Non-Duality: Freedom from Extremes

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BZ-02572
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no
services a new kind of my microphone because over the ear and cellular attached to your clothing
so
if i scratch you know
after the hum
the okay it's too loud
so that's
leicester saturday
a show fajitas and say a japanese priest who was a hit
current head of the education center for the japanese schumer joe and in san francisco i gave a very nice talk
ah and
he talked about
ah
ha
mm
teaching from the top or
not just teaching but ah
am i want maybe call it and manipulation from the top-down
how we do think how we instruct people from the top down and then how we allow our buddha nature to arise from the bottom up
so he was emphasizing ah
a
letting our buddha-nature arise from the bottom up instead of instructing from the top down
as i remember
and then at the end
ah i said i asked him about what about
why does one cancel out the other why is one preferable to the other
ah
so i want to continue with my question
and my response to a that question
not know who you were here then that doesn't matter
so
a
bottom up you know where's the bottom that comes up the bottom it actually is bottomless but so that way we talk about the bottom being or the the horror so the as this place
have intuition
intuition means understand your knowing without going through the process of thinking
directly touching in other words so this is the seat of vitality
thinking it is
ah
a way of
ah using that vitality for various purposes
so
when thinking
becomes too dominant then and because repressive
so it it covers intuition
so we let go of thinking
intuition that it takes the cover of it takes the cover off of intuition so that intuition can arise so intuition is like a raw vitality is like fire the matter of fact this is the seat of fire
right right here
and fire in order to be effective needs control
suzuki roshi used to talk about control
like our life is like a fire like as the stove and a you have the slope
am a control button that you turn the fire up and down so you we have this possibility of controlling the fire
and we should always be controlling the fire
is it so that it cooks the rise just right if the fires too hot to the right kids
boils over and if it's not enough nothing it didn't get caught
so how do we cook the rice so that it comes of just right what is the balance between hot and cold
this place down here
the the seed of heat
needs
to be controlled by
a cold
the mind as is able to have a cool
the environment to create a cool environment so we say
ah
the ivana is the cool place
the coal mine is is the mind of nirvana not the cold mind
but the cool mind the mind which is a continually adjusting the heat so that the heat is becomes effective and doesn't burn everything up so intuition is wonderful if if if it's a truth are true aspect is when is the heat when you
go to the north pole
and it gets very cold
the first things that
ah
it becomes affected by the cold or your extremities and when it's really cold
they are all the heat goes to the solar plexus
to the horror because that's the place of most world needs the most vitality
so that this is the most vital place
we ever had
and the heart and the solar plexus i call it the sort of the solar plexus means the sunspot the place of heat
so there's some reason why we have a head
nature has evolved you know in order to create a place of control some means of control for
our intuition
oh and uh intuition includes everything is there's no bottom to intuition so but there is a a limitation to thinking
even though we think there's no limitation to thinking
ah so
ah
it's not like well you know it certainly various societies have different
processes
america
individualism desire
no our thing right to promote our individual
we think of freedom as being able to do whatever we want but in other countries it's not that we call it repression people learn to live under that
are brought up under certain limitations and they know how to deal with that
so when someone from america is put into a country that has a lot of limitations and this is
ah controlled from the top down too much we feel restricted
so
add
when our teachers came from japan
they brought us a they taught us how to practice through limitation
if you if you want to ah if if you want your intuition to be effective there has to be some limitations
so the most effective limitation for the greatest freedom
is him
susan is called the place of great
unlimited freedom
through the most restricted limitation sitting like a pretzel without moving
that's where you find your greatest freedom
but it's hard
so we have to be able to get to go through the difficulty before we
i'm actually understand how it works
so i went a little bit about history
back in the fifties and sixties oh there was interest in then the in
and so he had
ah a kind of then
ah
what was called well as out up
at that time there are three kinds of them
one was beat then
the other was squares in
and the there was a just then
beat square pizza and squares and and then so big scoop bits and with
jack kerouac and and the boys and girls who you know where cats reaching out to and searching for
what they felt was then
and it was all about intuition
there was no will not about discipline it was just about intuition so there was that side and people like that said because it ah
or speaks of freedom
ben
we're getting kind of choked in those days because our society was
i am
about them security and and money and all kinds of stuff that was choking the youth who are her yearning for some kind of vitality and vitality was being restricted so with the beat generation right to bit
next
and then
some teachers came from asia and introduced squares in
squares and was
monastic zen zen it has been thoroughly vetted and developed and i was
i had the limitations that were able to bring forth the intuition in a way that
ah without limitation doesn't work
without limitation
intuition doesn't work it needs it needs a a a limitation in order to understand itself
so it's like if you light a match outside
not much it doesn't add much to the to the daylight but if we go into the closet and you light a match it lights up the whole closet
so that's limitation limitation is needed for the light to be understood and and expressed
and as if he or she always talked about without limitation you think you have freedom it's not the freedom to do it ever you want freedom means the freedom to express yourself completely within a a limitation so
ah here he characterized it as
if you chase the tale of a comment people will pity you because it is like lighting a match outside
ah
but am
if you want to be effective you light up when corner of your world
just to let up one quarter of the world your world your surroundings is to be effective
it's something that you can touch and work with
so that was cuisine with would present that we practice squares in
and then there's them
whatever that is
it's neither is neither squared or round daughter pam beat
yeah
in other words
just
the problem with a bit thin is that a there was no
structure for it
and the problem with a squares in is that it can easily be top down and restrict your intuition
so how do you find a balance between
big and square
between
a allowing your intuition to have it's free expression within the limitation of
ah
a parameters
so that's then then then
so
we've developed
yeah
oh over
i lived in sixty years since nineteen helena benson's nineteen sixty
ah said
i can't can't very well i arrived him
but we've developed a kind hopefully a kind of practice that
because i practice is not restricted in some way
to find our way
oh anna ways that
are an extension of our our asian roots
and finding or how to deal with
a new paradigms that that were never addressed in the east
men and women pract seen together that's that's really a big big ah
change or you know and no precedent for that at all
absolutely no pressure very little precedent men and women always separated
in asia
anna
they also
ah
different styles from asia japanese japanese style as is very structured and strict and in southeast asia it's very loose and opened its
what the
then from japan is somewhat like ours
but much more strict restricted than a her sculpted
from southeast asia
in a more like forest practice and much practice and ah this is the practice that very passionate people who went to
southeast asia to learn their buddhism i came back and feathered practices much less structured that ours because of the influence of southeast asia which is not very well structured not structure
ah so he's a different styles and so we have all these different styles and korean styles and and a chinese style and ah
ah have this is kind of inner playing and enter acting in america
and because all of these various styles have centered somewhat in the bay area
we have this a her
interactive
kind of ah
the tibetan style is
amalgamation and so we can see what these styles have been in the past and kind of like you attempt some of the mistakes have been should have been carried over and what has been emphasized in various practices
so it's very
interesting
so hum
i read the paper little little article in the paper about wynton marsalis talking it but
jess and
ah there's a jazz
what would you call it
ah
in in new york
some
ah
music
guard joe know if it's it said conservatory yeah conservative toilet and they have a part of that and he was saying that chairs has its bottom line when it's about and it's it's ancestors
and contributors and this is less
tendency to want you
this person
so that it blends in with everything else
and doesn't maintain its integrity as chess pick and but what but the actual
the parameters are they make it what it is
and he fears losing that kind of integrity so that it just becomes a blended with everything else and
so
i am the same similar feeling about what our practices that it doesn't get dispersed are watered down and blends with everything else as
it but at the same time it also has that quality
i members the security thing that am
he walked up to me one day and he said
you know it's just buddhism

