Good morning, everyone. Welcome. I want to speak this morning about a specific practice, a specific part of Zen practice. It's the paramita or transcendent practice of kshanti, or patience. So a number of you have heard me speak about this numbers of times before, this practice of patience. But I feel more and more like it's the heart of our practice. And so this is one of a series of what's called in Sanskrit paramitas, or transcendent practices, practices for carrying beings, including ourselves, to liberation. There are many different systems of, many descriptions of practice.

[01:02]

This is part of the Bodhisattva way, the way of enlightening beings, which Zen is a part of. So the Bodhisattva, for the college students here, the Bodhisattva way is the practice of all of North Asian Buddhism, Tibet, China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan. and Zen is part of that. So there are many different descriptions of sets of practices. I spoke recently about the four guiding methods for bodhisattvas. There are precepts, and anyway, many different, the Eightfold Path, there are many different descriptions on lists of particular intentional practices to do. These transcendent practices are part of, there's one list of six and one list of 10. Anyway, patience is third on that list, and really is, as I say, the heart of our practice.

[02:08]

So the Bodhisattva practice is about fundamentally relieving suffering. and promoting universal liberation and awakening. That's what we're doing here. There are many other aspects of Zen literature and Zen teaching stories and so forth, but basically this practice is about relieving suffering and awakening all beings. This is not a practice about reaching some particular higher state of being or altered state of mind. This is not about getting high. It's about actually being present in our life as it is, awakening to the Buddha nature, the fundamental wisdom and compassion that is part of reality and part of each of our lives already.

[03:08]

So how do we help relieve all of the suffering beings in the world. That's the scope of this practice. How do we help relieve just all the suffering beings who you come in contact with week to week? Friends, family, co-workers, neighbors. How do you relieve the suffering of all the beings on your cushion right now? So, a number of you sat Zazen meditation for the first time this morning, and you may have noticed many thoughts, many feelings, many parts of the person, the body and mind, actually sitting on your cushion here now. So this practice of patience, again, is a key practice, an intentional practice.

[04:12]

It's something we actually can intend to do in our life, in our sitting, in our awareness. And patience is, well, fundamentally maybe it's just about waiting. So our sitting practice is a practice of sitting, waiting for the bell to ring, waiting for the time when we get up and do walking meditation, and then the next thing after that. But this is an actual intentional practice. This is not passive. So patience and waiting we think of, it often sounds like something we do that's kind of passive, but actually as a paramita, as a transcendent practice, patience is very active and dynamic practice. So this is what I want to talk about this morning. How do we take on the intentional practice of patience in our life, in an active, dynamic way.

[05:16]

So in our sitting practice, we sit upright, facing the wall, facing ourselves, enjoying our breathing, and paying attention. to thoughts and feelings as they arise, and watching them and letting them go, and just feeling what it feels like to be this body and mind, beyond our ideas of who we are and what the world is. What is it like to actually be present and upright and relaxed, but attentive and aware? So our sitting practice itself is the model for the practice of patience. How do we pay attention? at the same time that we relax and settle into our inner dignity, our inner uprightness. We emphasize posture because it presents a kind of model for an attitude that is something we carry into our everyday activities.

[06:28]

So we emphasize in Zen meditation, but also the way in which that awareness develops and interacts with all of our creative activities during the week. This is a creative practice for developing and experiencing this body, this mind, and the way in which we are creating our experience and how we do that. So, as we sit, the idea is to relax, to one of our chances to let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. But still, we sit with our eyes open, partly that's to not fall asleep, but also the same way we sit with our ears open. We're aware and attentive of the sounds around us and the color of the wall in front of us, without focusing on any particular point on the wall or the floor, but just to be open to

[07:30]

everything in the world, including the suffering of the world, including the suffering of our own body and mind, and also the awareness and awakeness of our own body and mind that may be there without our realizing it. There is always something we're paying attention to. We may feel very distracted or we may feel very groggy or there may be thoughts floating around very quickly, but always this body and mind, even when we're sleeping, there's some quality of awareness of warmth or cold, of comfort as we sleep, dreams maybe. So this practice of upright sitting is to develop this, help develop this possibility of patience. And we talk about these practices as a way of encouraging awareness of what all of the commentaries on practice in Buddhism and the libraries full of teachings and psychology and philosophical teachings of Buddhism are all just commentaries on silence and upright sitting.

