Once upon a time in China, a Buddhist monk went to visit the sixth ancestor of the Zen school. And the sixth ancestor said, where are you from? And he said, I'm from Mount Sung, I think. And then his ancestors said, what is it that thus comes? Well, that's one of the stories that just keeps coming up again and again in my life. It's a wonderful story for many reasons. One of them is just the language, you know.

[01:03]

It's kind of talking colloquial Chinese, but then it translates to colloquial Chinese and uses a Buddhist term. The Buddhist term is thus comes. Thus comes is an epithet. or the Buddha. Thus comes is a way to translate the Sanskrit word tatagata. And the word tatagata itself is wonderful because it's a combination of tata, and we can't tell, but it's either a combination of tata, which means thus, or such, in other words, the way things are. and either gatha or agatha. When you put tathagata together, when you put tatha together with agatha, you get the tathagata.

[02:06]

When you put tatha together with gatha, you get the tathagata. So you can't tell in Sanskrit, it means both thus gone and thus come. Gatha means gone, and agatha means come back or not gone. So there is a going to the way things are, and there's a coming from the way things are. So that's part of our practice, to go, to enter the way things are. And having entered, then you can come from the way things are. So when we see signs of somebody coming from suchness, we want to, we're attracted to, that's a way we can be attracted to the practice. And then we can go to suchness. And when we go to such-and-such, then we can come from such-and-such. And then when people see that, they say, oh, wow, that's wonderful.

[03:09]

Where are you coming from? And everybody comes from someplace. So he says to the guy, where are you from? He says, Monsoon. Where are you from? Mississippi. Where are you from? Pittsburgh. Whatever, you know. Everybody comes from someplace. But all those people can go to suchness, and then when they go to suchness, they come from suchness. So the Chinese toes thus comes. They couldn't translate it into both thus goes and thus comes. I don't think they could. So they chose thus comes because I guess thus comes is the most important because once thus comes, then you can thus go. Thus comes will show you how to go there. Then you can come from there and show others how to go there. It's not exactly heaven, you know, thus comes. It's like the way heaven is and the way hell is and the way in between is.

[04:16]

It's not really some place, it's the way things are. Wherever you are in the universe, the way things are, we can go there and then come from there. So he's saying to this monk, you know, what is the Tathagata? Or what is Tathagata? But he's also, you know, what is Buddha? He's saying to that monk. But he's also saying, this monk just came, and he's saying, what is it that just came? You know, you've just come now from monsoon. What actually came here? So, you know, what are you? And then now that you're here, what are we? Because you came, but it isn't just you came. I was here too. You came to meet me. So I'm saying to you, where do you come from? Now I'm saying what thus comes, but also how about me coming? I say, what does come? Am I talking about you or about me? About us. So all that's in there when he says, what does come?

[05:18]

Who are you? Who am I? What did you just bring? What did I bring? What are we doing? And what is Buddha? All that. So it's really nice when somebody comes to visit, it's a nice question to ask them. And then this monk seems to tune right into all that and say, to say it's this, misses the point. Or to point at it, misses the point. To point at it, misses the point. To say it's this misses the point. To say it's that, to say it's you misses the point. To say it's us misses the point. To say it's not me misses the point. To say it's not you misses the point. Any place you point, any place you indicate, you miss it.

[06:21]

So that's all I can say is, all I can say is anything I say about it misses it. I can say that. I didn't point, did I? So it's really a nice answer. So then the teacher says, well, does that mean there's no practice in enlightenment? You can't say anything about this, you know, the Buddha? And he doesn't say, yes, there is practice or no, there isn't practice. He just says, I don't say there's not practice and I don't say there's not enlightenment. Just that You can't defile it. And then the teacher says, this way of not defiling it is what all Buddhas take care of and uphold and transmit.

[07:38]

Now I'm like that, and you're like that too. So I hesitate to say what it is that thus comes, but it has something to do with Buddha, and Buddha has something to do with being wholehearted. Wholehearted is what thus goes. Wholeheartedness thus goes, and wholeheartedness thus comes. It goes to thusness in the mode of wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness isn't exactly going to thusness, but in wholeheartedness you go, and in wholeheartedness you return. And you can't say what wholeheartedness is because, you know, it's not for you to say or me to say. Excuse me.

