.

[12:01]

That's why we take care of things. This tradition of teaching which we have here, Kadukya Roshi and Suzuki Roshi and Hashimoto Roshi and Kishizawa Iyan Roshi, this lineage emphasizes taking care of the physical world. For example, One example is one time I was having a morning tea with Suzuki Roshi in San Francisco and we sat on the Zabatons like this in his room to have tea and put the Zabatons down and I moved one of the Zabatons at my feet.

[13:11]

He turned to another monk and said, sort of yelled at him a little bit, he said, we do not push these Zabatams around with our feet. And he didn't understand why he was talking to him like that. He got out of it. So since that time I have not been pushing these Zabatams around with my feet. So I don't hear the Dhamma. I don't hear the Dhamma. But my feet do. And I don't hinder my feet by kicking the lobotomy. And if I hear, if I would hear the timing, that would interfere with my activity, actually. So I don't hear it. But I try as much as... I try to not hinder that which does hear, namely my body. So I try to... I try, because I don't do very... Oftentimes I do hinder it...

[14:17]

slant to your arm. It is to question you. So I You may say I'm repeating myself, that I'm saying something I said before, so now I'd like to repeat myself. Do you want me to repeat myself? There are these two sides, the one side of the discipline and the other side which is beyond discipline. And Last night, I was talking to some people about dancing, and I thought of another wonderful example of discipline and going beyond discipline.

[15:30]

And the example, not that I thought of, but the example I saw, was Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Do you know Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? Fred Astaire, do you know a dancer? He's the greatest American dancer. In the 1930s, he had a dancing partner, Ginger Rogers. He made a lot of movies where they danced. They often danced, but he often wore very formal tuxedos and very dressed up in shiny shoes. And she dressed in a full gown and high heels. And they would dance on these floors that were like glass, black glass, very, very slippery. Almost no one could walk across these things, not to mention dancing.

[16:36]

And Ginger Rogers said, she often would slip, actually. And she often had all kinds of bruises all over her feet. And one time I saw recently a friend of mine, he's a Zen student in San Francisco. He's also an ET. And he rented a film of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. And in the film, There's a section where they did this one dance and they did it in slow motion so you could see more clearly their activity. And one of the first thing that you saw or that I noticed was that Ginger Rogers' feet almost never touched the ground. She used to occasionally tiptoe and touch on the glassy floor. Most of the time she'd just fly on. just carries her touch forward. But her stairs were completely planted, completely solid, every step perfectly set down like an elephant foot, but quick and light elephant foot.

[17:55]

And with this tremendous base of discipline in his feet, she could just simply fly around. Her just flying, of course, would be ridiculous. And she would just become her. And his plotting, the way he was dancing without her, if he did those same dancing steps, it would be very interesting if you watch it. The way he danced when he was with her was not the way he would dance when he was alone. But the combination of the two was like Buddha's way. But dance is something not like either one. It's something between the two. For both of them just to be flying wouldn't be very interesting. For both of them to be solidly climbing their feet wouldn't be so interesting. But for one to be totally grounded and the other one to fly, this is really magic.

[18:56]

And this is what it's like. Special transmission outside the scriptures. Completely grounded. Back pain completely free. Both thought. So this wonderful dance comes out of this discipline and beyond this. And it's not so common. almost no one knows how to be so completely grounded that someone else can trust them that much. So from that point we go off to discuss, we've discussed Bhūgārata. And from there we went to discuss The issue of the supple mind, which is discussed in Section 32.

[20:00]

The supple mind of the givers, the supple mind of the ancestors. This supple mind, you can see in your copy, it's called, in Japanese, it's called ni-nan-shin. Ni Nan Shin. And both of those characters, first two characters, mean soft, flexible, pliant, these kinds of things. Supple. Supple mind. Now, in this supple mind, it is the mind It says that to negotiate, practice, and confirm in realization the Buddhas and ancestors dropping off of body and mind.

