When I first sat down, I had a little... What do you call it? Epiphany. Epiphany came later. When I first sat down, I had a little grief. The grief... And the grief was... That lady who just went up to the second floor, would you come down, please? But if people come down to see you, a bit more. People on the second floor, please come down. One more. A bit more. Anyway, grief-wise, I couldn't see you people. And the grief was that I was attached to seeing you people. And because I wanted to, I was having trouble letting go of being able to see you. And help me.

[01:01]

And I let go of being able to see you. Okay? And then the epiphany came. Stand up. Now I can see you, except there are some people around the corner, too. I can see everybody. I think I can stand for a while. Would you like a chair? Would you like a chair, teacher? Yeah, I can use it. Just in case. But even the chair might not be high enough. A ladder would be good.

[02:09]

A hijab. A ladder would be good. But then... At least then he's better than a ladder. Well, yeah, thank you, friends and... family for coming and to meet me and meet each other. We've been having a five-day session here. And so this talk is Well, the introduction to the people who have come today... ...teachings that we've been contemplating, and also a farewell teaching for the people who have been here for the ongoing discussion of the teaching.

[03:17]

Welcome and farewell. There's a poster outside, which you may not have noticed, but anyway, got a picture of me with kind of like, or next to me is the statement, Buddha activities in English, which with a kind of, the way the letters are written looks kind of like Vogue magazine. Buddha activity was the theme for this session. And also says on the posture, Buddha activity is, it doesn't say exactly, but sometimes, Buddha activity is the unceasing effort

[04:26]

of freeing all beings so they may live together in peace and harmony." That's Buddha. That's what it says in there, and I agree. That's the activity of Buddha. And I also have been saying over and over that Zen practice, Zen, is Buddha activity.

[05:31]

Zen practice, Zen meditation is Buddha activity. Now, other people say Zen is something else. Zen accepts that. Zen accepts that there's all different stories about Zen. And Zen Zen is the unceasing aftertaste of the different stories about Zen. But the story that I'm telling is that Zen is Buddha-activity. And Buddha-activity can also be called all the other kinds of Buddhism. I use the word Zen, or Zazen, or Buddha activity.

[06:34]

Buddha activity also could be described, which I have already, over and over, described. The dance. A dance. A dance. A relationship. An intimate, loving relationship. between delusion and enlightenment. In this dance between enlightenment and delusion, and this dance is, by the way, imperceptible, but we can realize it. And we are working, all of us are working and realizing Delusion. We're working on this dance. And beings are liberated. And being liberated in this dance beings are able to be at peace with each other.

[07:57]

I don't propose that this Buddha activity has or will eliminate delusion and affliction and suffering. I propose that it will realize peace. We'll free beings from suffering without getting rid of suffering, which would be similar to getting rid of living beings. We're not trying to eliminate living beings who are suffering. We're trying to liberate them so they can live with each other. We being me and my friends. which is everybody, we're all doing this whether you agree with me or not. Because I thought, how ironic that we're doing this whether you agree with me or not.

[09:06]

And I'm doing this with you whether I agree with you or not. What's that sound on somebody? Hi, Daniel. Hi. Thanks for coming to the university. From no amplification. Okay, so there's the basic picture. Food activity. Got it? Imperceptible. I'm talking about it, but my words don't reach it. However, even though my words... This is another irony. Even though my words don't reach it, It can talk to you. I mean, I'm a Buddha activity puppet. And maybe I'm a Buddha activity mannequin. I don't know, anyway. I'm not in control of this person. This person's not in control of this person, and nothing else is either.

[10:12]

But this person is animated by the entire universe in a very wonderful way. Not take away, bury. In a wonderful way, a wonderful, inconceivable way, we live our lives. And we live together in peace and harmony, and it's a question of waking up to this. Liberation. Because again, it's unceasing. It's been going on from before you came here today, and it will continue after we leave. What will continue? Buddha activity. What's that? The process means what has been going on for a long time, going on now, and will continue. However, it's not something that you can perceive, or I can perceive. However, it can be realized, and the way you realize it is by practicing it.

[11:19]

Practicing what? Buddha activity. And it's going on again. Know it or not. If you know it, great, going on. If you don't, if you perceive it, that's not it, but still that doesn't hurt it. I feel like sitting down, but I'm not going to. Another theme in this session is a Chinese word pronounced in a Japanese way.

[12:28]

I think in Chinese it's more like shi-shin. And Shi or Setsu, the word Sesshin is Setsu. Setsu is one character. The other character is Shin. Setsu means to embrace and sustain or nurture or collect. And Shin is mind or heart. So Sesshin could be translated as embracing and sustaining the heart, or take away that heart. And each individual heart, it could be all of our hearts, and it could be Buddha heart.

[13:28]

Was that clear? Sesshi could mean embrace and sustain your own heart, everybody's heart. So could be embracing Buddha's heart. Character also means mind. Embrace and sustain your mind, your conscious mind, which is quite a job, isn't it? Embrace people's minds and embrace and sustain Buddha's mind. That's sashin. But there's another meaning of sashin, which is to pivot that, turn it. Sashin is to be embraced and sustained by the mind. It's to be embraced and sustained by others. It's to be embraced and sustained by Buddha's mind. So that's sashi, that's zen practice, is to embrace and sustain all minds, and to be embraced and sustained by all minds.

