Once again, I say that the Lotus Sutra teaches that there are two kinds of people. One is that only a Buddha, together with a Buddha, exhaustively understands reality. And the way to see, how to meet Buddhas, and the way to meet Buddhas is to enter into the practice of all virtue, which means enter into the world of all beings and practice there with

[01:28]

all the different kinds of suffering, because that's where Buddhas live. So you practice all virtues, Buddhas practice all virtues, all virtues, the ways of relating to all different kinds of problems, that's where they live, in the middle of all problems, and they practice there. So you also enter there and practice there, and then be upright and honest, and gentle and flexible and harmonious, and you will see the Buddhas. And when you see the Buddha, there's a chance to meet the Buddha, and in meeting the Buddha, we understand exhaustively someday reality. The Lotus Sutra also says that the Buddha the one great causal condition for the appearance of Buddhas in the world is a desire to basically

[02:39]

help all beings open and see and awaken and enter into Buddha's wisdom. And when you hear about this desire to help beings open, see, awaken to and enter into Buddha's wisdom, that desire is what makes Buddha appear in the world, you might wonder, well, are Buddhas someplace besides in the world? And the answer is, yes, they are. Right now, innumerable Buddhas are with each of you, but there's not innumerable Buddhas appearing in this world. And each of you has innumerable relationships with innumerable

[03:45]

beings, but not all those relationships appear in the world. The world we live in is a very small version of our actual relationship with each other. Our actual relationship is not a world, or you could say it's Buddha's world, but it's not a world, it's not a confined world. Our actual relationship is all the Buddhas who are helping us, but they're not in the world. They're the actuality of our relationship with each other. But we also, together, can make worlds, and in those worlds we have these limited relationships, and we suffer and so on, and we can practice in the world of suffering. And we can see the Buddha in the world of suffering if we practice properly, and the Buddhas can also appear in the world, in a confined space, where we can see them. And then they teach

[04:47]

us how to see them even when they're not appearing. So right now we do not have the appearance of a Buddha in the world. We did some time ago. But we still can meet Buddhas through practicing in the world in a certain way. So Buddhas can appear within our story of the world that we share, and simultaneously Buddhas are with us in an unapparent way, a not manifested way. They're with us in the sense of our relationship with each other, the totality of our relationship with each other. That's the way the Buddhas are with us, and they're actually trying to teach us, but if we don't practice in a certain way, we're closed to the teaching which they're giving us. But if we're willing to live here

[05:48]

and practice properly, we're open to the teaching which is coming to us all the time. And so that's the story of the Lotus Sutra, which connects to the story that I didn't tell you this morning about the passport office. Are you ready for that story? So I'm in the passport office, and I'm not going to tell you the whole story of the passport office, I'm just going to tell you this part. This is the part where I've just gone through innumerable labors with a good spirit, and appreciating my comrades in the innumerable labors of getting a passport in San Francisco. A very good scene, a lot of people helping me, and now I've got to the place where I actually have a number, and if I wait for when

[06:52]

that number comes I get to actually go talk to somebody and they will actually give me my passport. I mean, they'll make arrangements for it, and then sometime later I'll be able to come and get it. And the number I got was 261, and I might have got it. And that number I got was right after Max dropped me off. Max was one of the people who helped me by giving me a ride from Green Gulch, after I drove from the passport office back to Green Gulch and then back to the passport office. Anyway, after I got my number this young woman said to me, do you have a number? And I said, yes. She said, what is it? I said, it's 261. She says, I have 183, I'll sell it to you for five dollars. And I said, okay, but let me

[07:55]

go back and ask if it's okay if I trade numbers with you. And it just so happened that there was a window there with nobody waiting in line, the window I'd just come from, and there was nobody there. It was a very strange situation, but there was nobody there. So I just went back to her and said, can I trade numbers with this person? And they said, yes. So I went and traded numbers, and then I went and sat down on the floor, because there were no chairs, and waited for my number to come up. I think it was like 1.30 at that time. This was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I'd been there since 7, except for the trips back to Green Gulch and so on, and to Walgreens and so on. And I'm reading a book about happiness, and this guy next to me says, that's a good book. I don't remember exactly the next part