[21:04]

This is the soft or supple mind. And I believe in another one, it says a little differently, which is quite interesting, it says The will of the buddhas and ancestors to draw body and mind is meekness of mind. So that's another reactionality. It's flexible, but also meek. Not just soft, but also meek. And meek is related to supple, too. And supple is related to also supplicant or supplication. Weakness, meekness, giving in, giving up. So this is another feature play of being quite strong, having the determination to get yourself into a situation that will be so intense that you will have to surrender.

[22:23]

So what Buddhas do is they organize their life, organize their body and mind, so that they get themselves in a situation where there's nothing they can do, so they give up. In other words, they get their body and mind in a situation where there's only one thing they can do with it, and that's drop it. It takes great determination, precision, and care to get yourself in that situation. It's a rare opportunity to finally manage to get yourself into that place. When you sit with your legs crossed on a self-loop, for example, for one hour or even a few minutes, but certainly a week or a year or whatever, and you sit there and you don't move,

[23:34]

If you stay there, eventually the only one thing you can do, and that is draw the body and mind where to sit in. If you move away from that spot, if you wiggle, if you look away, if you leave the room, well, then you won't have to do it. You will escape. Okay? But if you stay there, you will function so fully, so fully that body and mind will be dropped. So body and mind dropped is the complete function in the most intense place. So the archetypal or prototypical situation in which we place ourselves is literally our sitting posture. but when we're not sitting with our legs crossed in these wonderful yogic situations, then throughout the day we have to keep turning towards that place, that place in which so much is coming upon us that we have to let go.

[24:52]

We can't be hard, we can't be strong. Our strength is what brings us to be in that place. We use our strength to get there. We use our heroic energy to get ourselves in a situation so that we can believe. And it says, and that's what it says here, you see? It says, it says something. It says something. The zazen of the arhats and pratyekabuddhas, although it is not attached to the flavor of meditation, lacks great compassion. Now, they're pretty good, these disciples and these pratyekabuddhas, these solitary buddhas.

[25:56]

In other words, they meditate, and they have pretty enjoyable meditation. They're good enough to actually have bliss when they're sitting, and they're even better than that, but they don't attach to this enjoyment, and even let go of the enjoyment of meditation. However, they lack great compassion, which I'm suggesting means they're not sitting in the right place. They're sitting out on the edge of the world someplace. They're not sitting in the center of their own body. They're not sitting in the center of their own family. They're not sitting in the center of their own community. They're sitting off to the side. Therefore, although they have quite good meditation practice, they do not have compassion. Now, this sets them apart from the zazen's public buddhas and ancestors, in which vowing

[27:01]

they plunge into unknown space to save all sentient beings, places great compassion in the foremost. That's what characterizes the sitting of the Buddha. The Buddha not only sits, but the Buddha said, where can I sit that I'll be closest to the most suffering creatures? That's most important to me. Okay, then I read last time, too, that... Well, there are many things, but I skip a ways. As for the Buddhas and ancestors, from the very first awakening of the religious mind, they take a vow to gather all the various Buddhadhanas. Therefore, in their zazen, they do not forget or forsake any sentient being. In other words, they're sitting someplace that they can remember all kinds of sentient beings.

[28:08]

They do not forsake one, down to even the tiniest insect. And it's not so much that these Buddhas and ancestors are In one sense, they like insects, right? But it's not so much that they, it's more like they need the insects to feel that they're in the right place. If you don't have the insects, too, that you're caring about, it's not, you can still, maybe you'll still, I don't know, you can still be strong. But when you even add little insects in, you can't make it anymore. Only then, like in San Francisco, we have a lot of cockroaches. If you really include the cockroaches, it's really hard. It's hard to hold on to the grass simply. Again, they give them compassion with God at all times, vowing to save them and save them all and turning over to them every merit they acquire.

[29:30]

That is the reason why the Buddhism ancestors have always found the world, found in the world of desiree, negotiating the way. They're always found in the world of desire, negotiating the way. And the other one is saying, the other translation, very similar, but says, for this reason, Buddhism ancestors always sit in meditation and pursue the way in the realm of desire. They come adopted. That's what they say. And now in advance, Regarding Jambudipa as the only region of the realm of desire, they cultivate all merits and attain neateness or suppleness of mind. In order to save Sanchinpura, you have to have this flexible mind in order to save Sanchinpura. You have to have this supplicant mind in order to save Sanchinpura.