[08:47]

Would anyone care to bring something forth? Please. Just a question. Just a question. Just a question from what you've last said. It's not for me or you to say if it's all hearted, I think that's what I heard you say. And can we not say it for ourselves, but not for someone else? Is that what you mean? Can you say it for yourself and not for someone else? Yeah. Yeah, but that wouldn't be wholehearted. Wholehearted, if I say it for myself, I say it for you. Wholehearted is not something I am by myself. So you can express yourself, and you can express yourself wholeheartedly, but only with our support.

[10:48]

And you can say this is wholehearted, but if you believe that you can say it by yourself, then you wouldn't see it, then you wouldn't realize it. But if you understand that when you say, this is wholehearted, everyone else is really supporting that. And it might be wholehearted. You might realize that it's wholehearted. It is wholehearted, but if you think that you said it by yourself, that puts a curtain up in your mind. Unless when you say it, you really are being ironic I don't really believe I can do anything by myself. Therefore, I'm going around saying, I did it all by myself. You can imitate a child. They think that they can do things by themselves.

[11:52]

Like a three-year-old or a four-year-old makes a birthday cake and someone assists them a little bit. Just a little. Not to mention the cows and the wheat and the earth, but also mommy and daddy are there, you know, turning the fire on because the little one can't use matches yet, right? So they turn the fire on, they turn it to the right temperature. They do quite a bit. And the little one comes and sticks her finger in the batter and licks it. And afterwards she says, I made that cake all by myself. Right? It's true. They did make the cake by sticking their finger in the batter and licking their finger. And then watching somebody else put it in the oven. with their support because that person would not be putting in the oven without them they're doing it for them with them right now maybe the adult also thinks not really i did it by myself well then the adult is what we call a child because they don't understand you know of course i don't make cakes for children by myself i do it with the children

[13:15]

I wouldn't be being this person if it wasn't for this person. But the little one, child, whatever size, thinks that they do stuff by themselves. When several people know it's ridiculous that they did it by themselves, they think they did it by themselves, right? And they learn to think that they can do something like that by themselves. And it's really silly and it's really darling that they think they did it by themselves. And then they grow up and they keep thinking that way, but it stops being quite as darling to some people. But Buddha still thinks it's darling. You know, that they think that they can laugh by themselves, walk by themselves, practice Zen by themselves. Buddha thinks it's darling. But also Buddha feels sorry for them because they're miserable. They're darling and miserable. And they're miserable because they think they can do something by themselves. Like, for example, I can say whatever with your help.

[14:23]

And if I understand that, then I understand my wholeheartedness. If I don't, I'm still wholehearted. I'm a wholehearted child who thinks he can do something by himself. Like what? Like participate in a retreat or lead a retreat? Either way, you can't participate or lead a retreat by yourself. It's impossible. You can't even avoid coming to the retreat by yourself. There's nothing you can do by yourself, and you don't do anything by yourself, but you do do everything together with everyone. And so you can say whatever we help you want to say. That's what I say, with your help.

[15:28]

I was reading in that Being Upright about responding when the bell sounds. And then I think about and what that energy is called, but self-starters. Self-starters? Yeah. So what is a self-starter? Yeah, compared to somebody who responds to the bell. Or, I think that's my question. Are there any self-starting Buddhists? I don't think there's any self-starting anything. No. I don't think such a thing exists, the self-starter.

[16:42]

We are other starters. Other started. We're other started. We're started by everything but ourself. And we start everything else. together with everybody. I start you, you start me, you don't start yourself, and I don't start myself. The whole universe is based on you and on me, and we still don't make ourselves. The universe makes us, and we make the universe. Did you say okay? Thank you. Yesterday at the talk, you gave a story about inviting feedback, getting feedback that that wasn't gentle, and then confessing.