[14:39]

And that's enlightenment, embracing and sustaining delusion, and delusion, embracing and sustaining enlightenment. Enlightenment is embraced and sustained by delusion. There's nothing else to embrace and sustain enlightenment other than enlightenment and delusion. And similarly, delusion and suffering is embraced and sustained by enlightenment. But enlightenment's not better than delusion. Enlightenment is believed by itself It's only part of Buddha activity. Buddha activity is enlightenment together with delusion. Of course Buddha activity is not just delusion. It's delusion dancing with enlightenment. That's the Zen business.

[15:44]

And again, this dance is not my idea of it, or your idea of it. It's imperceptible, but we can realize it by practicing. We are realizing it. Another theme or metaphor is that the Buddha way is basically leaping. Where does it leap? It leaps beyond enlightenment and delusion.

[16:52]

The Buddha way is not stuck in enlightenment, and it's not stuck in the . It's leaping, [...] leaping. So, we practice leaping. We also practice being born. and we practice dying. But Buddha activity is not being born and dying. It's leaping into being born and dying. It's leaping into birth and leaping into death, and leaping from death. It's leaping, and it's not afraid of leaping into birth and death. It joyfully dives into birth and death. It leapingly dives. Again, I felt like sitting down, but I'm not.

[18:01]

So again, another theme comes from a statement made in ancient China by one of the teachers over there. Some people might a Zen master. Anyway, he was a disciple of Buddha. He wanted to teach and transmit the Buddha's teaching to his beloved students. And right up to the end of his life, he was trying to do that, and he gave a wonderful teaching. People didn't understand it. He was a little bit grieved about that. But anyway, he still kept trying. And the second to the last sentence he said was, The boat of compassion cannot row over pure water, pure waves.

[19:07]

The boat of compassion cannot row over pure waves. its road over polluted, dirty, turbulent, muddy water. All this calling for compassion, and the Buddha's activity is in this boat of compassion. Buddha and all sentient beings are on the boat of compassion. We can tolerate it, don't worry. We can deal with that sound.

[20:13]

So, one could say this week we have been in the boat together here, rowing compassionately through waters of suffering. We've been doing that. Of course, you also have been. People who haven't been in this little building, you've been all over the city. Maybe the state of Texas, you've been in, you've been rowing through it too. We're practicing, we're in the boat, in rough water. We're surrounded by suffering. But we're happy because we're practicing compassion. We're joyful even though we're surrounded by grief and fear and greed and hatred and delusion and cruelty and injustice.

[21:36]

We practice compassion with it all. On the boat of compassion, we do. I laugh because I just thought of a teacher that I used to know named Kadagiri Roshi. And one of his favorite TV shows was what? The Love Boat. I never saw it, but I heard he really liked it. Maybe he even loved it, I don't know. And I liked the Compassion Boat. That's my favorite boat. Or ship. Or surfboard. Surfers do not particularly like to surf on pure... Well, maybe they like pure, but they don't particularly like flat water to surf on.

[22:39]

Like it or not, the water is sometimes really rough. And we can become really good surfers by being compassionate to our board. and our feet, and our ankles, and the waves, and the wind, and the sun, and the dolphins. We can learn to be compassionate on our surfboard, and it's a really hard job. But when people learn it, they're very happy. When they're on their board, they're free. The problem is that when they come back on land, how do you have that same kind of mindful and compassionate presence with the earth and the sand, with the floor of a bar? So we've been on this boat, and we're still on the boat, we're practicing compassion.

[23:49]

with the waters, with the waves. We're practicing generosity with the waves. And they're splashing off it. And we're being generous with them. And we're being careful and gentle with them. And we're being patient with them. And we're being diligent. And we're being relaxed. We're learning to be these things anyway. We're learning to be generous. We're learning to be careful. We're learning to be careful of the waves and the oars. We don't want to hit anybody else with our oar. We're watching over the other oars. We're being patient with the difficulty of this rowing in the rough water. And we're learning to relax with it. and play with it.

[24:51]

And in this process, wisdom will come. Wisdom will be awakened. We will awaken to Buddha action by being compassionate with the waters of delusion. Of course, one can, when the waters are really rough and the boat's really flipping around, one can sometimes be thrown overboard into the water and forget to practice compassion.

[25:59]

One can be thrown over into greed, hate and delusion and just join the greed, hate and delusion. Whoopee! It might happen. Where'd the boat go? I don't know. Anyway, we might want to get back on. We're still in the waters of greed, hate and delusion. But let's get back on that boat. We temporarily got knocked out. Somebody hit you in the face with an oar. And you said, I really hate you. And then suddenly you're in the water. In the face, they're just not very good at rowing, and you're really irritated. What a lousy rower they are. They're putting the oar in the water, but they're putting it in horizontal to the water, so it's not catching any... They're not doing their part. It's irritating. But really, irritation is just another wave.

[27:04]

that we practice compassion with. But sometimes we lose it and we fall into the waters of suffering and forget all about compassion. Which is really sad, but it's not the end of the game. We get to the boat. I'm sorry. I forgot compassion for a little while, a minute, a week. I'm sorry. I'm embarrassed. Can I come back on the boat? You never really fell off, you just got distracted by a big rough wave or unskillfully operated oar. Not to mention some people who are not even rowing. Sitting back, you know, lounging in the post.

[28:15]

Letting you do all the work. Yeah, you go ahead and be compassionate. Thanks a lot. Keep it up. I have better things to do. And just, you know, I can't name all the waves. But there's a few I didn't name, which I think I'm going to.

[29:19]

On this boat of compassion, we're surrounded by waves of laziness. We're surrounded by waves of injustice. We're surrounded by waves of oppression. We're surrounded by waves of, what's the other thing? Violence and abuse. Again, I can't name them all. I just thought I'd mention those just in case anybody thought I didn't know about them. I heard of them. And on the boat of compassion, when injustice comes, we meet it with, we are endeavoring to meet the injustice with justice, with compassion in the form of justice, to dance with the injustice. Buddha activity is justice dancing with injustice. Buddha activity is not up there by itself.

