We've seen the whirling dervishes. She said that they raised, I think she made the gesture, I don't know, she raised one of their hands and lowered the other one while they turned. And she was told that this one you receive with this one and give with this one. So at noon service today we chanted the self-receiving and employing awareness. The awareness of how you receive yourself and give yourself. So that kind of receiving and giving. comes from this turning point.

[01:06]

You're at the place where you receive your life and give your life, receive your life and give your life. So as you meditate on being at that turning point, you're in that samadhi. And so the text that we chanted says that the true path of enlightenment is to sit upright in the middle of that awareness, to sit upright in this turning point where you feel your life given to you by the universe and you give your life back to the universe. And you sit upright there so you can turn, so you can turn from receiving to giving or turn from self to other and back. the turning point. So again, at this turning point we have what are called spiritual experiences or insights, spiritual insights.

[02:32]

In a sense, insights that you can't see, but yet you know. And from this wisdom, at this turning place, comes compassion. Unbounded compassion. And ethical behavior. Or I should say, I said ethical behavior It may be better to say ethical conduct in the sense of ethical ways of being with people, not so much ethical things you do, but ethical ways you are with people. And then coming from this, we practice, first of all, giving. So coming from this awareness, there is giving. And the giving in the form of compassion and giving. And one of the things, and then we give to people.

[03:39]

Oftentimes we give them words. Does it say in the Bible, in the beginning there was the word? Is that what it says? Gospel of John? I was just looking at the Gospel of John. Is that right at the beginning of the Gospel of John? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was good, and the Word was with God. So... Coming from this spiritual experience, like the Buddha's main gift the Buddha gave were words. The Buddha did a lot of other stuff, but the main thing the Buddha gave words, and these words help people enter the turning place.

[04:51]

enter the crisis where we receive and give our life, where we receive life together with the mountains, the rivers and the great earth, and where they receive their life from us. We enter this place and have spiritual experience and wisdom, and then our compassion is unleashed back onto the universe. And again, we will probably give words. And sometimes the words are, you know, there are many kinds of words. Sometimes they're structured in forms. But sometimes besides words, there's physical forms, like showing people how to walk and sit. And again, people see these. They see these things, these forms, and oftentimes people get stuck here. And they don't practice these in such a way that they enter the crisis where they let go of the words or where they feel the words given and then they give them away.

[06:02]

So this is part of the danger of coming out of spiritual experience and giving people words is that they'll attach to these words and get stuck here for some time and even use these words against people who don't have the same words. Or even uses it against people who have the same words but, you know, don't seem to be using them properly, and so on. So lots of problems can occur around these words and these forms. So there's, coming from the turning point, are gifts, and then at the receiving of the gifts, there's another crisis. But if people don't realize the crisis and the turning, they can get stuck here. So one of the dangers of giving people teachings And so some Zen teachers, as you know from the stories, when students come to them, like somebody asked me last night, you know, he said, well, don't you have to give teachings and stuff to people?

[07:10]

And I said, well, you do actually, but sometimes the way of giving them is by not giving them. So a number of Zen tortures, a number of Zen stories where the student comes to the teacher and says, teach me about Zen, and the teacher says, um, I have a headache. Go talk to somebody else. Or, would you please clean the toilets? And so the student cleans the toilets. Now give me Zen. Or another one is, Master, a monk has come and he asks, what is the true meaning of Buddhism? Tell him to drink some tea and go. Go. And the student comes back and says, I told him to drink tea and go. But by the way, what is the meaning of Zen or Buddhism? Drink some tea and go. So you think, well, they won't attach to that.

[08:11]

But even that they could possibly attach to. And they go around saying, drink tea and go, drink tea and go. But maybe, you know, a lot of times maybe for some people It has to be really light like that. So when they're dancing they have one hand raised in gesture of receiving, one hand down in the gesture of giving. When we sit we have our hands in this mudra, And actually the left hand represents often the receiving, and the right hand the giving. We put the left on top of the right. So first receiving and then giving. So this mudra also means receiving and giving, joined. So we sit with this receiving and giving hand mudra, and receiving and giving body mudra,

[09:20]

And we relax into the turning place. We give ourselves to find our place right where we are. And let the practice occur. And another thing I wanted to mention was that, which some people have already brought up to me, At Zen Center, you know, a lot of people have already made various formal commitments. Still it comes up there, the issue of commitment. And a number of people, when I'm in Zen Center, they come to Zen Center and they come to a talk, or they maybe do a retreat like this with me, or they come to a class, or they come to talk to me.

[10:33]

But they have no commitment to come to class. And they do a retreat, they commit to do the retreat, but they don't commit to come to another one. And I'm happy to see them, It's nice to see them, but if they don't come back, I'm just glad to have met them and that's it. But most people do not commit to come back. So there's some people who have commitments and some people who don't. So they're just, in a sense, two sort of different types of relationships. You can learn a lot by going to a retreat. You can learn a lot by practicing meditation. You can learn a lot by spending time with someone and being kind to them. This is good. But when you commit to be with the person, you learn something more and something different.

[11:42]

For example, so if you go see a teacher that's might be quite helpful. But when you commit to go to see a teacher, then something will start occurring which doesn't happen before you commit. You can practice precepts, ethical precepts. And that's, generally speaking, it's a possibility of practicing them skillfully and that's good. But then when you commit to them, something can happen that doesn't happen before you commit. And some people even say that, and I think I sort of agree with this, that it's good to be good. Like, if you practice, for example, telling the truth, that's good. And you can practice telling the truth without committing to tell the truth.

[12:53]

Somebody could say, like, what day is it? You say, Saturday. And you feel good to tell the truth. But if you commit to tell the truth and they ask you what day it is and you don't tell the truth, it hurts. It hurts. If you do, it feels good. In a way, even better than before you committed, maybe. But if you don't follow through on your commitment, you don't feel good. On the other hand, if you didn't commit to tell the truth and you don't tell the truth, you say, well, I didn't say I'd tell the truth, so no problem. Or not much of a problem. And actually, some people actually follow the precepts quite well without making any commitment. And some other people who have made commitment don't follow them as well. But the merit of someone, the virtue of someone who does a good thing is not as good as somebody who commits to do a good thing and does a bad thing.