[18:06]

I'd like some further clarification between the step of getting feedback that you weren't gentle and coming to confession. Oh, I see. What happens if you don't agree with the feedback? Oh, uh-huh. Yeah. Then I guess I would confess that I don't agree with the feedback. In other words, you would tell me, I would invite feedback, and then you come and tell me, I don't think you were gentle. And then I would say, I might say, well, I might say, I do agree that you, I agree that, well, maybe I think I agree. Do you agree with me that you just told me I wasn't gentle? Mm-hmm. Or you felt I wasn't gentle? I do agree that I heard that. Okay. Okay. And did you say that?

[19:12]

You say? Yeah. So I agree with that. However, I don't agree with that I'm not gentle. Maybe. Yeah. And so I have a story that I'm, let's say I have a story that I was gentle. And I have another story that in the area of gentleness, the customer's always right. That's another story I have. So that although I didn't agree, I didn't think I was not being gentle when you told me I wasn't. Then I would say I was. In other words, and then I would say, so let's do that. You come and tell me that I wasn't gentle. You weren't gentle. I hear you say that I wasn't gentle.

[20:14]

And I wasn't gentle. Was that gentle? Yes. So gentle means gentle, tender, but it also means flexible. See, the gentleness goes with the uprightness. Because you might possibly be upright, but not flexible. And also you can be flexible, but not upright. So you could turn, but if you're not upright, you get dizzy. But if you're upright and you're gentle, then you can be balanced and turn. Like we say the wind bell, right? The wind bell hangs by its teeth in emptiness, And whatever direction the wind blows from, it goes, it makes this sound, you know, some sound. It sings the wisdom of relationship, no matter what direction the wind blows from. It doesn't say, when the wind blows from the north, it doesn't say, no, no, no, no, no, no, not from the north.

[21:18]

It doesn't say that. It just accepts it and also it moves with it. So, If you give me feedback that I wasn't gentle, I have a way, if it's possible for me then, to receive that feedback and demonstrate gentleness and check with you with that word. Or to say, well, what would have been gentle? And then you could say, and then the person might say, okay, but I actually didn't agree with that I wasn't gentle. I thought I was. So I didn't agree, but I don't have to stay with not agreeing. Okay? I can switch to agreeing. But I don't have to stay with agreeing. And you can switch back to not agreeing. So if the person tells you that you're a frog and you think you're a person, then you can be gentle and flexible and switch to, I'm a frog.

[22:23]

And they say, yeah, now you get the picture. And you say, I'm a human. They say, no, no, no, you should stay back being a frog. But you don't have to stay at being a frog. You can switch back to being a human. And then they can say, no, you're really a frog. You say, you're right, I am. You look shocked and afraid. It's kind of like, hey, wait a minute. What am I going to hold on to here? One of the other polls you held up was honesty. Yeah. And saying, yes, I'm a frog is playful, but is it honest? Yeah. Is it honest? That's the question. Is it honest? Yes. Honest about what? You know?

[23:27]

Do I really think I'm a frog? Honestly, I don't think I'm a fraud. But I honestly want to demonstrate to you that more important than what I think about my fraudness or not fraudness is that I can dance with you. More important than who I am is that I can dance with you. But in fact, I don't think I'm a fraud. But if you say I am, and me saying, yes, I am, is dancing with you, that's most important to me. Now, after I've switched to saying I'm a frog and demonstrated my, now I'm dancing with you, now if you want to ask me questions about my attitude about that, well, I'm going to tell you, well, actually, I don't think I'm a frog. But if you tell me I'm a frog, I will say, yes, I am a frog. But I still don't think I'm a frog. I just say, I'm a frog. Because you said I was. Or I'm stupid because you said I was. I actually don't think I'm stupid, but I don't have to make a big deal out of that that I think I'm not or that I think I am.

[24:36]

I'm stupid. Some people say I'm stupid. I say, no, you're not. They say, yes, I am. But sometimes you have to say, for some people, when they say they're stupid, you have to say, oh, you're stupid, and you say, yeah. Then you can say, you're not stupid, and you say, oh, yeah. So sometimes you have to agree with them. But in a lot of cases, the person doesn't need you to agree with them. They're actually asking you, they're inviting you to not agree. Give me feedback. It's not what you say, maybe, when you're barely able to give any recognition. But particularly when you have a lot of recognition, give me feedback. See if I can flip out of my recognition. Or when you're getting recognition as a teacher of the practice of the Buddhadharma, and you want feedback, so people can test to see if you're practicing it. They've already recognized you. Now, can you give it up? So many of you have heard that story.

