When we were sitting, I offered a teaching which has been transmitted to us by the ancient Buddhas. The teaching, one way to put it is, train yourself thus. In your finite life, there will be just your finite life. In your self, your finite self, there will be just your finite self. Train yourself thus. And when that's the way it is, then there will be no here,

[01:05]

or there or in between. In other words, you will leap into, you will leap free of your finite life into an infinite life where there's no here or there. And this is the end of suffering. So I say in stillness, yourself is just yourself. In stillness, finite life is just finite. Finite life is not trying to be bigger or smaller or something different from its own temporary finitude. Part of finitude is that it's temporary. It's only for a moment. So stillness is kind of a way, is the situation of our finite life being our finite life.

[02:13]

And in the situation of our finite life being our finite life, our finite life goes away. And our infinite life manifests. And in stillness, our infinite life also is just our infinite life, and it drops away. and opens to finite life. It's not that one's better than the other. It's just that you don't have one without the other. Infinite life isn't better than finite life. It's just that the way finite life really is is that it's other than finite life. It's infinite life. And the way infinite life is, it's other than infinite life. But we human beings are a little bit familiar with finite life. And we're a little less familiar with infinite life. So in this class, we're getting a little more familiar with it.

[03:19]

But the way we become familiar with it is by letting our finite life be still. which, of course, it is already. We remember stillness, we receive the stillness of our self being our self, and then we leap away. And then we leap beyond into the other. Because our life is not just finite, of course, and it's not just infinite, it's both. And our life is not just self, it's also other. This way, it's also otherwise. But we don't try to go from here to otherwise. We let here just be here. We let this just be this, which it already is in stillness. There is a natural leaping, free of finitude, and then there's a leaping free of infinity.

[04:28]

we have the opportunity to help each other be finite, to encourage each other to be tiny, to encourage ourselves to be completely ordinary, ...actually not be completely ordinary without your help. I might try, but you might say to me, you still haven't made it to ordinariness. I mean, you are ordinary, but you still think you're a little bit better at being ordinary than some other people. In a way, Zen priests are supposed to be really good at being ordinary. So then, of course, they're extraordinary. Because most ordinary people are not too good at being ordinary. So this weekend we're going to have an ordinary, extraordinary ceremony at Green Gulch.

[05:49]

We're going to have a ceremony of giving the great bodhisattva precepts to some of the people in this group, to Nettie, and to Jeff, and to Eric, and to Brent, who's not here tonight. So they will receive the Bodhisattva precepts, and they will receive them in a final way. as finite human beings that will receive the finite bodhisattva precepts, like embrace and sustain forms and ceremonies, embrace and sustain all wholesome activity, embrace and sustain all beings. They will receive these words, these ideas,

[06:49]

they will receive the finite bodhisattva precepts. But also there will be an infinite receiving of the bodhisattva precepts, and there will be a receiving of infinite bodhisattva precepts at the same time. And if we can just let the finite bodhisattva precepts be the finite bodhisattva precepts, we will leap beyond them. So you're welcome to come to the ceremony if you want to witness it. It's going to be about 3 o'clock at Wingolch. It would be nice if the weather was not too good, so that the road will not be packed with cars. If you want to come, I would recommend you aim for coming early.

[07:51]

And if you make it early, you can enjoy the valley. But you might run into traffic. A lot of people want to go out to that beautiful area on Sundays and Mondays. And the weather is supposed to be really good. Yeah, so... It will not be live-streamed. Sorry. Revolution will not be televised. So, the Buddha way is not just finite life. And it's not just infinite life. It's not just self.

[08:53]

It's not just others. It's the pivotal activity of finite and infinite. It's the pivotal activity of literal and not literal. It's the pivotal activity of self and the other. ...activity of you including me and me including you. And we enter the pivot by letting our self wholeheartedly our self. And we understand we have a teaching that Because everyone supports me to be me, I need everyone to be me.

[10:01]

So I can't be me all by myself. I'm not. So I need to sort of enact that. So we have a conversation. We practice with other people to demonstrate and to perform. We cannot be fully ourself by ourself. We can only be fully ourself with the help of others, which sometimes takes the form of others calling us or throwing us into question. Now, one other point much about is that as we let or as we train so that the self is just a self so that our finite life is just our finite life and we then because of that started training of self being self a door opens to

[11:09]

the other, which is not just our idea of the other, but it's completely other. And at that door, especially the first few times that it opens, we may feel shock and awe. This other, which is always but which we're sometimes too busy avoiding being ourselves to notice. It's mysterious. It is ineffable. And it is, excuse the expression, tremendous. and tremendous has the root of tremble.

[12:13]

You don't have to tremble but sometimes when you meet you might tremble especially as I said the first few times. Like sometimes we say that when you first meet this tremendous mystery you might feel or trembling. It's always with us, but we don't notice it. When you first start to notice it, you may feel that, especially if you get close to it. But if you... you get more and more comfortable. Like with a horse. If you're far away from a horse, a big horse, it's not very scary. They're beautiful, right?