[08:37]

So in the attitude and posture of being watchful and attentive, of paying attention and relaxed and settling into actually this body and mind, as opposed to our ideas of it, we're not limited by our ideas of it, we can learn to be ready and willing to respond. Again, it's not passive. It's about being settled enough and present enough and patient enough so when there is some way in which we can respond to some situation that we need to respond to among our friends, in the world around us, that we can do that. Our usual way of relating to what's going on around us is to react in kind of habitual ways. We have habitual patterns of reacting. If we stop and settle and are patient, we have more and more the possibility, the capacity, the tolerance to respond from a place that's more settled.

[09:51]

So this word patience, kshanti in the Indian Sanskrit language, could also be translated as tolerance. to tolerate the discomfort in my knee or some ache in my heart or some confusion about something I have, something that somebody said yesterday or some situation in my life, to tolerate, to have a wider, another word, another translation would be capacity. We develop our capacity to be present and aware and insightful and kind through this active practice of patience Another way, it's sometimes translated as forbearance. So it's easy to be patient when everything's going well. Patience is the practice for when there is something that we can't do. need to bear some difficulty. So it may be just, you know, when you first start sitting, some discomfort in your knees or in your back.

[10:53]

And our usual practice is to try and sit still. You know, if you really, if there's some real pain, then please quietly change your posture. But to actually sit still, so people who sit have the experience of some itch, you know, You know, our reactive pattern is to just scratch. That's what we usually do. But if you don't do that, if you just sit and are patient and watch, at some point you might notice the itch is gone. Without you doing anything. This is one example, but patience is to be present and to develop the capacity to be ready and willing to respond to the suffering of the world or your own life when there's some way to do that. So often there's nothing to be done. And even if you think there is, part of the practice of patience is to stop and wait and not just react based on, you know, your usual patterns of, you know, our usual way of being in the world as human beings is to try and manipulate things to get what we want.

[12:06]

This is how human beings operate. We try and arrange things, we try and fix things. or we may try and manipulate ourselves to be whatever we think we need to be, to get more of what we want, to get rid of the things we don't want. So that's another part of how we are usually impatient. Again, it's not that we just passively accept everything that's happening, it's how do we respond from a place that's more subtle, from a place that has this wider tolerance and capacity. How do we become ready and willing to actually be helpful to the beings around us, to ourselves, to be responsive, to take responsibility? We do have the ability to respond. So one way to talk about these transcendent practices is to talk about the relationship to other practices.

[13:13]

Amongst the other, there's one list, as I said, of six, one list of ten. Just a few I'll mention that are, again, similarly intentional practices one can actually take on in one's life and in one's sitting. And to say a little bit about how they're related to the practice of patience. So on the list, well, the list of ten, just to say it, is generosity, ethical conduct, then third is patience, then fourth is effort or enthusiasm, which I'll come back to, then meditation, Samadhi, settling, what we're doing here. And then Prajnaparamita, the sixth is wisdom or insight, seeing into what's important, so I'm going to come back to that too. Another one is the practice of skillful means, and then the practice of vow or commitment, and the practice of powers, using your abilities, and the practice of knowledge, which is different from wisdom. Anyway, there will not be a test.

