I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening, everybody. After being here in the morning with everybody, waking up in the dark after a whole day of work and everything else everybody's done, it's on the other side of that morning feeling. How many people, there was two handouts, one was from Suzuki Roshi. There was two handouts, one was from Suzuki Roshi, one was from Shihaka Okamura. How many, a little bit too much, how many were able to read the one from Suzuki Roshi? Okay, most folks, and then from the other one, how many were able to read it? Okay, good, thanks, that's a lot. So I want to talk about, I believe it's the eighth of the Bodhisattva precepts, I may have that number wrong, which is technically phrased as not being stingy, not being stingy with the Dharma, not begrudging the bestowal of Dharma.

[01:29]

However, most people talk about it in a broader sense than just being stingy with dharma. It's just, don't be stingy, is the meaning of this particular precept. And the other side of don't be stingy is be generous or giving. So what I want to talk about tonight and what these two handouts that I put out for you are both about giving and not being stingy. And also tonight it feels, I have to say, maybe because I've been very busy, this is going to be a little bit more improvisational than usual. I know what I want to talk about, but I don't know exactly how I want to get there, so bear with me if it seems a little ... if it wanders.

[02:42]

These Buddhist lists and configurations often interrelate and overlap each other, so the precept of not being stingy is also The paramita, dana paramita, dana is a Sanskrit word for giving. So that precept is also the first paramita. Paramita means either crossing over or else imperfection. So if you want to practice generosity, you practice dana paramita, and that becomes part of our practice. And since the precepts that we're studying are the Bodhisattva precepts, the life, the function of a Bodhisattva person

[03:59]

is to help other people and to help other, not just other people, other beings. So Bodhisattva's role in life is to be a helper. And Avalokiteshvara is the archetype that we follow for that. Avalokiteshvara is Avalokiteshvara is the one in the Heart Sutra who also learns about wisdom or speaks about wisdom. So Avalokiteshvara is the name Avalokiteshvara means the one who hears the cries of the world. or sound hearer, one who hears sounds, and more specifically, one who hears sounds which are suffering sounds of the world, somebody that one is very sensitive and hears, is awake to hearing suffering.

[05:17]

And although Avalokiteshvara hears the cries of the world, Avalokiteshvara is often either male or female, and more often actually female, as I understand it, in terms of the iconography. In terms of the iconography, more often female actually than male. Although Avalokiteshvara hears and hears the cries of the world, She also has a thousand eyes and a thousand hands or a thousand arms in which to help with. So takes in everything through ears and then helps with hands and eyes. So the precept of not being stingy, if we want to look for a good role model of the precept of not being stingy, it's Avalokiteshvara.

[06:25]

And we'll come back to her or him in a minute. So, you know, another, besides the Paramitas and the precepts, another configuration in Buddhism are the three poisons. Greed, anger or hatred and delusion or ignorance and each one of us tends to be have more of one maybe some of us are very balanced we have an equal balance of all three but most of us are stronger in one one of those gives us more of a problem than the others. So I'm clearly a greed type And I wonder if, I'm just curious if other people have a clear sense of what you are. You know, everybody, to me this is very obvious. I never had a question about it. But I wonder if everybody has, excuse me?

[07:31]

So I wonder if other people have a very clear sense of what you are. Yes. Okay. Is there anybody who doesn't have a clear sense of what you are? They all seem equal to you or? You rotate through all of them. So Sue is very well balanced. So anyway, I'm a greed type and anger or hatred just is not much of a problem for me at least so far in my life. And delusion or ignorance ... I mean, delusion or ignorance is a problem for everybody, but for some people it's more of a problem. But for me, greed or craving is a very acute ... I have a very acute sense of that. So, for me to give a talk about giving is interesting.

[08:34]

And you could see the precepts in terms of those three qualities. Not speaking ill of others is not so much of a, I mean, there's interrelationships all through it, but not speaking ill of others would be more of a, maybe more of an anger type. Not being stingy is the greed types need to learn. Not killing, maybe more of an anger type, hatred type. In the formulation that Dogen uses for this precept that we recite in ... well, that Sojin gets to recite in the Bodhisattva ceremony, it's one phrase, one verse are the myriad forms, the hundred grasses. One dharma and one realization are all the Buddhas and ancestors.