[14:07]

It's not that doing the bad is the merit, it's that great merit, great virtue happens, good things happen to the person who doesn't do the right thing. Namely, they feel very clearly how bad it is not to do what they intended. So again, people say that the real spiritual struggle is after you commit. Because many people, it just happens that they can tell the truth. They just sort of tell the truth all the time. That's the way it works for them, and that's good. That's very nice for them. But we don't know what they'll do when it wouldn't be nice for them to tell the truth. And if they don't tell the truth, it doesn't bother them that much, necessarily. You made a face. Yes.

[15:12]

He cannot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that's good. That's very good. It actually might finally make it hard for him to tell the truth. That extra layer might make him struggle with what comes naturally to him. That's right. It would be an extra layer. And that might be a problem for him. to have that extra layer. It might make his life more difficult. Is that bad? What? Is that bad? What bad? If he made a commitment to tell the truth, but it made his life more difficult. No, I think it would be good. Matter of fact, I would say it would be better than all the good he's ever done.

[16:17]

Because he's already done all the good he can do, and now he can do more. He can have a difficulty that he's never had before. In other words, he can grow. It's good that we do good things, but we don't grow necessarily from doing things we already know how to do. But for somebody who loves somebody to now commit to love them, this is a whole new game. Some people, as you know, they're good friends, they love each other, and then they commit to love each other and they start fighting. Some people do not have any sexual relationships and then they commit to not have sexual relationships and suddenly everybody's making passes at them. Oh, you're not going to have sex anymore, huh? I haven't been having it anyway and now I'm not going to. But before I wasn't having any sex, I wasn't involved in any sexual activities. But just that's the way it was.

[17:20]

That was natural. But now I'm not going to say I'm not to. And then people find you very attractive. And people who weren't interested in you at all before are now coming up to you and testing the waters. And you weren't interested in them either until they got interested in you for not being interested in anybody. Right. You're not interested in anybody? Not even one person? Not even me? Could I be the only person that you would be interested in because you're not interested in anybody? You are really interesting. So then rather unattractive people become very attractive to some people who want to test to see. Like some men find lesbians really attractive. Because they don't like men. Or they're committed to not like men, or whatever.

[18:25]

And many people travel long distances to be seen by a teacher. They want a teacher to see. And then when they meet the teacher, and have what they came to get, then they want to be someplace else where the teacher can't see them. And if they don't have a commitment to see the teacher, they can get away pretty easily. Because the teacher just said, oh, hi, and then they say, oops, and they try to get out. The teacher lets them go. But if they commit, the teacher says, where are you going? They say, well, I've got to get out of here. I don't want to waste your time. This is normal. that you want to be seen and you don't want to be seen. Or you want to be seen but you also want something not to be seen. You want someone to see something and you're afraid that they'll see something else.

[19:30]

This is normal to have this kind of stuff going on. A person also told me, again, a person told me, she said, you know, I've been practicing the precepts, the Bodhisattva precepts, and I really enjoy practicing them, and I'm getting better at it. And I said, great. She said, but if I think about commitment, I feel very uncomfortable. And she started to cry, and I said, I think you're wise to sense that Even though you're doing them now and you're enjoying them doing them now, I think you're wise to sense that if you commit, a whole other level of difficulty will come. That's wise of you. Because it And when I received the precepts, I didn't really realize that it was going to get more difficult to practice the precepts.

[20:35]

I just received them. I didn't even think that I wanted to practice them, actually. That's not why I received the precepts. I received the precepts just because it was part of becoming a priest. I wanted to be a priest. I didn't really want to practice the precepts. And I found out after I became a priest that the precepts came with the deal. But that was not really emphasized for me. And I found out that since I became ordained as a priest, people expected me and wanted me to practice those precepts. And I just gradually sunk in over the years, deeper and deeper. Which is good, but it does... It's a difficulty I didn't want or expect. And I'm partly mentioning that because I was thinking that during this retreat... would be a good time to give the precepts to Lynn because she requested to receive the precepts.

[21:35]

I thought this would be a nice group for her to receive them with. And she sewed her robe and so I was going to, with your support and permission, give her the precepts during this retreat. And So you can witness that ceremony if you'd like. If you have any problems with the ceremony occurring, let me know. We can probably accommodate your situation. Okay? Let me know if you have any problem with doing the ceremony. It won't be very long. I thought maybe we could do it on the last night of the retreat. Or the morning. The fourth night, yeah. Is there anything you'd like to discuss?

[22:39]

Yes, Amy? No, not really. Turning, leaping, dancing. Dancing. I think, yeah, but I mean by turning and leaping, same. You leap from where you are, so you sort of have to really be where you are, and actually when you fully are where you are, you kind of naturally leap. When you're fully where you are, you know, like not resisting where you are, so you're relaxed where you are and yet you're fully there. And I say you leap, but really, when you really arrive where you are, you kind of discover that there's leaping going on. There's somebody there who's you who's leaping. You're a leaping person, actually, and you finally find out, oh, I'm a leaper.

[23:44]

You're a turning person. Oh, I'm a turning person, so I'm turning. It's not that you're turning yourself, it's that you're a turning person. you're a person who's turning the world, you're not turning yourself. And the world turns you. The world turns you and you turn the world. It's a turning world and turning people on the planet. And we're attracted to each other, and we're attracted to the world, and the world's attracted to us. So by this kind of grave attraction we have to each other, we turn each other. But we don't turn ourself, actually. Right, you're turning, right. You're turning, you discover, pardon? What? No, you're always turning. It's just that you're turning and you may not know it. The true way you are is the turning way you are. It's the only way you are, is a turning way, a leaping way, which is the Buddha way.

