Man Up a Tree, Talk 2

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BZ-02683
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the body house the go on
and so
here i'm so busy so that's the go on which were gonna get into but in addition to a call on there's always a comment and then followed by a verse and this this is a from movements commentary and and and move on was a me
twelve twenty eight is when he lived women ika he composed the moon khan would probably many of us are familiar with it this is the movement kahn which is a collection of forty eight cause and as i say he added a comment and averse to each one
so here is moments comment
even if your eloquence flows like a river it is of no avail
though you can expound the whole of buddhist literature it is of no use if you solve this problem you will give life to the way that has been dead until this moment and destroy the way that has been alive up to now otherwise you must wait for my
re mood at buddha and ask him
so i think that first part is self explanatory that's really him he had all the eloquence in the world he knew he knew so much but it didn't do him any good in fact it hindered him he just couldn't get me on that plinking mine
and that reasoning did activeness for he always been able to figure things out they make an analogy is kind of like you cannot eat up a picture a painting on a rice cake or in other words you can't eat the pictures of food you know you have to have the real experience
the taste of it
and so the second part if you solve this problem you will give life to the way that has been dead in this moment and so until this moment to my understanding here is that
the process is the big thing when we can get out get out of our way you know the ego the self-centeredness that
how is it is
sticks to as doesn't it but when we have those moments when we just drop all that away what happens is we can become in touch with big mine are we call a buddha mind the essence of who we are
and we feel that interconnection interdependence with all things and like really becoming alive just that moment as keogh and had
and continuing on as says and you'll destroy the way that has been a live up to now is so we're just kind of destroying for that moment the ego you know never sojourn says you don't get rid of the eagle but i like to think them as you just kind of put it aside you find a way to manipulate around
that eco so that we have some space to wake up to this true self or this big mind buddha mind
and of course it easier said than done because we have to give up everything we think we are
and what we've been counting on you know our values and beliefs them
everything that we've relied on our intellect may be knowing the answers
and the last part is otherwise you must wait for my tray of buddha and ask him now it said that maitreya is coming pack in are coming five billion and six hundred and seventy million years after buddhist nirvana so in other words can be a long time
promise like forever and in actually a separate this it's not that remarks not meant to be sarcastic but it's really an encouragement towards his his monks just to wake up now now's the time we can't wait
it kind of reminds me of the seat on the hon i don't think we have they fear to we we don't have a do we have a little
is on the hot out there but
the hominy
okay it's on the hall so you can find that but anyway you see a big temple sits a wood plaque and on that it says listen everyone birth and death is given once this moment now is gone awake each one awake don't waste your life
okay so now moving on to the verse
that mom wrote the verse is and is truly thoughtless his vice and poison are endless
he stops up the mouths of the monks and devil's eyes sprout from our bodies i know that must sound really cruel but actually in then they they use this technique called praised by means of denouncing
and that's kind of move on was doing he probably really admired keygen for putting such a call on together i mean what are you gonna do
in such a fatal case and so again he's just trying to wake up his students and of course the students are you know it just stunned so indeed there is there is kindness behind that statement
and they they don't know how to respond the monks as i did not respond to this so as i've worked with this cohen you know more and more as opening up to me and i i i really will actually kind of revealing how much i don't know
and there's always more to go without any way but i've been looking at it from different angles and i'm thinking about the different man and i actually have a lot of compassion for each man i'm thinking of the man now an insane those parts and myself
the both hanging from a true actually the man on the ground is as much in a tree is the man in the tree
he's he's he's feeling probably really
i'm desperate he wants to answer maybe this is the thing that's gonna save him or the thing that's gonna move him forward in his practice you know he maybe you've gone to your teacher or someone that you home admire and really just didn't they would just tell me what to do ah
just just just as something to move us forward and it's because it's really hard who to do that on our own to find those dancers and yet that is that of course often what we have to do not that we can't get guidance ah but it's a lot of work to go deep
cheap and find what it is what your answer that you need for yourself
and you can't do it outside yourself that's the thing i first to come from within
and then i'm thinking about that man in the tree well
he he he of course he wants to help let's say he's he's a bodhisattva like us and we want we want to help others he's asking for the dharma
ah the he realizes you know is it really worth it if i do this when i lose my life and what do i gain
ah so i'm sure is asking that question that moment what what is the most important thing right now right this minute was my life about
hum
so
being a co on you know it's it's a
losing your life is really going back to losing this self identity what we're so attached to in this ego
it was so many times we have to
what's that saying and then you have to eat the
it the blame
am to to just so to get out of the way even though you might think you're right ah to help another
so if you let go he does he loses that but what he games of course is is keeping his vow to help others
and for that moments you just set moment he could feel really alive
fulfilled in his life
so then i'm looking will maybe maybe it maybe the really use only one person or nobody at all it is go on