[09:46]

from the beginning there has never been stinginess. Let's say it once more, although you've heard it 200 times. One phrase, one verse are the myriad forms. A hundred grasses, one dharma, and one realization are all the Buddhas and ancestors. from the beginning there has never been spinginess. So this is more the absolute side, non-dual side of the problem of spinginess in which, you know, if everything is of the same essence if we see everything as the same essence and that essence basically is just emptiness, emptiness of any own being.

[10:57]

So if everything shares this, and in that sense everything being equal, there's nothing to try to grab or to hold on to. Even though we'd like to be comfortable, you know, we don't like to experience pain, we like to be comfortable, if we really see how we are just a part of the whole, then the issue of greed isn't such an issue. I just take that on faith. I don't experience that yet. But I have a taste of it. That's what Dogon is conveying to us, and I don't think anybody can feel this maybe as strongly as Dogon is conveying it, but it's a kind of ... it seems to us like an ideal, because we ... I'm just assuming this ... you may have this awareness totally, but most of us don't ... not totally.

[12:08]

So ... so Dogen creates a kind of a ... in a way it's a kind of a challenge. He's not challenging us, but he's setting out something that, you know, to bring it to life, I think we have to realize that we don't exactly see it like this. You know, if we ... that we don't actually have this kind of realization that Dogon's talking about most of us. Although it makes sense, and although it sounds reasonable, and certainly most of us probably agree that it's ... we have faith that it's actually so, we don't quite experience it. But we experience it in increments, in small parts, which I think gives us encouragement to open ourselves up more and more. So I wanted to look at this handout from Suzuki Roshi.

[13:19]

I just wanted to, you know, there's actually quite a lot of points here between these two handouts, so I'm not gonna go through the whole thing, but I just wanted to pull out points that are interesting and just focus on those and just assume that you've read, hopefully you've read the background and you have a sense of the holes, but I'm not gonna talk about the hole. So on the Suzuki Roshi handout, this page 62 and 63, I just wanted to read out loud, starting right underneath the first kind of basic, the second paragraph where it says, Dogen Zenji said, and then ending on the next page right up at the top, dana prajnaparamita, if we could read that out loud, not all together.

[14:28]

And although, in a way, it makes sense for me to read it, because there's a microphone here, I would prefer to have a couple of other people read it. So, do you have a handout? Did you read it? Okay. Ross, can you just read half of it, and then somebody else can read the other half? Sure. Doesn't Zenji say, to give is not attachment? That is, just not to attach to anything is to give. It does not matter what is given. To give a penny or a piece of leaf is dana prajna paramita. To give one line or even one word of teaching is dana prajna paramita. If given in the spirit of non-attachment, the material offering and the teaching of offering have the same value. With the right spirit, all that we do, all that we create is dana prajna paramita. To provide a ferry boat for people or to make a bridge for people is dana prajna paramita.

[15:36]

Actually to give one line of the teaching may be to make a ferry boat for someone. According to Christianity, every existence in nature is something which was created for or given to us by God. That is the perfect idea of giving. But if you think that God created man and that you are somehow separate from God, you are liable to think you have the ability to create something separate, something not given by Him. For instance, we create airplanes and highways, and when we repeat, I create, I create, I create, soon we forget who is actually the I which creates the various things. We soon forget about God. This is a danger of human culture. Actually, to create with the big I is to give. We cannot create and own what we create for ourselves since everything was created by God. This point should not be forgotten. But because we do forget who is doing the creating and the reason for the creation, we become attached to the material or exchange of value.

[16:47]

This has no value in comparison to the absolute value of something as God's creation. Even though something has no material value, Everything you do should be based on such an awareness and not on material or self-centered ideas of value. Then, whatever you do is true giving, is dana prasna paramita. Okay, thanks Russ. This is pretty profound. You know, he has this wonderful way of talking. and it just kind of rolls on and on. And everything he says is just, you know, he's always going back and always, you know, reminding us of the bigger, of the big picture, basically.