and then carry gear you as you like out to use it you know it's just buddhism i think they were talking to each other has been talking to each other and said you know we shouldn't we should be careful that that our students don't think that zen is something special
so ah
it's if it's nothing special is just buddhism but as same time it is something that has a special quality that i think is important and to know what that quality is and what does
a limitations are is important to maintain
so
you know balance of qualities everything has its opposite
this is what's hard for us when we are looking at what's important we tend to easily fall into one side or another
is it
if you're if you feel a lot of repression from the top-down than some time at some point you you discover
the other side which is you know isn't your our intuition is not letting us giving us the freedom that we need so then you said emphasizing that side and forget about
the other side
so the balance of factors is always the most important thing
always the most important thing is the balancing of factors
heat and cold is that maybe it's too cold shoulder and u-turn on the heat and maybe it's too hot economic and they called and then you find the exact place where you want to be
if if you're driving in your car and you feel tired you are yeah turn on the air right
i'm always surprised that people don't adjust the air in their cars
anyway
so if you find the right atmosphere so in our practice sometimes
it becomes too top down
we're demanding too much are saying it should be this way should be that way but and then people are kind of repressed by should be should be
and then you have to
ease up a little bit solid
i am a
yeah not repressing the spirit of practice if you have too much control can you repress years he repressed you're putting too much of a damper on your intuition and if you don't have enough control
this kind of
i'm ah
your intuition is freed but you don't know what to do with it
so
when we hear about stories and stories of the masters you know who suddenly had to scrape inside of intuition of and like which is or enlightenment
that's great
to have that but then what's the most important thing is what do you do with it you just strut around like an enlightened person
so
an enlightenment
it should be offered
not as enlightenment but simply how you eat you
it's like
you just let it flow
without making a fuss
so we should be enlightened moment by moment
enlightened activity means that what ha
you don't separate enlightenment from activity you know separate your great insight
or make a fuss about it or
hang it out you know as as a sign you know look at me but if you allow it to flow through the saga so that unnoticed
we say it should hide your insight
in the dust
so that people feel supported but they don't know why
they don't understand why that is but i do feel it

