Actually, this middle section, the second, third, and fourth paragraph is like one of the key sections to me. I'm not sure in terms of proceeding, you know, there are certain, this, obviously, this is a long text. It's 16 pages in this format, and we're not going to obviously get through it all this week and next. There are certain, so I'm not sure whether to try and just go through it, or there are certain sections that I think are particularly, juicy to me. Some of you may have a chance to read through this by next time and then can ask questions about other parts. So I'm not sure whether to proceed. As I've mentioned before, I sometimes have this ambition or delusion about actually covering all of a certain amount of material. But of course, it would be okay if we just spent the whole two weeks just talking about the title of this. So maybe I'll just say, first of all, does anybody have any extra comments or questions about this last section that we talked about?

[01:16]

This middle section of the first page. Going once. I think one of the things that's helpful is more and more context you envision that he was presenting this, you know, that helps get a framework to kind of work with the idea. Yeah, it's important, it's really important with Dogen because so many, so many of the scholarly commentaries try and talk about, talk about it as if there was this philosophy and they're trying, they look for contradictions and early and later. Dogen is not trying to present some position on Buddhadharma. He's talking, you know, he's speaking from his own understanding at a particular time to a particular group of students as a religious teacher. So, one of the things that I think is always helpful in all of the koans too is to think about who is he, and particularly for Dogen, you know, imagine who is he talking to.

[02:26]

which, what students, you know, what, if this is what he's saying, what is it that he's trying to, what is the point that he feels he needs to make to his students? What are the particular practice problems that they might have that would lead him to talk in this way about this? So I think that's really helpful in general with Dogen, to not get stuck on some, on trying to have some understanding of some position, but that's not what he was about. of what happens in the discussion, what sort of appears. I mean, it's very clear that, like when I'm at home reading this, I have no idea what I'm reading. You know, it's not, it's just fruit to me, kind of thing. And yet, in a public setting, it has an action, a transformative, you know, I don't like that word, on point. Yeah, and that's why I like to study it this way to try and present something, but then your engagement with it and problems with it and discussion of it and all of us together actually gives it more life.

[04:00]

Did he ever write anything just like straight essays? Well, the Shobokenzo essays are the closest to that, but these are based on talks. But he did work on, you know, he was also a literary man, and he did work on refining and writing this out. And, you know, so who knows if this is exactly the way he delivered it. The Chinese, the talks that I've just translated are written down in Chinese, and he wasn't speaking Chinese. So, you know, clearly he's, there's some process of, actually for all of them, you know, one of his attendants taking notes. They did not have tape recorders. And then him going over it and putting it, you know, into pretty sophisticated literary Japanese or Chinese. So it's a digested, I mean, he's presenting this, these are all based on talks presented to particular students, but then it's digested in a way. No, he wrote them.

[05:07]

I mean, they were, I think, Ejo and Gian and some of the particular, some of his particular major disciples, you know, took notes that then he worked, you know, as he was talking. I'm not sure, we don't really know the whole details of the process. Yeah, no, the Dogen actually worked on writing these. Well, my question is to myself is whether to read through or just to jump to the next part. Maybe I'll just read through it as there's questions we can refer to them or I'll start that way. Seeing Bodhi as nothing but Bodhi may appear as a view that corresponds to Bodhi. Who would imagine calling that a crooked view? So, you know, that's sexually kind of seeing awakening is just simply awakening. It's kind of is a would seem to be a reasonable way to view awakening. But this is to tie yourself up without a rope, becoming further and further bound up.

[06:11]

The tree you are tied to does not topple and the mystery of finding you does not wither. In other words, you get stuck in that particular viewpoint. In vain, you struggle inside a pit in the vicinity of Buddha without seeing it as a sickness of the Dharma body or as a trap of the reward body. Anyway, Dogen has this kind of rhetoric. Teachers of Buddhism such as scholars of the sutras and treatises who listen to the Buddha way from afar say that to arouse a view of dharma nature within dharma nature is no other than ignorance. These teachers talk about arousing a view of dharma nature without clarifying the bondage to dharma nature. They only accumulate the bondage of ignorance. They do not know about the bondage to dharma nature. Although this is regrettable, their awareness of the accumulation of the bondage of ignorance can be the seed for arousing bodhi mind. So here, okay, here's a reference to bodhicitta. What are the two meanings? Yeah.