[30:21]

Justice, that sounds good. Well, that's not Buddha activity, that's justice. Which is pretty good, but not yet Buddha activity. Buddha activity is when justice meets injustice. That's what I say. Buddha is when compassion meets violence. Not just compassion and violence is on some other planet. Violence is just up and exploding all the time. Violence is just in volcanoes. It is there, it's true. But compassion, nonviolence, is present with violence and liberates into text when there's violence. I said,

[31:25]

Since mine again, so what is it? I was thinking of telling you that when I was a boy, not when I was a little boy, but when I was like, just like before puberty, boy... Can you hear me in the back? My parents got divorced, And so our family was kind of... Before that, you know, there was almost no shortage of food around the house, or money. We had, as far as I could tell, we had... I mean, I knew we lived in a little house, but I didn't feel really poor. I knew about rich people. I thought, this is really cool, your house here. I knew about people who had speedboats and stuff, and I appreciated the chance to go riding on them.

[32:55]

But when my parents broke up, sometimes we didn't have any money. But we were okay. There was usually some food in the house, but sometimes there was almost none, or none that I could figure out. My sister was better. She could somehow convert things by cooking into meals. But I kind of like just that there's nothing to eat. But I mentioned to someone, I lived in a middle-class neighborhood, so I could go over to my friend's house after school, and their mothers would feed me. The main thing I think is that I knew my parents loved me, whether they were divorced or not. And so I was okay, even though I had to do some gathering, some food gathering.

[34:03]

We can be poor, but if there's compassion, we'll be fine. And with compassion, maybe we'll find some food. Yeah. Yeah. My parents were compassionate enough to me so I could find some food at other people's house. Can I come in and eat here? Is there any messages over there? Yes? Louise is really cold, so we gave her a sweater. Is anyone else really cold? She's special. Do you want to come and sit up here, Louise? Yes, you're a kid. Anybody else need some sweaters? Well, I've been talking a long time, but I thought maybe I could tell us some stories, some old stories.

[35:12]

Who made that sound? Here's some old stories. I also just want to say something about stories before I tell the old story. It's a story about stories. Two stories about stories, and there's a story, which I'll talk first. I'll tell you the story. I said to my daughter that it might be a good idea for me to tell her son some family stories before it's too late. Because sometimes after certain people are not around anymore, you may be wondering what they told you about your ancestors, which are kind of fun sometimes to have a few.

[36:25]

So I mentioned that to my daughter. Maybe I could tell my grandson some stories. If I asked him, he might say, no thanks. But if she said she's willing to... tell you some funny stories, it might be a good thing to listen. And then, not too long after, she sent me an article. And the article started out with this man, something like a father, telling a story of being at the dinner table with his family. And this isn't the real whole story, so people during this time, some of the people at the table had electronic devices which they were really interested in, and they were not interested, for example, in their parents or the food or their siblings.

[37:31]

And then some parents asked them to put their devices down and relate to the family and maybe eat something. And the people that had problems with this, and pretty soon it was kind of a really rough water and not sufficient compassion. So, dinner, pretty much nobody was at the table anymore except the author. And then he said, what holds a family together? Because there's a lot of forces to pull families apart. What holds a family together? And he answered for himself, really good stories. Even though it's difficult, good stories sometimes help us stay on the boat. For example, the story of the boat of compassion is one of our stories. Each teacher said that. And that story will maybe help us stay on the boat together.

[38:35]

with our family members, even when things get really rough, and even when they're the reason it's rough. They're the problem. You should get off the coach. Anyway, and then I thought, you know, in the Zen tradition too, again, we have rough times in Zen tradition. We sometimes have problems with our own family members. And one of the things that holds us together is our stories, which are also our teaching in the form of stories. So we tell stories to keep the family together on the ship that we're rowing through earth and death. So here's the two stories.

[39:36]

One of them is much more famous than the other one. First I'll tell the not-so-famous one. A monk asked the ancient teacher, the great teacher, Jiaojiao. He said, Does the dog have Buddha nature? Does a dog have Buddha activity?" And Zhaozhou said, Yes, it has. Does it have it or not? Does a dog have this Buddha activity or not? And the teacher said, It has. And then the monk says, Well, why does it, Buddha nature, go into the school

[40:40]

Why does it go into the skin bag? And Jado said, because it knowingly and willingly transgresses brackets into the skin bag. The Buddha nature knowingly and willingly goes to deluded karmic consciousnesses. It goes in there to do Buddha's work Buddha activity also involves the vow to go into deluded consciousnesses for the sake of liberating deluded consciousness. When nature, or when enlightenment can space, but that's not Buddha activity.

[41:42]

It's Buddha activity. Buddha activity is enlightenment with a vow to give up enlightenment and leap into delusion. To leap into the prison of delusion in order to liberate beings from the prison of delusion. So it's enlightenment together with the vow enters the polluted water. Then another monk asked Gyalgyo, does a dog have Buddha nature? And the famous answer is, it doesn't have it. In Japanese, mu. So many Zen students meditate on that story. Karmic consciousness has Buddha nature. What's that about?

[42:45]

In the original story, this story goes on, and the monk says to Jyotiro, all living beings have Buddha nature, why doesn't a dog? And the answer is, because it has karmic consciousness. And that's an ironic answer. Not paradoxical, ironic. And right this minute, I'm not laughing. Okay, ready? Does a dog have Buddha nature? No. Well, all sentient beings have Buddha nature. Why doesn't a dog? Because it has karmic consciousness. There we go, there we go. Zen uses irony a lot, and Zen is using me, and sending me all kinds of ironies, so I'm laughing a lot.

