The true path of enlightenment is described as being upright. The true path of enlightenment is something about being upright, that we're on this path, we're making an effort to be upright in the midst of an awareness an awareness of how everything, all things, are engaged in Buddha activity. The walls, tiles, the trees,

[01:06]

the sound of children, the face of each person, all things, all sounds that we hear are engaged in Buddha activity. Or, Buddha activity is what all things are engaged in. Now sometimes it may seem like people are engaged in selfish activity. But simultaneously, A person who's involved in selfish activity is simultaneously involved in Buddha activity. But the Buddha activity is not exactly the same as the selfish activity. If someone's behaving selfishly, the Buddha activity of their selfishness is how their selfishness is an opportunity to realize Buddha's activity.

[02:11]

Sometimes you may see someone who's acting unselfishly and kindly. While they're behaving unselfishly and kindly, their kind behavior is engaged in Buddha activity. In other words, if you observe their kindness, you might be able to see and realize and be aware that their activity is engaged in Buddha activity. But you could look at another person who seems to be acting selfishly and see the same activity. So sometimes actually someone may be able to see, they feel like they can see Buddha's activity and some kindness that someone is exhibiting. And I would say, if you can see it, great, because it is there.

[03:17]

And then some stories are about how a teacher sees that the student can see the Buddha's activity in this kindness that's being demonstrated. So the teacher shows unkindness to see if the student can see it in the unkindness. And sometimes they can't. But sometimes they can. And that often is a time of awakening to a new, a deeper level of understanding that not only is Buddha's activity in kindness, but Buddha's activity is being engaged in by all things. So then, even when someone is being cruel to us, we can see this as Buddha's activity and we can say thank you and we can return not their cruelty it seems like we return their cruelty with kindness but really it's that we return the Buddha activity with gratitude even though they're acting unkindly we can say thank you

[04:36]

because their unkindness was an opportunity for us to see the Buddha and to hear the Dharma. And to be upright and ready to see this, to hear this, this is the path. The path of awakening. The path of awakening to the activity of awakening. path of awakening and awakening upon awakening and leaping beyond awakening into new awakening and beyond that awakening, each event that we experience, a new opportunity to realize, receive, and give awakened activity.

[05:51]

Oftentimes people come and see me and they confess that they want me to approve of them or like them and sometimes say love them. And then they also confess that there's some tendency or some impulse to do something to get me to like them and get me to approve of them. Now here's my view. My view is wanting people to like you is close to wanting people to love you. And if you want people to love you, I think that is like in a line with or in accord with the Dharma, the truth, because actually everyone does love you.

[07:07]

Beyond like and dislike, everyone loves you. In other words, everyone's engaged in Buddha activity, and Buddha activity is actually loving and supporting. And another part of people loving you is that they accept your love. They love you enough to accept your love, and they do accept your love. Everybody accepts your love all day long, and you accept everybody else's love all day long. And the way you accept everybody else's love is Buddha's activity. And the way you give everybody else love is Buddha's activity. And the way they receive your love is Buddha's activity. And the way they give you love is Buddha's activity. And this is what's going on all day long. And if you want to be loved, you want what is actually going on all the time.

[08:12]

So it's appropriate that you would want what is, how things are actually happening. Wanting people to like you is a little bit different though because people don't always like you. Matter of fact, people who love you don't always like you. People who are totally supportive of you don't always like you. In the last six years I've been using the easy example to understand. People like to hear the easy example, which is my grandson. I don't always like him. And he definitely doesn't always like me. I once in a while don't like him because he is extremely selfish and sometimes very mean to me, especially when his mother's around, he's mean to me. Just the two of us, he's sometimes unbelievably sweet.

[09:15]

But when his mother's around, he gets into this thing of trying to be real mean to me for some reason. And I don't like it. Sometimes I like it, actually, but sometimes I don't. But I never stop loving him, and he never stops loving me, but he only once in a while gets it, that he loves me. Sometimes he likes me, sometimes he hates me, but he always loves me, and I always love him. We're always supporting each other. He's always making me a granddaddy. Every moment he makes me a granddaddy, no matter where he is. But all of you make me a granddaddy too. And I always make him a grandson. Even if I die, I'll still make him a grandson. This love is unending and unbeginning. It didn't start when he was born.

[10:20]

But like, not always like. Love, always. But to try to do something to get someone to love you, or to do something to get someone to like you, but particularly to do something to get someone to love you, is... Well, first of all, if you don't think you're getting it, if you don't think the love is being given to you, if you do something to try to get it, you're kind of like taking something that's not given, trying to take something that's not given, or try to set it up so it looks like it's being given. The precept is don't take what's not given, and that also kind of includes don't arrange things so that it looks like the thing is given to you, so you can receive it. But aside from the precept of not stealing, There's also the affront, the insult to reality that you say, I don't believe you love me, so I'm going to do something to get you to love me. Or I don't believe the way you're treating me now is love, so I'm going to do something to get you to look like you are loving me.

[11:33]

Because the way you are now doesn't look like you love me, so I'm going to try to get you to be different so I can see it. I want to see that you love me. Well, that's reasonable. But to do something to get it to be that way, well, how about opening your eyes? Okay, maybe that's all right. Open your eyes. Open your wisdom eyes so you can see it. Don't mess with the thing that's engaged in Buddha activity. Maybe you mess a little bit with the eye that's closed. That's the part about hearing the true Dharma is similar to hearing that all things are engaged in Buddha activity. Hearing the two dharmas is similar to hearing all things engaged in Buddha activity. Or hearing the Buddha activity in all things.

[12:35]

So I hear the teaching, the talk, that all things are in Buddha activity, I would like to actually hear it from all things. I would like all things to tell me this. I would like to see this. I would like my eyes to open to this. Okay. Yeah. That's good. No problem in that. But then it says, what does it say? It says, What does it say? It says... Oh, I'm reading the wrong text. But karmic accumulations have developed hindrance. So when we look at someone because of karma, because of past conditioning, we look at the person and it doesn't say, it says Amy, but it doesn't say Amy love or love Amy.

[13:44]

I maybe see the Amy part, but I don't see Amy love. Or love Amy. I don't see it because of karmic hindrance. I see some words, but I don't see the word love all the time. And part of karmic hindrance is you see words all over the place. So I think it's good to confess that I'm trying to do something to get people to like me. So when you find these good treats for your grandchildren, are you doing that to give them good treats, or are you giving them the treats to get them to like you? There's these little containers of applesauce in the refrigerator back at Green Gulch waiting for the visitor.