[07:22]

So, you know, with any word he's, there's, it's, he seems to be using bondage in a totally negative sense in both cases, but maybe not. Maybe sometimes he might use, he might say bondage to dharma nature as a way of talking about total commitment or dedication. So it's, so again, you have to play with reading this, even in translation, you can play with turning how the meaning is here. So bondage of accumulation, their awareness of the accumulation of the bondage of ignorance can be the seed for arousing bodhi mind. When we realize how much ignorance we've accumulated, when we get tangled. if you try and read Dogon and feel all tangled up, that might be possibly some seed for arousing the mind of awakening, for wondering, what is he saying?

[08:31]

That might be positive. So, and this goes back to Koan language generally, what this sometimes looks like explicitly a put-down or a praise, on the other hand, might be the opposite. So there's a lot of irony in a lot of the Koan language, and Dogen picks up on that a lot. So I'm not sure if this is what you were asking, Gregory, but I think to not necessarily take things at face value is part of how to play with reading Dogen. But in this case, I think he's using bondage in a negative way. But again, he's saying this is the seed for arousing bodhi mind. Arousing bodhi mind, I was referring to bodhicitta, this first thought of spiritual practice, this first inspiration towards spiritual life and spiritual practice, towards asking real questions, towards really engaging in meaningful life activity. And so that's why

[09:33]

Our practice is the practice of enlightenment. It's not the practice of delusion. It's practice based on this arousing bodhi mind. We couldn't be practicing if not for this seed of arousing bodhi mind. And this may come from our awareness of our ignorance. However, he says, now active Buddhas are never bound by such ties. This being so, it is said in the Lotus Sutra, in the past I practiced the Bodhisattva way and have attained this long lifespan, still now unexhausted, covering vast numbers of years. So that's a particular reference to a teaching in the Lotus Sutra, which actually I'm writing my next book about. And I'll give the short version of the story that Shakyamuni Buddha, in the course of the Lotus Sutra, asks the assembled monks and bodhisattvas, well, who's going to keep alive this teaching of the Lotus Sutra in the distant future evil age when we have all of this stuff?

[10:51]

And I sort of take that question personally. But anyway, at some point, these bodhisattvas visiting from different galaxies who are listening to the Buddha and they say, well, we'll do it. And then at that point, out of the open space from under the ground emerge vast hordes of bodhisattvas, dedicated bodhisattvas, who are always practicing and dedicated to awakening. And they're going to take care of keeping alive the Lotus Sutra, even in the age of preemptive war and usable nuclear weapons and so forth. And then Maitreya asks, well, where did all these Bodhisattvas come from? Who is their teacher? We never saw these people before. And Buddha said, oh, I'm their teacher. And Maitreya says, wait a second. That's like saying that a 20-year-old could be the father of a 100-year-old. These people obviously have been practicing a very long time. We know that he just left the palace 40 years ago and so forth.

[11:53]

And then there's this revelation of this, which is this pivotal point in the Lotus Sutra of this very long lifespan of the Buddha, that he's been practicing the Bodhisattva way for many, many, many, many, many ages and will continue to do so for twice that long. And so this is direct reference to that in this text. So this can be understood in various ways. What does it mean that Buddha has this long lifespan? Sometimes it's been interpreted as that actually Buddha is eternal. At any rate, how is the Buddha alive right now? And so the next section is a little interpretation of that. Dogen says, you should know that it is not that the lifespan of the bodhisattva has continued without end only until now, or not that the lifespan of the Buddha has prevailed only in the past.

[12:56]

What is to be called vast numbers, referring to the vast numbers of years, is a total inclusive attainment. What is called still now is the total lifespan. Even if in the past I practiced as one solid piece of iron 10,000 miles long, it casts away hundreds of years vertically and horizontally. So this is a kind of complicated way of saying something. And this refers to Dogen's teachings about time. And there's a whole essay called Being Time in which he goes into some of that. But what this is about, for me anyway, is this still now, this idea of Buddha being alive still now, that active Buddhas are not something that happened in the past, that active Buddhas are still here. In fact, it's beyond hundreds and thousands of years.

[14:01]

It's about our, and he doesn't say this directly, but to me, he's clearly saying, he's clearly implying this is about our practice right now. This is about the quality of our dignified manner, the quality of our active, awesome presence. So he's using this image which, is particularly juicy for me, of this idea that the story of the Buddha leaving his palace and wandering off around for six years and finally acquiring enlightenment, so to speak, under the morning star, which is the usual story of the Buddha's awakening, is just kind of archetype. The Lotus Sutra basically says that, that this is just a kind of story that is used by the Buddha Because otherwise if people heard that Buddha was always, that Buddha is still around teaching that people would feel like they could be lax and just, but they would think that their ordinary mind meant the ordinary mind that didn't include their own questioning and their own arousing of bodhi mind.