[13:17]

But you get up close to a horse and you realize, you know, and people say, don't go behind the horse. They're big and they're strong. You have to be careful of them. So as you get close to them, even if no one tells you that, you can feel this power. When I was a little kid, my parents took ...fair in Minnesota and they took me into the stables where the horses were, these prize-winning horses, and I was really scared of those horses. I did not enjoy the visit. I wanted to get out of there. But if you keep... After a while you get more comfortable with him. You can eventually get up and ride him and have a great friendship. But it may take a while. The same with our infinite life. So again, wholeheartedness brings us into opening to it.

[14:26]

and also it tells it that we're ready for it. Because it doesn't necessarily break through our half-heartedness. Because it knows we'll just faint, probably. Sometimes it sends messengers, which are called angels, right? Angel means messenger, right? It sometimes sends little divine beings to give us little hints. Like the story about me going to the DMV. You all know that story, right? That's a little angel. That's not like the roof of the DMV opening up. And everybody in the room turning into light. and then everybody is going... No, it's not like that.

[15:31]

It's just a little visitor. Hey, Reb! But the angels are coming to tell you to be yourself. They're coming to tell you, don't think you should be someplace other than the DMV. This is where your job is right now. So the angels give us the message, let the self be the self. We need you to be finite. And then if you can do that, then the infinite says, well, okay, I think she's ready. Open the door. And when the doors open, then you have to keep being the way you feel.

[16:35]

You have to keep being finite the way the doors open. Because now you have a new finite. It's called finite awe. Finite mystery. You have a finite trembling. You practice with this new stuff that comes when the doors open the way you practiced with this when you didn't notice the door was open. But again, if I'm not willing to be in the DMV, if I can't be present with that and let that just be the DMV, then the doors, it would be good if they don't open. So I've also told this story many times, but not all of you have heard it. It's a story about a Chinese duke. I think his name was Duke, Duke of Zhou. Or maybe it was Duke of Zhou.

[17:41]

Anyway, he was a duke, and he was a dragon aficionado. He loved dragons. And he was rich, so he had lots of dragon art in his house. He had coral dragons, jade dragons, wooden dragons, painted dragons. He had all kinds of dragons in his house. He was into dragons, pretty much. And maybe he let, I guess you could say, the story is not usually told this way, but I would just, in parentheses, in brackets say, let his dragons be dragons. His carved dragons be carved dragons. His limited finite dragons be finite dragons. He was into finite dragons. And so, the infinite dragon, flying, Always, the infinite dragon's always right nearby.

[18:43]

But if you're not into dragons, they might not visit. So this dragon thought, he's into dragons, I think he'd like to meet me. So he flew down to the terrace of the duke's house and presented her. And the duke fainted in shock and awe. He wasn't enough into his carved dragons to tolerate meeting with the real dragon. But again, the basic principle is no carved dragon without real dragons. No real dragons without carved dragons. They work together to make the universe. So we do have carved dragons. and we can be wholehearted with them. And then when the real dragon comes, continue the same care, the same compassion, the same courage to be this person.

[19:49]

Let this person be completely this person, even when this new stuff comes as a reward for being just this person. you can develop this relationship with the infinite dragon. This class is different from some classes. So for me, every time the class starts to think, well, I probably should review the last classes. Partly because I want to remember the last classes, and partly because I think you have forgotten the last classes, to some extent. Like, for example, if I asked one of you to come up and sit here and review the last class, you might say, no, thank you. Or all the previous classes.

[20:52]

I missed some, I can't do it. So they deal with this topic and then they deal with a different topic, or they deal with this topic and then they move on to the next phase. But in Zen temples, part of our practice is the same teaching every day. It's like we have which are called sometimes deep, which means difficult. So we recite them, you know, in 1967, we recite them. But then it's not like, okay, we keep doing it, 1968, 1968. So I'm doing the same, I'm chanting the same things that I did 50 years ago. I'm still doing them. So this class is sort of halfway between a kind of non-temple class where you like move through the material and a Zen temple where you basically do the same every day.

[22:01]

And then doing it over and over every day is kind of like doing it, finally doing it wholeheartedly. Or, you know, maybe the first time you do that, you chant the teaching, you did it wholeheartedly. But maybe the second time, well, it's kind of like, well, we did that yesterday. And that one again. Or the first time you said, whoa, this is really interesting. This one again. This person again. Oh. I'm getting sick of this person. Yes, that's right. But can you let this person that you're sick of just be this person that you're sick of? Yes, you can, but you have to train at it. And I've said this again, right?