[09:01]

of the story, but for some reason or other he tells me that he practices Zen. He's a resident of the San Francisco Zen Center for two years. And I said, oh wow, I've been a resident for 40. And he said, who are you? And I said, Rev. Anderson. He said, oh, I know you. Thank you for your teaching, I really appreciate your teaching. He didn't recognize me. So then he says to me, do you think Soto Zen has something to do with happiness? And I said, I think it's totally about happiness. So anyway, that was that. And I went to Europe

[10:07]

and I told people that story, because I went to Europe just a few days later, that's why I needed the passport. And I told the people in Europe, you know, I almost didn't come, because of this passport problem, and I told them the passport story about Soto Zen is totally about happiness. And somebody said, is Soto Zen also totally about sadness? And I said, totally. It's totally about sadness too. So it's not exactly that I'm wrong when I say Soto Zen is totally about happiness, or that I'm wrong when I say it's totally about sadness. But really what it's about, it's about being totally. It's about totality. Happiness is about totality, it's about being total. So we have to practice in such a way that we open to totality, or being total. And being total also means being totally limited in

[11:12]

this world, in this suffering, to be total about everything. Then we open to meeting the Buddha, and we open to the happiness of meeting the Buddha and understanding the Dharma. Do you have any questions or feedback at this time about this wonderful teaching of the Lotus Sutra? Do you have any questions about the totality of your life? Yes? Can you compare the idea of totality with the word that you used this morning in terms of a C? Oh yeah? Constitutive?

[12:14]

Yes. Can you compare those two? Are they the same? No, they're not really the same. That's why I think that's why the Lotus Sutra teaches that the Buddha, the Buddha that you see in the world is not the totality of the Buddha. It's the Buddha's totality, but totality transforms in such a way that people who do not recognize totality or who are close to totality can get some instruction. So totality allows itself to be, in some sense, defiled or corrupted into an appearance. Reality

[13:23]

is not an appearance, but reality includes all appearances. Reality is the way all the appearances work with things that do not appear. Not everything appears. All phenomena appear, but not everything is a phenomena. Some relationships are not manifested. Not all probabilities manifest. So reality is not just appearance, although all appearances are included in the totality of reality. So when there's an appearance like Jesus Christ appears in history, or Buddha appears in history as a person and behaves in a certain way, these are appearances. People

[14:28]

are seeing appearances. And when they take the appearance as the reality itself, that means they're mistaking a particularity with a totality. Usually when we see a particularity, we're seeing a representation, actually, even of the particularity. We're seeing an appearance of the particularity. So you people are particularities, but you're not appearances. But people look at you and they experience an appearance of you, but you're not an appearance. None of you are appearances. You're like living beings. You're not appearances. You're not appearances of living beings even. However, people can

[15:33]

make you into an appearance as part of the way they relate to you. But they also relate to you not through appearances. They relate to you in ways that aren't apparent. And most of the ways we relate are not apparent. But we also like to have appearances to relate to. That's part of the way we're built by all the other beings that we have many relationships with. But we usually take people as their appearance, but they're not. And the Buddhas appear in the world so you can see them and we take the Buddhas to be the appearance. But the Buddhas are saying to us, this is not correct. Do not take me as your appearance. I'm appearing to you so you can hear me say, do not believe that I'm an appearance. That's what the Lotus Sutra says in Chapter 16. I appear to you to help you. I come so you can see me come and I go so you can see me go. That's useful to you, but that's not what

[16:38]