[14:17]

But to go back to the one right after patience, the practice of effort in Sanskrit, virya, has to do with energy, enthusiasm. How do we make effort in our life? So this is very related to the practice of patience. Virya is the same root as virility, so we might think of effort and energy as masculine and macho and stuff. But actually, both patience and, we may think of patience as more passive or gentle, both of them have both sides, though. So patience, paying attention, being willing to just sit and look at, and pay attention to our life, pay attention to what's going on in front of us, His patience is very related to how do we generate, maintain, and sustain some effort. So in Taoism, which influenced Zen a lot, they talk about effortless effort.

[15:20]

or non-action, but there is still this quality of energy or enthusiasm. Part of our meditation practice is that it's a yogic practice. There is actually a kind of energy and energetics, physical energetics, about this meditation. And again, this we can carry into our daily life and our efforts to be patient, to be watchful, to not react based on our habits. Part of that is to study those habits, to see how we are impatient. So effort, enthusiasm, energy supports our patience. Just to mention a couple of the other practices, ethical conduct, and we have a list of Bodhisattva precepts that some people take formally, but that is, are the natural expressions of awakened mind, of awakening energy, of this zazen mind. And they mostly relate to the idea of not harming or benefiting beings.

[16:28]

They have various forms, not intoxicating body and mind, not running away from our awareness, not harming or killing but supporting life, not misusing sexuality, not lying, not taking what's not given but supporting generosity. All of these ethical conducts, again, are supported by patience. The more we are willing to be present and watch, and this practice helps develop that, our capacity to be present and watchful, we can act in ways that are helpful rather than harmful. Another one of these practices is skillful means, which very much is supported by patience. So skillful means isn't like an instruction manual on how to be helpful in the world. It's about paying attention again and responding with whatever's at hand to help, to try out things, to try and be helpful in whatever situation we're in.

[17:36]

So our development of an unfolding of the intentional practice of patience, being willing to just show up and be present in this body and mind, to breathe and keep our eyes open, even when we shut our eyes, how do we keep aware? How do we pay attention to the thoughts and feelings? When we do that, we can respond more skillfully. And as we try to respond more skillfully, that helps us help support our patients as well. We see what works and what doesn't work. And each situation, part of skillful means is recognizing the differences in each situation. So that requires patience. So I'll come back to the relationship to wisdom or prajna towards the end, but there's a process to the practice of patience. Again, we watch, and we breathe, and we relax as we can, and we show up, again, pay attention, and see our habits of trying to fix things, trying to push things around, trying to push ourselves around, trying to protect us from all the stuff out there.

[19:02]

And mostly we watch our impatience, So part of the practice of patience is to notice when we're impatient, when we want to jump up and run away from some situation, when we want to not pay attention to our own thoughts and feelings, when we want to run away from ourselves. Or some situations that are just too painful and difficult, and sometimes The patient practice then is to withdraw from that situation. Sometimes we're not ready to respond to some situation, and that's okay. We can see that. But the practice of patience, the intentional practice of patience, we learn to be able to respond. We see the ways in which we are impatient. We learn our habits of reacting. So part of patience is to become really intimate with yourself. and your own patterns of reacting. And the more we do that, the more we don't need to be caught by them.

[20:11]

The more we have the capacity to just pay attention and watch and respond from a more settled place. So this practice of patience is about watching. and breathing and relaxing and settling and stand. Again, it's easy to do this and part of the idea of a meditation hall like this is a place where you can come and basically just be there and see what it is like to be present in this body and mind. We sit and face the wall and eventually the bell rings and we get up and do walking meditation or whatever the next thing is. But in our life, of course, we tend to, these days, to be very busy, there's lots going on. How do we find our patients in that situation? When we see the problems in our own life, when we see problems of friends or family or co-workers, rather than reacting and trying to jump in and fix things, if, from this practice of patience, we have the possibility of

[21:27]

seeing what's going on more deeply and then responding in ways that might be helpful and it may not help. And then we watch that and see how that works. And we become intimate with the process of what's going on. The same with the problems of the world. What do we do to take care of our environment around us here in Chicago or in our country? And so the horrible, horrible catastrophe that's happening in the Gulf now with the oil spewing, what to do? Nobody knows. And some people want President Obama to get all upset and scream. I appreciate his practice of patience. Of course, there are things that can be done and need to be done, and we need to start holding big corporations, energy corporations, and others accountable.