so
you know ah
the purpose of practice
yes
did not
be caught by our ego
or self centeredness
it it's not hard to tell you know somebody's at at
realization
because they have no sense of ego
ah
when you see people advertising you know there's some problem

you know if somebody wants something you know there's some problem
ah if you think that people don't love you enough
you probably don't love them enough or you love them too much
and there's no balance
ah if we go around telling everybody we love you too much to some problem
i'm not really loving people
so finding a balance and each moment she's fifty roshi i talked about
at every moment
the world you and the world are falling out of balance everything and falling out of balance continuously
and finding our balance is i practice
i'm
so if we have now is very easy to let our intuition come up without control what are some kind of
mindfulness
line well that's actually is how we control our intuition
then it's easy to let to into because we want to intuition intuition to be expressed as easily express their anger
because anger freezes for the moment
at your freezes for a moment but then it captures this
you don't realize they were caught by it
so what do we do with anger
and what is the root of
we do feel emotions emotions are
usually based on intuition
emotion that's why people love them met or we love our emotions because there are the source is very deep
and three emotion is free
but problem is without direction from are cool head the heat of imagined
korean savic
so again back to the fire you know love is fire hate as flyer
all these emotions are our fire and the and did some kind of balance in order to be effective
so when people come to zen center that say everybody so cool
you know that there's no emotion it's not that there's no emotion said the emotions hopefully are not repressed but are balanced
so the whole atmosphere of our practice is balancing our emotions and are thinking
so that we don't create havoc

so where are emotional people some pepsi well i'm so emotional as if you know i'm great because i'm i have more emotion than anybody else i don't think that's true
i think
people who are the most com often her most emotional
so you can read look at it that the japanese and we say oh they are self control you know if they don't know about emotional
they're the most really emotional people
parent motion
ah so
hello strong emotion takes strong control and but it's not a matter of strength and it's really not a matter of street if you try to control through strength that that's okay sometimes there's a place for that but actually
the balance rather than control how do you find balance rather than trying to control
and that's the practice is to find a balance rather than the suppression
one the control so he talked about control what are we talking about
i actually
our intuition
if
ah
ah
an intuition can't control itself
but we need training
you know in a perfect world
ah
where we are innocent and so to speak
there's no need for control
because intuition can control without
i'm
ha
dealing
outside to draw
that's kind of like down awesome
but ah unfortunately it's not a perfect world and we're not in that innocent
but
in children have or have innocence
and as we grow older
because of we recreate a self
we need to control it
so at the end
ah
ah
all people and children
children have natural innocence and a older people hopefully
i've learned
innocence
so you can't go back to being a child but you can go forward
to being an unencumbered hopefully

so my point here in this is how do we balance our head and our heart and are horror
so that
ah
we don't fall out of balance
instead of using force
how are you use balance
when you sit thousand and you have lot of pain you were automatically we go to
resistance
which is totally the opposite of what we should be doing
when we have pain we let go
not trying to force anything
not trying to get rid of anything
not try know ah ah
conquer you can't conquer your pain
no way you can do that it always wins
did you simply accept and let go and the pain
goes away
that not everybody learns this
and sometimes we forget
go with away means
that
it doesn't become the subject
no longer the subject it's just another thing that's their what about all the rest why is that some important
we give it unto importance
and this isn't the same for all the pain in our mind would just wear it is
a emotional pain as well
so well when we have an emotional pick someone insults us
whole nation whole societies can be destroyed when the king is insulted
and that's the same with our sell the mine king and the rest
when the mind king is insulted
where do we do
buddha rises above it
this buddha
i'm desperate i get upset when someone insults buddha
i don't think so

