Is it on? It's okay. I'm just stumbling around anyway. So suddenly, gradually, or simply, he says, some people are slower and some people are more quick, that's all. It's not like one aspect is better than the other. As a matter of fact, within gradual enlightenment is sudden enlightenment. You can say, what does sudden mean? What is a moment? The snap of the fingers, but the snap of the fingers can take a lifetime. And what looks like something very slow can be a moment. So sometimes we talk about sudden enlightenment and gradual practice, or gradual practice and sudden enlightenment, or practice and enlightenment are not different.

[01:18]

That's our actual path. Practice and enlightenment are not different. Enlightenment brings us to practice, and practice stimulates enlightenment. Sudden enlightenment and gradual practice has that feeling of, okay, now you're enlightened, big deal. practice, just practice. Suzuki Roshi used to say, enlightenment isn't so difficult to attain. We always have this idea that enlightenment is really difficult to attain. Enlightenment is not difficult to attain. What's difficult is continuous practice. Don't worry about your enlightenment, whether it's going to be sudden or gradual or whatever.

[02:21]

As a matter of fact, if you worry about it at all, it's a problem. The more you try to go after it, the further away it goes. So our idea, actually, is what hinders us. Just drop the idea and practice. Enjoy practice. If you don't enjoy practice, Enlightenment is impossible. We don't practice for enlightenment. We practice to enjoy practice, to enjoy our life. And at some point we realize, oh, I see. We can hardly classify realization of a dharma into sudden and gradual. Some will attain enlightenment more quickly than others.

[03:24]

Some will have realization more quickly than others. This way of realizing the essence of mind is beyond the comprehension of the ignorant. This is the word ignorant. Ignorant here means difficult to comprehend. or maybe we ignore something that we shouldn't ignore. We may explain it in 10,000 ways, but all those explanations may be traced back to one principle. That sounds a little difficult, may be traced back to one. All those explanations, no matter how much you explain it, they're simply just the one thing. that our real existence is Dharmakaya, the whole universe, beyond our conceptualization. As much as we conceptualize and talk and explain, it's only pointing to something which can't be explained.

[04:36]

But all those explanations may be traced back to just the one principle. So what is this one principle? In order to illuminate the dark dwelling place of the afflictions, we should constantly set up the light of wisdom. Afflictions are mental hindrances, mental hindrances. We live in this realm of afflictions. We may feel sometimes life is going well, but nothing is certain. And we get caught by our karmic activity.

[05:40]

These are all afflictions. We get caught up in love and hate and all these opposites, which are constantly confusing us. So constantly set up the light of wisdom, which is prajna. which is to free ourselves from attachments. We know it says attachments are the dwelling place of afflictions. Now if we, he talks about mindlessness as being one of the basic elements of practice.

[06:57]

Usually in Buddhism we talk about mindfulness. He talks about mindlessness. Mindlessness means that there's no place that in mindlessness, there's no place that our mind sticks, that there's only movement. But we tend to get stuck on these moments of movement and stay in certain places and obstruct the flow of the mind, which is always in motion. when we can not stop the flow of the motion of the mind, but when we're not hindered by the motion of the mind.

[07:59]

Some people, sometimes... people think that meditation is stopping the mind, making the mind blank. But that's simply, it's not really possible to do that. But even if you stop the mind from working for a few moments before you know it, you're already in a dream. So it's good to try to do that, try to stop your mind from moving. While you're trying to stop your mind from moving, the dream is already appearing, and you're already in it. So, allowing your mind to flow without getting hung up. You know, it's like mind, as we say, is deep.

[09:05]

Down at the bottom of the mind, there's no movement. Everything is completely still. on top of the water, there's all this turbulence. This is the nature of the model of our mind. And when we are sitting in zazen, we allow the mind to settle down to this place where there's very little movement, but still, on top, it's all flowing. So this flowing is the nature of thinking, and it just continues without our having to do anything about it. Just the nature of the mind to produce thoughts. And we think they're very interesting. And this interest is where we get hung up. If we can just allow the mind to flow, but dwell down in the depths of our mind, which is very still, we don't have to eliminate thinking.