[22:35]

But how do we actually take care of such a situation? And of course, the many other situations in our world that we may feel moved to respond to. One point is that there's not one right response. Each of us Each person here has our own way of responding to the difficulties of the world. So if you think you have a response that's helpful, that's great, but if then you say, oh, everybody else has to respond in that way, that's being impatient, and that's being manipulative, and that doesn't really help. So I'm, as a social activist myself, I've been paying attention to what's going on in the Gulf and how terrible it is, and we have a, I'll mention later, a talk Thursday night about how British Petroleum is spewing into Lake Michigan with waste products from their tar sands project, as well as the problems in the Gulf.

[23:39]

So part of, in any situation, part of patience, the practice of patience is Education, information, paying attention so we learn more about what's going on. So some problem with a friend who's doing something, same way, some problem with a friend who's doing something that's harmful to themselves or others, we can go in and start yelling at them and telling them what they're doing. It's easy to criticize and make judgments, but actually to make a helpful change, we may have to just stop and watch and see why they're doing this. and see what their pain and fear is and see how to respond to that from a sympathetic way, in a way that they might hear and might change their ways of acting that are harmful. So I want to have some discussion about this and the actual practice of patience. How do we actually take care of being ready and willing to respond when there is something to do?

[24:40]

to help the people around us, to help the people on your cushion right now, to help the world. How do we learn to just stop and breathe and enjoy the fact that we are here and we have this possibility of responding? So one model of patience, one of my mentors, Joanna Macy, talks about how this was well before the oil spewing into the Gulf, how this is such a difficult time that we're very fortunate to be living now, to be doing this kind of practice now, to have the possibility of paying attention to the world and to our life. Because in a difficult time, everything we do can make a big difference. how we support awareness and consciousness in ourselves and our family and our friends and the people around us.

[25:43]

Not by trying to fix them or change them or tell them what to do, but just in terms of studying our own practice of patience can make a big difference now. So part of patience is realizing that we can't get a hold of some easy solution. Sometimes we can see clearly. When we get angry at something, one of the ways of transforming anger is to see how that energy can be used to see into what's going on to cut through and maybe we can actually find some response that's helpful. But mostly it's a matter of just watching and being patient and seeing that even if we have some solution to some situation today, it may change tomorrow. Everything is changing. We can't get a hold of things. So the fundamental patience in this Bodhisattva teaching is called, and I like saying it in Sanskrit, so please indulge me, be patient with my doing that, it's called Anuttapadika Dharmakshanti, and it means patience with the ungraspability of things, that reality can't be fixed easily by our ideas, that things that

[27:09]

any situation we might look at is incomprehensible and conceivable beyond our ability to fix easily or readily. And this anapadika dharmakshanti is considered the equivalent of great prajna or wisdom. So the prajnaparamita We were talking about the heart sutra recently. The perfection of wisdom is this patience with the fact that things can't be gotten a hold of. That reality is slippery. Reality is changing. All of us are changing. We may think we know who we are, but the practice of patience is also to see that you have a wider capacity. to see that there are other possibilities for how you respond and react to the world.

[28:13]

Just to be present and patient with this reality that things can't be fixed easily, necessarily, is itself prajna and is considered itself all of Buddha's enlightenment. Enlightenment is just to be patient with this reality of the ungraspability of things. So if you need an easy definition for your school project, there you go. The patience with the ungraspability of things. Or we could say the inconceivability of things. We can't get our heads around the complexity of not just how to stop the oil spewing out of the ocean bottom, but then what to do about the incredible damage that's already being done to, just to use that example, to fish and birds and the whole ecosystem, and not just limited to the Gulf states, as tragic as it is for those folks.