[26:01]

You can come up, Gene. Many of you heard that story about me having dinner with my wife and another couple. And the male member of the couple, it was a male-female combination. The male was a professor at UC Irvine, California. And my wife asked him what Irvine was like. And he said, it's beautiful. And his wife said, no, it's not. It's ugly. And he said, it's ugly. And my wife said, to me, you should learn that. Now, did he betray himself? And did he think that Irvine was ugly? I doubt it. I doubt it. One of my advisors at the University of Minnesota in mathematics got appointed head of the mathematics department at UC Irvine.

[27:03]

And he showed me some pictures of Irvine, and maybe he sent me a card to front Irvine after he went there. And I looked at it and thought, wow, it's really ugly. Part of the reason why it's ugly is because it was a new campus, you know, and they just basically put, mowed everything down. And there's a building sticking up there, like, you know. But anyway, I don't think he thought, but he thought it was beautiful. I don't think he's been switched. I think he just was able to switch, to turn. And that's a wonderful thing to be able to do. and be honest that, you know, I really didn't change my mind, I just, I'm able to say something quite different. Yes, Jean? Okay, so I wanted to ask you a little bit about confession. So I was thinking about this prayer that we were saying earlier, right, that all my ancient twisted karma

[28:13]

From beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. So what does that mean, I avow that? What does that mean? Well, it means that I confess that I have done an incalculable amount of thinking and speaking and postures based on greed, hate, and delusion, based on an unenlightened mind. And it also, to me, it includes... It actually... The Twisted is a translation by Richard Baker, which I think, to some extent, avoids the word evil.

[29:19]

Because a more literal translation would be evil. But I think, really, that even wholesome acts that come from greed, hate and delusion. If you can do wholesome things from greed, hate and delusion, even wholesome acts, even skillful acts, are in some sense twisted or are in some sense evil because they're constricted somewhat and turned around and distorted somewhat by greed, hate and delusion. And there's greed, hate and delusion until the mind is enlightened. So for all the time I haven't been enlightened and all the things I've done from beginningless time I don't know what they all are, but since it's been so long, pretty much I think you name it. So I avow them. I confess them. I own this behavior, this path. I admit once again on the planet that I am once again coming up short.

[30:27]

And that's my prayer every day is, you know, this sort of self inventory. Wow, here I go again. I just came up short for the seven million three incarnation. I mean, to me, it's like I do say that prayer and I do acknowledge. In fact, I'm really quite expert. At acknowledging where I come up short. Yeah. Maybe the tough thing needs to be a little bit gentler when it comes to, you know, my own self appraisement. But I just want to know, like, is there an antidote to that? To what? To, you know, taking one's own. inventory to confessing constantly to being just a garden variety human as opposed to a Buddha or a God or an angel or a saint. I mean, because I find it sort of a downer to do that every day. It's like, should I feel better when I get up after... Just a second. I think you said something about should I be more gentle or something like that, didn't you?

[31:29]

I did. laughter And you kept going, but I thought, yeah. Okay. You probably should be gentle while you're doing it. You know, this notion of twisted karma, is there a way in practice to acknowledge the good stuff, too? Like, is it all twisted? That's the stuff that we pay attention to. I understand that. we're working toward enlightenment, but where is the opportunity to sit with just being okay, or being wholesome, or being generous, or being loving, if that practice is always pointing out the twistedness? That, you say, where is it, where is something to be okay? What are the words? What is the prayer? What is the reading? Where is the antidote to that?