[10:25]

in order to be peaceful, because no matter how much activity there is, both emotional and in thinking, our mind is completely still at the same time. Usually, we're just on the top. We operate on the top, the turbulence, and we don't access the depths of our calm mind. when we access the depth of our calm mind, they're not two things, calm mind and turbulent mind. There's always stillness within all of the activity. This is... Not looking at it. Access means to bind it, to allow yourself to go down to the bottom of your mind, which is endless, boundless mind, not like something in a tank, not like water in a tank.

[11:36]

It's like boundless mind that has no restrictions and includes this stuff on the top. It's always... And we become very engaged with the turbulence on the top, which is important. That's why we don't try to eliminate it. It's important to live our life in the turbulence, but with calmness in mind. No, that's a different breath. You know, Breath, blood, mucus, pus, fingers, they're not yours. This is all big mind.

[12:42]

This is the Dharmakaya's activity. It's not my activity. This thinking stuff that we get involved in, that's my activity. But when we access or when we let go, and access our big mind, which is boundless, that's the most vital activity. Breath just goes. We don't have anything to do with breathing. We don't have anything to do with blood flowing through our veins. We have very little to do with, we can control this body, but it's not my body. It's not my breath, it's not my blood, it's just universal activity. And we understand this is just universal activity, just the activity of the dharmakaya expressing itself in these various ways.

[13:48]

All this electricity is not my electricity. So when we let go of self, then we realize Dhammakaya. We realize that it's not my little self, it's my big self. So this is what he means, I think. Big self manifests when small self is included, but not in a deluded way. So our small self is just another expression of the universe. So this is the realization, realization that this existence is simply not me.

[14:51]

It's bigger than me. And we're all, you know, compassion means to realize that everything in the universe is myself, but not me. This is my true body. My true body and mind is the universal body, universal mind. This is just a manifestation, so how do we deal with that? How do we, I would say, because I feel that there's a me that's independent of that, which is not, I have to cooperate with my, my small self has to cooperate with my big self. This is why, you know, sometimes I talk, I got this from Suzuki Goshi, we're half Buddha, half ordinary, right?

[15:58]

Ordinary means ego. Buddha means universal. So when we practice, my ego self and my Buddha self are one. Therefore, practice my universal self, my ego self, and my Buddha self come together, and this is practice and this is enlightenment. So we give ourself over to our bigger self. That's what practice is. Practice means giving our small self over to our big self. You lay your ego down at the altar of Buddha and say, use me. So you give yourself away. This is what the meaning of practice, how you give yourself away, called generosity, which is the first of the six, what are they called?

[17:11]

The first of the six paramitas is generosity, giving yourself away, basically, until you have nothing left. And when you have nothing left, you have everything. Did you want to say something, Ron? Is that what you meant? The practice, it helps to calm your mind while you're doing zazen. And it focuses you on the universal activity, which is not yours. I mean, it is yours, but it's not you. Breath is independent of you. And it's the combination, it's the meeting of so-called inside and outside.

[18:25]

But there is no, inside and outside are just comparative. But in that sense, in the comparative sense, it's the connection between inside and outside. So you breathe in the whole universe, actually. and breathe out the whole universe. So as Suzuki Roshi says, it's just a swinging door. I'll tell you something about a sliding door. We have a sliding door in between our kitchen and the hallway. When the alarm goes off, the smoke alarm goes off, we close that sliding door. And then when it goes off, my dog grabs hold of it with his teeth and tries to close that sliding door.

[19:29]

Anyway, that's breathing, yes? Well, of course, yes. So, we are being breathed. We do? I guess I'm not completely clear. It seems like you're saying that self-centered thinking is natural. You're saying the small self, so when we're saying it's natural for the small self No, no, I'm saying that thoughts continue to manifest.

[20:38]

Thoughts continue to manifest, but they're not, we don't, the ego doesn't grab them, doesn't attach to them, as it usually does when we think. So when the thoughts come, we just allow them to come and then allow them to go. You're not trying to put yourself in a place where things don't come and go. You're not retreating. You're simply allowing everything to be as it is. But you're not grasping anything. You're not attaching to anything. And you're not... discriminating between what's good and bad and right and wrong. That's all.