[24:51]

The only way you are is the Buddha way, but we have to wake up to that. because we're into dreaming that we're in a habitual setup here. We dream a life of habitual activity. We dream of being stuck. And when we're stuck, we can be grasped, and we can grasp others who are stuck. We wake up to a world where we can't grasp each other, where we can care for each other in a turning kind of a way, in a leaping way, but we can't get each other. So it's more like waking up to the turning, not making the turning. Waking up to the dropping off of body and mind. And part of the initiation into our turning is to be present and relaxed. Well, if you were deluded, then the turning would be to turn to insight.

[26:25]

If you had insight, it would be turning perhaps to delusion, happily and peacefully. So it's changing your... You could say it's changing your view, but you could also say it's your view changing. It's your view changing. It's your view leaping free of itself. So again, if you're deluded and you're not at peace, then you can leap forth into peace with your delusion. And peace with your delusion is called enlightenment. And then you can leap from enlightenment back into illusion. or delusion, but now with peace, which is enlightenment going beyond enlightenment back into delusion. So if it's enlightenment, you turn from enlightenment or you leap from enlightenment. And you keep leaping from enlightenment and leaping from enlightenment and leaping from enlightenment.

[27:29]

Why is there a crisis Did you say why? It's more like how. How is there crisis means how is there turning in that? Right? How is there turning and leaping from enlightenment? Is that what you mean? Oh, how is there crisis? Well, there's crisis in the sense that you're turning, which is the denotative meaning of crisis, and there's crisis in the sense of, etymologically, in the sense of There's danger in enlightenment. What better place to get stuck? So we have meditation sickness in the tradition. Meditation sickness means you work hard and you become successful at meditation and you get lots of light, lots of ease and peace, and then you camp out there.

[28:38]

And who's going to be able to get you out of that nest? Very difficult because this is like, why should I leave here? This is great. Right. And very few people are going to be able to get you out of that pleasant place. There may not be a Buddha strong enough to get you out of that enlightenment. So it's really dangerous to get really good enlightenment because then you might stop turning. But also there's a great opportunity of what more amazing thing would it be than to leap from the best enlightenment you've ever seen, from the best stage you've ever experienced to like say, hey, this is a good thing to give away. Wouldn't that be fabulous? And then after that, then to give that away. And then probably you're getting so high and so great, you think, I think maybe I should give that away too.

[29:43]

And maybe at this time I'll get something that's really like low quality. Because if anything gets better, I might not be able to give it up. So I'm going to go back down, way down. Give me some suffering people. Give me some problems. I'm getting too off the ground here. So you naturally will plunge back down into the worst possible situation to see if, oh my God, even here I'm happy. Wow. You okay now? Can I move on to the next person? See you later. Yes? I completely forgot everything, every word of my first teacher. Congratulations.

[30:45]

Well, unfortunately, I have a sad ending. When you came in last night after your talk, I said, well, I remember you. But I still hear it. Yes. You barely not believe this. You want to fly. You want to float. To spin around. You want to be able to bounce up and down. But you fall down on the air. Just break it up. You think the earth is your enemy. How can it fly? Only push us from the earth. The earth is your friend. It's your only friend.

[31:52]

I believe that he said that. Anything else coming up? Yes. Yes. Yes. So I'm thinking that the compassion and the shadow to practice could be like more of a receiving practice, receiving the energy. And I'm wondering, I'm not so clear about what the farm, I guess the person asking that question, is for your community. And then on the wisdom practice, the life practice. So I'm not sure. I feel like it could be a giving, more of a yawning, more of an action. You feel that wisdom is more like a giving, is that what you're saying?

[33:07]

Yeah, well, you know, giving is usually considered to be the first compassionate activity. Giving is usually put under compassion. However, the actual way that giving is happening is not an activity. Well, that's true too. The way giving really is, is that when you're giving, you're also receiving. That's the way giving is. The way giving is, is that when you're giving, you're also a gift. And you're also a receiver. And the person you're giving to is a receiver, of course, but they're also a giver, and they're also a gift. That's the way giving really is. In other words, in the actual giving process, which is compassion, the way giving is, is wisdom.

[34:15]

Realizing the way giving is, is wisdom. So in a sense, wisdom is not an activity. But in another sense, wisdom is the way activity really works. It's the truth of activity, in a way, and the realization of that. That in any process, you can't get a hold of any parts of the process, or the whole process. You are it. So this is turning now, okay? You look at compassion in the form of giving, and the more deeply you look, the more you can't find any giving. Because where there's giving, there's receiving. And when there's giving, there's a gift. And when there's a gift, there's giving and receiving. So the way the giving process really is, is that it's empty of any inherent existence. That's the way compassion is. Compassion is actually empty. But in terms of meditation, shamatha, you could say shamatha is kind of receiving in the sense that whatever experience is happening, you receive it.

[35:32]

And you don't really do anything with it. Just relax completely with it and say thank you. Whereas insight work, you actually start to maybe think about it. You apply your thinking to it. And then the thinking applied to what was received, or even the thinking applied to the process of receiving and giving, the mind entering into that and penetrating that realizes it. So the receiving by itself without the mind participating in, well, what is this receiving? That's more the tranquility side. But as the mind starts to look at what it is that's being received while receiving it, and penetrates it, then the mind realizes that this receiving process, which we haven't been messing with, now we understand that nothing can be grasped. Now there's wisdom along with the receiving.

[36:36]

Now there's tranquility, which has been seen as a giving process and penetrated. So we're getting back into caring for things caring for your experience without attaching to it, and then studying it, penetrating it, becoming the understanding of it. So these things are kind of like, these are turning too. They're vibrating. Wisdom and tranquility are vibrating. Yes.

[37:43]

We use the term spiritual life. So it's like a label of life. And I don't know why it occurred to me that in the ox herding pictures, for example, you have those turning points, if you like, of the ox, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. And then the final picture where he rides the ox back into the top, right into the village. That's the spiritual life, really. It's back in the village, really. Because the quest, like the search, well, the thing we do, you know, really, in this practice, is really to be able to live a spiritual life, in terms of living our ordinary life in a spiritual way, right?