[32:34]

The, you know, okay, here's my angel. Gentleness. Gentleness. Gentleness. Gentleness, gentleness, gentleness, flexibility, tenderness. That's a big part of it, okay? But also, generosity. Generosity. There's not much place, there's not much, what do you call it, talk about revealing your own good qualities in the teaching. There's not much about that. What there is a great deal about is being generous, which would apply to you. And the generosity comes before the precept practice. in order. You don't have to do it that order, but it's good to start, actually, first of all, with generosity. I see your hand. If you want to talk, you can come up and sit here. So, there's a place for generosity towards yourself, being magnanimous towards you and everything you've ever done.

[33:42]

and everything you ever will do. That's that place. There's not really an antidote for confession. Confession is an antidote for misery. So should you actually feel better after that? Like you said, oh, I did it again! And then you stand up and you go, whew, man, I feel great. You should feel great. What should feel as great as you should feel great when you do it right? When you confess properly, you feel good afterwards. Excuse me, not quite. First of all, you feel sorrow afterwards. But then after you feel the sorrow, you feel good. So first is the confession, then is the repentance, and repentance is a feeling of sorrow. But after you do that, you feel good. That's what the point is. It's an antidote, partial antidote. Confession and repentance are a partial antidote to your action based on greed, hate, and delusion.

[34:50]

They're not the whole antidote. The whole antidote would be perfect wisdom, but part of it is it is compassionate. towards yourself and others to practice confession. And if you practice confession and don't feel that it's compassionate, you're not doing it right. And that's why it's nice to start with generosity first, so that you have a kind of big, generous attitude towards everything and everybody. And then go into the precepts. And then go into noticing that you slip up on them. But also, you have slipped up in ways that you can't even remember. So you just generally say, you know, I've been basically over this huge scale of time, I've been as bad as anybody.

[35:54]

I'm not better than anybody. I'm not the worst either because other people have the same story. We've all been unskillful in innumerable ways, and you start to open to that. If you don't, then you need an antidote to not being open. And confession repentance is part of the opening of the heart process. For me to open to that I have been as bad as anybody is part of opening your heart. The Buddhists aren't people who said, well, I haven't been as bad as other people. They are people who have learned open and not be better than anyone. And not worse. So the confession of repentance also is a skill, and you can get better and better at it, and actually more and more gentle at it, and also do it more and more often as you get more skillful.

[36:56]

And so, you know, some people say, well, what would these great bodhisattvas who are recommending this practice to non-stop practice, if they say? What do they have to confess? Well, they probably have to confess just slight moments of where they don't open to everybody, for example. Slight moments, just tiny little moments where they're kind of like, I wasn't open to everybody. I forgot for a moment. When we're in a grosser state, we don't notice as many misses, so we actually confess less. So it's a heart-opening practice. That's the purpose of it. It's a compassion practice. It's listed under the compassion practices. And then often the thing that follows it in a lot of renditions is then you start rejoicing in the merits of others. Once you start to be good at noticing your own shortcomings, you start to notice how wonderful other people are.

[38:01]

And you start to see their virtues. You can still see their shortcomings, but you're so busy seeing their virtues that you really don't bear the flicker. And then there's the rejoicing practice of their merits. And that follows the... the confession of repentance. Again, if it doesn't follow, you haven't quite got the hang of the confession of repentance. Because if you're kind of like confessing and repenting, you're like, what a rat I am, you know? Then you look at other people, what rats they are, you know? Those despicable creatures, they're breaking the precept just like me. Let's eliminate them, you know? Well, that's not the way to confess. Confess doesn't mean you hate yourself at all. Zero hate towards your shortcomings. You're gentle with your shortcomings. Really tender with your shortcomings. And then you see other people have shortcomings, and you can be tender with them.

[39:05]

And then in your tenderness, you start to see, well, actually, they're wonderful. They have all these virtues, too. Yes, they have shortcomings, but... That's helpful. Good. The water's rough for a while there. Compassion, by the way, the boat of compassion doesn't travel over smooth water. Yes. What did you say? I said no. It's okay to sit on smooth water. It's okay. It's just that the boat doesn't move. Thanks. This is really in response to Jean's thing. I learned to do that ancient twisted karma chant at these retreats. Yes. And it's always been paired with the refuges afterwards.