[30:33]

Not most of us, maybe none of us, can develop this thorough, ungrasping way unless we place ourselves in the middle of the fire. We don't sit in the middle of the fire. We still can hold up. We still think we can maybe make life work. Maybe I can still win And again, as I said, if you think that you can take care of yourself and even maybe help somebody else, you can't help other people. That's just arrogance due to the small scope of where you live, that you live in a little tiny world or that you live in a big world but off to the edge. where nobody notices you and nobody expects anything of you and nobody needs you.

[31:44]

Then you could think, well, I can take care of myself and somebody else. Maybe I could save someone. That's why we don't say exactly that Buddhas do save people. It doesn't talk about how... You notice it isn't saying that these Buddhas do save all sentient beings. Did you notice? It says they vow to save all sentient beings because they're not quite good enough to save a sentient being. Because they have meekness of mind. They're too meek to actually be able to save a non-sentient being. They can't even take care of themselves. Or even while they can't take care of themselves, they sit right in the middle of all sorts of major troubles. So it isn't like they can't take care of themselves in the most difficult situation in the world.

[32:49]

That's where they can't take care of themselves. And not only that, but they just sit there. They aren't rolling about trying to get away from there either. They're in a situation where they can't even take care of themselves. They can't even take care of themselves. They can't even take care of their own bodies. And what do they say? I can't even take care of my own body, and I'm going to save all such beings. They're not saying, I can take care of my own body, and I am taking care of all such beings. They're saying, I can't even take care of myself, and I'm going to take care of others. But they don't say, I am taking care of you. They say, I'm going to. They intend to. If they can't take care of themselves, they can't even brush their teeth because of the cockroach. They have to help the cockroach get all the way to the toothbrush. They're overwhelmed.

[33:51]

But the strange thing about these Buddhas is that although they're overwhelmed, they aren't trying to escape from that situation and get into a lower intensity place. they actually are able to stay there calmly and sit there without trying to get away. And so, because they stay there, because they're always sitting there, they develop this subtle mind. They develop this subtle mind, this meek mind, this subtle, soft mind, which is the vow, the real vow, the vow of the Buddhists. to save all such a things. It's the vow of the Buddha is to drop the vahinga. But it takes organization, precise, careful organization to get yourself in a situation. You can't get your body into the position, the yogic position, where it's under maximum request.

[34:59]

By accident, you have to work for years to get your body in a position where you can put that kind of request up. In other words, you have to be disciplined to get yourself in a place like that. You have to carefully work yourself into that most intense place. So this is also what could be called the maximum, the optimum habitat. This is where the living creatures most fully function. And another way to put this is this is the This is the total exertion of suffering.

[36:03]

This is the total exertion of the world of suffering. Wilke says, Maria Wilke says, he was a very good sufferer, this German poet. Very good. He had a great capacity for not even being, you know, not even sitting cross-legged. He had a great ability somehow to suffer. He has all diseases. He had leukemia. And in the middle of his leukemia, which is, that's, you know what leukemia? That's fire. Leukemia is the fire. The base fire, right in your blood. The blood's burning. Okay? that he had, and he said, maybe his last poem, he said, come to me, come to me at last, for I recognize you, terrible sufferer.

[37:17]

Come to inhabit the body's higher selves. He's inviting the terrible suffering into his self. Come to me at last. I recognize you, terrible suffering. Come to inhabit the body's higher selves. As once I burned in the spirit. When he was young, he had a great spirit, you know. And that's good. Great to have wild enthusiasm in spirit. But now he's gone beyond that. Now he's suffering into his life. As once I burned in your spirit, look, I burn in you. For a long time the wood has withheld the scent from the blaze, which you are.

[38:25]

Even my gentleness grows. Even my gentleness grows. In pure fury. Into the fury of hell. Utterly pure. Utterly, naplessly free of an afterlife. I climb the ladder of sorrows in the night of piety. I climb the ladder of sorrows. Utterly certain of purchasing nothing of this heart. So this is very much the same. You could say, come to me at last, I recognize you. Instead of saying, terrible suffer, you could say, his eyes in. Come to me at last, I recognize you, Zazen.