but it anyway
oh
the sir this is kind of goes back to us we'll we'll if there's no one there what it could ask ourselves what what is the meaning of his life we now know it's a short life
hum and to really examine what am i holding onto
and what am i afraid of
ah
so
these are the big questions with need to be asking ourselves
and then if we look at it in another way let's say a the we look at it like an anon dualistic way where we see emptiness and form and this man dangling is once you get through his discomfort spend like when we sit in zazen we
the discomfort
fine art software on our chair
ah just just be just be in that spaciousness boundlessness when we can do that have no no separation not discriminating just allowing everything and just feeling everything although this man a tree when he's doing that everything's one the tree the branch the mouth
he's just hanging there
however that is good but we have to come back he's gotta come back to the world of relationship
that are the royal of form because that's where our real alive the is is in relationship
so a lot remembering that maybe that will allow him to let go
so there's a co on a similar to this has related to it and this is the this was farm
jan flesh and bones ah probably all be familiar with this a man traveling across a field encountered a tiger
he fled the tiger after him coming to a precipice he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge the tigers sniffed at him from above trembling the man looked down to where
two it looked down to were far below another tiger was waiting to eat him
only the vine sustained him
two mice one white one and one black little by little started to gnaw away at the by
the man saw a luscious strawberry near him
grasping the vine with one hand he plucked destroyed by erie with the other how sweet it tasted
so just in that moment which is all we have is one moment one moment one moment one moment if it's probably complete aliveness enjoy for that man
solis going back now have we look at this go on and you know we bought in our lives are always in some kind of dilemma you're going to step out of the sender on you're gonna have some dilemmas probably just getting to the grocery store on the on the freeway we just have so many unexpected things have
open you get home and maybe you've gotten a bill you didn't expect or maybe somebody's marriage you deserve at least maybe a little dilemmas but the dilemmas and then you may have some real crisis the big thanks
like this man had
and often we need those crisis to see what we need to see
and you know sometimes if i don't even look like a crisis
ah it's like a plateau
and i found myself in plateaus you know it's like something is missing you've been maybe in then you've been practicing and everything especially if really inspired at first and it's exciting learning but then it gets a little
hard the form for starting to get stale and may be boring that would be the thing for me boring
everybody has their own version
but ah and it looks a little flat
oh that's a time when the mind wanders right while this may be isn't it
i better go
go to the beach maybe i just won't come that saturday when the elephant idiom
you're the mind is so great at doing all that isn't it but really you're stuck you can't go backwards you can't go forward when you're in that plateau period and sometimes i think you'd have to just settle in to the stuckness
you to to have to suffer through it so to speak
sometimes when you do that then it does sort of eases up don't maybe you don't even know what i think it's just the sticking with it just sticking with it
it's a big piece of it and then that duca suffering can lift
you don't the early centuries these desert mockingly lived in the desert they had what they would call a cydia
in our word for it in zen would be torpor
and this was kind of boredom or laziness and get restless dissatisfied and they called it the noontime demon
because it would happen in all morning they work during their cooking and cleaning baking just run you know to run their their monastery and then they'd have their noonday meal and then it was time for them to go back to their cell where they were meant to
meditate reflect pray
perhaps right but not to sleep and not to wander around
and this was when that assyria with set in not gonna look at areas my own life whereas my a cydia we don't use that word so much now as i say and then we call at one of the hindrances which is torpor
and of course they go to the senior monk ah
for what can they do this is when they really want to leave wanted to leave the monastery and a monk would say something like where you go sit in your cell you don't leave your cell
and yourself would teach you everything
so we have our version of that don't we
i have to stay on your question or in your chair
so this man and the tree i find myself ah the good call on i'm sure similar thinking oh yeah i'm in a tree right now about such and such and then end up i think as shoe so i've found myself in the tree and wonder how did i get myself in situ
the asian as that man was probably wondering although i knew it was with would come because you not taken this phrase path but still but still
am
so you know i've really felt bound and blocked up
around the talks particularly in europe i've i've i've noticed the more and more as i keep with the go on how invested i am in my knowledge and beliefs even though we don't consider a lot but i'm just graph went on to any book i can get for them to tell me and i want to look good i wanna be
right oh yeah and i don't want to hear stupid
i want to defend my point of view
and if i feel afraid i've gotta defend myself so it's kind of it's created sort of a paralysis you know where you can't go forward can't go backwards is that fear so i'm looking at i'm looking at all of that
as as i'm going through this trying to have some kindness and compassion towards myself
and the interest you know asking my several where am i not letting go what am i holding on to
where are my attachments so i've started list of all the things that i'm not letting go you know and i'm noticing i have little hurts little hurts from may be past conversations i never really fully hundred percent let go or resentments you know few little research
most didn't quite turn out the way i thought it should
so i notice i'm just gonna have to look at those more because the their little blockages little blockages you know they don't maybe don't seem like a big deal but they are they they can they really are