[38:46]

With spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Somehow, You are having a spiritual experience. You feel awakened to something new. They laugh at the being of God. Did you know that Clarabelle recently died? Did you know that Clarabelle died a couple weeks ago? Clarabelle? Clarabelle's the guy who hung out at the peanut gallery. The peanut gallery was the kids at the Howdy Doody show. Yeah, that's where the peanut gallery came from, right? Hmm? The peanut gallery might have been before Howdy Doody, but it became famous through Howdy Doody, right?

[39:49]

I never heard of it any other place in my life. But anyway, in Clarabelle... Well, you got the peanut gallery part. Yeah, the first picture is the same as the last picture. The last picture that you used, you got the guy going into the town to help people, right? Yeah. In the first picture, he's kind of lost and looking for the ox. So the picture of being lost is the same as the picture of having found the ox and going back into the world of lost people and even being one of the lost people. Really? What I mean is that if you progress from the first Oxfordian picture, which is an ordinary confused person, and you go through the process partway or all the way to the end, if you can't go back to the beginning, you haven't reached the end.

[41:07]

It isn't, you know, there's ten Oxfordian pictures, the tenth stage is to be able to go back to the first stage. No. see things in a different way. Yeah, it does. It definitely does. Well, all the way through the process, stage two, you're seeing it differently. Stage three, stage four, all these different stages, you're seeing things differently. And finally, you see them so differently that you can go back. Not only do you see things differently and are you free, but you can go right back into the marketplace of Which means you can go back to the first stage without any leverage on it.

[42:14]

Without like, well, I'm in the first stage, but I'm really not in the first stage. I've attained enlightenment. This isn't bothering me. That you really, you really feel the pain. But at the same time, at the same time you're on the tenth stage. Because the tenth stage and the first stage are the same. You go back down, but you said you're happy. You're happy. You're not kicking the dog like you were before. You're not kicking the dog, but somebody is. And it hurts you. You feel pain at the dog being kicked because you care about the dog and the kicker. You feel the pain, but it's the pain not only from compassion, but now also the pain which comes with wisdom. So with wisdom, you don't even need to have the slightest bit of separation from the first stage.

[43:19]

But you don't have to kick the dog anymore. That's true. But in the first picture, the guy isn't necessarily kicking a dog. He's just suffering. But he's not happy suffering because his suffering isn't coming just from caring for beings. So he's not happy. If you get to the tenth stage and you don't go back into the first stage, you don't have the happiness of the pain of the first stage coming because you care about people, because you dare to open to them all the way. We want to make the ten stages non-dual. So there can be progress to a place where in the end there's no duality. Well, even if you stay in the first stage, you're not the same from moment to moment.

[44:34]

You've gone through all these stages. You've gone through all these stages and you've changed and you've developed. Then you go back the first stage and you're experiencing things in the same way that you were experiencing them when you were there before. Yet you've got all this evolution that you've experienced Right. You're not experiencing that first stage in the same way you were the first time. Could you be evolved in all those ways? Well, excuse me, but like I said, even if you stay at the first stage, you're not experiencing the first stage the way you did experience the first stage the moment before. There's that side, right?

[45:38]

So the fact that it's not the same as before, it never really is. But still, what this process is about is about the deepening of realization. And the deepening of realization comes with that it's not really you. There's not a graspable you in the whole process. And at the end of the process, there's understanding that there's not a graspable you. So it's not exactly that you... are experiencing things differently than you used to. It's more like you're free of thinking that you are experiencing things the way you used to think you experienced things. And the way you experience things is actually together with everybody, And since you experience things together with everybody, and you always did, but you didn't realize it, now you're experiencing things with everybody in the first stage.

[46:40]

But the realization that you're experiencing things with everybody is not something you experience by yourself. It's something you experience, you realize that you're experiencing things with everybody all through the process. And the more you go around, the more it gets homogenized. So it's not like you come back into the situation and you hold yourself separate. You get more and more plunged into the situation. Because of the evolution, you get more and more integrated. But you think, well, yeah, but now that you're more and more integrated, aren't you more and more better than you used to be? But you're not only integrated with everybody else, but you're integrated with the less developed person that you used to be, who isn't around anymore. Now you appreciate and are embarrassed by, but integrated with, who you used to be.

[47:52]

So, in a way, I'm just trying to, my response to you is to keep turning, you know, not to get a hold of what you've become as you evolved. So you evolve, yes, yes, you evolve, evolve, and the more you evolve, the more you can get used to not being able to get a hold of what you evolved into. But then if you can't get a hold of it, then it's going to be hard for you to show what you've got out of the deal. But the more you evolved, the more evolved you are, the less you need to show what you got out of it. the more you're willing to say, I can't figure out what I'm getting out of this. Now, I guess somebody might say, well, boy, you're really evolved. But I can't see what that would be. So the Buddha says in one sutra, when I attained complete, unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment, did I get anything? No, Lord, you did not get anything when you got enlightened. That's why it is supreme, perfect enlightenment. So as long as you're evolving and still getting something, it's not complete.

[49:00]

So, yeah, we evolve. It's true. And in some sense we evolve from enlightenment into realizing enlightenment more fully, into seeing more and more what is enlightenment. And having less and less that we accomplish because we're evolving more. And to bring that realization through that process, to bring it into complete integration with all beings so that they're suffused by it. And so we give them all kinds of gifts which they can get stuck on and evolve out of and so on. So I'm kind of like, I'm continuing to leap out of the reasonable attempts you're making to get a hold of this enlightenment process. But it's okay to try to get a hold of it. That's normal. And then it just keeps trying to shirk and slip your grasp.

[50:06]

You have said, I think, that there is some deepened understanding. There is, yeah. There is deepening understanding. And the deeper the understanding, the less you can get a hold of it. And so much so that you wind up places where you finally would think, I never thought I'd wind up here after I got enlightened. I thought I was done with this. Yeah, you thought that when you got enlightened you wouldn't have this problem anymore. That's fine. And it's not so much that you do have this problem, but rather it's more like testing... It's whether you think you wouldn't have that problem. It's not so much that you do have this problem. This problem is just like, did you think you wouldn't have this problem? Yeah, well here, have it. See if you can deal with this again after you thought you were going to never have to deal with it again. But not because you really have a problem, but because you think you wouldn't have problems anymore.