[17:51]

When we're caught in our small picture, in our small drama, and he's reminding us of the big picture. So in particular, the, and also don't get caught by the word God. When he's using the word God, he can use the word God because he's, he's using the word God very loosely, he's not ... he doesn't have a particular ... he's just using the word God loosely and I actually appreciate his ability to do that and willingness to not be afraid to use the word, but he doesn't mean God in the way that I think So many religious people use the word God as some kind of a creator-type person, superhuman, anthropomorphic-type being or force. So he's using God in a kind of Buddhist sense, which is a little unusual. It's actually very unusual. but these lines that in particular that interest me is when he says this has no value in comparison to the absolute value of something you know we become attached to the material or exchange value this has no value in comparison the absolute value of something as God's creation even though something has no material or relative value to any small i it has absolute value in itself

[19:17]

not to be attached to something is to be aware of its absolute value. So that's also what Dogon was expressing. And again, you know, where we are, most of us are to live in a world where we have our small values and what we want, what we don't want. This is fundamental teaching of Buddhism is that we have desires, that we have desires for this or for that, and the desires are based on valuing, and we all have a different set of those. But he's suggesting that you know, that's just one way of thinking. That's just one way of perceiving and one way of ... that's just one value system.

[20:25]

We all have a sort of separate version of that, but it's just one value system. It's not the way we necessarily have to relate to the world. I mean, of course we have to value things in terms of to live. This is the whole problem of relative and absolute again, but it's the ... You know, he's suggesting that when we see the ... if we can see how in a sense arbitrary our minds are in terms of assigning value, And it's not really even fair to say it's arbitrary because we all like to be, you know, not too cold, not too hot. We like to be comfortable. We like to have people like us. You know, there's certain basic human characteristics that we all share, preferences that we all share, but it's our, you know, how we attach to them and crave them. It's just the way that our mind happens to be working.

[21:27]

It's not the only way that our mind can work. And I think this is what meditation and zazen practice show us, is that although our minds work along certain patterns and certain habits, that's not the only way that it has to be. And so we can learn, actually we can learn an alternative to our usual habit kind of mind just by sitting still and being quiet and actually paying attention. It's interesting. And when we pay attention, we start to see the transparencies of our habits, although that may just take 20, 30, 40, 200, 300 years or more. Still, we have this opportunity to see the arbitrariness of our habits and of our value systems, rather than it being me, me, me.

[22:34]

And so he's suggesting that when we see that bigger picture, then giving, it means being stingy, is not a problem. And that's true, you know, when we can see that, then giving takes place naturally. You don't have to have an ideal about giving. Do you have any comments or questions so far? Ross wants to make it personal, he doesn't want to just talk about dharma.

[23:41]

What I've learned is that there is a kind of ... What I've learned is you can't force yourself to change. You cannot force a change. You have to learn about what you are. And you can't speed that up. You can't crank it out. You have to let my habits and my problems show themselves.

[24:50]

You can't attack them, you can't twist them and make them into something. That sounds like Dharma. So I like, I'll talk another half an hour about myself if you don't mind. So that's what I've learned. And that actually, I actually tell you the truth, this goes into the next thing that I want to talk about, is that the best, when one realizes that one is greedy or one is angry or that one wants to kill or that one wants to become intoxicated, that ... what do you do with that? How do you ... this is really the heart of the matter. We can talk about precepts and we can talk about the ideal of seeing everything as one and also non-attachment, but given that most of us don't ...

[25:53]

fully see everything as one, or see the interrelationship between one and many, and that most of us are, have deep attachments and self-centeredness. How do we practice the precepts? If we're the stingy type, if we're the greedy type, what do you do with that? Even though you may know what the ideal is, or you may be able to read what the ideal is. or a teacher says what the ideal is. And I think there's probably ... there are different approaches, there's not just one answer to that. And each person could give a slightly different or maybe radically different version of what that is, how you would understand your own process of practicing precepts. honestly, truly honestly, not what sounds good, but what you actually can really do.