[43:56]

Buddha names all things but karmic consciousness, and karmic consciousness lives nowhere else but good nature. So when he says, because of that, it's a joke. It's an ironic joke. Bye-bye. You're coming back, great. I'll be waiting for a while. So those are the two stories. To hold our family together. To do the hard work of rowing the boat. the boat of generosity, the boat of ethical discipline, the boat of conversing about ethics, the boat of watching over self-righteousness when practicing ethics, the boat of patience, the boat of enthusiasm, the boat of concentration.

[45:20]

And the boat of compassion will awaken to the boat of compassion being the boat of wisdom. They're really the same. So maybe even though I have a lot more to say, I'm going to stop and invite you to say something if you wish. Yes, Ana? Could you stand up? There's a story that came to mind about this monk who was in a monastery. He was the cook. And all the monks were kind of weak in it. there was some food that was placed somewhere that the abbot had placed there for I don't know what reason.

[46:29]

I'm not telling the story correctly, but that's what I remember. And so the abbot went out for I don't know what reason. And so he decided to feed all these monks that were really not looking well. But when he was feeding them, the abbot finally came back and was He ate the meal, but afterwards was very upset with the tinsel, and so he exhaled him. So that speaks to consequences, accountability, and where's the compassion? So I just wanted to get your thoughts on that story. I guess you couldn't hear that story in the back. Is that right? Could you hear it? So I'm going to tell it again slightly differently. Once upon a time, there was a head cook who lived in a monastery. I'm laughing, I can't stop myself, because there's a backstory for this head monk.

[47:37]

Want to hear the backstory? The head monk traveled a long distance with his friend to study with this well-known teacher who was known to be very strict. People came from all over to practice with this strict teacher. However, it doesn't say, actually, that people came from all over to practice with this compassionate teacher. But they definitely thought this teacher was compassionate in a very strict form. So they went to this monastery, and it was winter. And it might have been cold. And they went into a room where itinerant monks, or monks who are asking to be initiated into the community, sit. You can't just walk into the monastery and join them. There's an initiation room where you sit to demonstrate that you're not just, I don't know what.

[48:43]

You demonstrate that you're serious. and it's called itinerant monk room. Tangadiyo. And so this monk, Hushan, he and his friend went and sat there, and there were some other monks there too, and the teacher, the strict teacher came in and said, I don't know what, something kind of mean, and told them all to get out. And they didn't. Then he came back and threw water on them. And Fushan, this person who's going to become the head cook, said, we traveled hundreds of miles to study with you. You think we're going to go away just because you threw water on us in the cold? And then the teacher said, if you don't leave, I'm going to beat you to death. Or I'm going to beat you.

[49:49]

And Fushan said, You can beat us to death, we're not leaving." And the teacher said, You guys are crazy. You should practice Zen. You guys are crazy. You should practice Buddha activity. And so he let them in. And this very sincere guy, Fushan, became the head monk because he was like Mr. Sincere Practitioner. And another version of the story is the monks weren't like getting, it wasn't that they weren't getting enough food, it's that the food was really bland. And so maybe it's so bland they didn't even eat it. But mostly I heard it was not, it was really bland. And there was some special seasoning in the locked storehouse, and he got this special food to make it taste better.

[50:56]

And the teacher came back and ate it. And of course he thought it was funny. A little more delicious than... That is another back story. Monks from Japan particularly people coming from monasteries, not regular temples, but from monasteries, they come to the San Francisco Monastery, and they find the food much more delicious than in their monasteries, because we use onions and garlic, and they don't. So our food is really delicious, and they're very happy to be there. Anyway, the teacher tasted the food, knew it tasted good. called the tenzo in and said, did you take stuff from the storage room? And the tenzo said, yes, I did. He said, get out. And this guy that got sent out, he doesn't say this in the text, but in his heart he said, thank you very much.

[52:06]

This is what I came for. I came for you to test my compassion. I thought helping the monks was compassionate, and you are teaching me something about my compassion. For example, you're teaching me that I did... This isn't in the original text I'm interpreting. This monk did not talk to the teacher. and say, I want to give it to him. He did this good thing, doesn't seem like a kind thing, better meal. He did it, but he did it not in conversation. He didn't go to the teacher and say, teacher, may I please give them some curry or whatever. He did it unilaterally. maybe somewhat self-righteous, but I'm going to do it. I'm not going to talk to the teacher, just in case he doesn't agree. Anyway, he was trying to be good, and the teacher says, this is not the way you practice here.

[53:12]

Get out. Now the conversation is starting. So if you're the head cook and you think that something would be good to put in the food, and particularly if it's in a locked cabinet, it might occur to you to talk to the advert and say, can I open that locked thing and give people some of that stuff? And the advert might say, fine. It's a good idea. And they might say, no, I don't want to. And you say, please. And they say, OK. or whatever, you know, it's a conversation. It's not you all by yourself practicing doing what you think is good and not talking to anybody about it. A lot of the scandals we have now in this world are people doing what they thought was kind and they didn't ask other people if they thought it was kind.

[54:16]

You know. Someone would like me to do that, but they didn't say, would you like me to do that? and giving the person a chance to say no. So anyway, he did this without being in conversation with the person he came to study with. He traveled to have a conversation with God, and he didn't do it. He waited until he went away, and he did something unilaterally good. Unilateral good is not bhuga activity. Good in conversation brilliant conversation with other people. So anyway, the conversation started. So he's kicked out of the monastery, and then the abbot's walking down in the town, and this monk has got him housing in a dormitory near the monastery. And he's standing up, and the teacher said, you live here?