[51:15]

And if you think you will have problems, then they'll take them away. Okay, now you don't have any problems. Now what are you going to do? Get stuck to the seat. Yes? How can you tell the difference between a spiritual experience and a diffusion? The difference? Yeah. How do you recognize a spiritual experience? I don't know. I think that... Yeah, I think a spiritual experience is one that you're not concerned about recognizing. One where you don't actually get to get it. I mean, it's happening but you don't get to have it or you don't get to possess it. That's a spiritual experience. So, if you have a delusion but you can't get it, then it's a spiritual experience. Not that the delusion is a spiritual experience, but then not being able to get it.

[52:20]

the actual failure to get it. Or an enlightenment experience, the failure to get it would be a spiritual experience. But an enlightenment that you can get, perfectly good enlightenment, but the fact that you got it is a delusion. It's the grasping of the enlightenment that's the delusion. And it's not being able to grasp enlightenment that's enlightenment. But not being able to grasp the delusion of delusion is very similar to not being able to grasp enlightenment. Because in both cases you're just a failure at grasping. And not being able to grasp means that you understand, maybe, kind of you understand that you can't grasp anything. That's waking up from grasping. And caring for everything is the way to test to see if there's any grasp.

[53:23]

By the way, that new person who joined us, Deborah. How's that? Anything else this afternoon? Yes? Jasmine? Is it possible for a person to get enlightened and then allowed to get stuck again? Is it possible to get enlightened? Well... It's possible for an enlightened person to get stuck in enlightenment. it's possible to become enlightened and get stuck in that enlightenment. And that being stuck is in some ways worse than being stuck in ordinary delusion, because it might feel fine.

[54:32]

And nobody knows what you're talking about. So it's possible to be enlightened and get stuck in enlightenment. That's why to turn To turn from delusion to enlightenment, there's a danger in that. Or there's a crisis in enlightenment. Even in enlightenment, you must leap forward from enlightenment. You get stuck in enlightenment. Now, if you're enlightened and you... Stuck. Before you get stuck in delusion, you have to go into it. So if you're enlightened, and you leap from enlightenment into delusion, First of all, you have just not got stuck in an illusion, which is good. So enlightenment is good, but leaping out of it is also good. And then if you leap out of it into delusion, leaping into delusion is good.

[55:36]

Now once you leap into delusion, of course you can get stuck. Yes. But you got stuck after doing something good, namely leaping from freedom into bondage. Leaping from peace into disturbance. Leaping from enlightenment into illusion. That was good. And that was deepening. It had a potential to deepen the enlightenment. Your enlightenment wants to get tested. To see if it can go deep. And it might can't go there, let it stop. Say, whoops, I tested it. No, no. And in some sense, it's a different type of a test than the old ways that you were stuck in delusion. Because you recently just, not only did you get enlightened, but you gave your enlightenment away, which was really great, and deepened the enlightenment more. And the way you gave it away was by plunging back into delusion. However, it doesn't mean that every time you plunge back in, you're immediately going to be set free.

[56:39]

Sorry. But that's how enlightened... Buddha is not the only enlightened person. There's lesser enlightened beings than Buddhas. And they're called bodhisattvas. And what they are is enlightened beings, enlightened beings that keep plunging back into delusion to deepen their enlightenment. And they keep doing that. by trying to help people, but sometimes they get stuck while they're helping people, and then they get released again, and that deepens their life. Enlightenment can get deep. And some people get enlightened and don't get stuck, but they don't become Buddhists, because they don't keep plunging back into challenges. These are so-called arhats in the tradition. They attain enlightenment, but they don't plunge back into enlightenment. They don't plunge back into delusion. So, as a result, they don't have certain kinds of challenges which would mature them to be Buddhas.

[57:46]

Now, some people would say, well, but really they're going to someday come and get those challenges and become Buddhas. But in order to become Buddha, enlightenment has to jump out of enlightenment, back into delusion, and learn how to jump into delusion and not be caught by it. So it's possible to be enlightened and stuck in enlightenment, really dangerous, It's possible to be enlightened and jump out of enlightenment, back into delusion, and get stuck. It's also possible to jump back into delusion and not get stuck, and then get a better enlightenment, and because of a better enlightenment jump into another delusion, which is even more challenging, and not get stuck or get stuck. But get stuck doesn't mean get stuck wherever, it doesn't mean get stuck right now. And now. And now be free. And now jump from freedom back into bondage and get stuck. Or not. But either way, if you're not stuck, then you have to jump back in again. Constantly getting stuck.

[58:50]

Saying, I'm stuck. I'm stuck. Okay, I'm stuck. I'm willing to admit I'm stuck. Even though I was enlightened yesterday, now I'm stuck. But I'm not stuck because I said I was stuck. Being stuck is an illusion. Okay, how about this? Try being stuck this way. This is an illusion. This isn't really happening. Not really, because you can't find it. And I just found out that I couldn't find it. I was stuck and now I'm free. Okay, you're rewarded. Get stuck this way now. You know that story, what is it called? The Steel Skins? Chinese, you don't know all of it. So this is a story about this Miller, who's, the king's out saying, okay, okay, everybody, tell me about the most wonderful girls for my son to marry.

[59:54]

Or maybe for me to marry. Okay. And some various people come forward and say, oh, my daughter's really great this way. My daughter's really great this way. And one man come forward and said, I have a great daughter. She's beautiful and also, by the way, she can spin straw into gold. And the king said, oh, yeah? Well, I'd like to meet your daughter. So the farmer goes back and tells the daughter, I told the king that I had a daughter who could spin a straw into gold. She said, oh, you did? Well, who is that? I don't know of any daughter you have who could spin a straw into gold. He said, I don't either. But he said that if I didn't come back with my daughter who could spin a straw into gold tomorrow, then he would kill me. So would you please go? He won't kill you. He'll kill me if you don't go. Anyway, so he takes his daughter to the king and the king puts his daughter in a big room full of straw with a spinning wheel.