[26:56]

For me, the root that I have the most confidence in and feel most comfortable with is mindfulness, that I have this confidence that if I'm mindful or aware of the various versions of those three poisons that arise and all the tendencies or the precepts are helping us to deal with as I feel those arising to just pay attention to them, to have the confidence that paying attention to them is enough. It doesn't mean that you know, there's a point where that doesn't work. There's a point where you just have to restrain yourself because it's too extreme, right? It just doesn't matter. You just restrain yourself because you know this is going too far. But there's a whole gray area there where, you know, where it's important to just notice, learn from it, learn from the

[28:13]

learn from the greediness and whatever creates that, the insecurity that creates that or the anger or what's ... learn from ... what kind of ... not analytically It's not like going through therapy where you can identify all the causes. It's not that kind of ... although it could be that and you could take that route, what I'm talking about more is just feeling it as it arises without any preconception about it. You might have a preconception that the precepts say this is not a good state to be in, and that's actually helpful. It's not a bad preconception. And also, usually those desires are so strong that the preconception won't bother it too much. They'll be strong enough. is reframing, not reframing, reframing M.

[29:43]

I don't quite understand. I just don't quite understand what you're getting at. Can somebody help me? Greg? What it makes me think of is building a verse for the precept. But the moment of mindfulness, the moment of refraining, the moment of, I think, that elephant to talk about, it feels... It's one phrase, one verse of the 10,000 things and 100 grasses. One Dharma, one realization is all who is an ancestor. From the beginning there's been no stinginess at all. The refraining is like an unconditional giving of whatever is in that moment. And that is pure Dharma. Because it's receiving and giving everything that ever was. There were a thousand grasses.

[31:27]

I mean, to truly embody that moment of mindfulness, that awakening, to be unconditional, which is absolute offering. It feels like that to me. Does that make sense? I don't know why you would call it ... I mean, you could call it an offering if you're standing off and looking at it, maybe, but you're saying that mindfulness in general is just an offering. It's complete unity of offering, receiving and giving. Because... Yeah, I can see that. That's true. So why wouldn't we want to just do that all the time?

[32:34]

We do. Then why do we get caught? That's the mind of the sentient being. That's right. So what I'm talking about is that part where you're caught. you know, where you don't see that, and yet you kind of do and you kind of don't. And that's the kind of ... I hate to use the word edge, because people like to use this word edge, but it's the sort of edge where ... where there's some fierce force that wants to, you know, me, me, me, and then also the awareness that that's really missing something. And these two are going right together. So yeah, there's giving and receiving, but there's a kind of,

[33:36]

I just want to make room for... I don't know how to explain it. It's not just so... I don't want to make it sound too perfect. Well, I agree, but isn't the supposition that that moment of mindfulness, just that moment, it's a microsecond or something, but that edge does ... or that resistance does disappear, or that other thing does disappear. And that ... ? Maybe not. Maybe the other thing wins out. You mean maybe the desire for the sort of self-centered sort of fulfillment? That could win out. Maybe you and God are giving pure stinginess at that time. Yeah, but I'm talking about how it actually feels. You know, you can look at it and say, it's this or that, if you have a certain level of maturity, you could say that.

[34:39]

But I'm saying actually how it actually feels when you feel some unwholesome characteristic arising in yourself, which I usually feel all day long, actually, and how you bring your attention to being just open to that. And that's it. You don't have to have any other ... So I'm not so sure about reframing, because I think just ... that's enough. Just to have the confidence that being aware with no agenda is fine, is enough. That you have confidence that the world is a ... big enough place that one could do that. and to have trust that awareness itself will show things as they are. Judy? me, what I understand about that is what I call not being encumbered by small I. I think when one is encumbered by small I, one I am certainly bound to be deluded, bound to have an incorrect

[36:28]

there, because I'm filtering it through small i's wishes, and greed, and fear, and all that kind of stuff, defensiveness. And almost, well I would say, without fail, when I am encumbered by small i, I'm going to miss the point. I'm not going to see the other person, I'm not going to understand what's really going on, and totally misread it. but it's so hard not to do that when it's encumbered. And I do think, I've mentioned this to a few people, I don't know if anybody else has read any of the stuff, work of Byron Katie, but she has offered a kind of exercise of how to, I would say, how to disengage a little bit from this, and she simply says, Do you really know that that's what's going on?