[40:07]

And at first I had Jean's similar reaction. But then, especially after I started studying the precepts, then I realized how impossible it sort of is to get up and go to the bathroom without working. several of them on your way to the bathroom, that I realized it's a tremendous relief for me to do that in the morning, to do the confession and repentance, and then right away say, Buddha, you know, I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma. I can't do this without the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. I can't practice this at all. Right. Plus also, now that I've confessed, I would like to go back to Buddha now. Okay. And one of the things I confess is that I've been distracted from Buddha, you know, several moments from beginningless time. Not to mention several moments today I kind of forgot to think about Buddha. I forgot. I forgot to remember that what I'm doing is in a relationship with Buddha.

[41:08]

That's why we often have this term, grandmother mind or granddaddy mind, because the grandmother doesn't have to. She doesn't have to beat herself into remembering her grandchildren. Think of your grandchildren all the time. It's quite easy. Just like, oh, yeah. So grandmother mind in Zen is that you easily remember the Buddha all the time. You easily remember, oh yeah, I've got this relationship, this wonderful relationship with grandchildren and with Buddhas. And since I have a relationship with Buddha, I have a relationship with all beings, because Buddhas are into all beings. But I forgot repeatedly in the last day or so to remember my relationship with my grandchildren with Buddhism and also Japanese. I forgot. I got distracted and started thinking about me. And I forgot about almost everybody else for several moments there.

[42:11]

I want to go back to Buddha now. Now that I've confessed that, OK, now I want to go back. And also in our ordination ceremony, before receiving the precepts, we confess and repent, and we get special pure little sprinkling of wisdom water, and then we go for refuge. But first we admit, hey, I'm like just an ordinary human. I accept that really. I'm not trying to be better. I'm willing to be an ordinary human, and I wish to return to Buddha. So, yeah, and it's not I'm worse. I'm just completely like a normal, ordinary person, and I forget. And when I forget, hopefully I notice a few of them so I can confess them. In that spirit, I return to Buddha. The precepts of going to a refuge in the Triple Treasure is a compassion practice.

[43:22]

It's a kindness to yourself and others. Confession and repentance is a compassion practice. It's kind to you and kind to others. It should be done in a spirit of kindness towards yourself and towards others. And sometimes you see people confess and you really feel like they're being kind to themselves and kind to others when they're doing it. Other times people confess, but they aren't being kind to themselves. And when I see that, then I try to be kind to the person who's not being kind to themselves when they're confessing. So they see themselves beating themselves up when they're confessing, but they see somebody's watching them kindly. And I don't tell them to stop being mean to themselves. I just watch them be mean to themselves. And they see that, you know, they see a kind reflection of their cruelty to themselves. I mean, I say I do that, I mean, that's what I vow to do, is to be tender with somebody who's being mean to themselves.

[44:30]

So that they can see it and see, but there's tenderness there, and I'm being mean. I guess I could be tender now that I'm here. And then sometimes they are right then, just like that. They switch. They don't say anything more. They just start being kind to themselves, you know, with the honest confession. And then they feel really good because they're being honest and tender and upright and harmonizing with being a human. So that's a great potential, a tremendous great potential, of bodhisattva practice of confession, which great beings vow to do, even after realizing the Buddha body, to continue to demonstrate this practice. They say, well, they don't have nothing to confess. Well, somehow they find something to confess to show people how to do it. Where can they find it?

[45:32]

Oh, there. And maybe if they've been really good for like a whole day, they have to go back, well, yesterday, I mean, 15 eons ago, I, Shakyamuni Buddha, I heard him confess the Buddha. He didn't have to go back too far to confess. Just a few years. Just go back from before he was Buddha. He saw some stuff and he told us about it after he was Buddha. He said, when I was younger, I used to be really kind of petty. Our Buddha? Well, he wasn't Buddha then. He was petty man. But he could look back and confess to his group that the way he was in his dad's palace or his dad's villa was kind of petty and he could tell us about that.