[15:04]

But actually, he's talking about this awesome presence of active Buddhas as something that is the actual life of the Buddha right now. So in a way that's my interpretation of what he's saying here, but I think he's talking about the importance of the still now. It's not something that happened in the past. It's not just something in the Lotus Sutra. It's about the quality of our practice right now. And he goes on to make a reference to another story So I'll, let me go a little further. Let me go to the end of the page and then let's take some time to just talk about this and get your responses and reactions. It actually continues into the next page, but maybe, well, let's go a little further. This being so, in other words, this whole thing about the still nowness of the lifespan of the Buddha, this being so, practice realization is neither existence nor beyond existence.

[16:14]

So somebody, one of you was saying before, well, there's nothing to be, there's nothing to practice, or there's no one to practice, or there's no one to be transformed. It's not that there's no one to be transformed, but it's not that it's beyond existence. It's not that it's, it's neither existence nor beyond existence. There's no one to be transformed, but there's not, but there's no one, there's not exactly no one to be transformed. Practice realization is not defiled. And that's a reference to a particular story which some of you have heard me talk about. But let me read this a little further and then I'll get to the story. Although there are hundreds, thousands, and myriads of practice realizations in a place where there is no Buddha and no person, as in nothing to be transformed, practice realization does not defile active Buddhas. Thus there is no defilement in the practice realization of active Buddhas. It is not that there is no non-defilement of practice realization, but that this non-defilement is not non-existent.

[17:19]

So, you know, he's really making it hard for you to grab a hold of some understanding here. So there's a story. This is the story. There's a story. This is the end of the story. Huineng of Sao Tzu, who's the sixth ancestor, says to Nanyue, and he's just quoting the very end of the story, this very non-defilement is what is attentively maintained by all Buddhas. You are also like this, I am also like this, all the ancestors in India are also like this. So this story is key to this essay, and when we talked about oneness of practice realization, we were already talking about this story. So the story goes. Some of you have already heard me talk about it, so please bear with me. But this guy named Nanyue, who became one of the main successors of the Sixth Ancestor, showed up at the Temple of the Sixth Ancestor. And the Sixth Ancestor said, where are you from? And Nanyue said, oh, I come from the Temple of the National Teacher.

[18:22]

And Queen Eng said, what is this that thus comes? which is a particularly interesting way of saying, who are you? Or, you know, what is this that thus comes? And the story goes that Nanyue was speechless. He didn't know what to say, and he went, and he sat for eight years considering the story. considering this question. So these koans, you know, sometimes it looks like it's the monk and the teacher going back and forth very quickly, but sometimes they're a little, you know, it may be that there's a sub-period of time between one statement and one question and the next response. In this story, they tell us that it was eight years. So the sixth ancestor said, what is this that thus Cubs and Nanyue went and considered this for eight years? And then finally he came back and said to the sixth ancestor, Now I can say, now I can respond to the question you greeted me with, what is this that thus comes? And Huining said, well, what can you say? And Nanyue said, anything I say will miss the mark.

[19:26]

So it took him eight years to be able to say that. And of course, he became one of the great Zen ancestors, so don't laugh at him too much. And then the sixth ancestor said to Nanyue, Well, then is there practice realization or not? If there's nothing that you can say about it, if anything you say will miss the mark, is there practice realization or not? And then Nanyue proved that he wasn't wasting his time. He said, it's not that there's no practice realization, only that it cannot be defiled. So this whole section of the last paragraph is referring to this practice realization as not defiled. So Nanyue said, It's not that there's no practice realization, it's only that it cannot be defiled. So to say that practice leads to realization or awakening, or to say that there can be awakening without practice, or practice without awakening, would be to defile practice and awakening.

[20:29]

So this idea of Dogen's, that Dogen really emphasizes, of the oneness of practice, practice enlightenment, goes back to this story. He refers to this story many times. the idea that they're separate, that they can't be defiled. So can the idea defile it? You can think that they're defiled. So Nanyue said that it's not that there's no practice realization, only that they cannot be defiled. And then Queen Agni's sixth ancestor said this statement here, this very non-defilement is what is attentively maintained by all Buddhas. you are also like this, I am also like this, all the ancestors in India are also like this. So I think Dogen is saying these are active Buddhas. These active Buddhas realize that practice realization cannot be defiled. So they don't try and defile it by saying that practice is separate from realization.