[37:36]

And almost, well, very frequently, when you really say to yourself, do I really know that that's what's going on? You say, I don't really know that. Possibly it could be different. And then she says, how would you feel if you didn't have that feeling, if you didn't have that belief? And you can just have that exercise of saying, better off if I could have gotten a promotion, or whatever it is that you're thinking, if only I had won the lottery. And to just go through that exercise is freeing, I think. It doesn't totally let you drop small i, but at least it doesn't reify it so much. Does this make sense to you? If you take some practice like that and really stick with it, I haven't done that, but one could, but I think the key is you really have to stick with it.

[38:47]

If mindfulness is a practice, you really have to, I mean this is what Zaz says every morning, and in the afternoon and whenever you sit. Actually, it's a mindfulness practice. You're, you know, just ... all day long and all week long. You know, it's like incessantly practicing this practice that you've decided to practice. So if the kind of exercise you just mentioned, if one really did that all day long, you know, and really worked on it, then yeah, I think it'd have tremendous value. But if it's sporadic in the same way as a zazen is sporadic, I mean, I don't think it'd have that much power. Well, but I think every time you question something like that, it's better than ... That's right. That's true. It's just like doing some zazen, it's better than not doing zazen. That's right. That's true. But I'm looking at the ... I'm valuing it. More is better. I want to ... What? What? Absolutely.

[39:52]

I'll move the time. Actually, aren't we at the... Yeah. Okay, get me off the hook. So we'll come back in five minutes. So this may be a little bit choppy, but I can't resist telling you about this koan from the Blue Cliff Record.

[47:59]

I'm going to keep it real brief, so don't worry. We're not going to go off into a long exposition on a koan. But this koan is interesting because it's also in Dogen's Shobo Genzo. He calls it kanan. And it's about Avalokiteshvara. And in the show of Ogimzo, he just goes, like Dogen does, just completely wrings it out. You know, just takes you through circles and circles and circles and circles until you don't know what's happening. But in the Blue Cliff Record, this is just the main case. I won't go through any of the other stuff. And it's relevant to what we've been talking about. And it's about Avalokiteshvara, which I like it because of that. Many of you probably have heard this before or at least read it. Ungon asked Dojo, what does the great bodhisattva of mercy make of all those hands and eyes?

[49:05]

So what does Avalokiteshvara do with those hands and eyes that I mentioned? Dogo said, it's like a person straightening their pillow with an outstretched hand in the middle of the night. Just sort of back, you know, without thinking, just... Ungon said, I have understood. Dogo said, how do you understand? Ungon said, the whole body is hand and eyes. Dogo said, You've had your say, but you've given only 80% of the truth." Un-Gon said, well, how would you put it? Dogo said, the entire body is hand and eye. So Un-Gon said, the whole body is hand and eye. And Dogo said, the entire body is hand and eye. That's the end.

[50:09]

So, this is a whole talk in itself, but just to keep it short, number one is just that the image and the expression that's created here is Avalokiteshvara, one who is not stingy. Avalokiteshvara is totally engaged totally engaged without holding anything back, all hands and eyes, reaching back in the middle of the night. You don't think about it, you're not thinking about it, you're not measuring it, you're not gauging it, you just do it. It's a very domestic activity. That's what's so nice about this koan, with all these ultimates and absolutes just reaching back to get your pillow in the middle of the night. And then the whole body is hand and eye. So not just like, here's the body separate from the hand and eyes, which are helping folks, but the whole body is just engaged. And then, you know, at the end, they both say the same thing, but one of them says to the other, well, you haven't quite got it.