i don't think so
d
mike my heart is thumping
i often you off i
either reminder that
something that i've already farm or something that i've got right now like
compulsive
mine is really how by having talked about this than i also feel my get my intuition and what i'm wondering is
i spent so much time trying to quell my room left smiled and why
i i got out of this is that maybe started pulling a damper on my mind just for a little bit and it's not so much about
managing bad and that sort of letting my intuition
meet my mind and then the to ever come up with that socially acceptable
emotional well as social beings
well yes so socially acceptable
that's more of it sounds like that's more of like is is just more of what you always wanted to get out a way
yes get out the way yes
ah you know i was lacking done
when i take a walk at night which i do every night
i know pretty much the street
and but i was in i was lucky then
during the winter when it was so heavy with rain and
and i walked on exactly the same street and i it
i hit myself and a big branch was right there in front of my head which i didn't see because i always walk there and i never but the branch had sagged during the wet weather and just knock me down and
so what am i disposed to thank you know am i supposed to get mad at the branch
if
it's okay it's okay to get mad at the branch know but then to realize
this is just you know what's what's there to get angry at
and so i saved myself
but
from getting angry at the branch
the one more and it's ross
i read the same article and with ourselves have talking about jazz and classical music as classical music right
people were experimenting and go with oriented towards the road switches in new orleans anything but music and evolved over the years and i don't know enough about me to see what the threat is where is to has a connected to the classic and i heard it said ones that if it does its way if not jazz
so the different there's something about intuitiveness of the movement in the body that is be expressed as them to sound like a funeral march and orleans can be there for generations so my question is if fundamentally the classic teaching of buddha is it and then as we are evolving is
era of beads were than that and there was next what would you say is the the the force that it riding through it as we get into to evolve to stay rooted to the classic
well restrictive
i don't know me by the force but mean and to foundation yet a forbidden or that didn't no matter what we do if it would be authentic
no self herself
which doesn't mean not itself
at i think the main thing will be non-duality
the wish maybe question our intention if we weren't to stretch yeah the parameters of what we are a couple of if they if if not rally in i still feel they are some that i want to impose which was your listing let us
it work something that makes me feel comfortable
you know why do we have to sit so much you know we can do other things yeah
and then pretty soon you forget all about what we do with with the two bases
the tendency is always there for which there
so that's
the purpose of our
succession is that the successors maintain the essence of the practice
like a much with built-in both and marcellus
he wants to maintain the essence of watch as is and i'll get valletta get lost
less so it's classical in that sense
that it has a route and and has a yeah
ah
and he's not complaining about the flowering in different venues but that they should all be aware that should i come from the route
from the same route

thank you for this junk
and you said something that just going
bee i'm thinking
it doesn't without going through the process of thinking and other words it's direct right like a few burn yourself with a match
you don't think all about it you just experience it right
shes direct without internet to go for thinking so hard
did everything is buddha nature
when you start saying this is good natured this is an adult nature that's not that's duality
thinking
yes thinking has been in nature
put an answer is just is
everything is an expression of furniture including adolf hitler
sorry
we want to separate good from the bed
and so tendency and that's dualistic
and i saying dualistic is good i mean that good is what you know the way things really are is really hard to maintain because we want things to be the way we want him to be or the we really think they should be which is okay
but it's not the way things really are and so that's why it's called bias or
delusion delusions a little bit strong for that
but it's it's our biases that create our problems
ah and we should that it doesn't mean we should not think about what is good and what is bad but it's a human good and bad are a human tendencies it's not their nature
ten people think in terms of that because it's these are thoughts
and the animals do think interest good or bad but it's precedent in language
ah but animate beings
good and bad right wrong or expressions of
oh and of a pigs but
things just the so this that's one truth is the truth of duality and the other truth is truth of non-duality
the truth of non-duality includes the choose a duality
so
it's complex
but if we only understand the truth of duality we're missing our basis which is non-duality
it's just like the paradigm of the music
if we don't understand if we don't relate everything that happens to
things happen for a reason which we don't necessarily know what that is
this way people just give up as and say well it's god's will
which is true
and it's true it's not false
at some point yeah the you know you your letters of understand that
ah
it's if the way the universe works
our our subject to the way the universe works regardless of how we would like it to be