so it's it's it's coming back to trust really have to trust i have to really trust myself and have faith faith and the practice faith in myself you know i love this quote by suzuki roshi i use it a lot of it so he says moment by moment you should completely devote yourself to listening to your inner
voice so that's where i've tried to gorgeous that that actually requires being still and quiet we have our sauce and but he's really nice i know we have such busy lives and can all do that but just even taking five ten minutes at home and just how decompressing for the beach
but wherever you go
so we have some space space for something else to come in
so this letting go is not a one time thing i think it is all the way till the end of life because it seems to me we always have something something that like our big things the small things
so i have a lot more to learn about this go on
so i'm gonna talk little bit
about the final letting go
that's our death
we've been studying a lot about that the japanese were birth death i said as one one word no separation or a very thin line between birth and death
and you know we talk about all-wheel is one precious life what about our one precious death
something to reflect on i think as buddhists we talk a lot about that because
living is were preparing for dying is how we live on some of his think we're going to avoid it i think there's probably a parliament not avoid that is gonna come later they that's probably just natural you just especially when you're young that that'll happen that will happen later
ah but we don't know that so i know that some of you like to recite the five remembrances
and i i think it's just a great thing i want i know some of the people the monks did it i think they did at once a day might it might be even twice a day i'm not sure but
until i'm doing at once a week and he probably familiar with approaches it health made remind me that yes it's gonna happen
and these things other things could happen like for example i'm at the nature to grow old there is no way to escape going although and resisting that one but it's true i am at the nature to have ill health there's no way to escape ill health
i'm the nature to die there's no way to escape death
all that is dear to me and everyone i love or of the nature to change
there is no way to escape being separated from them
my actions are my only true belongings i cannot escape the consequences of my actions
my actions are the ground upon which i stand
so that's why i think preparing for the deaf or final good bye
i know this cat is not necessarily the case for everyone we might we might die suddenly we might die vital violent violently good but
even so we we prepare by how we live you know that happened to me last year
i came home and my husband's gone he just let he just passed away i wasn't prepared at all
i'm so but i like to really believe in my heart and i watched him in all the time i knew him
how he lived prepared him for how he died
ah
he live with such kindness he was such a kind man and i also watched him you first get together had little bit had a little resentments about this person or that or who still hold onto his brother who was famous and rich
comparing himself and i watched him just letting those things go because continually letting them go and arm so i i like to believe that on all of that made a difference in his final moments
you know i think really maybe to be fully alive we've gotta be aware of death now they're just two pieces if you're not aware of that you think you're just gonna go on forever
and we don't know we just don't know that's taught me that lesson
when out left so suddenly and i think to it helps so when we know i'm life is short to be little kinder to ourselves and others you know we don't know we don't know how long we're going to be around
so it's maybe develop that curiosity about death
and you know that don't know mine and think about what am i doing that is preparing me
what what what is the meaning of my life now
and what what is really satisfying for look in my life what what am i finding that's ultimately satisfying in his life that i'm doing and then maybe you'll find some things i'm looking for myself things that aren't so much and it's okay yeah
can cough you need to call
it's right to do it
on
looking at some of those things that really aren't that satisfy you have had to let go of friends that really weren't
nothing wrong with them but it wasn't really helping my relationship
so he just can ask ourselves is questions will i die the way i lived
am i prepared to die
and how can i prepare myself
it's like will if it also saved for not taken suddenly are violently will those last moments
i'm help me will this practice that's that's really what it comes down to does the practice help me it helped me when my husband died it gave me a ground a ground upon which to stand
course i had morning loss is like two pieces of it you know and holding two pieces there's that but then there's the realization
does this part of life is dying for finding a place for both of them
so i think it's just continuously letting go of the big things the little things
i heard the story about suzuki roshi
ah this was really maybe even the night before he died i don't know very close to when he died probably know he died of cancer and of course he was very thin very small by the time his death arrived and down but he wanted a bath he wanted a bath
and his wife has no no she didn't she just didn't feel it when he could do that it was so fragile
but his son said yes he would give him a bath so he picked a up just he was able to pick him up with he just function so much and then suzuki roshi he got scared probably sort of you know really held himself and his son said to him
you find your breath find your breath
and then suzuki roshi roshi was able to stabilise himself and just relax
so
that's that's the thing that all for us to discontinue to come back to to find to find our breath in crisis in dilemmas and plateaus find that breath
and to keep letting go renunciation that's what they say this whole practice with bows renunciation
because it just to recognize will everything's gonna be given up anyway
so we can start to do them just spring
letting go of some of those things that just aren't really satisfying anymore his heart
it's hard
but i think
i think his fifth probably enough thank you very much
now in one would have any comments or questions
charlie
he can
oh