[61:01]

And she's supposed to spin the straw into gold. She doesn't know how. So she cries and she cries and a little spirit being appears and says, what's the matter, girl? He said, King said, I had to spin this room of straw into gold, otherwise kill my father or something. Oh, I know how to do that. So he spins the whole room of straw into gold. And King comes back and says, great. all this gold thread. He said, okay, well, and then he said, he's going to marry her, right? But now I'd like you to spin another one. This is big, indigo. So your reward is more and more challenges. But if you're enlightened, you're happy.

[62:11]

You're happy to be in a more and more challenging situation, more and more challenging people. You feel suffering with the challenge, but you're happy because you're suffering because you care about them. And it's a happiness that's much greater than any world, that you get from having a straw spun into gold or something. People praise you. And that happiness isn't from your selfishness. It's a happiness that comes from caring about your feelings. And that happiness definitely gives you more pain and more happiness from really caring for them. So being stuck in something, being stuck is perfectly good. I mean, if you're not getting stuck, it's perfectly good. That's a story. Yes. Oh, can I ask a really basic question?

[63:24]

I'm sorry, this is all very weird. Maybe it's because my head's wagging and I can't quite get what's metaphoric, what's concrete. But the guy goes into the woods. I think I've seen these pictures. The guy goes into the woods for a war. An ox. An ox, an ox. How does he know to go in the woods for an ox? I mean, you said you were so struck by the sense of compassion in Buddhism that you decided to learn. That seems, the compassion seems compelling, but to go to look for an ox seems crazy. How did that guy get to look for an ox, you know? I'm sorry, do you understand my question? Well, I think one way to understand the ox is that the ox isn't just the ox. The ox represents that you see something that's very challenging that you're attracted to.

[64:31]

The ox is a big challenge that you're attracted to. And he first sees the tail of the ox and he sees a little bit of the ox. Also, in some of the pictures, he sees oxes black at the beginning of the pictures, and halfway through the ox is half white and half black, and then at the end the ox turns white and the ox disappears. But there's something, you know, you have some problems and then you see some possibility which you think, oh, that's what I want. I've got problems. And I've been... I've been having problems for a long time, and I've been thinking that if things would go this way, I would be free. But I've noticed that all the things I've been doing in this realm, they don't seem to really work. Then you see somebody who's trying a whole different approach.

[65:33]

Instead of trying to get more stuff for themselves and their friends and avoid problems, they're not on that trip at all. They're into responding skillfully. They're not trying to get anything. They're just in the womb responding skillfully without getting anything. People insult them, they don't get anything from that. And they respond, well, I'm not getting anything, and I'm not trying to get anything. When people praise them, they also don't think, oh, now I got something. They respond the same way as when they didn't get anything from criticism. Usually we don't think, oh, great, I got criticism. Usually we think, oh, bad, I got criticized. How can I get rid of the criticism? That's what we usually think. And you do that quite a few times and you think, yeah, well, that's what I'm doing, and this is kind of like, there are problems here. And then you see somebody who doesn't even have that approach. They're not trying to avoid criticism and get praise.

[66:38]

That's not what they're up to. However, they are getting criticism. You see that. But they don't seem to be trying to avoid it. They more seem to say, like, oh, I'm being criticized. That's what's happening. But it doesn't seem to be the main point. The main point is that they're just there and this is what's happening. And then while they're being criticized, they help people, you know, what they can do. But it isn't just that they're helping people or doing what people ask of them or whatever. It's that they're not trying to get anything out of it. And when they're not getting anything out of it, namely they're getting criticism and disrespect and so on, they do the same work that they would do if they weren't getting it, if they weren't getting criticized. And then they get praised, but they do the same thing they do when they're getting criticized. They're not on the track of doing one thing when you're praised and doing another thing when you're attacked. We're just basically doing the same thing all the time.

[67:40]

It just seems to be somehow avoiding the issue of praise and blame. So you see that. You've just seen the ox. So now you want to go tame that ox. Or you want that ox to tame you. When you learn how to ride an ox, an ox teaches you how to ride it. So you want to learn how to interact with this thing which you're very drawn to. And you start following it. Because it's not just like good luck. It's like you have to train. That's one way to understand it. And you get better and better at it. And finally, as a result of the whole course, when you really get more skillful, again, you realize, for example, there's not really an ox. The compassionate people aren't really out there. It's really just the way you are that you always wanted to be. And then you can go back into the place you used to be without any separation.

[68:43]

And then you become the person you want to be without separating yourself from the person you want to be, because the person you want to be was somebody who wasn't separate from other people, or yourself. That's one way to talk about the arts. Does that make any sense? Yes, it does, because I think I want... spiritual enlightenment to be this big, big thing. There's one part of Jane that wants that. There's this other part of Jane that's sort of saying, what I really want is to be able to solve day-to-day things well. And instead of thinking about how to solve day-to-day things well, trip up on looking for big spiritual experiences. And instead of going on big spiritual experiences then, I'm thinking, it's hard to balance them.

[69:50]

Yeah, and that's part of the problem. I was attracted to some people who could handle day-to-day problems skillfully. When I saw those stories, I didn't think, I want to be a Buddha. I want to be supremely enlightened. That's not what I thought. I wasn't attracted to that. But I found out that the people who were doing that, they kind of attained supreme perfect enlightenment in order to deal with daily problems. Dealing with daily problems is the test of supreme enlightenment. Being able to live with other people without being the slightest bit better than them. Or even worse. But just be kind of like an ordinary, downtrodden, suffering person. To be able to do that with no reservation, with no resistance, And you say, well, you're different.