[55:24]

in this dormitory which the monastery owns, and he said, yeah, click, phone. Are you paying rent? He said, no. He said, you should pay rent. So the conversation goes on. So he rose in a bowl and paid rent. But when the teacher said, you should pay rent, in my mind, he said, thank you very much. And then, over and over, sending word to the monastery, can I come back and, even if I can't live there, can I come and talk to you? The teacher said, no. And he never, he never, he always said, thank you very, in his heart, I say, he always says, thank you very much. I want to have a conversation with you. And if this is your contribution, And this went on for, I think, a couple of years.

[56:26]

And the teacher, before the teacher let him come back, the teacher told the assembly, that guy is a true Zen student. He never complains. Except my author comes back with compassion. Compassion. This is really an intense story. And then he let him come back, and this monk is the one who became that teacher's successor. He was the one who the teacher entrusted. And this guy, Bhushan, saved Soto Zen. The teacher was Rinzai Zen. And this monk became the successor of the Rinzai tradition. And there were several lineages of Rinzai at that time. He became the successor of this teacher. And then, in the Soto tradition, the one person who was still carrying on the Soto tradition had it took him a long time to

[57:42]

train this disciple to be able to carry on the tradition. Very nice disciple. And the disciple died. The teacher worked for years to make a wonderful disciple to accept responsibility for the unique tradition. The one successor Now you have only teachers, all that's left is a teacher. But the teacher is old and tired from making good students. He doesn't have time to find somebody and bring them up and cultivate and nurture them, day after day, the way that Bhushan was nurtured by his teacher. What does the teacher do?

[58:44]

He finds Fushan, who's already mature and can learn the tradition quickly because he's already mastered another tradition. Just like people, once they learn French and Spanish, they can learn Portuguese overnight. So he already knew He was already a dharma successor of the Zen family, so he could learn this other family tradition quickly enough before the other teacher died. I will accept your tradition, I will take care of it, and I will pass it on, but I'm not going to be in your tradition. I only want to be in one tradition. So if you look at our lineage, Tōsugi-sei is the person that Fushon found.

[59:48]

And he trained him for quite a while so he could inherit this tradition. But Tōsugi-sei's Paiyokyōgen never met Tōsugi-sei. Taiyo Kyogen met Fushan, and Fushan took Taiyo Kyogen's teaching and passed it to Tosugise. Actually, in our lineage, this is Bodhisattva, who was trained in that way, in a very harsh form. And you could say he was strong enough to see compassion in this presentation. It's a very tough story, but The story of the making of a great master who could say thank you to almost anything, who could make almost anything with compassion.

[60:55]

And also who made some mistakes. He made a mistake. He did something good without talking to his teacher. And his teacher was not that far away. Just went out for a few minutes. But thank you for that question. Yes? Tell us, in a word, or as many words as you like, what Buddhist activity looks like through your eyes at this moment with all of us, all of us. It's like peace. It looks like your face. But that's not what it is. That's just what it looks like.

[62:01]

There's this thing about faith, of trusting Buddha activity, rather than, for example, trusting my own karmic consciousness. In Korean Zen, A lot of the schools of Korean Zen, they put a big emphasis on what's going on. They just doubt. They doubt everything in their consciousness. If they have some insight, they doubt it. If they don't have insight, they doubt it. If they think something would be good to do, they doubt it. They just doubt, [...] doubt their consciousness in order to wake up to reality, which is not our consciousness. but totally illuminates. And an illuminated consciousness is one that realizes that it's a diluted consciousness, and realizes that diluted consciousness is an intimate dance with enlightenment. But you can't see it. It's intimate.

[63:02]

You can't get outside intimacy to see it. Could you say a word? about that peace, a quality, an experience of that peace that we see when looking through the eyes and through this activity? Again, the experiential quality is imperceptible. The actual peace is not what I think it is. It's not even what Buddha thinks it is. I wish to realize a peace which is not just me thinking that it's peace. So that, in case what's happening is war, that because of that realization I can practice compassion.

[64:08]

And again, I can want to practice compassion in the face of violence. And wanting to practice compassion when you're treated depends on some realization beyond what you can see. What you see is violence. What you see is fear. But because of realization, you can do this amazing thing of coming back with compassion when you're treated with disrespect. when you're disrespecting, because you've realized a compassion which is beyond appearance. And then you can prove that you realize it by, in the realm of appearances, actually feeling compassion for some thing that's insulting you. ...respect when people disrespect. So the realization, the actual experience, is not a perception.

[65:11]

And we can use perceptions to prove that we've realized what is imperceptible. So again, the story is in Zen about someone realizes the imperceptible Buddha activity, and the teacher says, prove it, but prove it in perception. In relationship. in perception that demonstrates relationship. So we verify it in a limited realm. We verify the unlimited in the limited. What it looks like, you can't say what it looks like because it's a conversation. It might look like being very strict. However, the strictness might come to fruit as a person who can respond with kindness to everybody, no matter what. So the thing is, our consciousness would like to get a hold of how it looks.

[66:19]

It's just passionate to that. And so when we prove something in the realm of perception, it doesn't mean like that's the end of the story. That's just another conversation piece. Wherein the teacher might say, good. But also the teacher might say, let's try it again. Let's do it again, like a kid. Again! Again! Let's just keep proving this. But that's not what, that's the proof of it, that's not it. But the proof of a law, the proof of a theorem, is not the theorem. You see the difference between proving something and the thing itself? You can recognize the proof of what cannot be recognized. We can prove and that's another story.