I really am. I'm beyond my appearance and disappearance. I'm actually always here, but I'm not always here in a world. And you people are also not always here in a world, but in the world you come and go, and that's what we have to deal with. And it's difficult to deal with it, and so in order to see the truth you have to be willing to live in this difficult world of appearances and disappearances. You have to say, yes, I do want to live here with all my problems and also everybody else's problems, because that's where the Buddhas live. They don't just live in their own problems, they live in everybody's problems. So that's what's called practicing all virtues. And then learn how to deal with that in a really gentle way. But not just gentle and also lazy, but gentle and also loving. Gentle and present and honest and courageous and all that. Then you get to see the Buddha,

[17:44]

not just the appearance of the Buddha. And if the Buddha appears you say, great, love to see you, thanks for coming, what do you have to say, this is great. And then they go and you say bye bye. But you don't see them coming and going because you know how to practice with them. You know how to practice like they do. Does that make a lot of sense now? Yes? Could you distort the presentation that you gave this morning about a constitutive of representation, a representative, to think of it as expression or manifestation rather than representation? Because I have some conceptual difficulty around representation. I think it's just a different use of the word. So I wanted to hear that more as these figures of Buddha or expressions or manifestations. You could say a manifestation, that's fine, it's also fine, because it says, you know,

[18:49]

Buddhas manifest in the world or appear in the world, but also when we see it, we see a representation. But there's something there that's supporting us to make a representation. Without that we'd be at a loss to make a representation even. That something there is basically not constituted. In reality it's the working of all things. But, you know, like I say, it's hard for a bell to present to us the working of all things even though it's there. So a person comes and does a special thing, because we're persons, to give us a tip about the working of all things. And so they manifest in that way because there's this wish, there's

[19:56]

this wish that makes Buddhas appear in the world, where we can see them and make representations on them. They allow themselves to be made into appearances. But if we didn't need that they wouldn't do it. But we do need it, so they do. And then once they do, we can make representations or concepts about them. And that's totally part of where they're perfectly willing to work with that. And so we should be perfectly willing to work with that if we want to meet them. If we want to meet them, we have to sort of go where they hang out. And they hang out in the middle of all the problems of life. They're coming to do that, to make the people who've got problems have a chance to open to the wisdom. So there's something in the way things work that is willing to be corrupted so that people can understand

[21:02]

the way things work, which is a very positive way to look at reality, that reality somehow wants living beings to know it. We want to know it, but we have other projects in mind which make it hard for us to know it. But reality doesn't hold that against us, and it's giving us chance. It doesn't hold us against it. It pressures us and gives us opportunities. It makes us uncomfortable if we don't know it, and it gives us ways to know it. And if we don't pick up on the ways to know it, it keeps pressuring us to know it. So we're servants of reality, and reality is a servant of us in the sense that it is encouraging us to get to know it. And we are the ones, and we want to know it because we sense that it will

[22:04]

be happiness when we know it. And most people who seem to know it best are happy people, happy humans, happy whatevers. They don't have to be humans, they're happy beings. There's other forms of being that could know this. I'm confused on some of this information. Are the phenomena of the relationships that don't appear, which are not phenomena, are they the causes and conditions that are unseen that bring about the phenomena that we see in the world? They're not all the causes and conditions, because a lot of causes and conditions are

[23:08]

phenomena. But, for example, the future is not really a phenomena, you can't really experience it, and yet the present has a future, something about the future, but it's not really a phenomena. It isn't just a concept, no. It's something in addition to a concept. There's relationships in addition to concepts. Your past is a relationship that's in addition to the concept of the past, and your past is a condition for your present, or the past is a condition for the present. But some causes

[24:14]

and conditions are phenomena, and probabilities are not really manifested most of the time. Most probabilities of what's going on do not manifest, but those probabilities are conditions for what does happen. There's possible and probable worlds that do not appear, that do not allow themselves to be made into appearances. Things that don't happen, exactly. There's a reality which isn't about happening, which doesn't happen. Happening is, again, that's something that seems to depend on conception, happening. Arising and ceasing seems to depend on conception. But basically, the way we actually are is not something that arises and ceases

[25:21]

originally, basically. And our problem is in the realm of arising and ceasing. That's where our problems are. And if we're willing to live there, then we can practice there in the rising, we can practice in the realm where we suffer. But also, we're other people who have problems with the rising and ceasing, too, not just our own. Although our own is perfectly good place to work, we're just not open enough. And again, I was going to say it's not broad enough, but our own problems are really very broad, because they're connected to everybody else's problems. But if we're closed to other people's problems, we think our problems are unnecessarily confined by our thinking, our closeness.