[46:39]

Before Buddhas were Buddhas, they were just like us. And the Bodhisattvas, the great Bodhisattvas still have something to confess. And they vowed to continue to confess even after realizing the Buddha body. So the Buddha, Shakyamuni, realized the Buddha body, and then he kept confessing. But he just had to go back a little ways. And then, of course, that's like in the incarnation as an Indian guy, right? But he could go back before that and confess previous lives, too. He could tell us previous lives' shortcomings, too. So the Buddha still has something to confess, although not recent confessions. Since the time of enlightenment, there's nothing left to confess, unfortunately. Sorry. But I can still show you about stuff that's connected to me through my own evolution, where I did have shortcomings. I was petty. I can tell you about that, and I'm being honest, but I'm happy to tell you about this.

[47:47]

I hope this is encouraging for you to hear about this." And it is. Like Buddha also had back problems. Some of you have back problems? So did Shakyamuni Buddha. After being a Buddha, after being a Buddha, he had back problems. When he was the great teacher of India, sometimes he couldn't give a Dharma talk. He had to lie down and have his senior students get to talk for him. You mean Supreme Enlightenment? He still had torn cartilage and stuff? I have back problems. It's hard for me to accept my back problems. It helps me that Shakyamuni Buddha had back problems, that I don't have to get over my back problems to be a Buddha. I just have to be completely enlightened to be a Buddha. Some people have no back problems, which is wonderful, things they can do with no back problems.

[48:54]

And then they do have back problems from doing those wonderful things. Can you, we always talk about the three poisons as being really bad stuff. Can you love the three poisons? You can, and it's totally recommended to love the three poisons. It's not like love. If you love the three poisons, they turn into the radiance of Buddha's wisdom. If you hate them, you just be redundant. If you hate them, they pump up and get thicker and smellier.

[49:57]

If you love them, they open up into wisdom. The compassion applied to the three poisons, it turned into delicious taste of ripe persimmon. We use persimmon as an example because persimmon is very bitter. But if you take care of the persimmon, it has a taste which is especially wonderful because it's based on bitterness. And the three poisons, when you take care of them in this compassionate way, they have a wonderful, delicious taste of liberation. But liking them is not loving and dislike. Hating them is not loving and liking. Also, hating non-greed and non-delusion And non-attachment, non-hate, non-greed, and non-delusion.

[51:08]

Hating those or loving those isn't the point either. Non-greed is swell, but if you don't take care of it properly, you'll stay stuck in a realm of greed and non-greed. So yeah, love the three poisons and they will become the taste of liberation. Love, not like. Be gentle with them. Be open to them. Be honest about them. Be balanced with them and harmonize and be peaceful with them. And they will open unto Buddha's truth. It's always the image of the lotus in the mud. It requires the mud. It requires the mud. And when it blossoms, it doesn't take its roots out of the mud.

[52:09]

And when it puts its roots in the mud, it doesn't sort of like, ooh, yeah. It goes right in there. And it doesn't attach to the mud. It just goes in there. Yeah, the lotus in the mud. You can grow things in sand, sterilized sand. They do that in Florida. They sterilize the sand, suck out all the nutrients, then pump in petrochemical stuff, and then they grow oranges. Oh. That's how they do it. First they take away all the mud. They bleach it out. Hmm? What? It's crazy. It's crazy. But it, what do you call it, it increases profits for the shareholders. But it's crazy. It's crazy. But the lotus doesn't do that. In your house, lotuses do.

[53:12]

At night, they close up. And they close up and they keep their wand in closure. And some insects go into the lotus and camp out overnight in the wand that they hold in at the night. And then they open up in the morning. The various beings are supported and sheltered by the lotus which grows in the mud of all beings. Yeah. So our job is how to open to the mud. without indulging in it. Because some, you know, usually we're like, depulsed or predictable. So how to be upright? That's the compassion. Upright and honest. This is mud of this variety. There's a little bit more time before we were kind of scheduled to resume sitting.

[54:17]

Anybody else want to offer something? I've been trying to gently notice sort of some of the themes of things we're talking about and it kind of leads to the question I asked last night about what is a you when you say the self. A lot of things we've talked about to me go back to attachment. Attachment to I'm a separate somebody that can be hurt, that can be afraid. whether it's attachment to a form of practice, attachment to an identity, attachment to my name, attachment to what that person should do. Can you say something about the self and letting go of the self? Well, the self, the problem self is the self which I pointed out before. It's the self which is in addition to the universe. There's no such self, right, that's in addition to the universe?