[70:54]

The other people who are suffering, they have resistance. But do they really have resistance? Because aren't they really fully suffering? No, they're only half-heartedly suffering. They're suffering, but they're not really into their suffering. Okay, well, how about doing it that way then? Do it half-heartedly. Whatever way they do it, do it like them. Just like them. Don't suffer even more wholeheartedly than them. Suffer half-heartedly. Do it just like this person, and this person, and this person, without trying to have the slightest advantage on anybody. This takes supreme perfect enlightenment. And this also shows all those people, in whatever condition they're in, that supreme perfect enlightenment is right with them. and doesn't want to be any different from them. So they don't have to get any better to have supreme perfect enlightenment, because if they had supreme perfect enlightenment, they would be totally at peace where they're at. No duality between any state of suffering and any state of enlightenment.

[72:06]

And to understand the non-duality between any state of enlightenment, the highest or the medium, to the lowest or the medium delusion, to understand the non-duality, is a big, super-duper spiritual experience, which makes it possible to be totally ordinary. In all the millions of ways, good zillions of ways of being totally ordinary in life, be ordinary middle class, lower class, be ordinary man, be ordinary woman, be ordinary child, be ordinary old person, just like... And we all know all those people. Is there any resistance to being completely not separate from them? Which is what we are. And realizing we're not separate from anybody, in each individual case, that's the challenge of our enlightenment. And that's a big super-duper thing, a big spiritual leaping, but yet the test of it comes down to can you be with anybody with no separation?

[73:16]

And if you can, this is a supreme enlightenment, which comes with all kinds of supernatural powers and so on. But the main test of it where the tire hits the road is that you really can be with anybody. And if you can, then you have supernatural powers. To be super normal means both to be above normal, but also to be totally normal. All at the same time. Yes? Commitment and choice are I think that... Well, first of all, before we get into the second part of the question, just deal with, I think that part of the course is commitment.

[74:27]

So you haven't done the whole course if you haven't made commitment yet. Hmm? It's part of the course. It doesn't mean that when you're not committed, you can't do anything. So again, to feel compassion for someone is good, and it counts. But to want somebody to be happy is good. To commit to their happiness. To put your money down on their happiness. To put your body down on their happiness. To tell them about you wanting them to be happy. That counts. makes things possible, then just wanting them to be happy doesn't. Although wanting them to goes with committing to... If you commit to somebody's happiness you don't want them to be, that doesn't work either. But wanting to practice ethics, wanting to help people, and then committing to those things, the commitment does seem to be necessary. Now about whether it's free choice or not, I think that my choices, I do have choices,

[75:34]

Like I'm choosing to say, I'm choosing to say. In a sense, I seem to be choosing to speak the words I'm speaking, and I seem to be choosing to make the gestures I'm making. And my nervous system is choosing to pay attention to you right now, rather than pay attention to you. But now I'm paying attention to you and not you. So anyway, for some reason I'm operating in this way, paying attention to certain things, and there seems to be choice going on, but the person here is not in control of the choice. And even this person's nervous system is not in control of the choice because this person's nervous system is responding to the environment and actually it's arising interdependently with the environment. So I'm not really choosing to be me, and yet I'm a person who seems to be choosing things. but I don't feel like I'm in control of my choices, so I'm not too big into choice. I'm more trying to tune into, although I can't choose to do it, even though I can't choose to do it, I'm saying to you right now, let's tune into how we're doing this together.

[76:48]

I want, I'm saying right now, I want to tune into and be turned on to receiving and giving, receiving and giving. And I want to turn in that space. That's what I want, and I'm saying that, but I'm not saying I'm choosing to say that. I'm an instrument of the receiving and giving department. But even though I am, right, and sometimes I'm not, Sometimes I forget about it, but I'm not in control of... I don't choose to forget. I almost never choose to forget that I can sense. I never want to forget. But there are certain habits which are habits that forget from us, and we forget that we're doing this together. How are you doing? I have a choice. What? Yeah. And we forget, and we usually forget by habits. We remember by habits, often, and we forget by habits.

[77:57]

We try to remember some new thing, but we have habits of being concerned with things other than remembering this new thing we're trying to learn. So we, generally speaking, have an easy time remembering what we have habits of remembering. And we have trouble learning new things which we don't have habits for. And yet, there's something vital that's pushing us to get out of our habits. And it pushes us, usually not by making it totally comfortable to be habitual. It kind of pressures us to learn new ways. Something in the big picture that's pushing us out of our habits. And there's something about our habits which are saying, let's just stay on the same track, please. Pardon? Actual life is pushing us.

[78:59]

Yeah, it's pushing us to be free of our habits. And also life is supporting us being habitual, both, same time. It's very dynamic. Life has made creatures who are concerned with continuing, even though they're changing all the time. It's kind of a, you know, life is... It's just totally amazing. It's astounding how complex and contradictory and wonderful it is. Yes? My way of thinking about my work is trying to be to know why I'm always saying things that are not having to be, that are not big things that evolve between them.

[80:04]

But to be interested in more subtle things that come out of the beginning of these things. How about being interested in everything? Yeah. Because that would include the subtle stuff and the gross stuff. We're already interested in, I don't know what. We're already interested in big, horrible things. Like slime and rock. We're already interested in getting your attention. We're already interested in corruption and cruelty, we're all interested in obvious kindness and sweetness and compassion, but how about being interested in everything, in every moment? We don't have to stop being interested in anything.

[81:05]

Of course, things will change if we start getting interested in everything. I don't think we have to be less interested, we just, in some sense, I think being more interested, to be interested in more things, in more people, to be interested in more people, to be committed to the welfare of more people, more and more and more people, more and more animals, more and more plants. So I think interest in more and more, in all beings, And then when I see somebody who can do that, I think that's great. And then the question, how do you get to be that way? And there's some training that helps us be that way. So we're interested in this person, but we're also interested in the person who's talking to this person, namely what we call myself.

[82:09]

We're interested in our posture. We're interested in whether we're relaxed and balanced. And we notice that that has some relationship to how we're interested in more and more things. The more balanced we are, the more we're able to be interested in a wider range of things. And vice versa, the more we're interested in a wider range of things, the more balanced we are. And then what promotes this growth in interest or compassion or concern? What promotes that? What kind of meditation promotes that? And that question is part of the meditation that promotes it, I think. Not even to answer, this promotes it. This is the answer, this promotes it. But listen to people who say, this promotes it.