[14:52]

And when he comes, he can open the refrigerator and look in and see, oh, applesauce. He likes applesauce in these little containers. They're there waiting for him. Are we putting him in there for him or so he'll love us? Or are we putting him in there so he'll like us? I've got to be careful of that. I think I'm fairly clear that I'm not putting him in there so he'll love me. Because I think he really does. But I might be putting him in there so he'll like me. Because he sometimes doesn't. So I want the love and the like. I want a little like on top of the love. A little happy to see granddaddy on top of the love. Is that what those containers of applesauce are in there for? Or are they for his health? You can look and see.

[15:57]

And you can see, oh, I think they're in there partly for health and partly for me to get liked. I'm not trying to make him like the apple growers. That applesauce isn't in there to try to help him love the sky and the rain and the earth. That's not what they're in there for. But they could be. You could put them in there to help your grandson appreciate the whole world. Huh? What do you mean, even in little containers? Yeah, right, even in little containers. So how do you... He likes them in the little containers because he's a little guy. So yeah, so then what do you do about that? You've got to get his teachers to tell him about the plastic because he won't listen to you. So it's

[17:00]

It's to be upright in the midst of this awareness. That's the main point. To remember this, to be aware of this moment by moment, this receiving and giving that's going on. And then notice that we, because of karmic background and forgetfulness, and forgetfulness is also part of that, we lose track of it. But if we confess and repent it, we melt away the root of transgressing away from this awareness and the kinds of behaviors that tend to contribute to more transgressing away from this awareness. you

[18:05]

All things, of course, include your body. So, to be upright in the midst of the awareness that your body is engaged in Buddha activity. As you sit and walk around, that you're aware that your body is engaged in Buddha activity. And the bodies of those who are sitting with you and walking with you are engaged in Buddha activity. For example, right now Amy is sitting almost in a traditional Buddhist ritual position. So if she would put that sutra book down, and join her palms. This is a traditional position to ask a question of the Buddha.

[19:50]

This is the position that the students were in when they asked the Buddha. With one knee up, sitting down on the other leg, one leg down flat on the ground with the shin on the ground, the other raised up and hands in gassho, but lift the elbow off the knee. This is a traditional posture that people would take when they came up in front of the Buddha to ask a question. This is the posture. I think you got it right that the right leg is the one down. But I'm not sure. It might be the right leg up. I'm not sure. But you can also kneel in other ways. But when they say kneel, it's this position here that they mean. They kneel on one leg, and then the other one's up. So there she was, I was looking, before she was in a different posture, and she was engaged in Buddha activity. But the position she was in where she was engaged in Buddha activity was not a traditional formal position that one takes in ancient India when meeting Shakyamuni Buddha.

[20:57]

But it was close, but I was looking. And I saw Mark, he has his hands, he's similar, you know, he has his hands also to the other, he just goes like this, you see, and then like that, and he's got it. See? And others of you are sitting cross-legged, which is a traditional Buddhist posture. But no matter what posture you're in, If I'm, like, meditating in this way, I'm looking to see how whatever posture you're in, you're engaged in Buddha activity. And Lynn's kind of, like, lounging over there on this thing, you know? This is, like, one of the postures you sometimes see all the lucky Teshvara in, just kind of... just kind of lounging there, you know? I actually have a picture like this. Yeah, yeah. And there's somewhere she's actually lounging over there like that. Go ahead. And, you know, just oozing compassion all over the place.

[22:01]

To look, this is the way the enlightened one sees everybody. Oh, she's engaged in Buddha activity, he's engaged in Buddha activity. Enlightenment's nice that way. You get to see how everybody's engaged in Buddha activity. You can also see how people are engaged in various trips. You can see their karmic patterns too. But simultaneously, you get to see this other thing which not everybody gets to see. Because the wisdom eye is open and you see, oh, I see how they're working together with everybody and everybody's working together with them. This is Buddha's activity. And I can also see that they don't seem to know it because they're unhappy. And they're unhappy because they don't know it. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.

[23:05]

Yes? So even their being unhappy is Buddha activity? Yeah. Well, it's not so much that their being unhappy is Buddha activity. It's not so much that an ant is Buddha's activity, but the ant is engaged in Buddha activity. Your happiness and your sadness isn't exactly Buddha's activity. But the way you're happy is that all beings are supporting you, and you're supporting all beings. That's Buddha's activity. And another part of that is that when you're unhappy, the reason for being unhappy is that you don't see the Buddha's activity. And that's part of Buddha's activity too, is that Buddha's activity won't let you be the way you're yearning to be unless you realize what you're really up to.

[24:20]

So Buddha's activity is not only the way you're helping everybody and everybody's helping you, but one of the ways you're helping other people and they're helping you is that you're unhappy if you don't get that. So people can see, so-and-so doesn't understand that she's helping me and she's not happy. And so-and-so doesn't see that somebody else is helping her, so she's not happy. So-and-so does see that she's helping others, and others are helping her, so she's happy. So part of Buddha activity is to reveal that not understanding this point manifests stress. Otherwise, those who didn't realize it would just continue to not realize it, perhaps. But there's some pressure or stress on the system for us to wake up to this and realize it.

[25:26]

And also, part of Buddha's activity is those who don't realize it demonstrate that they don't realize it, so those who do realize it can find them, can find the holdouts. Because the holdouts show, they say, I'm not happy. I don't think what you're doing is Buddha's activity. And therefore I'm unhappy with you because of the way I see you. So then you know who to talk to. And you can talk to people who are happy too, but they're not the main work. Kind of leave them alone, let them do their work. But those who are, those who don't understand this are really calling out for help. The other people are not calling out for help. They're broadcasting good news, which you can listen to, but you don't have to really... They don't need compassion. So Buddhas, you know, we don't feel compassion for Buddha.

[26:33]

Some people say, what? No, no, you don't have to feel compassion for Buddha. Buddha is not an object of compassion. Buddha is an object of gratitude and encouragement. Buddha feels compassion, but you don't feel compassion for the compassionate ones. So the thing isn't the Buddha's activity. The way the thing comes to be is Buddha's activity. More like that. So, in some sense, not everything... Selfishness isn't Buddha's activity, but selfishness is involved in Buddha's activity. Namely, it's broadcasting the Dharma as, this person looks selfish because they don't understand. They don't understand, so they look more or less selfish and unhappy.