[23:41]

I said this before, I'll say it again, right? I'll say this before. And sometimes I say, before talks, I don't usually say it like when we do service, when we do the liturgy, I don't say if I'm the leader of the ceremony, I don't say, can we chant those same scriptures that we've been chanting for 50 years? Can we chant the Heart Scripture one more time? But if I'm giving a talk, I say, could I see something I said before? Please, may I? And usually people, some of the people anyway, say, okay. So here's one. And maybe you don't all remember I said this before, because maybe you didn't hear it. At the beginning of a lot of these repetitive exercises that we do in Zen temples, at the beginning, we often invite infinite beings to come. Have you noticed that?

[24:49]

Anybody notice that? It's okay to say yes. Have you noticed it? Yes. When I'm at said temple. Yeah, have you noticed it? Yeah. So like on the Saturday, on coming Sunday, at the... towards the beginning of it. Well, first of all, we come in and we make offerings to infinite beings. We bow to infinite beings. And then we actually call them. We say, please come and witness this ceremony. And we say the names of infinite compassion and infinite wisdom and infinite practice and infinite Buddhahood. and future Buddhahood and past Buddhahood. We say their names and we invite them to come. And most people, when they're doing that, they may think, they may be, I don't know, they may not actually be wholeheartedly saying those names. They might even be thinking, what is this about?

[25:53]

Or, oh, this again. Or, I don't know what. Or just thinking about their girlfriend or something. What's for lunch? I wonder if this is going to be a good ceremony. I wonder how Nettie is feeling. I wonder how Jess is feeling. I like Eric's outfit. And so we're calling their names, but if we don't wholeheartedly call them, we might not really open to them. But when we're calling, we are calling, but are we calling wholeheartedly? And also, we're here listening to each other while we're calling. We're listening, but are we listening wholeheartedly? If we listen wholeheartedly and call wholeheartedly, we open to the Infinite, whether we're calling the Infinite or not.

[26:54]

But we do call, we literally call the Infinite. But we also not literally call the Infinite. So, and that's usually understanding that usually follows after understanding literally calling. So that's what we usually start with, literally calling. And then when you finally get it that you actually are literally calling, you wake up to the world where you're literally calling infinite compassion to come and live with you. And also you have in brackets a teaching which says, it's always been with you, and yet you have to call it. Because if you don't call it, you don't understand that it's always with you. You may hear the teaching, infinite compassion is always with you, but if you don't...

[27:58]

...think so, or whatever, you don't understand what it means that it's always with you. So that you do literally call. And then you do literally understand that you called, and literally understand that it responded. and that it reached you. You called what is always reaching you. You literally call to literally understand that you're calling. That's the first step. You not literally understand that you're calling. So when you're walking around, for example, the Bay Area, and you're saying to someone, Would you play some water? You're not literally calling for infinite compassion when you say that. You're calling not literally.

[29:02]

You're not literally saying come. That's the second way. That's the second understanding of the relationship. First part's a literal understanding. You're literally asking for the precepts. So in the ceremony, Literally come and offer incense and bow as a literal, visible, silent way of asking for the precepts. It's finite, it's visible, it's audible as silence. And then I will say, I understand that you are asking for these precepts. Now will you receive them? And they say, yes, I will. They literally say, yes, I will receive it. And then they can literally understand that they literally received the literal precepts. and they may have, before this whole thing started, realized that they literally and not literally invited all the bodhisattvas to come and watch them literally receive.

[30:11]

But they're also asking all the great beings to come and not literally witness. That's the second level of wisdom. It's not literal. And then the third level, when you really get wholehearted, you realize that these beings are literal and not literal. And so you're both literally and not literally. If we can understand that we're literally asking for great compassion, we can understand that everything we're doing is a not literal asking for great compassion. Do you want some water is actually calling for great compassion. But it's hard to understand that if you don't even understand yet that you're not asking for it. You keep going, jump over. I actually haven't asked for the precepts, and now you're telling me I'm asking for them all the time? Did you follow that? If you don't think you're asking for them, then it's hard for somebody to believe somebody who says you're asking for them all the time.

[31:18]

If you don't think you're asking for them, Then you can see, you know, I actually am asking for it. And then you can say, are you asking wholeheartedly? No. But when you really ask wholeheartedly, then you understand, yes, I am. I'm literally asking for the great compassion. Okay, good. And then you understand. You really mean it. You get it. And then you're ready to understand that everything you've been doing your whole life has been asking for great compassion. but not a 99% or even before you actually asked that you didn't literally ask. You even said stuff like, I don't want to be compassionate to those people. That's the way you asked. Like, you know, you say, I don't want to be compassionate to that person and the bodhisattvas are listening to you and say, the way you're asking is really

[32:23]

Provocative. Ironic. It's actually funny the way you're asking by saying, I do not want any compassion, not to mention infinite. Don't give me infinite compassion. And that's the next level. The next level is you realize that these two things are always together. The literal asking and the not literal asking Asking by everything you do and asking by only limited things. Request and the limited requests are pivoting. Then you realize that you're literally and not literally all the time. But if you come to the ceremony, you won't be able to see with your eyes the infinite ceremony.