[21:31]

One thing that I also got out of it, I don't know if this is on the marker or off the marker or not, was that practice realization does not defile active buddhas because they're continually going beyond buddhism. Yes. Yes. Very good. Yeah, practice realization does not defile active buddhas and active buddhas do not defile practice realization. In fact, they tentatively maintain the non-defilement of practice realization. So this direct so token directly comments on this up through the next half page. So let me just read ahead. And then let's talk about this whole, this whole thing. Because you are also like this, there are all Buddhists because I am also like this, there are all Buddhists. Indeed, it is beyond me and beyond you. In this non-defilement, I, as I am, attentively maintained by all Buddhas, is the awesome presence of an active Buddha."

[22:36]

So this next sentence, I think, is important. You, as you are, attentively maintained by all Buddhas, is the awesome presence of an active Buddha. So this is this idea of somebody was referring to, maybe you were saying, Miriam, about just being oneself, just to see ourself as completely just as ourself, to see the suchness of this ordinary mind is the awesome presence of an active Buddha, to be completely who we are. The next page, she says, because I am also like this, the teacher is excellent. Because you are also like this, the disciple is strong. The teacher's excellence and disciple strength are the complete wisdom and practice of active Buddhas. So he's kind of introducing here the sense of this relationship of studying active Buddhas. Using this story of the sixth ancestor in Nanyue, they're together expressing something about the nature of active Buddhas.

[23:48]

This is the wisdom and the practice. This is the awesome presence. He doesn't say it, but the wisdom and practice of active Buddhas. You should penetrate what is attentively maintained by all Buddhas as well as, I am also like this and you are also like this. And he continues, even if this statement by the old Buddha Saoshi, the sixth ancestor, were not about me, how could it not be about you? What is Attentively maintained by active buddhas and what is thoroughly mastered by active buddhas is like this Thus we know practice and realization are not concerned with essence or forms roots or branches While the everyday activities of active buddhas here we are Invariably allow buddhas to practice Active buddhas allow everyday activities to practice. So this I think is part of your question Gregory that What is everyday mind? What is everyday activity? So this sentence here, I think, is very important. While the everyday activities of active Buddhas invariably allow Buddhas to practice, I mean, Buddhas couldn't practice without, you know, everyday rice and tea and just... This is why, you know, in a sense, the monastic forms for Buddhas practicing in the monastery are how they are Buddhas.

[25:11]

and actually for us that how we engage dignified manner or awesome presence in our own everyday activities, it's more challenging if you're outside of the monastery. It's more difficult practicing in the world as we do. But that's, those everyday activities allow us to practice. They allow Buddhists to practice. But also active Buddhists allow everyday activities to practice. So can you allow your driving on the freeway to practice? Can you allow your sipping tea to practice? Can you allow your washing the dishes to practice? This is to abandon your body for dharma, to abandon dharma for your body. This is to give up holding back your life, to hold on fully to your life. The awesome presence not only lets go of dharma for the sake of dharma, but also lets go of the dharma for the sake of mind. Do not forget that this letting go is immeasurable.

[26:14]

So this letting go is, you know, very important, this idea of letting go, which is very subtle because we usually, my sense is that people talk about letting go and they mean getting rid of. So we want to not have some particular problem or some particular manifestation of greed, hate and delusion. And then we say, well, I'll let go of that. But actually letting go is not about getting rid of anything. It's letting go. It's immeasurable. So this whole section here, maybe we could look at together. I think there's a lot here. And again, this is all as commentary on this idea of active Buddhas and awesome presence. So comments, questions. Well, for the first page, I was thinking maybe Dovin wasn't as obscure as I thought he was. But in the next few pages, I think he is as obscure as I thought he was.

[27:17]

Well, so what are you having trouble with? Well, let's see. Where did it end? Please. Where did I leave off? So does everybody understand there's this story that he's commenting on, first of all? So this is a commentary, this section is a commentary on the story about the sixth ancestor in Nanyue. Maybe let's start there. Do people get that story? About Nanyue saying, anything I say will miss the mark? Or about the sixth ancestor asking, what is this that thus comes? Do I get it? Well, do you have questions about it? What does it mean? What does what mean? What does any of it mean? What is this that thus comes?