[27:36]

That combination is teaching the Dharma. You don't find happy people who are selfish. And you say, oh, yes, you do. But again, that's worldly happiness. You know, I just got a lot of money. And I'm happy. I just had a pleasureful experience, and I'm happy. That kind of happiness. But that kind of happiness, then you see, the next moment, when it goes away, they become very grumpy, because they're on that particular pattern. So for a moment, they do seem to be happy. And it's worldly happiness. And then the next moment, much later, they were cruel. And then they got something and they got happy. So in that way you have to look more carefully.

[28:40]

But basically I'm saying I don't see happy people that are happy from being selfish. I don't see that. I don't see happy people who get happy... Well, I should say that. Some happy people do get happy in a worldly way. But their happiness that I see is not the happiness they get from worldly happiness. It's the happiness they get from realizing that that's worldly happiness and that they really kind of confess that and know that they're embarrassed about that. And their embarrassment about being involved in worldly happiness is part of their actual happiness. Does that make sense? It's a little tricky, but... Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering if you or anyone here knew where our cook Matt is at? Does anybody know where Matt is? Did you look in the kitchen and you didn't find him?

[29:41]

No, he didn't show up for the Dharma talk. He went and checked the door. I thought you had taken him. That was a story I made up. I mean, he was back grocery shopping at some point this morning. Oh. Do you know what car he would have taken? It's a black Honda Civic. Where would it be parked? Probably in the access lot. Thanks. We never know. We may be making our own lunches. Did you make a squeak?

[30:42]

You want to make a squeak now? You were checking your watch. Yeah, I was checking my watch. I just thought, you know, maybe somebody wanted to squeak. Yes? I think I started thinking about this when Jasmine was asking about this yesterday. So continue. And So sometimes in our practice life, if we're generally balanced and happy in the ways that you're describing, then we encounter a habitual response of pain and conflict. What I've been observing lately Sometimes something is coming, I experience it coming at me.

[31:44]

And rather than just receiving it, because there's some pain in the way of receiving it, I push it away before it can really get to me. And the consequence of that is I turn around and walk away and I'm carrying this pain that I thought I pushed away, but of course I received it. And then I've also got the pain on top of it, of my reactive pushing away. So I was reflecting on that when something like that happened after there was a need. And it seemed like what they might be able to do would be the moment this thing meets that is painful, to just stop and say, this hurts. And that seemed to me in the particular instance, maybe not in all instances, but in that particular instance, it seemed like that would have been a way to fully receive the encounter. And then who knows what would have happened next. But instead, I kind of batted it back and turned away and walked away, which was like this immersive thing.

[32:48]

And then I had to carry it. And it seemed like had I been able to just say, this hurts... who knows what would have happened next, but if I could have stayed and the other person equally could have stayed right with whatever the meaning was, that nobody would have had to walk away carrying any story or lingering affect. Sounds good. And it seems to apply to a number of these things. Including the encounter Jim and I had, and I don't know if anybody else felt this. Before we get into that, do you want to speak? Oh yeah, sure. What you're recommending as a way of meditating in situations is, I think, first of all, similar to the instruction, in the seeing there will be just the seeing. In this case, in the felt, there will be just the felt. So when you feel hurt, it's good to be meditating and say, in the pain, there's just the pain.

[33:49]

That type of meditation will initiate you into Another realization, a deeper realization than that, which is that this needing realizes you. So not only then do you, like, in the 80s, you're just a pain. You become a pain. But then you also enter the realm where you realize that this pain is engaged in Buddha, is engaged in Buddha activity. So it isn't just that you're not veering off, veering off from the pain into lots of derivative consequential activity. Welcome to the Dharma Talk. Where were you?

[34:54]

In the kitchen. I got locked out. Yeah. I got locked out myself a few times. So, first of all, it's like, there's this pain, and then if you don't just meet it and let it be that, then you get off. But that's not all there is to just meeting it. That opens the door to understanding that all things are coming forth to support the pain, and the feeling of the pain is supporting all beings. So I hesitate to say much more about the realm that's being opened up, but it's the realm of self-receiving and employing life. But the first part is the price of admission to the path of enlightenment is to immediately address moment by moment what's happening until you can do that without reacting and just say, oh.

[36:10]

Now, oh also means some idea in some cases. But sometimes it's not so much oh, like sometimes you can just look at a color and you feel pain. I'm like, you see blue and you feel pain. But sometimes it's a personal reaction, a personal interaction, and those are more likely for us to get reactive about, because of karmic accumulations. And even if you do start to spin away, if you confess it quickly, that's also good. Does that make sense? Yes. Well, you could first of all, let's say in some cases, you don't have to confess, sometimes you just say, oh. You say, oh, or you say, that I'm in pain.

[37:14]

I feel uncomfortable. Very quickly, I feel uncomfortable. You could say that right to the person sometimes, or just say it to yourself. Or say it to yourself out loud and say, that was just to me. If you start to notice that you're trying to get away from the person or on the verge of retaliating, then you say, oh, guess what? Now I have to confess something. I confess that I'm about to enact a retaliation for something which I think I feel you've done to me. I'm not saying you really did, but I noticed that I think you did. And I'm about to take revenge. But actually, I'm not taking revenge. I'm just telling you that I was thinking of taking revenge. And the person oftentimes will listen to that and be very careful suddenly. You could do that. All that stuff could be done. And if you're upright in that,

[38:17]

It sometimes works. Because you're not saying anything about the person, you're just talking about what you're about to do. I'm about to do something which I really don't want to do, which I think would be very destructive and harmful to everyone in the neighborhood. But I just said, this is a confession, and now I feel okay. But you could also, before that, you could just say, ow, wow, ugh, ugh, ugh. Yes. Yesterday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon. In our discussion, I had a sarcastic response to Jim when he was questioning, he was wanting to get into narrative theory with me. And there are karmic reasons for that, personal, private, you know, not so private, but whatever, karmic reasons for why that would be a painful moment for me. But my response, and also I was just impatient to get on with my question or whatever, but my response was to bat it away in a sarcastic way.