[51:16]

And the other one says, well, how would you say it? And he says the same thing as the first person said. So... There's an alternative reading, if you want to know, I'm sorry. That's a very different twist on it. That's another example of how the way it's translated and interpreted can really make a different meaning. So they're not the same thing. Right, right. So one way they're the same, the other they're not. Although I think the fundamental point of really, if you really get down to it, is just that it's non-duality of just being all there. But still, the distinction at the end, the version that I mentioned to you, is that even though you may have the right idea and you might have the perfect words, it doesn't mean that you really see it wholly and directly.

[52:21]

So, even though... So, just that. Greg? I'm sorry to talk so much, but... One thought I've always had about that koan, too, is that Avalokiteshvara has all these eyes and hands, everybody's perspective. And then you have these two guys who say the same thing, but they have a different perspective. So each one of the same thing is different, but yet Avalokiteshvara can include both of those. Yeah, that's true too. I'm Bob. There's a difference between Judaism and Buddhism.

[54:10]

But it's also very interesting when it's hard, you know, like when it's hard to give, that's where your mindfulness, you learn something from that. Well, you know, it's never perfect. I don't know, maybe it's perfect, maybe it's not, but I don't think the object is not to be perfect. I think it's just to wake up, wherever that leads us. But you know, it's always there's some mixture usually. I want to go on into Shohako Okamura's commentary. This, and again, we'll just take a couple of points from it because it's, you know, it's been a long time that we don't have. And I'm sorry I collated it wrong.

[55:37]

If any of you got confused, it wasn't your fault. Actually, the first page should be February 2004. you know, up in the top right-hand corner. And then the second page should have that blank second bottom half. And the third page should be September 2005. It just happens that at the bottom of both those pages is the two. And we got confused in the collating. So number one is this is from a chapter in the Shobo Genzo and it is interesting that just as another configuration of Buddhist observation that the four embracing actions are one is giving second is kind speech third is action that helps other people and the fourth is what Greg was talking about in this talk on Saturday is harmonizing with people seeing how everything is people are all have the same fundamental

[56:49]

interest in seeing what we have in common. So we call it identity action, just harmonizing with folks. But the first one of these embracing actions of the Bodhisattva is giving or not being stingy. And, you know, Shohako Okamura likes the idea that rather than talk about, because Doga's not talking about the precept here, he's more talking about the paramita. But rather than talk about generosity, he talks about being not greedy. And we tend, when we're talking about the precepts about not greedy, we like to talk about generosity. And we sort of like, always want to see the other side. So Doug is careful. He doesn't want to make a big deal about how generous we should be and how what generosity would look like so much, but more like, well, you know.

[57:53]

notice your greediness, just refrain from greediness or be aware of your greediness if you want to know how to be generous and to give. Let giving take care of itself. Don't worry, it's kind of like what Baba was saying, don't worry so much about the giving aspect, just worry about what's holding you back. Don't have some image about what giving looks like or feels like or sounds like. Then there's this little phrase that his teacher well his teacher's teacher Ushiyama Roshi's teacher Sawaki Roshi said gaining is delusion and losing is enlightenment and that really you know settles in his mind quite a lot and you read the thing about the boots and where he somebody gave him a gift of boots and he felt uncomfortable because he felt like well he should be losing he shouldn't be gaining and his teacher said it was good to

[59:07]

you know, that's a problem. But it's interesting, you know, gaining is delusion. So just take these words, you know, aside from Sri Loka's story. I mean, it's an interesting thing to say, and also that Uchiyama Roshi and Sri Loka Roshi both thought this was a really important phrase. So just in terms of understanding their teaching, just to consider why they thought this was so important and how do you feel about those words? I mean, not so much analytically, but what do those words do to you when you hear them? You know, gaining in his delusion seems ... that's pretty much where ... you know, we're always talking about, you know, Saluka goes, no gaining idea, don't get caught in the gaining idea.

[60:12]

And then ... but losing his enlightenment is something that we don't generally hear or say, so ... So the way my mind goes when I first hear that is, so gaining is delusion, that I understand. The feeling that we have to be gaining something, that what we have right now is not enough and that we have to be gaining something, that I understand as a fundamental problem. But to lose something, losing being enlightenment, And you can sort of explain it, because I'm not so interested in explaining it, but I'm just wondering how it strikes you, it strikes me as ... It leaves me sort of speechless actually, you know, it's like I say, I don't quite, I don't understand that, losing is enlightenment.