[33:34]

You won't be able to see with your eyes the infinite precepts and the infinite compassion. Please, great beings, come and support this and give us your compassion and presence. Please do that. You won't be able to see them in their infinity. But you might be thinking, I think I actually saw a finite version of them over there. I think I see a Bodhisattva over there. We do have those sightings. And then I, this is not exactly political, but it is definitely social. We're having a kind of a, they're calling it a curriculum, a series of visiting speakers, mostly people of color.

[34:46]

and also a set of films about white privilege. And so that's going on at Gringotts this summer. And I feel that this program is about opening to the other and facing our finite history in relationship to the other. Slavery is other for the white people. It's other. Even though maybe they're owning slaves, the slavery is other. And the consequences are other. is a real challenge. We have to be wholeheartedly, I don't know, whatever we are, in order to be able to open to the consequences of our finite karma.

[35:55]

And I read a really interesting article in the New Yorker about ghettos. And the first ghetto, I don't know if it's the first ghetto, Venice recently, maybe this year or maybe last year, celebrated the 500th anniversary of the opening of the ghetto. Nothing against England, but England expelled the Jews in 1290. But Venice made a ghetto. They kept the Jews in the city. The ghetto is like this thing about We want to include the other and we want to repel the other. It's a very basic thing. And the same with this infinite other. We want to include it because we do.

[36:59]

It's a kind of repellent. We want the infinite dragon and we also don't want it. It's an ambivalent situation. The ghetto is such a strange thing that they have a place in the city to keep the people they don't want to be with. And in Venice, they let the Jews out in the day and then they had to go back at night. Partly because they were afraid of them, especially in the night. So put them in the ghetto at night and let them come out in the day when it's not so scary. The place where they met the Jews, where the Christian Venetians met the Jews, the place they met them is called the Rialto. It's a place where they did business. And now the Rialto has become this... You often see it associated with movie theaters, don't you?

[38:06]

And it's in The Merchant of Venice. So somehow Shakespeare heard about the rialto. It's the rialto where you meet the other. And then maybe you can't stand this intercourse, so you push the other into a ghetto. I don't know if that's better than just expelling the other from your life. But I'm talking about inviting the other to come out into the Rialto and being ready to meet it. But it's hard. So, Another major thing I want to say to you tonight, and I probably shouldn't say it because it'll probably overload you, but I'll try to say it shortly, and then I've said it before, tonight I'm going to say it in a different way, but I'm not going to say too much about it, possibly.

[39:24]

I'll say more about it next time. It's this image again of the conscious self being a clearing in a vast, dark forest. And a poem which I've calligraphed and talked about a lot, I got a new take on today, which is recently. And the poem goes like this. The way I used to say it, the way it was translated, it's in a book called The Book of Serenity, and it is, I think, the 52nd case. And the 52nd case is about

[40:27]

Saushan's reality body, or you could say infinite body. So that's the case, but I'm not going to say the case tonight. But the case is about a monk asking the Zen master how the infinite life relate to finite life. Oh, no. I think that Zen Master says to the monk, infinite life relates to finite life. Infinite life responds to finite life. Like the moon reflected in water. And then the master asked the student, how would you describe this relation? The infinite true body of reality and living beings, finite beings.

[41:47]

I'm going to tell the story. And so the monk says, like a donkey looking into the well. And the master says, pretty good, 80% maybe. And the monk says to the teacher, what do you say, teacher? And he says, the well looking up. Am I remembering a couple of years ago some discovery about a translation error or a transcription error there? Yeah. Want to hear that? Is it still a donkey? In ancient times, it was a donkey. In ancient Western Zen history, it was a donkey. It was first translated by an excellent translator as donkey. Oh, that's correct. Well, it was correct translation, but it was a scribal error in the original Chinese.

[42:55]

The character for donkey is very similar to the character for pulley. What? Pulley. Wells sometimes have pulleys up on top of them. So you, you don't, sometimes you just put a rope with a bucket down the well and pull it up. But sometimes you put it over a pulley and you pull it up. And, you know, it's easier. Anyway, the character for that pulley in a well is very similar to the character for donkey. And in the original In the text that I think was used, it was a character for donkey. But then in earlier text, it was a character for pulley. It's the same. You can do it with... In the third turning of the wheel, I did it with both the donkey and the pulley. But before I get into that, I just want to move on to a poem, which I think relates to the clearing and the forest.

[44:05]

The poem is, and again, the earlier translation was, the flowers consciously fall into the flowing stream. The flowing stream unconsciously receives and carries the flowers along. Or the flower petals consciously fall into the flowing stream and the flowing stream unconsciously carries the flowers. And so for this class, maybe I can say to you, The flowers of consciousness fall into the flowing stream. The flowing stream unconsciously carries the fallen flowers.