[55:21]

Can you say that one more time? Well, most people think there's a universe plus something. And the thing that's in addition to the universe is a self which is in addition to the universe or independent of the universe. Now, we say that it's ridiculous, but we all think that way. And if you don't think that way, Well, okay. That thought that you're in addition to everybody else, rather than included in everybody, that thought is present in most of our minds, pretty much. Based on that thought, then we attach to things in the universe, which in some sense makes perfect sense that once we feel separate from the universe, we want to get back in touch with it. So then we get attached or attached also in the form of pushing parts of the universe away. Because we think we can be separate. And because we think we can be separate, then we can push things away and then we should hold on to other ones. So we're like... So it's that basic delusion that's... The delusion is there which leads to greed...

[56:30]

and hatred. Elimination, pushing stuff away or holding on to stuff. So that's why we focus on that delusion of a self that's separate from the universe, that's independent. That self, again, that's the self we have to really be kind to. And if we're really kind to it, we'll forget it. It'll drop away. In a wholehearted relationship, with this self, this imaginary, outrageous, independent self. Being very wholehearted with it, it drops away. And there's another self. You know, you do have a self, but the self you have is the self that the universe makes. And we make a person who actually thinks, and the universe makes a person who thinks the universe didn't make him. It's like we make little children who think they made the birthday cake all by themselves.

[57:33]

We make little kids like that. We can see it, but they don't see it, because they're deluded. We sometimes can see that we're not making ourselves, and the universe does make us, and then the self-independence drops away, and then there's no greed or hatred. When you said that, it made me think that right now I am bleaching sand in Florida, cutting down rainforests. Yeah, you are. And so am I. Everybody's cooperating with that. Everybody's supporting the people who are doing that, you know, up close. So that's why we're, an implication of this is infinite responsibility for everything that's going on. Is that part of what we're confessing with the prayer? Yeah, that's part of what you're confessing. or confessing that we're in the mud. We're in the mud. You know, we're part of it all.

[58:38]

We aren't willing to live in this world because we think if we're willing to, that maybe we can help. If we argue about it, it's just a distraction from real work. try to separate ourselves, try to be a little bit better than some of the other people, then that just basically is a distraction, which, again, we can confess to. I confess that I actually thought I wasn't responsible. And, you know, if I reduced my carbon output to zero, which means not exhaling anymore... Or ailing, yeah. I'd wait less and less until there's no carbon dioxide coming out of my mouth. And then finally, I'd be okay. You'd be dead. But you still wouldn't be okay because then, what is it? To die? To sleep? To dream? Ah, there's the rub. You just start over again. Plus being a little kid without any Dharma teaching to help you.

[59:48]

So now it's better to just keep being a polluter. Keep putting that carbon dioxide out there and say, I'm tired of this. Now what can I do to help? How can I encourage people to not build more Humvees, I mean Hummers, or Humvees? How can I encourage people to be more kind while I'm participating in the problem still? How can I do less without at the same time making myself feel less responsible? How can I do less pollution without separating myself from the polluters who are part of the universe that makes me? I'm made by the polluters. And how can I love the polluters? If you love the polluters and they feel it,

[60:52]

then they'll be willing to talk to you about things that have been done differently. And again, if you don't think you're a polluter, it makes it harder to love polluters. So, okay, I'm a polluter, you're a polluter, although you don't yet say you are. So I'm a polluter, so now I have to be generous with you. And if you feel that I'm generous... then maybe you could also say, oh yeah, I'm a polluter too. I'm a polluter, how about you? Yeah, I am too, actually. Sometimes people see somebody doing some bad thing, and say, how can I tell them? One way to do it is to notice you're doing it yourself and confess to them. Tell them that they're being nasty, and you say to them, I was so nasty to so-and-so today. And they think, why is he telling me that? Maybe I was. OK.

[62:00]

Thank you. Is that enough for now? May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[62:23]

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