[67:22]

There's lots of stories about proving inexperience the experience, or proving in perception the experience. Yes? Yes. As someone over 70, I appreciate your making the extra demand on yourself to stand. I've been stuck, or you might say I've been in the state of great doubt about your use of the term effort Once, at the beginning of your remarks, you said it's the effort to make food activity. So can you tell us more of what exactly you mean by that? Thank you for bringing that up. What I was going to say earlier was food activity is, with or without the word effort,

[68:28]

I was going to say, Buddha activity is the unceasing effort to free all beings so they can live in peace. And I was going to say, living in peace is a... It's not like this, but... It's actually... Another way to say it would be, it's an effort to free beings so they can work in peace, so they can be peace workers. So when you're free, you can be a skilled piece of worker. You can work at going and talking to people who disagree with you, and respecting people who don't respect you. That takes effort. But what is effort? Well, effort is like... Somebody comes and insults me, And in my heart I say, welcome.

[69:31]

That's an effort to say that. In my heart or outside. Can you see that? You know, that's an effort. Say effort. Say welcome. Did that take any effort? The walking is the effort. The walking is the effort. I'm extending my hands to you. The effort is in these hands extending. This is... Saying welcome is the effort. And meeting it is the effort. You can say it without meeting it, that's an effort too.

[70:33]

So the effort is not an addition to what you're doing, it's the effort. And to practice generosity is the effort. So the effort is... The energy to do the thing is inseparable from the action. And we need energy in order to do the thing. The energy is not an addition to the thing. OK? Smiling is an effort. But it is an addition to the smile. Climbing up on mountains is an effort, but it's not different from climbing. So I appreciate you making this effort non-dualistic. Yes?

[71:38]

I'd like to share the beginning of your talk about the compassion boat and being in these muddy waters. And if you're just saying that water is not at least pure water, when it comes to enlightenment and delusion, these are things that are dancing with you. And I'm wondering, can this compassion boat exist? Can this compassion boat be docked? And can this be docked, or can it only exist in motion that needs muddy water? I will not say that the boat cannot be docked. The original expression, however, was the boat of compassion, it rowed through muddy waters. He didn't say that it couldn't be docked in muddy waters. He's just talking about if you're going to row the boat, the compassion boat, that's where you row it.

[72:42]

But if you're going to dock it, it's docked in muddy water, too. And if you're going to lift it out of the water and put it on top of the dock, then it's docked on a lousy dock. It's docked on a dock that falls apart. You don't have to take care of it anymore. It's docked on a dock that's, again, it's a wreck. So you have to be patient with the wreck of a dock. And you have to be grateful to the person who didn't fix it. Yeah, we can dock the boat. Why? Anyone who wants to dock it? The rowing is half encouraged in these rough waters. Yes? Something about choice?

[73:47]

Yeah. Okay, so another thing we talked about, amplifying, what do you call it, this delusion enlightenment. One of the basic suggestions this week has been, in ordinary consciousness there's thoughts like this, I practice Zen, I practice compassion, I eat lunch. The idea that I do that is a delusion that it lives in consciousness together with the self. So there's a self and there's this thought, I, the self, does what's going on here. That's a delusion. The other side is, rather than I do Zen, there's Zen does me. That's enlightened. So, my experience is many people come to me when it's time for me to make a decision.

[74:56]

People agonize over, I make a decision. That's a very painful time in our life. Lots of fear comes up around, I make the decision. That's delusion. It's painful. Yeah. Yeah. The enlightenment is the decision makes me. The decision to practice Zen makes me. Zen makes me, the decision to practice Zen makes me, rather than I make the decision to practice Zen. I make the decision to go to China. So, yeah, so it's not that we can eliminate all that misery of I. That's going to keep going on. But at least when it happens now, you can say, oh, there we are. I am going to make the decision, and I'm miserable, and I'm stressed, because that's the way I'm thinking, in a deluded way, that I make decisions. The way to make decisions is in conversation with others.

[75:59]

In conversation with others, the conversation makes the decision, not you, not them. And if the conversation makes the decision, or is the decision, then the decision makes us, makes me, makes you, and makes us. The idea that I make a decision myself is quintessential delusion. And it's one that people suffer most about. Over little things like airplane reservations. So, thank you. It's not that decisions are delusions, it's a delusion to think that I make decisions rather than we make, rather than they make us. If you decide to become a Zen student, if you decide to become a Zen student, that's delusion. For you to be a Zen student, that's enlightenment.

[77:04]

But either way, if you decide that's who you are, you decided that. But also, if the decision is you, that's who you are. So that dynamic is what we're looking at. It's not just, oh, Zen decided to practice me. It's also, I decided to practice Zen. Those two work together. Okay? Thank you very much. Yes. You're pointing at somebody? Matthew? Are you guys going to do a duet? Is it one word? Yes. I was thinking a lot of what you're saying has to do with, and it happens in the body. The body does the thing. Yes. Our diluted consciousness, you could say, happens in the body.

[78:07]

Mm-hmm. Could you talk about... Also, by the way, our body happens in our deluded consciousness. Yes? I mean, it's amazingly profound. It's amazingly profound. It's amazing. Our body is an amazingly profound mind. And our mind is an amazingly profound body. It's not just a body, it's a body that's also a mind. And it's not just a mind, it's a mind that is a body. It's amazing. Yes? I want to know if... Does it get easy?