[26:32]

When we see reality as it is, that's the place we'll live, we'll be. And that's where we should hang out, as well. The Buddhas live, hang out in the place where all the problems are, where everyone's problems are. Right. There's actually nothing in addition to everybody's problems. And you're suggesting that if we want to meet the Buddhas, even though we may not... Here's what I'm suggesting, in terms of what I just said. If we want to meet the Buddhas, we have to enter into the not being anything in addition to everybody's problems. Because

[27:43]

that's what the Buddhas are. Their Buddhas are just everybody's problems. It's all there. But all the people that have problems are not everybody's problems. They are just one or two people's problems, or ten people's problems. That's what the people who have problems have. And they think they're in addition to those one or two people's problems. They think they're in addition to their own problems. But the Buddhas don't think that they're in addition to our problems. The Buddhas don't think that way. The Buddhas are actually just all of our problems. But all of our problems are not just all of our problems, all of our problems are also supporting everybody else's problems. Your problems are supporting my problems, my problems are supporting your problems. The Buddhas are everybody's problems, their totality of everybody's problems, and nothing in addition. Not something on top of all that, sitting up on top of the totality of all beings' problems. They are just everybody's

[28:45]

problems. So we should enter into everybody's problems and then learn to not be anything in addition to them, because that's what Buddha is. Then we meet Buddha. Is that clearer? It's hard for it to be totally clear, but it's not that far away. Just learn to be nothing in addition to Oscar's problems and also nothing in addition to anybody's problems. You get to be here, you get to be here with us, that's as usual, even though usually you don't want to be here with us, or you're willing to be with some of us, but not all of us. You get to be with all of us and not be anything in addition to all of us, including not being anything in addition to you. But most people think there's something in addition to themselves and other people, and Buddha does not. So if you can live with everybody so that there's

[29:51]

nobody else, then that's Buddha. And then you'll see Buddha, and Buddha will be kind of smiling at you. Now you get it, right? That you're nothing in addition to me, and I'm not in addition to you, and we're not in addition to them, and they're not in addition to us. You get it? You're like, yeah, I get it. Okay. Now you're having fun, right? Because you get to see the Buddhas. Yes? Is unconditioned reality the reality beyond self? Is it personal? When you say unconditional, again, you've got to be careful when you say unconditional that you don't think that doesn't mean all the conditions that are possible. So any kind of conditions, conditional situation, unconditional reality could mean all the conditional situations, all of them together, plus all of them interrelating. That's unconditional, because there's no

[30:51]

way to condition that because it's got all the conditions in it. Is that what you mean by unconditional reality? It's not the reality that underlies appearances. The unseen reality. How about that? Is the unseen reality personal? Is it personal? The unseen reality personal? Well, some people say it's transpersonal, but transpersonal doesn't mean not personal, it just means all the persons are included, plus all the not persons are included. So persons include all humans, all animals, and any other kind of sentient being gets to be a person. So reality includes all the persons, but the totality of all persons isn't really a person, exactly, it's not really a person,

[31:54]

but it's sort of a person. So we call it a Buddha. One of the consolations of the D.S.G. Because you can put a face on it. It will allow you to put a face on it. You can put a persona on this totality of all persons. One of the consolations of the deistic religion is that you can have a personal relationship with God, as if there's somebody up there that can hear you and can feel sorry, that kind of a personal thing. And I had thought that you don't have that with the perspective of Buddhism, but maybe you do. That's what I'm kind of grasping at. Is there a way in which one can be personal with the transcendence of a reality that's not just appearances? Yeah, because you're a person, so you get to be personal. You always get to be personal. You can keep doing that, as long as we support you to do that. And when we don't support you anymore, you don't get to be anymore. But for a while we let you be a person, and