[39:23]

And I was wanting to bring it up yesterday, but there didn't seem to be another moment in yesterday's discussion. Mm-hmm. But that seemed to be another occasion for this kind of thing. Yeah. Because then it sticks. You know, there's a sticking. Right. I mean, I'm aware of the pain more by my reactiveness than by having been aware of it. in some other more gentle and skillful way. This is a really interesting conversation. Can we have it another time, please? Or something like that. Well, even before the conversation started, you were in pain. Because you were asking me about the discomfort I was expressing. The question you were raising. Oh, that conversation? Yeah, yeah. But I was talking about when he spoke to you, you felt pain. When he spoke to me, I felt pain.

[40:26]

And I'm saying I wasn't conscious of the pain until I heard my reaction. But the pain was clearly there. Yeah, so sometimes it's very difficult to say, oh, we don't really know, we feel it. That's hard. And like when a mosquito bites us, we don't necessarily think, oh, this is somewhat painful to me. And it's not just the pain of the bite, it's the pain of, you know, I'm going to swell up, thought I'm going to swell up, or maybe West Nile disease, you know, all that kind of like somewhat irritating little things coming up there. We don't usually stop and think, you know, this is actually kind of bothers me to be bitten by mosquitoes. We don't like go right to it and say, there's a lot going on here with this little tiny thing. We sometimes just say, yeah, get out of here. Rather than, I can be affected by such a little thing.

[41:28]

This is amazing. And now that you, now if you haven't bitten me yet, maybe it's okay to, I don't know, to blow you away before you bite me. But after you've bitten me, And I'm working with the pain. Maybe I'll let you continue, maybe. But we somehow feel like this doesn't really deserve our full attention here. But that's sort of missing a chance. But it's hard to catch all those little chances, all those little pains. So actually, fully receiving the pain might mean not responding, or not communicating. Yeah, yeah. But actually being able to just continue to see whatever it is that's being expressed. Yeah. I think Jan had her hand up a while ago.

[42:30]

My comment is about the flip side, being like a world of happiness and joy, and something that I've struggled with, but I think it's If we have a sport or art form that we really love and feels like it brings us a lot of joy and sense of oneness, and yet it might take, you know, 20 hours a week to engage in this activity, that's time that could be spent working on issues of poverty and social justice and other things that we see and have an awareness, need attention in the world. How can we justify engaging in these activities or can we? justify? Justice, right? How can our activity be just? How can our activity be part of justice? Yeah, so that's an ongoing meditation for us, is how is our activity justified?

[43:41]

And how is our activity just? How is our activity given to us? Have we taken this, or has it been given to us? It seems initially that it might be given to us just under the circumstances of our birth, you know, these opportunities. But then, if we continue, once we're aware that there's other pressing needs in the world, is that taken? I think it's an ongoing question. It could have been given yesterday, but is it given again today? So I think walking around with the question, am I really being given, yeah, right now, is this given to me to talk to you, to be in this retreat? Is this really being given to me? Or did I take, am I sort of missing out on how this is a gift? People would probably have some readings on this topic.

[44:50]

Do you have any suggestions? Yeah, the thing we chant at noon service. Just attend noon service and you'll be chanting it. That's a basic reading in this. To meditate on that and look to see if you can see that And that will not preclude, I don't think, you wondering all the time and questioning all the time. It doesn't preclude you constantly questioning your function and the function of those around you. And that can be given to you. And it is being given to you. That question was given to you a few seconds ago. And then you expressed it. And it's been given to you before. And while you're doing certain activities that you think are wholesome, while you're doing them apparently sometimes you question yourself whether the world has given you, has created you to be this way.

[45:58]

And whether you being this way is supporting the whole universe. You question that. And that question is given to you also. Now maybe if you, in the middle of some of those wholesome activities that you enjoy, you might stop sometime and go and do something else. Like you said, a pressing need. Right? A pressing need. In other words, you are doing this thing which actually you had a pressing need to do. This activity. You had a... You don't feel any pressure to be creative? Yeah, some people... You feel pressure to be indulgent? Okay, okay.

[47:03]

So do you feel pressed to feel indulgent? You don't. So I would suggest to you that you notice that when you feel indulgent, you're pressed to feel indulgent. Pressed is another word for made. You are created to be the person you are. No matter where you are on this planet... There are conditions which make you the way you are. You are pressed into service by the universe moment by moment. You're pressed into being what you are. I would say that people have a pressing need to be creative because people are creative. You are pressed into being creative all day long by everybody else Everybody's pressing you into being creative. And you are pressing everybody else into being creative.

[48:06]

And if you get out of touch with being creative, you feel stress. Because if you get out of touch with being creative, you don't understand what's going on. And people do not feel happy when they don't understand what's going on. Because what's going on is happiness. You've exiled yourself. from the creative process when you don't feel creative. And matter of fact, you even feel afraid of creativity once you've withdrawn from it. When you feel that what you're doing is elitist, Okay? That's creativity in the form manifesting as you having the thought, I think I'm being elitist. At that moment, that's the way you are. And you need to, you need, there's a pressing need for you to understand the creativity involved in you being elitist.

[49:16]

I mean in you thinking that you're elitist and feeling elitist. Otherwise, you're just going to feel elitist and, on top of that, cut out of creativity. And you're going to be unhappy. Now I'm feeling stressed. What? Now I'm feeling stressed. You're feeling stressed. Yeah, but you seem to feel stressed at the beginning of the conversation, too. Yeah, I feel like I've meditated on this so much and I never get any more clarity on it, so maybe this can't work out. You're meditating on this without getting more clarity. Okay. But it is... It's not a... What they're talking about here is the true path of awakening. We're talking about being upright in an awareness. And when you actually get in that awareness, you actually have achieved... You're actually on the true path of enlightenment.

[50:17]

It's not that easy to get initiated into it. So one of the initiations is the training of your attention to in the herd, there would be just the herd and so on. And while you're doing that, you could think, well, this is elitist. And you might notice that it's hard to do that meditation because of the karmic pattern of this is elitist to be meditating this way. And this meditation is part of what initiates you into creativity. But some of the other sports and recreations that you do When you're doing them, you're probably doing something like, in the herd, they're just a herd, and in the scene, they're just a scene. When people play racquetball or swim, they kind of like, in the exhale, there's just the exhale, and in the inhale, there's just the inhale. The sport or the art, when they're doing it, they're kind of meditating. And in that meditation, they get opening into creativity, and then they're happy.