[79:09]

Does it get easier? Does it get easier? You could say it does. If you climb the tallest mountain in Texas and it's hard, okay, and then you climb it again and it's not so hard, and you climb it again and it's not so hard, and you climb it again and it's not so hard, Then you go to California, climb those mountains. Then you do more over. Then you go to Asia, climb those, or Alaska. So once you do something over and over, it's actually, that's fine. But maybe it's time to move on. Maybe it's lazy to keep doing that over and over. Done enough. So then he said, it's something you haven't been able to do yet.

[80:16]

So that got easier, but there are some other things now which are going to require more skill, more courage, more patience, more generosity, more forgiveness. So basically, we're climbing a mountain which pretty much is not going to ever be finished. So, at a certain altitude, if you hang around there, it kind of gets easy. But easy can sometimes turn into lazy. I often tell the story of... I practiced Zen at the San Francisco Zen Center. Starting around 2007, I started sitting there. And after about three years... And I had a hard time. And I was up for it. And I went there because I felt like I needed support to do the practice, which was kind of hard.

[81:18]

I got up in the morning and went over to the Zen Center and sat, and it was kind of hard. But I felt good about it, because after sitting, the rest of the day was easy. I kind of like met my suffering and squeezed it like squeezing a sponge, and I was suffering too much, and I went to work. So I was up for it. It was hard, but I was... I was up for it. I was happy. And then after about three years, this thing happened. It wasn't hard. It wasn't really hard. It just went away. And I went and just took her as she... It was up top so hard that this happened, but... Yeah. I had a hard time for three years. Not non-stop, just more like repeated mountains of difficulty. Or hills.

[82:19]

I had a hard time for three years, and then after three years I got this period of like... It wasn't hard. Did you hear that story? I told you the gringo kissing me? People often ask at the beginning, during intense meditation, does it get easier? And then I tell this story. So I went to Sri Krishna and said, Roshi, I'm not having a hard time. Is that okay? Have I gone into some psychotic dissociation? Sometimes practice will not be hard for you. and they took a piece of paper and they said, in origami, after we make a fold in the paper, which sometimes is difficult to make those folds, especially if you have big... So after we make the fold, we press on it for a while.

[83:26]

That helps the fold settle down. He didn't say this, but I thought it was important. What I inferred was that when you press on, it's not that difficult. You're welcome. Thank you. So sometimes, after we climb the mountain, you sit down and survey the view. At that moment, it's just beautiful. It's not that hard if there's enough oxygen. And we might think, we might think, you know, is something wrong here? And if the teacher next to you said, is that okay that it's not hard now? The teacher said, mm-hmm. He said, but going up is hard. Because this is the type of mountain that going up is easier than going down. So here we go. So we're on top of the mountain.

[84:29]

Everything's fine, easy, right? And now it's time to go down. So let's be careful. Let's be careful. Let's be patient. Let's be generous. And so on, okay? One more, yes? So when I'm practicing compassion, and I realize that it can be easy and hard, the feeling, the triggers are painful to overlook, in a sense. Did you say painful to overlook the triggers? Aren't the triggers painful? Yes, so I'm saying the triggers are painful. What I'm saying is each time I have to practice compassion, You can say, each time you have to practice compassion, it hurts. That's okay, but I would say, each time it hurts, you can practice compassion. Compassion operates on hurts.

[85:31]

Compassion doesn't make you hurt. It's what you apply to the hurt. I would say. Like, if you're in pain, or somebody else is in pain, you say, I'm here for you, sweetheart. I'm here. You know? I'll be present for you. I'm happy to be here with you while you're suffering. That's the compassion. Compassion isn't the pain. It's being with it. And being with the pain is joyful. I mean, to be generous, to let a pain It brings peace. To fight a pain makes more pain. I've always felt good fighting pain.

[86:37]

You felt good fighting it? I thought I should not always use compassion. I'm saying, so let's say there's an injustice. Yeah. to act with another injustice had seemed to be the right act. Thank you for saying that. A lot of people feel that way. See injustice? We often say, you see injustice? The guy's given some of his own medicine. He's like, I'll give him unjust about. He's poisoning, I'll give him poison. There is that style. Repay cruelty with cruelty. I'm talking about something different. And there's some, just like there's maybe some fun in greed, there's some fun in hate, there's some fun in revenge. Okay? We already got plenty of that stuff going on. I'm talking about something different. I'm talking about injustice meeting it with justice.

[87:39]

In order to pull that off, as they say, in order to allow justice to come up and meet injustice, I might have to temporarily do something else, or temporarily deal with my pain. that I feel when I see injustice. So I see injustice, but before I come back, I see injustice, but before I bring justice to it, I have pain. To address my pain, to my own pain when I see injustice, that's compassion, and that's justice. My pain when I see injustice, is calling for justice. My pain when I see injustice wants kindness to come to it. If kindness comes to my pain at seeing injustice, now I'm ready to give justice to injustice.

[88:44]

So like if a great compassionate person was standing next to a person who's learning compassion, and they both see injustice, the compassion person maybe knows right, the trained compassion person knows immediately some justice things to do. And one of the justice things they could do is they notice that this person who sees the injustice is in great pain when they see it. So they give compassion to the one who's suffering from seeing the injustice. They do that to help this person who's feeling the pain of seeing the injustice, to help them be ready to also address the injustice, but from compassion. First of all, we have to take care of this person. And then also, the very skilled person can both take care of the one who sees the injustice and the one who sees to be perpetrating it. And one way they might show the one who's perpetrating it justice,

[89:49]

would be to show that person how they took care of this person. So this person does something unjust, this person sees it and feels pain, and this person feels pain with justice and shows other people how to take care of that pain, which gets transferred over into that person maybe learning how to do justice. But if we don't take care of our pain when we're walking over to try to bring justice, we may fall on the ground. Because we haven't checked to see whether our legs are asleep or not. That's why I tell you, don't try to stand up when your legs are asleep. First let them wake up. Then you can come and join the justice campaign. Ready to go? On the path of justice? Yeah. We see various painful things. We have to take care of the pain to keep going. When we see the pain, temporarily, we tremble. at the trembling, terrifying aspect or appearance of misery and injustice.