[61:33]

I mean, again, you know, you can make a good case for why that could be true, but just viscerally, losing is enlightenment. the idea that you have to have this feeling of losing, you know, what is this feeling of losing? It's interesting, what is the feeling of losing? Tamara? I was thinking about it from my point of view, but I'll put it in your point of view. No, put it in your point of view. No, no, I'm going to put it in your point of view. Put it in your point of view. seeing those unwholesome feelings arise. So that's lucid and that's enlightened. Seeing those unwholesome feelings. You were talking about seeing unwholesome qualities of ourselves. You were talking about your unwholesome qualities. I can talk about mine. Yeah. Which have been pretty obvious, actually, more so than usual.

[62:38]

There's something enlightening about having unwholesome qualities arise. You know, it's a loss of my idea of myself as someone who's progressed, then all of a sudden, it's back, it's all over again. So that's loss, but it's also enlightenment. But you see that as losing when things that you don't like about yourself arise. I lose this idea of myself as somehow making progress, being a good Zen student, whatever. I lose that idea. I see my unwholesome qualities. So that's, you know, maybe the same thing happens to you, and that's enlightenment. Okay. Karen? And I think in that moment, it's easy to have an awakening in that moment, because the grasping is gone.

[64:01]

But if you're having a sense of losing, you're still holding on to something if you feel like you lost something. For example, gaming. This morning, where I work, there's not a lot of parking. And now that it gets dark early, I really want to park someplace safe instead of parking in a parking lot. So this morning, I found this parking lot space that was exactly one foot longer than my car. And I got into it, and I had this great gaming sense. You know, like, for a moment. I had an experience yesterday. I have my favorite pen that I bring to work.

[65:05]

It costs about eight dollars. But, you know, at work they have these like 29-cent Bic pens. I just can't stand wasting my life with a 29-cent Bic pen. So I have my special little pen that I bring to work with me and I lost it at work and I was like in a snit, you know, for hours. I didn't have my special pen and I really felt bad. And like the day just wasn't, it doesn't matter what was happening, it just really wasn't very satisfying because I'd lost my pen. And then when I was getting ready to leave, you know, I pulled the table back and there the pen had fallen down on the floor and there it was. And I just felt elated. Like, so, so I understand, so I guess I just wanted to reverse, you know, at first I was enlightened and then I got, I got deluded, but I was sure happy. And then I also want to remind you about Bob Dylan's phrase that there's no success like failure and that failure is no success at all.

[66:06]

You can factor that in. And one more. Neither gaining nor losing, neither enlightenment nor delusion is in accord with Buddhadharma. Gaining is delusion and losing is enlightenment is still incomplete. What I get out of that is the more trickier part about it all is more of the being with. Just being with things as they are without having something to gain or lose. Yeah, you know when I was in the middle of that, I was wishing that I could feel like that.

[67:09]

I should be feeling like that, but no, I really miss my pen. But what's interesting is that somebody makes that comment and then Uchiyama, I believe it was Uchiyama Roshi, or it may have been Sawaki, says, no, I really want to emphasize that what I was saying, that you really have to let go of your ego, you know, so ... I mean, he knows what you're saying, but he wants to make a point so you can make you can um it's like we're always going back and forth between being you know all one and being you know separating so this the person who was critical of that phrase wanted to be one And he said, no, I don't want to be one right now. I want to point this out to you guys, that this is what you really need to focus on. And, you know, and so that's what he was saying.

[68:12]

That is interesting. Naomi? Let's suppose that your office partner had a pen just like yours and he saw your distress and he gave you the pen. That would have been interesting. Well, there would be several ways to respond. I mean, I think sometimes the person might envy that person's generosity, such that you couldn't receive your gift and, you know, the Spirit of the Anguish was given. Or maybe it wasn't given to you. Maybe the person really wants to borrow your coat or something. It can get very complex. But what if it was just real simple? Well, that would be wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.