[21:47]

Yes, it is. That's right. It's our nature. It's our nature to do that. Well, delusion is what we manifest in our ignorance. The dharmakaya doesn't induce that. So, this is, you know, the problem is our suffering or our unsatisfactoriness is produced by our not understanding that even though grasping and attaching is human nature, it's what causes our suffering and our delusions, and keeps us from actually realizing our true nature.

[22:57]

That's the whole thing about Buddhism, is how we cause our own suffering and how we cause our own delusions and get caught and trapped in our attachment to things. But attachment is natural, right? So how do you find your freedom within attachment? How do you find non-attachment within attachment? This is our great koan. All I'm saying is if you're able to sit for a good 30 days and continually let go, let go, let go, not suppressed, not cling, Well, you know, your whole life is a lifetime session, from here on is a lifetime session.

[24:28]

Just think of it that way. Just totally accept everything that's in front of you without attachment. He says, erroneous views keep us in defilement, while right views remove us from it. So erroneous views, you know, are like there's a self, we think there's a self when there is actually no self. We think that things are permanent when they're actually not permanent. We think that the things that cause us pleasure We don't realize that the things that cause us pleasure are actually causing us often, causing us suffering.

[25:40]

We think that we don't realize these four realizations. We think that what is bondage is actually freedom. we set up a bondage all the time and call it freedom. You know, whatever we have also has us. Whatever we engage in and take up also takes us up. So it's kind of a co-creation. If I'm talking to somebody on the telephone, the person that I'm talking to also has me. I may call up that person, but that person also has me. Sometimes someone will call on the telephone that you don't want to talk to.

[26:43]

Yes, yes, how am I going to get away? So everything that we take up has a connection. So, but we are always thinking from the point of view of ourself. So, many things we get caught by and we, even though they give us pleasure, they also bind us because we want to just keep doing them over and over. And then that's called captivation. So, we become enslaved to our television, to our automobiles, to our money, to our, you know, we don't realize until something goes awry that that's the case. And so, you know, we've been floating on this economy for a long time, thinking, you know, I can get this, I can get that, I can get this, I can buy a house.

[27:56]

And then, boom, the bottom is out, and we realize we're hanging by all this stuff that we've invested in. We've tied ourselves up. And then we can't, you know, how many people actually feel, okay, the economy is no good, you know, everything's going downhill. How many people actually feel, I'm not really affected by that? Not so many. some more than others. Anyway, we get caught by our attachments. And, you know, it's important to have some safety and some security and so forth, but actually there's no such thing. there really is no such thing as security.

[29:02]

There's some secure places that we find ourselves, you know. We jump to this rock, you know, that rock, and we say, ah, I'm safe now. But actually, we're not. In the end, where do you find it? So anyway, this is what, you know, like the deeper things, deeper stuff, that I'm sorry that I can't go all the way through this. Not enough time. One question. Yeah. Well, realizing that nothing is secure. And the less outer security we have, the more inner security we have to find. That's actually practice. The more outer security that we can let go of, the more inner security we have to find.

[30:09]

And so this leads us to realization. The less we rely on outer securities, the more we have to rely on inner securities. And in the end, what's that? Linda? When you were talking about suffering, the way our mind speaks to things, I thought of a picture I saw in the New York Times recently of a picture of a child who was in love with He's being led away by the hornet. The hornet's in the hand of the other person. The captain said this four-year-old child is leaving this place where they just... If there were only selfless people, then everybody would be working for the benefit of everybody else.

[31:49]

But because there is so much selfishness in the world, that child has to suffer like that. the results of the selfishness of the rest of the world. So that's the victim of our selfishness, because it's possible for the world to take care of itself, for everybody in the world to take care of each other. That's possible, but it doesn't happen because of our selfishness. Well, let me say something. The little child is not the victim of their own karma. You know, there's this idea that karma is ours, you know, the result of our actions and can only be, we receive the result of our own actions.

[33:02]

But actually, we receive the results of the world's karma as well. And it's not through our own actions, but it's because we're all connected. We're all connected. And so the karma that I create can also affect someone else. because we're all one person, even though we're individuals. Yeah, you get that? We can't talk anymore because we have to do this, we have to continue on our schedule. which the next thing is, Buddha's enlightenment ceremony, which will be explained by tomorrow when I leave.

[34:12]

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