i am really for it
myself i
don't know a lot about it but i do firmly believe everyone has the right to die with dignity and i think to them they need to be with someone it's really nice if and this is probably what hospice is so fantastic what they do
just being with someone
ah do you want to make a comment about it yourself how you feel about it or

yeah

yeah are not agassi i haven't really explored it but just off hand your i think oh yes everybody just loved it but every case is so different i've known some people that have done that and who's to say
say really ah i know probably is is tricky
a ferry it's it's not an easy question but i do feel strongly and hope that if you have it the kind of death that you could have someone there with you
because relationship is so so important unfortunately they're finding more people
her alone and often i think that's why they do die cause there
that they don't have any one
but
tell the relationships are so so critical and we're so fortunate we have relationships here
kelsey

well

hmm
may i thank you i hadn't thought about empathy
exactly right
penelope

by

alive

well i just think it's something you know to explore to be curious what is this well
we don't really know what happens that a lot about it just feels like it's sort of everything is composting the body definitely is
maybe this essences surges whirling around with all the other energy in the world
ah
just really basically being curious about ah how to prepare you know my mother she was ninety seven and ah i was with her with we'd all take turns going to stay with her she looked at my sister's
and she was getting close and in fact in december she announced i wanna die this year okay ninety seven we all thought new know that's fine really she was getting really worn out so i spent some time with her and a rule
is there any thing
is there anyone you need to to say anything to she's in know she didn't have much she was not one of words and then i said well is there any any anything maybe you regret that you want to talk about auschwitz oh yes oh god i can i can talk about i can't talk about it
said well i've never seen a respond like that i so that's okay you don't have to was kind talk with know just same just can you forgive yourself for whatever it was and therefore she started talking about it
and it was a time when she felt she hadn't been very nice to her father
and she really was sorry about that very sorry about it and so
i just love to talk about it now i really saw something change in her she just sort of lifted so there was a little little more spirit tour is unloading that cheap and carrying that around for probably seventy years
so that was interested in joining of that has to do with curiosity but
ah
but i think we're gonna have to go
oh ben
oh
thank you for sharing your experience with
sharing my experience that
especially
hmm

q
go

i've experienced myself
that
trey now love you abilities
gets more difficult
yeah that's hard on
well i i myself like to spend little time with myself examining it might have what i call a pity party about it
on some sorrow of sizzling
my my my legs cramping
sorry that happens from time to time
to examine it and goes through the her to whatever myself ah
that's how i have some people might need to go talk to someone about it i usually take counsel for myself and then and then go out and see where my own my own blind spot
about it
something you kind of have to just tongue over and over and see what is this course sizes and practices so good that way because we are on a cushion but seeking out seeking out help to from a teacher or signature is will go to
not that helps but okay i think there's nothing