[51:17]

Wait, and I think that's what has... Part of the issue is I feel like, okay, there's these spiritual moments, but how can it really be spiritual if it costs X dollars to participate and X time away from other important things? So I think that's where you get caught. That's one of the places you get caught, yeah. And similarly, you could be in this meditation retreat, And you could be like hearing the instruction from the Buddha, you know, that's instruction from the Buddha 2,500 years ago. Train your attention thus. In the heard, there will be just the heard. In the seen, there will be just the seen, okay? In the felt, there will be just the felt. Then you could think, how much did this cost to be hearing this speech? How much did it cost me to hear that instruction? How much does it cost me to do this meditation? And that money could be going to the Red Cross instead. But I already spent the money here.

[52:19]

So what should I do? Ask for a refund? Could I get my money back so I can give the Red Cross? Meantime, somebody else might say, you know, you're just distracting yourself in the meditation. Because part of the karmic process doesn't want you to meditate. Because it wants to keep you to stay in the selfish view of the world. It doesn't want you to open to the true path of enlightenment because then what's going to happen to the empire of the self? It's kind of a challenge to actually concentrate on anything. The karmic process is just to keep you being a good consumer. and keep you nice and distracted so they can get you to invade Iraq and buy Hummers. And then you won't be elitist. Then you don't have to worry about, hey, who do I think I'm better than other people? No, I'm not. I have a Hummer. I'm in debt.

[53:21]

I hate everybody. I hate those people with those little cars who think they're better than me because they get better mileage. I'm going to run over those. I'm not elitist, but like cashing my Hummer and give my money to, you know, the Red Cross. People say, you're so elitist. You've got all this money you're donating. You think you're better than other people. You're like in this elite donor club. You've got names up on the wall. Who do you think you are? But names up on the wall for helping people. Yeah, you have elite status. It says right there you're in the elite group. Would you change the title of that thing? Make the people who give the most be like the humblest group? The humble donors. They have certain special rooms you can go into when you're more generous than the other people. There's no way to avoid getting distracted. I should say, there is a way to avoid getting distracted from the fact of Buddha's activity, and that is to open your mind and heart to it.

[54:30]

And then when you do, you can have all these questions that you have. You don't have to get rid of any of them. You can be suspicious of yourself being selfish and greedy and elitist. You can handle all that. And you can ask people, let me know if you think I'm being selfish, greedy and elitist. And then they say, yeah, you are. And you say, okay, thank you. Any suggestions? They say, yeah, I think you shouldn't go to retreats anymore. And you say, oh, okay. And you can converse with them, you know. Because And then you're doing, that's what you want to do anyway. You want to talk to all these people. No matter what you're doing, you can feel selfish. And if you go find something, like, okay, now I'm in the soup kitchen. I'm not just in the soup kitchen. I'm in the lowest grade soup kitchen. I'm in a soup kitchen that serves poison. This place is such a bad soup kitchen, they don't even have good food here. I said, I don't want to be in a soup kitchen.

[55:32]

I want to be in a soup kitchen that gives good food. And they said, that's an elitist soup kitchen. You're like in this soup kitchen that serves organic. You're like in the suburban soup kitchen. No matter where you go, people say, Jan, no matter where you go, you always find the elitist whatever it is. Where could you go that you finally, like, never, could anybody, including yourself, ever accuse you of being elitist, being selfish? Where could it be that you would never be? It's hard to find that place. That you get so down, you know. Like I used to in San Francisco. When I lived in San Francisco at Zen Center, somebody told me about swimming in the bay.

[56:37]

So I used to jog down to the bay and go swimming in the bay. And then after I finished swimming, there was this public showers by the swimming area, by the bay. I used to go in there to shower, wash the salt water off me before I got dressed. And I went in there, and in the shower, these public showers, there's people in there who, that's their shower. That's where they shower. And some of them would shower with all their clothes on, because they also wash their clothes in that way. And some of them had like, one guy had nine layers of clothes on that he was wearing while he showered. Another guy who was showering in there, when he took his clothes off, his body was covered with duct tape. He took his clothes off, but his body was covered with duct tape. And there were other people in the shower, like interesting people like that. I won't tell you all of them. And one of my friends, I told him about showering in there, and he had gone into that shower one time, and he said, that's like reverse snobism, what you're doing there, taking showers with those people.

[57:50]

It wasn't really. It was just the only place to shower. But it was like, you know, I went into the hell of showers, you know. But it wasn't intentional, I just happened to be the only one there. But it was a very interesting experience for me to shower with these guys. And then there was a women's shower on the other side, which I don't know who was in there. When you're in this awareness, you are open and resonating with the most selfish and the most unselfish beings that there are. And you're in a creative relationship with everybody. And you're never unconnected with elitism and non-elitism. You're never like, I'm not elite. You're always open to, I am elite. You're never separating from being common.

[58:53]

You're always open to that. You always have questions about your behavior because you're connected to people who are questioning you, who are suspicious of you, who disagree with you, who think you're off and selfish. You're also connected to people who think that you're wonderful and want you to do something, are begging you to take care of yourself. They really appreciate that you exercise and that you do creative activity. They want you to do that. And some of them want you to do that, and they also want you to be open to any possibility that you're being selfish. Because we can always slip into that, anytime, anyplace. But to look, you know, where could I find some activity where I finally wouldn't have to hear any more questions about my behavior anymore because this is an activity you can do and you never have to consider again that you might be selfish.

[60:01]

Now you can rest. I think it's more like, can you love the worst person in the world and even have that be you? Can you be the worst person in the world? Or not even the worst person, like average bad person. You know, medium grade bad person. Can you be like the most unacceptable thing that you could ever be and love yourself? In fact, that's reality. No matter what you are, you do love yourself. The whole universe loves you, and you love the whole universe. You are Buddha's activity. You are engaged in Buddha's activity, no matter what you do. And it isn't that when you're engaged in Buddha activity, you don't anymore hear a little voice like, you know, you could be, it's possible you could be off track here.

[61:07]

Buddha's activity doesn't mean you have your ears sewn up to all criticism. And when somebody's criticizing somebody else, it doesn't mean they're not criticizing you. Matter of fact, a lot of teachers, when this person's off track, they say to the other person, what are you doing with your elbows on your knees? And you go, what? And he goes, could he be talking about me? I moved one of these zabutan. This is called a zabutan in Japanese. Za means sitting and butan means futan. It's a sitting futan, a sitting mat. I moved one of these sitting mats with my foot one time when I was in Suzuki Roshi's room and he turned to some other student and he said, don't move things with your feet.