[69:13]

I'm the only one who has a pen like that. What's your name? Larry. Well, he kind of reconciled it later. You mean at first, why he was upset? Oh, because he was a very idealistic monk who wanted to enjoy ... the giving up, the letting go of poverty. This is why he's such a strong practitioner. He was in his early twenties and he was so passionate about letting go, but his letting go had all these qualifications. Letting go looked like something to him. He had a certain image in his mind about what letting go really meant and it was very materialistic.

[70:18]

So if somebody gives him something he couldn't fit his image of what letting go meant. So he couldn't accomplish what he was trying to accomplish. This is all backwards because he was just caught up in another kind of trying to accomplish something. Did you get that? And then as he started using the boots and just actually became friendly with the boots, that started to break down, and he saw his own delusion in that sense. He was just very idealistic, but I appreciate his idealism. I mean, most of us are idealists in the other direction, so the fact that his idealism was to let go and give up is refreshing, actually, to me. Yeah, without thinking about it, I'd say you're right.

[71:32]

In fact, I should think about it probably, but it seems to me that they're actually both ... that really it's a relationship. What it is, it's a relationship, and if you see giving and receiving are a relationship, and so if you're into that relationship, just get into that relationship. Don't worry about which side it's on. If it has to be only one side and not the other, then you're dictating, you're trying to dictate the situation. rather than just sort of respond to what's happening. I think there's a lot of people here. Anne, and then I just want to go on a little bit. It's quick. I have a family who used to give me things, and I would feel beholden, and she would say, accept it graciously. And I think there's something there. And then what happened now? What happened to you when she said that? I tried to do that. How did it work? Well, you see, that's more in the spirit of what she was doing.

[72:36]

She was giving graciously. And you were okay with that? You could understand that? That's a learning. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make one last Pick up one last point, maybe. Okay, this last point is the end of this section in the Shobo Genzo, the section on giving from Dogen, and he says this is on second to the last page.

[73:37]

uh down three pair the third paragraph from the bottom a few lines um the vastness or narrowness of mind cannot be measured this is dogan speaking and the greatness or smallness of material things cannot be weighed there are times when our mind turns things and there is offering in which things turn our mind this is just So the first part of the vastness or narrowness of mind cannot be measured and the greatness or smallness of material things cannot be weighed. This was so and he says what he talks about in Zazen too. You know we have a tendency. even though we kind of know better, to want to evaluate zazen, you know, how is our zazen, how is our meditation practice going? And he says you can't, you cannot know the depth, you can't know, you can't measure just sitting, you cannot measure it, which is so refreshing, you know, because we tend to more or less sort of evaluate

[74:53]

our experience in sitting practice, and he's saying you can't measure it. It's interesting. So he's saying the same thing here, is that you can't measure your mind. You know, if you think, oh, I'm so small-minded or I'm so big-minded, you don't really know. You know, what are you measuring it against? What are you comparing it to? And then even ... and then again with material things, just getting back to the equality of things, that you also can't ... you know, we have arbitrary ways of valuing things, but you don't know. That's just your particular way of looking at it. But even though that's true, even though things are ... basically immeasurable in any kind of a fundamental real way there you know this is a concoction that we come up with a conventional concoction even though they're immeasurable there are times when when our mind does one thing and there's times when our mind does another

[76:02]

And you can see this happening. And so one way is we make things happen or our mind, and you may have some insight to this that you can help me with. There are times when our mind we try to control things and make things happen. And there are times when we just receive when something just moves us. And he's calling this, when we receive something as an offering, when we're given something, actually, he's calling it as giving, which is actually what Alan was probably getting at when you're talking about reframing or related. that something comes to us and influences us, even something very simple, that influence is giving us something and it's like what Anne was talking about with her friend who conveys an attitude that Anne didn't really consider and she received it and was able to embody it because your friend gave you that

[77:18]

and you could call it a gift, but your friend, we just say your friend gave you that. And this is this, this relates back to this famous line from the Gyan Jalkan, which is, I really enjoy, which is to carry the self forward and realize the 10,000 dharmas is delusion, that the 10,000 dharmas advance and realize the self is enlightenment.

[77:43]

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