[45:10]

So in consciousness we have these acts that occur, that bloom, and after they bloom, they're done, and the petals fall, and they fall into and the unconscious carries the fallen flowers of our conscious life and carries them along. And then it gives rise to new blooms in consciousness which again fall into the unconscious and carry them along. So everything that happens in the clearing is like the momentary flowering The flowering, however, comes from the seeds, is the maturing or the ripening of the seeds of the unconscious, which is carrying the previously fallen flowers.

[46:25]

This process is the process by which the infinite reality body relates to our finite life. So I told you that was a big deal, and there it is. What was the original question again? The teacher says that the reality of the infinite body, it relates to the finite bodies, which are living beings. It relates to them. But the way it relates to them is like the moon reflected in the water. It doesn't like... dry up the water, or disturb the water, or turn the water into gold. It leaves the water water, but it shines into it, and it's reflected there.

[47:31]

It's like that. And then he asked the monk, could you say more about that? And the monk said the part about our consciousness can look into you know, or looks into or relates to our unconscious process. And the teacher says, good, but he forgot about the well to the... the well to the pulley. That completes the picture. It's in both directions. The infinite relates to the finite. The finite relates to the infinite. They're not one without the other. It's not one directional. And part of our life is conscious. But the unconscious is mind and body. And that mind and body are the seeds which give rise to the flowers and the fruits of consciousness.

[48:37]

And every moment there is a new blooming. But the blooming is not... It blooms and turns into fruit simultaneously. It becomes a bloom and a fruit in the moment. It becomes a bloom, beautiful bloom, but also a fruit because it has seeds which go into the unconscious. And then those seeds become part of the seed bed It isn't that the seeds from this fruit, from this moment right now, are going to be the ones that give rise to this consciousness now. But they join, they join support for future consciousness. And every consciousness blooms and drops its petals into the unconscious, which then carry it along for the next bloom. Which also turns into, when the flowers fall, that's shorthand for flowering, falling, and fruiting.

[49:44]

Flowers fall usually before the fruit is offered. and then the seeds. But in every moment there's a flowering and the dropping of the flowers and the dropping of the seeds. And then from the seeds there's new flowers. And this process is the process of causation which gives rise to lives of suffering and lives of delusion. I mean, lives of enlightenment. the liberated, deliberated consciousness and the consciousness which seems to be dwelling in itself and suffering in its finitude, they come from the same process. And our ability to be wholeheartedly finite is determined

[50:49]

by this causal process. So we have some seeds which are supporting us to the flowerings of consciousness in wholesome ways. And we have some seeds which are maturing which are not wholesome ways of responding. And seeds from the unconscious process, which is the results of past action, both wholesome and unwholesome, when that unconscious process gives rise to some blossoming, it gives rise, if it's an unwholesome seed, it can give rise to an unwholesome blossom. Simultaneously, there can be the ripening of a wholesome seed. so that when an unwholesome seed blooms in consciousness, there can be a wholesome response to it.

[51:53]

But the blooming and the practicing with it are somewhat different, of course. One is a blooming, the other is a practice, and the practice then transforms the whole process. And that's how we enact the relationship of the infinite and the finite in our consciousness, by this process. The finite is telling us to exercise this process because this is how we exercise the relationship between the finite and the infinite. So whatever blossoms, it's like saying, can you let this thing be this thing? And there's wholesome roots which are saying, I've heard that that would be a good idea. And what just popped in my head was a series of poems called The Flowers of Evil.

[53:06]

It's called Fleur de Malle by Baudelaire. There are flowers of evil. They're blooming in the clearing. And there are flowers of wholesomeness which can also bloom in the clearing. And the flowers of wholesomeness can confront the flowers of evil. We act out the relationship between the infinite reality body and the finite body. The wholesome dharmas, the wholesome responses are going to let the evil be evil. Let the evil be evil. There's no here or there or in between. There's leaping beyond the evil.

[54:07]

And letting the good be good is also leaping beyond the good. So we don't get stuck in evil or in good. We have some wholesome roots, some wholesome seeds, which are reminding us that there's a possibility to let the finite be finite. To let finite evil be finite evil. ...be finite good. And that's coming from the flowing stream and goes back into the flowing stream. Yes? Can you hear her? It's time to speak up, Amanda.

[55:23]

It's true, it cannot be obstructed. It cannot be obstructed. It cannot be obstructed. This process reaches everywhere. That's correct. For the story about this, after we hear more from Amanda, if she wants to say more. The process of the relationship of the infinite wisdom of Buddha and the infinite compassion of Buddha, this process cannot be obstructed. It cannot be obstructed. Anybody feeling a little tired? I'll say it louder. It cannot be obstructed. Do you want to say more? No? You said quite a bit, actually. So you want to retire now? You're welcome to do so.

[56:27]

Yeah. It speaks to... The moon doesn't obstruct the water and the water doesn't obstruct the moon. And nothing obstructs their relationship. What about a cloud coming between them? That's like really a nice relationship. It even enhances it. You know what I mean? Moons and clear skies are great, but we bring the clouds in as little dappled ones. Zillions of illuminated clouds or rhinoceros clouds. It cannot be hindered. And so there's a story about that, which I've recently been telling. Maybe you heard me say it last week. I don't know. I've been saying it over and over. So one day a Zen master was fanning herself. His name was Bao Jie.