[62:09]

And he went, he was kind of like, jumped backwards, didn't know what was going on. And I thought, how strange that he said that to him. I wonder who he was really talking to. But it sunk in better that way. So when you hear people criticizing other people for being elitist, like you made sure you got in a position, you know, where you're totally like nobody could accuse you of being elitist. And then you hear somebody down the street being called elitist, and you think, could that possibly apply to me? I thought I got in the most unelitist club in the world here. Like I joined the Y. That's not elitist. The YMCA is not elitist, is it? What did you say? Yeah, the why's in certain neighborhoods. So you find the why in the worst neighborhood, the downtown why.

[63:13]

Now, if you go to the downtown why, and I ride the Greyhound bus. Now, that's not elitist, is it? So you're driving in the Greyhound bus, and the windows open a little bit, and you hear somebody in the street saying, you're so elitist. And you think, and it's a Zen master, right? The Zen master's talking to somebody in the street. And they look up at you. in the Greyhound bus, and they turn to their student, who's a totally poverty-stricken student, and they say, you're so elitist. And the student goes, what? And you think, could he be talking to me, driving by in the bus? There are some people who are so enlightened that they'd just be walking down the street, and they see people on the bus, and they see this person's on the bus just because they're trying to find refuge from being elitist. That's why they're on the bus. So then they run up and they go up to the bus driver and say, you're elitist. And the person in the back seat of the bus goes, wakes up. Oh, I see. There's no way for you to escape.

[64:15]

It's not that you're elitist. You're really not elitist. But if you're really not elitist, which you aren't, you're not. You're not. You're connected to all beings and they're all connected to you. You're not elitist. But when you realize you're not elitist, then finally you're not afraid of people calling you elitist anymore. When you're elitist, when you think you're elitist and you feel unconnected with the poverty-stricken unelite, then it really bothers you when people call you elitist. The best way to use your time is to be used by your time. And to realize that you are using your time in the best possible way. To open your eyes to how that's so. Not to try to find something that will be that way. Because when you find out one thing that's that way, what are you going to do the rest of the time? Be a bum?

[65:22]

The true path of enlightenment is the best way to use your time. To be upright and be in this awareness is the best way to use your time. And that will not protect you from the thought, am I wasting time? And it will not protect you from people coming up to you and saying, you're an elitist, you're a racist, you're a sexist, you're a communist, you're a Buddhist, you're a selfishist, people will attack you. But when they attack you, and also from the inside, you'll call yourself all those names too, when these attacks come, every one of them is Buddhist activity. Just testing you and deepening the understanding. The more you open to this, the more you'll be tested. So you say, well, I don't want to open anymore.

[66:37]

Then forget that. But anyway, your question should just keep pulsing. But there is a pressing need for you to help all beings, because you are helping all beings. There's a pressing need for you to help all beings. It means there's a pressing need for you to realize that you are and how you are. And there's a pressing need for you to realize how all beings are helping you because it's hard to help all beings if you don't think they're helping you. It hinders us to help all beings if we don't think they're helping us. The more we see they're helping us, the more we get ready to help them. Now, some people feel helped, but they're not quite ready to help others. They want a little bit more help before they start helping others. Like children can sometimes see their parents are helping them, but they want to wait a few more years before they start helping their parents. You know, you're helping me now, but I heard that I have to help you when you get old, so I'm going to wait until later to help you.

[67:38]

But some people start helping their parents earlier because they feel so helped by their parents. And some parents help their children because they feel the children are helping them. The more we feel that we're being given to, the more we feel like we can give. And the more we give, the more we feel like we're given to. So somehow we have to get into this giving thing. And when you get into it, part of what you'll be given is questions. and tests to see if you can understand that's a gift too. That you request it, that you're requesting, please question me, please question me. Please give me feedback. Yes. It seems like you can, when you receive things, that you can also sort of receive them and put them on a temporary hold to finish processing or feeling them later. I'm thinking the other day when we were talking about to bring people in to see for Jokasan, I said something like,

[68:52]

okay, I'll go grab those two people, and you laugh, like, right in my face. But I, like, didn't want to see that, but, like, it registered, but I wanted to stay with what was happening, so I thought, right, so it registered, and then I kind of, like, put it to the side, and then you said, yeah, okay, go do that. And then I left the room, and on the way down the stairs, I kind of brought it back to the forefront of my mind and said, well, what was that? And then I laughed, because I was like, duh, idiot. But... There seems to be some way to put things to the side. I don't know if that's making sense, but I guess, I don't know. I wanted to know more about that. It seems like we have this ability in our consciousness to... We have a what? The ability in our consciousness to hold things and almost slap something out, like patience or holding. Hold something and then do what? Continue on with what? You mean hold it but not really look at it, you mean? Yeah, or kind of like what Catherine was bringing up earlier, like maybe you can't process right away for whatever reason.

[69:56]

It's just hard to take it all in at the same time. That's okay. Yeah, like here comes the gift. I can't have this right now. Let's put it up here for now. I'll come back later. It's okay. That can be one of the ways it goes. Oh, somebody else said to me, it just popped in my mind, is that she noticed that when she sweared, when she cursed, actually, when she tried to stop cursing, she noticed that that helped her feel things more. She noticed that cursing kind of was a distraction from what was happening. Like something happens, boom, and then you go, blah, blah, but it kind of knocks you away from it. So, yeah, so like, you say grab some people, this person laughs. Yeah, it's like, I just don't want to get into that laugh right now.

[71:06]

I'm going to postpone getting into what that was about. It's okay. Especially if you're aware, I'm postponing that. Or sometimes people curse. You say, oh no, what did that curse do? You might try this next time, not cursing, and seeing what that's like, and then put the curse back in and see what that's like. All these are possible experiments. Yes? It seems like that process moves faster and faster, though, as you get better and better at it. It gets faster, right? Things are actually really fast. Did you have your hand raised? Yes? June? Yes. So, sometimes I have a feeling that we're all alone.