[39:29]

Come and inhabit the body's hive of cells. Once I burn in spirit, now I burn in you, Zazen. For a long time the wood has withheld its ascent from the blades of Zazen, which you are. Even my suppleness of body and mind grows in the fury, into the fury of hell. Jump into the fire. Many Zen teachers, in their last poem, they say something like, 53 years of such and such, and like Dogen says, now I jump immediately into the yellow springs. I go down into the yellow springs. It just takes me.

[40:34]

Now Hades in Greece is not a place of point. It's more a place of death. This is the suppleness of body and mind. It is developed by living in the middle of , the middle of the world of living creatures. And sangha is all the people in the Zen Center.

[41:40]

It's also the cells of your body. You have to sit in the bones and flesh and organs and skin and so on of your body. That's a sangha too. It's a very demanding sangha. Do you hear how demanding that sangha is? Is that sangha a hard place for you to live? If it's not, then what's the matter with yourself? It shouldn't be an easy family of organs and cells where you're just sitting. It should be a very demanding place to be. When you're in the Zando, you find it just with this body.

[42:54]

And also, you notice we sit in a group, too, so you can see other people here, and your eyes open. Eyes open means you see all 17 beings. But when you get up from the cushion, In other circumstances of life, it's very difficult for you to appreciate how to have your body be like the whole world. To have your body in this position, your body can easily call to you. It can easily say, sit up straight, pain here, pain there, getting caught here. Your body gives many voices, many voices. When you're walking around, it's hard for you to hear your body that way. And there, you should be in a situation where the people around you, where the trees around you, where the men, women, and children around you call to you like your body does when you're sitting.

[43:57]

And that's why it's good to stay in a group of people will have a wide range, not just all healthy people, not just all sick people, not just all young people, not just all old people, but old people and sick people and young people and healthy people and smart people and crazy people and rich people and poor people, people that are older than you in practice and younger than you in practice. All full range. Then get in the middle of that group. Keep moving. Figure out some way to be in the center of that group. Plan your route into the middle of the circle. The place these Buddhists sit is called the bodhimanda. Bodhimanda, that's where they sit. They're at the center of all the people they're practicing and all the people they're suffering. They get themselves into that place.

[45:01]

But each person who's practicing is the center of it. It's not like there's just at this group out of gear rushes to the center and you're all at the edge. You should all be at the center. Maybe you have to get, as Sukho said, right next to him to get to the center. I don't care. Maybe everybody will be crowded around him. But of course you can't do that all the time. So you have to be, feel that you're at the center as much as he is. If you're not, if you don't feel you're much at the center of this community as teacher, then you won't be able to develop that intensity. But during saschin, sometimes the beginner is more at the center than the investor. Because the beginner has so much pain that they're very much, it's like, and they're not trying to get away, they're really sitting where Buddha is sitting, but the older student who is more comfortable can get through the sâshin quite easily, but they don't expect enough more of themselves as they get older.

[46:15]

So they're actually less in the center than some new students. So you have to be honest about whether or not if someone could add If someone could add one more twig to you, can you feel if someone could add another twig? If you can feel if someone could add another twig, add that twig. Add that twig. Figure out some way that you can add another twig. Again, like the bamboo, right? The image of a bamboo in the snow. Bamboo's leaves are like this, and there's no snow, and the snow lands on the bamboo leaf, it bends. And it's still holding that bamboo, that snow, and if more snow lands, it bends. And if more snow, it bends.

[47:16]

And more it bends. Collect as much snow as you can, and you reach a certain point, and the next bit of snow that bends, all the snow will fall off. And then they come back up, and then more see. So you go through that cycle. You have to feel that kind of burning of a heat to wake if you watch your day. If you don't feel it, you can't drop. You can't drop down. And when you drop down, you join all beings. And when you join all beings, you'll be great. And then you start over. And again, get happy and good. Up and down. Every day, every hour, every week, this cycle goes on. You're always sitting in this place.