[57:28]

And a monk came up and said, the nature of wind is permanent and it cannot be obstructed. It reaches everywhere. Fan yourself. Fan yourself. The master said, You may understand that the nature of wind is permanent, but you do not understand the meaning of it reaching everywhere. And the monk said, Well, what is the meaning of it reaching everywhere? And the master continued fanning. The fanning is the meaning of it reaching everywhere. Yeah, exactly. This ceremony is demonstrating that the wind of the Dharma reaches everywhere.

[58:30]

It reaches me picking up this cup now. Actually, the top of a cup. It reaches Me hearing that reaches you hearing that. It reaches everywhere. But the monk says, well, if it reaches everywhere, why fan yourself? Because reaching everywhere is what you're doing, whatever it is. So if it reaches everywhere, why do I have to do anything? If you think that, you don't understand what it means to reach everywhere. If you find yourself at that moment anyway, you understand what it means. It means you have to be what is reaching everywhere. It's true it reaches, but you have to be that. If you're not, you don't understand it. Because when you hear that, some people say, well, then I can do whatever I want, right?

[59:31]

Because no matter what I do... it will be unobstructed and it will reach me wherever I am. I said, yes, that's totally true. But if you don't understand it, you think you don't have to do something. You have to wholeheartedly practice whatever you're doing in order to understand that whatever you're doing, whatever you're doing, it reaches you. But if you don't realize that what you're doing and doing wholeheartedly is the reaching of it, you don't understand it. It's kind of subtle, isn't it? Kind of subtle. Again, it's like... And then again, when you do something, you have to just let it be that. It's not like you're doing that and puffing it up into, what do you call it, reaching everywhere. You're just doing this thing. And when you just do something, that is the wind reaching everything. Reaching it. The fanning is not other than the wind reaching.

[60:39]

What is the fanning? The monk said, well, what is the meaning of it? Well, actually, what is the meaning of it reaching everywhere? It's the fanning. And the fanning is what you're doing. You're sitting right here. You doing this is... the infinite reaching you right now. The infinite reaches you as you. The infinite reaches me as me. And this is, when you meet it, it seems mysterious and awesome and tremendous. But it's also kind of tremendous to just be yourself with no recourse. And when you do it yourself with no recourse, an infinite recourse, an infinite resource, which you already had, but your resistance to being finite magically, magically closed the door on what's going on.

[62:16]

Because you're closing the door on being finite. You're finite. You're finite. which is, again, that's the blooming of past closings of the door on being finite. I didn't want to be me yesterday, and I don't want to be me today. But listening to the teaching, if tomorrow you don't want to be you, you don't want to be me, but I'm going to actually let not wanting to be me be not wanting to be me. There it is. And it's Yeah. And it's not here or there or in between. Yes? Is evil a relative term? Yeah, it's relative to good. It's relative to good. There's no absolute and there's no absolute good.

[63:22]

They're relative. You don't have one without the other. Right. But when you say, let evil be evil, I get old. Very dumb. And I feel like I can live it better if I can understand it or justify it in my head. If I say be generous with evil, do you get hooked? No? If I say be careful, do you get hooked? Of and with. Huh? No. Be careful means don't kill it, don't try to kill it, don't try to get something other than evil. There you're sort of not sure you want to be careful. So that's the place where you're not sure you want to be careful.

[64:28]

If you've got something dangerous, generally speaking, it's not a good idea to try to get something other than the dangerous thing. Did you follow that? If you've got a bomb that's going to blow up in your face, it's probably not a good idea to try to have some other kind of situation. I'm confused with evil and suffering, because we're not supposed to turn our back on the suffering of the world, but how do we do that when we're equal to evil? I thought we don't turn our back on the suffering of the world. We're open to suffering. Right, and maybe you would do the same thing with evil. Evil actually sort of does mean suffering. Also, evil is living backwards. The practice with suffering, I would say, is identical to the practice with evil and the practice with good, the same practice. We only have three practices for good, evil, and suffering.

[65:33]

Same practice for all three. There's only one practice. The question is, are you going to... And the answer is, no, I'm not going to. I'm going to be generous with these people, but not with those people. I'm going to be careful of these people but not with those people. Danger. But not with pleasure. But really the practice is be careful of danger. Be careful of violence. Be careful of sharp knives. Be careful of little children. Be careful of giants. Everything is calling to you to be careful. Everything is calling you to you for compassion. You are also calling to everything for compassion.