[72:28]

So when we practice training the attention, in the seen there's just the seen, in the heard there's just the heard, in the felt there's just the felt. When you're in that mode, you're actually resting. It's a form of rest. You're resting from interpreting, elaborating, arguing, negotiating, interrogating, blah, blah, fighting. You're taking a rest. So we actually, by rest, we enter... the high energy of our life. Once we're in the high energy of the life, we sometimes have to rest again in order, otherwise we get spun out of it. So if you get initiated into this, the high energy of creativity, sometimes in the middle of that you lose your uprightness, so you have to go back to the initiatory resting type of activity, which is the simple meditation where you give up discursive thought and train your attention in such a way that you calm down and then you plunge back in to the fire of life or the hurricane of life or the whirlpool of life.

[73:58]

And then when you're in there, then you're like, you're alive, you know, and you're now engaged in Buddha activity with everything. And you can see it But then sometimes you need to, again, you get spun out or you lose your uprightness, so you have to rest again. So, in fact, we have to go back and forth between initiating and entering, getting spun out and going back. And sometimes we get spun out by expressing compassion and engaging with people from this place. And so it's the initiation and entering and expressing and re-entering. But the re-entry means go back to the resting type of practice, the calming type of practice, the concentration type of practice. So I don't know if that took care of your question, but... Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[75:03]

Yeah, it's like a rest note, exactly. The rhythm, there's a rhythm to it. And there's a cyclic quality to it. And it isn't just you just enter there and stay there. Because as we saw, in the realm of this awareness, it naturally expresses itself as compassion and ethical behavior. But then when you're out in compassion, ethical behavior, then sometimes, again, you need to apply yourself or join the compassion practice, part of which is to practice concentration. And then you re-enter the source of the process. So we'll go round and round in this way. Yes, it's cyclic. There's the practice to bring the state of rest, but then once inactivity out of the state of rest, they're still resting.

[76:24]

If they're still resting... then you will naturally, we could say spontaneously, re-enter the source. But if there's not resting, then you might have to explicitly practice resting to re-enter the source. So there's some ongoing time of activity and rest happening together. If you can rest while you're practicing these ethical behaviors and acts of compassion, then without formally training your attention back into the concentration, you would naturally plunge back into the source. And then this time comes, then you get spun out. And you get spun out. for various reasons. But one of the reasons you get spun out is people call to you and say, talk to us. Or I have a question for you.

[77:27]

Or have you exercised enough now, mom? Or have you done enough pottery? Can you come and make dinner? Or could you change my bandages, please? So, you know, people call out to you when you're in this state, but you can hear them because in this state you're listening to everybody and everybody's, you're in this relationship, so you're quite open to it. But if nobody calls to you, you just keep spinning around. You just keep leaping and leaping and leaping and then somebody says, hello, and you say, yes. Would you give me your head? Sure, here. I was imagining that what you just gave. Hello? Yes? Would you give me your hand? Here it is. Rest is still happening in that activity. But perhaps in the... It says sit upright. So you're resting in the middle of that activity.

[78:28]

But if you then get involved in activity again, and it's not just this leaping and turning and resonating, then in that place you can sometimes get a little... de-aligned, misaligned, out of alignment in the process of compassion work. And that was a question by trying to help people. Did they not get enough rest in their work? That was his question. How come they're getting tired? And so, but actually in the samadhi, the rest would be there, because you're sitting upright in that samadhi. Now if you're not upright in that samadhi, then it's pretty hard to live there. So you enter through being upright, and then you continue to be upright in the samadhi, and you can just live there. Buddhists can live there a long time, but then they get stimulated by a wish to help compassionate people who are calling, and they manifest activity.

[79:32]

And they may be able to continue the uprightness in that activity, or they may lose it, then they have to do the instruction, have to practice what they're instructing the other people to do, and then everybody jumps back into the soup of the samadhi. Something like that. Yes. When I find myself in that kind of activity, I always say, well, the buck stops here. My pay has to do with my attachment. Whenever I react to something because it was hurtful to me or because I felt threatened by it, when I really look at it,

[80:35]

It's really, it's my delusive self with its attachments and the baggage I carry because of it. The ignorance of the other person's comment or the, you know, it's my reaction to that. I mean, when somebody makes an ignorant comment to me, right? If I am centered and upright, what arises is compassion. not defensiveness, not anger, not pain. That is mine. That is my attachments. That breeds all of that. Yes. And there's a certain kind of pain that comes with that, and that's called mundane pain, which most people have. But if you clear that pain, by letting go of your attachments, and that pain would drop away. Then you'd have a new kind of pain that might come out of your concern for the person.

[81:41]

But that pain is sometimes not very clear because our mundane pain is maybe taking a higher position. But some people feel both. But the second kind is a pain which is a source of happiness. pain you feel for suffering beings, ignorant beings. That pain is not from your attachment. That's from your love. And the other kind of pain is from your attachment. Whatever. You can feel pain from... People can feel pain from attachment when they see enlightened people. They see some enlightened person being kind to someone and they feel pain because of their attachments. Like, why isn't she being kind to me? That can happen. But a lot of times then they say, oh, I see where that's coming from. And then that can drop. And then you can feel happiness to see the person doing the same thing.

[82:43]

But you can still feel pain about the person you're helping. And that pain is the bodhisattva's pain. Bodhisattva doesn't have the other kind at a certain point. But at some point, bodhisattvas have both kinds. So you can still be a bodhisattva and have a little worldly pain, I think. Just because you live in different states You know, I think I know what you mean, that child's crying. I had strange feelings when I heard the voice of that child, and the suffering of that child, and the suffering of that child. Yes, and now.

[83:48]

Yes, Jim. I feel compassion that way when I listen to people share difficulties. I think it gives me some suggestions going away from here that can be done. One thing that I tend to do is say, I'm sorry. But recently, in the last couple I get to different people saying, why are you sorry? It's not your fault. It doesn't make sense. I'm not sorry, but I don't know. It says nothing to do with me.

[84:48]

I see that you're struggling. And, you know, I'll follow up with you. I mean, I don't have a magic wand to take this in, but I have a magic wand. But it strikes me that to say I'm sorry is the wrong language. I'm really glad that you can get that out in the open. that you can get it up and we can see it. And I think that will be very helpful. I appreciate you telling me about it. I'm glad you know about this. So I usually praise their awareness.