[48:19]

The story goes on. The story of bamboo is the story of Buddha. So as you may know, several thousand years ago, the Buddhas invented snow in Bangalore, so it would have this example. But they forgot about this. Is there anything else about this? The vow of the Buddhas? Supple body-mind? So, I sometimes say, Zazen is the great tenderizer. Zazen is a great tenderizer. He makes you tender. So, you can be like a child.

[49:23]

If someone says, when you get ordained or something, and someone says, even after acquiring Buddhism, will you faithfully receive and maintain these precepts? You say, yes, I will. You don't say, gee, I don't know if I'll be able to. You say, yes, you can do that very easy, because you're just a tender little child. They ask you, can you do it? You say, yes, easy. It's not because you're strong that you say it. It's because you're soft that you can say it. If you're strong, it's like, hmm, I don't know if I'd be able to do that. It's awfully big. Those are very hard precepts to follow. I wouldn't be able to do it. Okay, anything else here?

[50:26]

Do you understand what Jaladvipa is? One word that is a difficult word we have to be very careful of in Buddhism in America, in Buddhism as we use English, is the word accept.

[52:26]

When we say accept, or just accept, or something like that, or even totally accept, People in America think that we need to be passive and just give up, do not do anything. And yet accepting or acceptance we can understand it as that it means it's an extremely energetic state. It's not passive, but it's more like this, more like this supplements. So to accept suffering,

[53:33]

is to totally exert suffer. To let suffering have its full effect, like a bamboo, is not passive. When the snow is building up on the leaf, it's not passive at all. Even though it's bending, it's still making a big effort. And something's holding that snow up. But when the snow touches the bamboo leaf, it goes down a little bit. The fact that it goes down is a total exertion of the snow. It's a full expression of the snow. That's like, although you may not be able to hear that snow expounding a darn.

[54:37]

Don't hinder that which hears it. What hears it? This. When the snow hits your arm, the arm goes down. That's the sound of snow falling. That's the snow. This is the snow expounding the dharma. Your arm shows it. Your leaves going down. That's acceptance, but it's also an exertion. It's an exertion of your whole life force to hold that snow. This is not easy. It's all I can do. And when the snow weighs a certain amount, the total exertion is the same as dropping body and mind. So total acceptance of this much snow is like this.

[55:45]

The total acceptance of more snow is like this. The total acceptance of more snow is like this. And when I have the maximum load of snow, the total exception is like this. What follows the total exception? This. And what's this? This coming up again is being with all people. Once you go all the way down, you can be with everyone. But until you go all the way down, you can't really be with people. You can't really help people. In other words, until you completely accept people in their difficulty,

[56:51]

You can't help them with their difficulty. You could do something, but it's not really Buddha's help until you completely accept them. If you completely accept someone, they can feel it. They can feel that you have a great respect for them as they are. And when you speak to the person, when they say, someone very wise is speaking to me, someone who completely accepts me is speaking to me,

[57:55]

We think that people who think we're completely all right the way we are, we think such people are wise. And we are right. They are. And when people who completely accept us as we are speak to us, we listen as best we can. But if people don't accept us, then we know they're not wise. Even though they tell us to do wonderful things, like please sit down, please be kind, please sweep the floor, please take care of your mother, please give us your money. If they don't accept us, they're not wise. We don't listen to them. We can't trust them because they don't accept us. It is possible to accept a person completely and still dance with them.

[59:04]

It's possible to accept a person completely and still say, do that. But you don't say it from the point of view of something's wrong with this person, and now they should do this, and then they'll be right. You just naturally have something to do with it. You're just interested in doing something. And whatever that is, it could sound, it could seem very strict. It would be all right. If a person is trying to jump out of the window, or they say, I'm going to jump out of the window, you can totally accept them and walk over and pull them away from the window without any feelings.