[66:36]

I feel like every single word in the entire universe has said evil. Because evil Well, it's kind of creative of you to make an exception. There's like a sharp knife, like there's a sharp knife, or a fire, but evil seems like there's malicious intent. Well, then let's say malicious. If something malicious comes, what does Reb say? A malicious being, what's a malicious being doing? Does Reb say... What's a malicious being doing, showing up in your life? What are they doing? According to me. They're blossoming in the form of calling for compassion. Malicious beings are calling for compassion. Usually they're, except in very special cases, for very advanced Zen masters, sometimes get visited by a

[67:39]

...sattvas who are appearing malicious. But most malicious people are calling for compassion. Almost all monsters are calling for compassion. But some monsters are actually coming to test the great masters if they don't believe that teaching. I wonder if I'm not nice to him, if he will welcome me into his house. But we don't usually try that on beginners. Other people try that on beginners. In other words, monsters come to visit beginners and beginners. Sometimes beginners say, Would you please go next door? Rather than welcome. So many stories. So once upon a time there was a monk, a person who wanted to study with the great bodhisattva.

[68:44]

And he found a great bodhisattva and the great bodhisattva accepted him as a student. And that teacher had many students and they were going to do a big ceremony. And I think the big ceremony was in India. and they had to cross the great river in order to do the ceremony on the other side and this ceremony had a lot of equipment and the disciples were carrying the equipment the teacher and the teacher came to the edge of the water and there was a woman who was um it really off she wasn't malicious but she was actually calling for help And the teacher said, I'd be very happy to help you, but I have to go to this ceremony. I have a lot of disciples. They'll help you. And so each disciple couldn't help her because they had to get... Except the last one, our boy, even though he also had responsibilities, he picked her up and started carrying her across the river.

[69:52]

And, of course, after a little while he noticed that he was sort of up into the sky and looking down from a great height, and he realized he was carrying this great bodhisattva who was sick, but totally enlightened sick. So sometimes Sometimes the calls are easy to see, but we're busy. Sometimes the calls are really... We're not busy. I'm on vacation, and then a monster shows up on vacation. A malicious being shows up on vacation. What do I do? Well, I vow to do all these practices, because this being is coming to me for help. Everybody's coming to me for help. Everybody's coming to me for help, which means everybody's coming to me to help me be me and not get away from this person calling to me.

[71:01]

I'm being called and that person's helping me be here and not run away. And if I don't run away, I leap beyond my vacation. I leap beyond my finitude if I can accept visitor, this evil visitor, and not hate them, and not dull myself to them, and not lie about them or deny them, and be patient with them, and relax with them, and embrace them, and going dancing in the sky. This all comes from just simply being me. And if I'm fully me, that helps me realize everybody's calling. Malicious people are calling me. So you have this ideal bodhisattva who's talking to you. And by being willing to be themselves, they can hear that everybody's calling them, which they always were.

[72:07]

But because they weren't home in their finitude, they were sort of slightly someplace else, they couldn't hear that these calls were coming in They really are. This is making me... I can't help it. It's making me think about... You can't help it. This is making you. This is making you and you can't help it. I'm the same way. It's making me and I can't help it either. And we're making each other. But being made the way we are. And you're going to tell us about that? There's an apparition. Right here, some of our national life and some of the maliciousness. Yes. And my response to it. Yeah. And sometimes I feel compassion, but a lot of times I feel there's something I should do. Yeah, but maybe that's because you skip over realizing that this thing you're seeing is calling to you.

[73:16]

You maybe missed that step. It's okay to do stuff after you have done what's been asked of you. You're being asked to do a thing called listening. And after you listen, you can say, do you want some water? You know? Excuse me. I have to barf. You know, barfing can be a bodhisattva can, a bodhisattva can, a bodhisattva can barf in response to a call for compassion. The thing is, do you realize that you're being called first? First you're being called. Also, you're calling. You're calling, and this response is coming to you, and it's calling back to you.

[74:18]

And now it's going to watch you and listen to you to see what you're going to do, and you might barf. That might be your spontaneous action. Or you might take your Buddhist robe and put it on your head. There will be... You listen and learn and respond. Listen and learn and respond. It's going on all day. Are you going to join it? I can see that this apparition is like a helpful thing to go, okay, you're not very compassionate, you just... You can say it's an apparition, but anyway, one call is somebody says to you, you're not very compassionate. Have you ever heard that call? If somebody comes to me and says to me, I think that's pretty easy to see that they would like me to be, but they don't think I'm doing a very good job.

[75:26]

Wouldn't you think you'd be able to spot that one? But do you actually like to listen to it? Or do you defend? This is going to be really easy. I'm going to say something to you which is going to be... Here is a call. Ready? Yes. You're not very compassionate. Well, that wasn't a call. That was an insult. And it's not true anyway. And it's not true. And by the way... By the way, it's not true. And when I say, by the way, it's not true, that's not a call for compassion. That's a call for triumph. No. If you insult me and I say you're wrong, this is my calling for Buddha, I'm calling for compassion. If you tell me I'm evil and I listen to it and I realize you're calling for compassion, I'm being me. And if I'm being me, and you insult me, I realize you're calling for compassion. But if I'm not being me, it makes it harder for me to realize everybody's calling me all day long, and I'm calling everybody.