[28:19]

OK, what does that mean? That doesn't mean anything. It's just, what is this that thus comes? What is this that thus says ah? So the thus implies? As such, like this, here we are. We are actually, each of you, right now, rubbing the back of your neck, walking over and taking some nuts, leaning your head forward, furrowing your brow, smiling, frowning. Each of you is coming thus. Each of you is expressing suchness in that particular way. It's kind of like you meet people and you realize that somebody is kind of actualizing themselves. Maybe they're working as a carpenter. Or you meet somebody that's sheet metal. And there are aspects of who that person is.

[29:22]

And you see how it all comes together now. And then I was realizing for myself, it just turned out that I ended up in teaching. And that just that interplay on a daily basis was really extraordinary. really extraordinary. And of course, when I was going through it, I wasn't thinking about it in these terms. But when I look back on it, I realize, wow, that's really amazing. OK. Yes, and one can understand this on the level of what is this that thus comes. And we all have certain identifications. Student, teacher, carpenter, bookseller, whatever, mother, father. We all have ways, so that could be the this that thus comes. But he's talking, but Dogen's responding to it on the level of awesome presence, on the level of fundamental dignity.

[30:22]

So it's not that what you're saying, those kind of gentrifications are not relevant, But he didn't, Nanyue didn't say, oh, I'm a monk. He just, he didn't know what to say. He couldn't say, so anything that you say as an identification, what is this? So he didn't say, who are you? I mean, I could ask Gregory, who are you? And you would, might, you could probably, you might laugh, and that might be the best response. But, you know, you might, you could recite your, all of you could probably recite your social security number, right? So we have ways of identifying ourselves. Teacher... We're all travelers. That's what I'm saying. In a sense, we're all travelers. It just so happens this other person is sheet metal. And you look at him and you realize that there are aspects of who he is that have come together and they bi-play and it works for him. Whereas that wouldn't work for me. It didn't.

[31:24]

It didn't work for me. Right. And yes, what you're talking about is the vital process on the path. So yes, that's right. We each appear as thus in any moment of receiving that question in some particular garb, in the middle of some vital process. And we have some activity that we engage in. And yet, I think what Nanyue is saying when he says anything I say with Mr. Mark, to say you're a carpenter or a teacher, well, that includes a whole lot, that includes, you know, that's one way of defining the whole vital process. But still, it doesn't, it doesn't begin to express every part of who George is. You're a filmmaker, you're a father, you're a husband, you're, you know, and if you said all of those words very fast, still it doesn't begin to get at the immediacy of your nodding your head.

[32:26]

It's like, what is, it's this ultimate kind of existential, what is this that thus comes? And Nanyue, he couldn't, he realized that he couldn't, you know, each of those answers is okay, and yet all of them missed the mark. They're not complete. could yeah right they might be the buddha you might say you're the buddha you might say you're a teacher you might say you're a father or a husband or whatever and all of those are the buddha and yet what's real is goes beyond buddha right well for me the real sort of process is to let go of the natural We use the measure black and white on the first page, too. And for me, language, answering a question like, what am I?

[33:33]

Is a way of measuring, trying to measure the immeasurable. Measuring of itself is a way of measuring. But existence or non-existence, or thusness, or suchness, is not measurable. Right, so he's pointing to a kind of way of engaging reality that he's calling Iki, awesome presence, dignified manner, that doesn't get stuck in any particular view of what is this that thus comes. It includes all of them. Letting go doesn't mean you say, no, I'm not a teacher. It includes that whole vital process of how you are manifesting yourself right now, but anything you say about it, the reality of it, the actuality of it, the awesome presence of it, the thusness of it is immeasurable. Right. It's beyond Buddha. Right.

[34:35]

And so letting go doesn't mean that you get rid of those things. It's that letting go is actually realizing, yes, you know, I can give a list of everything I am or everything that is this. And yet, if I tried to say, or if one of you, if Ron tried to say, what is this at 11 minutes after four on a Sunday afternoon that comes as thus, right now, as you raise your eyes to me, we could be writing down the list of things that we might include in that you know, from now for the next 24 hours and, of course, beyond. And that total list of all those words still wouldn't get the full suchness if you're just raising your cup and taking a sip. I think it would be more radical than that. Good. Because it's not about that you can't collect all the words necessary, but none of the words in the universe are on the mark.