[85:53]

I might also say, if I felt it, I might also say, I feel it's I share that with you. But I'm not sorry that I share it. So, you know, or I even, I appreciate you opening your life to me so I can be with you this time, at this difficult time. That you include me during the hard times. I sometimes say, I'm a foul-weather friend. In fact, not too many people come and tell me when they're happy. And about five years ago, I stopped doing wedding ceremonies. I stopped officiating at wedding ceremonies. But I still do funerals. Wedding ceremonies, I feel, are something a lot of other people can do.

[87:06]

And also, I usually have another opportunity after the wedding ceremony to relate to a person. The funeral ceremony is my last chance, pretty much. So I still do those. And actually, a lot of times at funeral ceremonies, at wedding ceremonies, sometimes people say, oh, that was a lovely ceremony. Very nice to meet you. And I say, nice to meet you. And at funeral ceremonies, they say, that was a beautiful ceremony. Nice to meet you. I'm sorry to meet you on this occasion. They say that. And I don't say this out loud very often, but I say, if it wasn't for this occasion, you wouldn't have met me. So it isn't that I'm happy to have died. I'm happy for the occasion because now I get to meet you. And now I don't get to meet you, but I get to meet you in this wonderful way that I wouldn't have been able to meet you at a wedding. So again, the way I meet people at weddings, it's OK. It's fun. It's high calorie. But the way I meet people at funerals,

[88:13]

I think it's more important for me anyway. I feel more necessary to meet people in that way. The other way, I don't think people need me for. Huh? You're icing on the cake. Yeah. I'm just like icing on the cake. They want the icing, but the cake's pretty good anyway. So I don't very often say I'm sorry. I say I'm sorry if I do something unskillful. If I make mistakes, I say I'm sorry, even if people like it. But I don't say I'm sorry about pain we're having together. And again, a lot of people understand the way you said it. They think when you say it. I think when you say you're sorry, that you think you did... Did you have some problems?

[89:24]

You broke it. Yeah, okay, well... Yes? Oh, look, Donna's sitting next to Donna. Yes? Yes, actually. Which we're more or less aware of. Usually we have to go into deep meditation to uncover it. Like you have to go to a special place where things are really simple and we don't have to juggle 15 balls to realize we're juggling 15 balls. We're actually always in this intense juggling act, but because we're so distracted, we don't realize it. So then when we superficially simplify things,

[90:27]

we open our body and mind to how complex and intense our life is, we feel safe to do so. And in fact, if you open to how complex and intense it is, when you're driving a car or something, you might have trouble continuing to drive, because it's such a big transition in your perspective. So in fact, we do sort of simplify things so that we can take the risk of opening to how complex life is all the time. or rather, open our heart to how risky life is all the time. We're always at risk. All day long, we're at risk. And when you calm down, you say, you open to how we're at risk every step of the way and how our friends are at risk. It's a very impermanent world we live in. But as you know, children, if you tell them about this, they faint. They open to how impermanent all is.

[91:29]

It's like they can't stand it. And when they first start to see it, they take these little peeks and they go, whoa. And then 10 years later, they take another peek. So I'm saying, yes, we are in crisis all the time, which means we're constantly surrounded, globally surrounded by threat and danger. And we're totally vulnerable. We're fragile. And we're like coping like mad with the situation. And we're turning and changing and we're totally creative. This is our actual wonderful life. And we have to calm way down to open up to it. And then our reward for calming down is to see how intense and in a way turbulent and violent and chaotic our physical, chemical, biological existence together is. But when you actually see it and face it, then you're not afraid of life anymore, which is great.

[92:30]

You're actually getting a peek at the actuality of our crisis life. Then you open to the opportunity of a life that's of fearlessness and unhindered compassion. Any feedback from you? I'm not sure if we're talking about different kinds of crises. No, I think we're talking about the same crisis.

[93:35]

Crisis is crisis. It's just that some people who you see in crisis, you think, oh, I don't think they're doing very well with that crisis. But the good thing about those people is that you can see the crisis. That's their gift. So somebody in the hospital who's in a crisis, suddenly they get better. The moment before, they were this way, and then suddenly they get better. So they were in crisis right before that, where they get worse. People who are in that state, sometimes they're doing really well with it. And when they're doing well in crisis, we think, I mean, I think, when I see a person doing well with crisis, I think, that's the way I want to be. If somebody comes up to you and insults you, you may feel like you're in crisis, like there's a danger here. You could attack them back, or you could do something really creative with this insult. I see you in crisis. I see somebody coming to you and criticizing you and disapproving of you and pressing you to be different.

[94:41]

And I see you. And I see you as in crisis. And maybe you even say, I feel a crisis arising here. And then you do well with it. I think, great. But it's hard to do well when you're not in crisis. Because what can you do well with? You're on a flat lake, you know. What can you do? Give me some oars. But then you're in crisis again because now you can flip over or whatever. So again, I think at the creative center of our life, there is crisis. There's fire. It's changing. And part of us wants to get away from that and go sit in the bleachers of our life and watch somebody else live it. perfectly understandable. That's part of our karmic, that's part of our conditioning, is to be that way. But the drawback of that is that it's painful.

[95:43]

Or rather, the consequence of that is it's painful. It's not really a drawback because the pain pushes us to question whether we, maybe it'd be better for us to go find out where the center of this whole situation is. And I say that the center is a turning point of our life. But at a turning point, it's hot and cold and up and down and dangerous. But that's where our chance to live fully is, too. That's where our artistic life comes alive. And sometimes we see it and our conditioning makes us want to back away from it. And when we get there, other people who are backing away from it try to talk us out of it because it scares them. They say, would you please come out of that center, come back and be calm and not have a crisis, please?

[96:46]

So that's one of the reasons why now we need retreats where we can learn how to stay balanced. We also need people who will tolerate us having crises and not tell us, get over it. would tell us rather get over yourself rather than it. Actually, get over it and yourself. Get over the separation between good and bad and self and other. I just thought when you were describing this crisis condition that we're all in, that some of the, most of the harm that we do, whether individually or in a global way, is about trying to push that crisis away and deny that crisis and stabilize it. Yeah. So I wonder if some of the things that look like crisis in God's question might actually be for this effort. Do you have a response to that, Donna?

[97:58]

I think that's a good question. Thinking about a particular person whose life seems very chaotic, and I think maybe she's causing these crises in her life to try to solve another crisis, the main crisis. Yeah, that's a possibility, that you create derivatives crises to distract yourself from the fundamental one. That's possible. And one of the dangers surrounding all crises is the danger

[98:44]

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