[76:38]

I am calling you all day long for compassion. Hello, compassion please. Hello, compassion please. Hello. And you're calling me. I'm calling and listening all day long when I'm being me. When I'm being me, I realize all day long I'm calling and listening. If I don't let me be me, then I don't let me be me. And then I don't get to realize who I am. Who I am is somebody who's calling and listening and barfing and... I actually don't barf very much, so maybe I won't barf. But some people are more barfy type of people, so they easily barf. Also, I don't usually secrete milk from my chest, but some people do. You know?

[77:41]

You go, and milk comes out of their chest. Even the neighbor's kids do it. They listen and the milk comes. And some other people listen and they wet their pants. And some other people listen and say, no. But the point is, where is it coming from? Is it coming from being you and dropping yourself off? That's where it's supposed to be coming from if you want to help this world. Be you completely, drop off and barf. But you can't be you. I cannot be me without listening, because I'm a listener. And so are you. We're listeners. We are listening. In reality, we are listeners of the cries of the world.

[78:42]

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is who we really are. And Avalokiteshvara's main job is to be yourself. which is listening. But she also has a face, you know, which is saving the world. It's the face of the person who's doing their job of listening. But it doesn't mean you don't feel sick to your stomach or just terribly sad. It doesn't, you know, horrified. It's just you realize that these horrors are calling for compassion. They're not calling for you to strike back and be mean. We don't need any more of that. What we need themselves. And then the resources of our infinite life come flowing through us, which can take infinite forms, infinite variety of finite forms.

[79:53]

We already have the resource, but the way to open to it is to listen to the person who is feeling sick and listening to your own sickness as a call, and listening to the person who you find sickening, listen to them as a call. Again, I'm proposing that everybody's calling for compassion. That's what we really want. We've had enough cruelty. We don't want more, but the cruelty we see is actually calling us to wake up to compassion and wake everybody else up to it. And when we remember that, that's a little scholar in our consciousness. That's a blooming of the teaching. The blooming of the teaching of the Buddha, even if you didn't hear it, is still blooming of the teaching in your consciousness.

[80:59]

And the petals drop, and the seeds fall, and the unconscious holds it until the next moment, and then it has a new basis for the arising of new compassionate responses to the terrible cries ...to the appearance of evil in our consciousness. The appearance of evil in consciousness, I have no sense that it's going to stop. I'm not into, like, when is it going to stop? I'm into, when are we going to start listening to it? And then, when are we going to continue to listen to it? Let's get that going and keep that going. And not worry about which kind of calls we're going to be getting. Because there are going to be calls. And let's realize that when somebody puts a limit on what they're going to listen to, that that's another call.

[82:06]

So you called out, so I can encourage you to not limit your compassion. You say, help me not limit my compassion. And when I was talking about that, of examples where we sort of limited our compassion. Like some cases where we said, No, I don't think so. I'm not going to listen to this anymore. But when you say that, that's another call. When you say, I don't want to hear anymore, that's another call. Like I just thought of this person who I didn't really know, even though he lived in San Francisco at the same time as me, his name was Lou Welch. He's one of the beat poets, Lou Welch. In one of his poems, he said, if I see one more African-American sitting on the porch crying, I'm out of here.

[83:08]

he just, you know, he really heard the call, but he couldn't stand it. And he says, if I see any more of that, I'm done. And I guess he saw some more. Because, you know, shortly after he wrote that poem, he disappeared into the Sierras. So he could hear. So we need to help ourselves and help others tolerate These cries, it's hard to be little and have a big pain come to you. But that's our situation. We have come into a little clearing and big pains come up. But we have a teaching that says listen to them, practice compassion towards them. And that will transform the clearing into being able to more and more receive all the cries and liberate all the other clearings.

[84:20]

Pardon? Can you see it? Can we? May we receive the assistance. It's coming. We are being assisted. And I pray that we can receive the assistance to listen to the cries of the world. I call to the great listeners to come and help me be a great listener. And we do that in Zen temples. We say homage to Kahn Zeon. We say, I line myself up with great compassion. I line myself up with the listener to the cries of the world. I line myself up with the Buddhas. And at the end, it says, day and night, moment after moment, I think of great compassion.

[85:34]

Great compassion, please help me remember to think. Great compassion, help me think of listening to everybody and everything as a cry for compassion. Please help me. Please support me to be who I really am. but I can't be who I really am by myself, so I ask, please help me be who I really am. Please help me be a great listener. And please help me remember that you're calling, you're not only helping me be a great listener, you're calling to me to be a great listener. and a great speaker. So you're speaking and you're listening. You're calling for help and you're being called to help. We're doing this together.

[86:37]

This is our infinite life, which we're exploring together. And when we go out of the room, we're still exploring together, I hope.

[86:54]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_87.61