[83:13]

When they say this promotes it, you go, does that promote it? I wonder if that promotes it. Maybe I'll try it. But not to get the answer, but to be concerned with growth. And not to get growth. Not to get the room of straw spun into gold. But maybe to spin a room of straw into gold Wondering, you know, I wonder what the next thing is going to be. I wonder what the way of continual growth is. What do you say? Pardon? Yeah. So we, in a way, we're willing to just go on with the picking and choosing forever, and that's like not picking and choosing.

[84:21]

Because you could choose to put an end to picking and choosing. Not... I don't know too many people who want to choose to continue to pick and choose. In most sense, students say, I'd be willing to get free of picking and choosing, even if I wasn't told that that would be the way. Even if that's not the way, it still would be really nice to have a little break from picking and choosing. Well, there it is again. And if anybody does want to pick and choose, there it is again. So wanting to get out of it or wanting to stay in it, Okay. I'll read. Picker. Chooser. It's okay. Is that enough this afternoon?

[85:23]

Yes. The desire for help, that place, okay. That's a crisis point, the desire for help, because there's dangers around it. but there's also the opportunity of helping. Okay? So that's right. When you wish to help, please discover the turning point in that wishing. And the turning point is where you notice the dangers. So the fact that you notice the dangers when you feel like you want to help, that's good. Now if you open your eyes to those dangers that you kind of sense, And others ones maybe even open and gradually open to other dangers which you don't sense, but you open to more and more dangers around your interest in helping.

[86:34]

And then you look at them and learn to not be afraid of those dangers, but to see them. Then you also see all kinds of opportunities to realize your wish to help. But it doesn't mean the dangers go away. No. Every moment of wishing to help is surrounded by dangers. And if you see them, that means you're moving into the turning point in the middle of the desire to help. And in the turning, as you realize the turning, the helping will come from there. The helping will emerge from the turning. The actual help will emerge from the awareness, from the wish to help and aware of the dangers around the wish to help. But even if you don't wish to help in a given moment, like for example, I don't know what, maybe you just wish to be still.

[87:38]

You don't think of it as helpful, but you just wish to be still. You haven't thought, oh, I think it would be helpful to be still. You just wish to be still and quiet. And then you notice the dangers around being still. then you see the opportunities around being still. And then from there, compassion emerges. You start giving gifts from that stillness, which is a stillness which is turning and leaping. To know oneself is a danger? That's not a danger, that's an opportunity. By the way, the word opportunity, its root is related to a safe harbor. So, the English words danger and opportunity are related.

[88:45]

The one's a harbor and the other's vulnerability. Opening to the dangers, you open to the safety or the goodness. But knowing yourself is something you could be one of the opportunities when you face dangers. around being still. But another danger around being still is that you might get stuck in being still. You might become... You might succumb to being in a state of inertia. And you might enter into a state of very profound bliss that you don't want to give up by moving or being bothered by other people. That's a danger of being still. But if you know that danger and face that danger, Doesn't mean you won't slip into it. It just means you start turning. You have the potential to start turning and realizing compassion from understanding the turning.

[89:47]

Even if you didn't wish to be compassionate, in fact, when you sit still and open to danger, that's compassion. And that compassion opens the door to wisdom of seeing the opportunities and the dangers spinning on each other. And then the wisdom opens up to compassion even further. But compassion doesn't grow in a field of safety. It grows in a sea of suffering. And in a sea of suffering there's not just the current suffering, there's possibility of all kinds of other misfortunes happening. And if you open to them, that's compassion, opens to the dangers. It doesn't open and get afraid of them. It opens to them for the welfare of others, and in opening to them, happiness comes. Opening to suffering and opening to danger for the welfare of others brings happiness.

[90:50]

That's the opportunity that comes when you look at danger. or one of the opportunities that could be realized. So if you want to do anything good, it's good to be aware of the dangers around your good intentions. Like, I want to pull this thing up in a good way. There was danger there. Danger that you would I think I wasn't expected to do this piece of equipment. But I wanted to do this in some helpful way. But it was dangerous. It still is. There's some other dangers, too, which you probably can come up with that are going on. It could break.

[91:52]

It could break. It could break. They could fall over on me, although it doesn't seem, particularly on this table, more likely to break probably. Or it might go down and hit the Gospel of Luke, and that might be sacrilege. The danger is somebody might think I don't respect the Christian testament. While I'm trying to be a good boy. Someone else is curious. When I said, if you tell somebody to be good, it's a joke. When unenlightened people tell somebody to be good, it may not be a joke. It's when enlightened people tell somebody to be... Enlightened people are the ones who are telling the jokes. Yeah. When unenlightened people tell you to be good, that may not be a joke.

[92:59]

They may be very serious. They may think you're bad and you should be good. When enlightened people see you, they think you're good and then they tell you to be good as a joke. They say, oh, he's a good boy, be good. They don't mean that you should be something. It sounds like they're telling you to be something you're not. Be good. Be good. But they're just playing with you. You already are good and they're telling you to be what you are. Like they say, you sit, like Ken says to Sally, be my wife. Then you know he's kidding you, right? Because he's enlightened and he knows you're his wife. So then when he's kidding you... What's a joke? No, no, it's not a joke that you're enlightened. It's a joke when I tell you to be... It's a joke when you tell her to be your wife.

[94:04]

Sally, be my wife. It's a joke, right? You may not say that joke very often, but it's a potential thing that she can do. Just squawk up to her and say, be my wife. That's one way to do it. Be my wife. Be my wife. Be my wife. These are various jokes you could do. See, different nuance, right? All very funny. None of them telling the person to be anything other than what they are. But it sounds like you're telling them to be something. So we tell people, be good. But if you're enlightened, if you say be bad, that's also a joke. Like, you know, do what's impossible. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, okay.

[95:04]

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