[35:45]

Right. Yes. Of course, yes. We are stuck. That's the whole point, we're stuck. So that's why letting go is immeasurable. So letting go means recognizing all of those words and it's immeasurable, we can't, you know. So we are stuck, we have to, so we take on stuckness. Practice realization is not, if we weren't stuck, that would be defilement of practice realization. So this is me talking, I'm not joking, but practice realization is non-defile because we're stuck. Because we're willing to be this that thus comes right now. We're stuck in that, which is beyond all measure, beyond all of our words, beyond all of our descriptions, even beyond our social security number. Congratulations, you're stuck. You mean this essay?

[36:50]

Well, in a way, yeah. He's using, he's talking about that. I think this is awesome presence of active Buddhists is this is a way that this essay is a way of talking about a lot of things, but one of the first, but in some, the first big, there will be several other major stories that he's going to talk about. The whole last six pages is a response to, you know, looking at the whole essay as a whole to, there's several others before that, but then there's a, statements about the relationship between Buddhas and fire that by Xuefeng and Xuansha and Yuanwu that are the last six pages of this, which we might get to next week. But yeah, in a way, I think he's starting from, this essay starts from this dialogue and it's a response to and it's also an expression of.

[37:58]

It's Dogen using this idea of the non-defilement of practice realization as a way of talking about something which he's calling awesome presence of active Buddhas. And his calling it that, I don't know of anybody, I guess the phrase gyobutsu and the phrase igi had been used before Dogen, but the way he's talking about this is, I think, pretty original. In terms of talking about the quality of our experience, So I think it is existential. It's talking about what is it, not what do we understand. So Iggy isn't about understanding. Iggy is about a mode of behavior, a mode of presence. I think presence is the best word. As I mentioned in Sashin, someone sent me a picture and I just had to laugh.

[38:58]

Dignity has never been photographed, as Bob Dylan says, and it's happened to me too. what we can't pin it, anything we say misses the mark of what is fundamental dignity. And that's really what he's talking about as the, what brings forth the transformative function of active Buddhas as opposed to these other kinds of Buddhas. So yeah, this story is the starting point for this essay, in a way. It doesn't get to it until the second page, but yeah. I think one point is to do some comparative whatever. In the West, we call that mystery. My grandmother's stories talk about mystery. No matter how much you knew or named something,

[40:00]

It was always going beyond that, but that is what mystery is. It's not like trying to solve it. It's insolvable. I think that's the point. Yes, and that was totally awesome presence. So you raise, you know, and as you were saying, one of you were saying about, Greg, you were talking about Reb saying, this is awesome presence and it's mystery. And so is this. And actually that's happening all the time, but when we realize that anything we say about it misses the mark, then we're starting to get into this realm of acting Buddha. That's going beyond Buddha. Again, this, experiencing of the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. Yeah, well, that's related to what, you know, the idea of mystery that you were saying. Sure.

[41:01]

I wonder how many people here have an answer to that question. Which question? What is this? What is this that thus comes? Beverly, what is this that thus comes? One thought. Ah, they did that really quickly. Yeah, we think that we can say it. We think that we can answer that question. We think that we, we think that we can, you know, I mean, George, you gave a really good answer to it. You said you talked about your process of becoming a teacher. Well, that's right. That's, that includes everything in your life. So one can say that when one has a calling one can say that's that's what this is that thus comes and yet from this point of view of awesome presence that that that you know yeah and we may have very good answers but still it misses the mark.

[42:16]

Until you said ipso facto is okay. Define, yeah. Uh-huh. Well, I don't... Okay. I don't hear any difference there, but I didn't mean to say existentialism as a philosophy, but just that it's an existential issue, that it's about what is the quality of our experience right now.

[43:43]

And, you know, just the fact that we can't pin it down, the fact that we can't name it, the fact that anything we say is not going to be it, not going to really be this, not going to include everything. It's not really a problem. It's just the way it is. I think there's a problem on either side of that though. If we, yeah, I think that that's a fundamental issue, that one side of how we might hold back from letting, from immeasurable letting go of awesome presence is by defining ourselves separate from other things out there. I'm an American.

[44:46]

They're just whatever. You know, however it is. So there's that sense of separation. That's one way of disrespecting awesome presence. The other way, though, would be to say, well, I'm just part of everything. Because it's true and it both might be true, but they're only pieces of the truth. So to say I'm there's no separation. It's not quite enough either. It's true, but to really not hold back from the awesome presence of this act of Buddha. we have to both recognize our intertotal non-separation and interconnectedness, and the unique quality of this particular thusness that comes as this, which is, you know, all those things that none of which hits the mark.

[45:49]

How can we be willing to Completely be just this. Completely.

[45:57]

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