[60:16]

of not accepting that they're walking over towards the window and that they're saying things like, I'm going to jump out the window. You have no, you completely accept it, you don't want them to be any different, and you take a hold of them and pull them away from the window. It's like, one, two, three, over to the window, one, two, three, back away from the window. It's like that. then it's just a dance. But if it's one, two, three, and no, no, they're doing the wrong thing, then it's just a waste of everybody's time. It may be stopping them from jumping out the window, but nobody learns anything. And the person may be just more discouraged because here they put themselves way out to put on this big show and they didn't learn anything from it. They've made this great offer, and it's been refused.

[61:21]

When we teach children how to do certain things, like ride a bicycle, we teach the children, maybe we teach the children, because we already love them. We already think they're just flying the way they are. Here they are, six years old or seven years old. They don't know how to ride a bicycle. We feel perfectly fine about that. They're a wonderful person. And we can teach you how to ride a bicycle. And to watch this wonderful person learn how to do anything is wonderful. It's a great thrill. But sometimes in the process of teaching them how to ride a bicycle, we forget that they're wonderful, and we think there's something wrong with them because they don't know how to ride a bicycle. We forget. But it is possible to remember while they're learning how to ride a bicycle that they were already before they knew how. And this process isn't going to make you a better person.

[62:28]

But if they learn how to ride a bicycle, that's wonderful. It's a wonderful thing. There's no problem with that. But can we remember that not only are they alright before, but in the middle of being a person who's learning how to ride a bicycle, that person is also perfectly fine. Can we remember that? We often slip and forget that in the middle of the process of learning something. Especially we do that with our relatives, with our own children, or with our husbands and wives, with our parents. Do you know what I mean?

[63:36]

Usually a husband can't teach the wife how to drive a car, or vice versa. A wife can't teach a husband how to speak Japanese or something. So Togen Zenji said, firm, firm, on seven bodhis cushion.

[64:53]

Now this is the easy chair my master passed to me. Center, center. to it. Get up, eyes straight. So firm on seven bonus cushion in the center. Figure out how to get yourself into the center. Suffering is our greatest treasure, our greatest friend. The only problem is that we don't have enough.

[66:01]

People who don't have enough of it complain. Complain and blame. And people who have enough of it ask for more. So which kind are we? Do we have enough? We have enough, that means we want more. So if you want more, you have enough. But you don't just want more, you have to then do something about that. You can't just say, yes, I want more, that means I'm one of the ones who have enough. That if you feel like you want more...

[67:22]

Please give me more responsibility. Please, more people ask me to help. That's right, but then you have to act to get yourself in a situation where that can happen. Just think it. Now put yourself out. Let people know that you feel that way. Volunteer to do some little thing to help somebody. Make yourself vulnerable when you feel that way. Don't wait. Act on it as soon as you can. And if you feel like you have enough and you don't want any more, then that means you don't have enough. You're giving something back. You're in trouble if you think you've got enough and you can't take any more.

[68:27]

So in that case, you should find someone who needs some help. Someone who needs to skillfully encourage you to take on more, because it's not good to not want more. More problems, more... take care of more things. That means you're discouraged. But if you would just take on more than you have now, the discouragement you feel would be dropped. You would drop the present discouragement that you have if you would just take on more. Which basically just means it's like, it's just like, you know, You've got a little bit, just go, just make it a little bit harder. Harder. Then you go into the next step.

[69:39]

But I don't mean that if you're burning up, that then you turn the heat up. So that you'll jump out. That's what we sometimes do, right? We get so hot, turn the heat up and then we leave. Don't be nuts. I mean, the way you can turn, think of the way you can turn the heat up. That you wouldn't. Some way that you can stay with it. Again, as Ropa says, when are we going to lovingly let go of our lovers and stand it?

[70:49]

People let go of their lovers and then don't stand it all the time. When are you going to Let go of your locker. Let go of the good love. Extend it. Take it. It doesn't do much good to let go and then not take it. Then run away from it. Then pull it off. Now you keep it. Keep it and then later you can let go of it. But keep it off. until you're ready to lovingly let go in such a way that you can stand it, that you can stay there, that you can stand it. Okay?

[72:09]

And some is turning. Let's see if we have someone on this. Okay, this is the sattva, talking about the spiritual body. Thank you.

[73:05]

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