[32:58]

so this person can have a relationship with the totality of all beings. That's the Buddha. This person can relate to Buddha. And if you relate to Buddha in a certain way, pretty soon there's just one Buddha. There's not person plus Buddha, but you still get to be a person practicing in such a way that there's one Buddha. Person revering Buddha, there's just one Buddha. So it's personal from your side. From the other side, it's all persons. So one person can relate to all persons, and then one person kind of disappears, and then there's just all persons, which is called one Buddha. So you can keep being personal, no problem, Buddha's not going to take that away from you, it's just going to take away you being in addition to everybody else. That gets taken away. Or you get relieved of that. We say without moving a particle of your personhood, you get relief from that. And then you open

[34:07]

to this wonderful working among us, which is basically trying to perform the same service as what you call deistic or theistic religions. They're trying to help people be happy and free and realize the truth. So truth uses all these different religions as ways to help people realize the truth, get to know, getting to know the truth. The truth is trying to help us get to know it, and we want to. So it's basically, we're on the same team as truth, or sometimes we say we're on the side of the law, but we have some training to do so we stay with it moment by moment. So there's just the law, and just the Buddha, just one Buddha and one law, one Dharma. We have to practice with it in order to realize

[35:13]

that. Of course it's already that way, but we have to practice to realize that. And the person gets to do that. So, you know, Dogen says, to study the Buddha way is to study the person. Yes, Max? I was talking to Manuel about Christ Consciousness, and he said it was similar to that, sort of that there is emerging but you still, he used the word multiplicity, you still retain, you see non-duality but you also see multiplicity, is what he said. Is that the same thing you're saying right now? What I've heard you say is kind of like, it's almost like you disappear, but he says that that doesn't really happen in Christ Consciousness. I'm not saying you disappear, I'm just saying you're not in addition to the world anymore.

[36:14]

It's not the world plus you. So you don't really disappear, you're still here, it's just that you're no longer separate from what you always were connected to anyway. You're no longer separate from your causal support. Either you don't see it or you do see it, but if you do see it, you don't believe it. It's the believing it that's really the source of our misery and fear. Yeah, that we're in addition to the universe. That we're something on top of our causal relationship with all things. So it isn't that we don't see it, we don't believe it. So anyway, if we saw it again, then we wouldn't believe it. So just not seeing it isn't all that good because then what if somebody shows

[37:17]

it to you again? Then you go for it and you're back in the USSR. Wait, what? I missed that point. If you didn't see anymore the separation, that's fine, but then what are you going to do when you do see it? Are you going to believe it again? So it's better to still be seeing it and see that actually it's an illusion and understand why. Then people can show you that and we'll be able to keep you down on the farm after you've seen the self. So not seeing the self is what some people think, that's really where it's at, but it's really like when you see it, you don't tense up. Okay, we're taking you to the guillotine. Wow, this is going to be a trip. Oh, we changed

[38:24]

our mind, we're not going to take you, we're going to take Sha Ho. You don't tense up or loosen up around that kind of stuff. But we have to train ourselves to not tense up and loosen up around who's getting their head cut off. So you don't tense up. You practice with all this stuff and try to be very, very gentle and upright with it. Then you start opening up to who's doing what is not that big a deal because we're all in this together. It's not that big a deal. And that's where Buddha is at, right? I thank you all for coming on such short notice to this little sitting today. Sorry we couldn't have one on August 11th, but that's just not allowed.

[39:27]

And so we'll have another one on September 9th, so I hope you can come. Nice to have Carlos here. He practiced at Zen Center a long time ago and he's still here. It's very nice. May our intention equate.

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