[90:58]

Okay, now we're going to take care of being addressed to injustice directly, rather than how the pain causes it. Does that make sense? Yes. Now, everybody's... I just want to say thank you to the people who are here. Thank you for coming. I know it's going on a long time. Yes. So thank you for the topic of compassion. That was really helpful. And it came to mind talking about compassion. Do you want some feedback? Did you want some feedback? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to check. This is feedback to you, okay? I'm checking. Who had their hand up first? You were... So you didn't know that he was ahead of you. So that's feedback to you.

[91:59]

And that would be good for you to get eyes in the back of your head. Just a little suggestion. You're working on that? Great. Yes. Okay. So my question earlier was, what does it mean to be affirmed by myriad things? Self, affirmed self. And this morning... Wait a second. To be affirmed by myriad things? Yes. So what does it mean? One of the meanings is that when you feel affirmed by myriad things, your body... Usually we're all caught up in us affirming things. So then we're all caught up in our body affirming things and practicing things. We're stuck in our body and mind. When things come and affirm us, our body and mind drops away. When things affirm us, we're liberated.

[93:02]

So... Well, in a way, you realize the emptiness of body and mind. You realize that there's no way to hold on to them. So they kind of drop away. They don't get eliminated. They just drop away. They're no longer a problem. You don't have to get rid of them, and there's no problem. Before that, it's like they're a big burden that you have to carry around. It's so tiring to have a body and a mind. That's part of it. But then while you're lumbering around trying to carry this body and mind, suddenly all things come forward and affirm the body and mind, you realize you're not the only one who's carrying it. Matter of fact, you can just let go of it, and everybody else will let go of it, and we still have it, but it's not a problem. Get rid of this other side. Is there something happening out there, something interesting?

[94:11]

Everything's okay outside in older Houston? Yeah, so instead of speaking about compassion, I remember the story that I picked from after Rinpoche, and maybe, you know, it's a Tibetan story. And I was just wondering if you have any He didn't interpret it, I think, but it was quite self-explanatory. Self-explanatory? I think so. Okay. There may be a little more depth than I could see at that time. So it's about this Lama who thought it was quite enlightened, and some divine beings wanted to test him. So he was walking, and suddenly... Actually, I do want to finish it. I want to tell before it. So this person is walking alone, and the person's name is Assam. And the Sangha has been praying to Maitreya Bodhisattva, who's going to be the next Buddha.

[95:36]

He's been praying to Maitreya to come and teach him. Maitreya is the next Buddha. He wanted Maitreya to come early and help him understand the Buddha Dharma. And he prayed for 12 years on retreat for Maitreya to come. And finally he gave up. Maitreya didn't come. And then as he's going away on his failed prayer retreat, he meets this dog that Vassi is bringing up. Now you can finish it. The background is this person who is meeting this dog has been trying to get Maitreya to come. So the dog is laying on the road, and it's half of the body is so injured that it's already rotting. And on the body are maggots that are already flooded.

[96:38]

And he's so compassionate. I'm like, I need to help this dog. But then if I start helping, I'll kill the maggots. So what do I do? I don't want to kill maggots. One being to say another. Yeah. So what he does after a long struggle with himself... Maybe not long at all. Maybe not long at all. And he then closes his eyes and lowers his head to actually remove the magnets with his lips. I would say with his tongue. Okay. His tongue. Tongue is more... If you look at dogs, that's how they remove maggots. Yeah. So he removed the maggots with his lips. And then? Well, he didn't. In the story, he just lowered enough the tension to remove the maggots when the female... Yeah, so that's a different story.

[97:43]

Yeah. What I'm telling is that the dog turned into Maitreya. The bodhisattva he had been praying for for nine years was a dog, but in a form where he could be very compassionate to the dog, because what he hadn't been doing was practicing compassion. He was asking for compassion to come to him, but he wasn't practicing it. He was just saying, he was trying to get compassion. That's fine. But if you want to get compassion, you give compassion. So finally he gave compassion. He didn't know, by the way, that those maggots were cleaning the wound. This is before we knew that maggots were helpless. But he was intending to hand the dog. The intention was to be kind to maggots and dogs.

[98:45]

And in that love, in that compassion, when he was looking for it all along, which was always with him, came to him. And then he says to Maitreya, why did you wait 12 years to found it? And my play says, you weren't practicing compassion. I was with you the whole time. I was sitting right next to you for 12 years while you were trying to get me. But since you were trying to get me, I was just waiting for you to practice compassion. And so when you finally gave up and practiced it on this dog, I showed myself. So that's a really good story. Can you believe? This is about a historical figure. Did that really happen? I don't know. Anyway, the message is, if you want to see compassion with you all the time, practice it yourself. If you practice it, you'll realize, oh my God, not only is it here, which is great, but it was here all along.

[99:46]

And I was so sad because it didn't come. And then I started to be kind to my sadness, and it did come. And I saw it was always here. It's time for one poem. If you can stand, one more poem. Can you? Yes. This leaky, tumbledown grass hut. Let opening. Now I gaze at it. all the while it was reflected in the teardrops falling on my sleeves. Thank you very much.

[100:35]

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