[29:25]

It will affect all of us. Everything is like that. We don't know how to fix things. So at the end of this talk, we're going to chant the four inconceivable vows. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them all. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. What does it mean to free all living beings? I guess this would take quite a deal of patience. And when people ask about that, I sometimes say, well, what about if you just were going to free a small, limited number of people, just the people you work with or study with during the week? It may seem just as inconceivable. So this practice of patience is about being present and watching, and yet our effort to respond from that place of patience makes a difference, makes a huge difference.

[30:40]

And as we try to respond from there, we learn more about how we're maybe reacting in some way that may not be helpful, or trial and error. We learn more about how to respond. So this whole practice of patience is very practical. And again, as I hope you see from what I've said, it's not passive. It's about, again, being ready and willing to be helpful, to respond in whatever realm you want to take responsibility for. So I could keep babbling up here, but I think I'll stop and ask if anyone has any comments, questions, responses, please feel free. Ken. Years ago, I was in a situation where I worked in a hardware store and I was stuck in a job

[31:43]

under-employed and everything. There's a lot of that going around these days. So I was not happy with that situation. I was sort of in forced patience in dealing with it, just because I needed the money and everything. And what I did was, I had some acquaintance of Buddhism practice at the time. Something that made me feel better was that I dedicated the money that I wasn't making to the people who needed it. And it was just kind of, so I was in a position of actually dedicating something that didn't exist, that I didn't have, to everybody else who might need it more than I did. And it made me feel better, and so I kind of sort of evolved out of that particular place where I was. And then years later, in fact, recently, the last couple of years, I came across this Tibetan book, a Buddhist book by a Lama. And it was something, it had a title in the sense of how to achieve happiness, no problem in your life, something like that.

[32:55]

And the gist of the book was, and I can't remember the Lama's name, but the gist of the book was that everything we experienced, everything we're stuck feeling patient with, And I said, holy cow, that solves all my problems. If I have tooth decay, or if I have cancer, or whatever it is, I just dedicate it to everybody else. You know, we're not so much suffering on their behalf, but empathizing, I guess, with people who actually have those issues. So that's something that came up for me in terms of this idea of patience. Yeah. Thank you, Ken. That's a wonderful, wonderful practice. So part of this is, you know, that our awareness and our mind does change reality. Even our thoughts as well as our speech and conduct changes reality. So to have this intention of caring for all beings, of dedicating the money we don't have to all beings, that's a wonderful example because it's not about just doing good works or fixing things, it's about this intention.

[34:05]

So patience has a lot to do with intention. Our whole practice has to do with the intention to show up, the intention to pay attention. Yeah, thank you very much. That's a wonderful example. Other comments, responses, questions, if any of the students have just basic questions about meditation or Buddhism, feel free also. There are no stupid questions on set. It's impossible. Yes, Nathan? Well, what Ken said is making me think of when your teacher, Rev. Anderson, was here, and he said that bodhisattvas do everything for the welfare of all beings, so that even if you're in a restaurant or a store spending money, you can spend that money with the intention of benefiting all beings, and it's a kind of practice to practice having that intention. Yeah. So the Four Inconceivable Vows are about then that background intention that then can inform the particular things we do in a way that then expresses some positive energy.

[35:14]

And that positive energy does have an effect on the world. Everything we do has an effect. We can't always see it. And we may see how much of a mess the world is, but there are many, many people who are putting out positive intention, and it makes a difference, and we don't know yet how. Laurel. So someone who's ill and being treated is called a patient? Yes. And recently, I had an experience with a family member who was very, very ill and kept in the hospital for more than a month. It was so powerful to think about his submission of not having the ability to get out of that situation.

[36:16]

He didn't have to have forbearance. He didn't have a choice about it. But it helped me think about So if you're sitting in your knee hurts, or you decide to sit there, or you decide to get up. But if you're lying in a hospital bed, and you can't get up, you can think about getting up. But you have the ability to get up. But it develops. I think it developed for all of us in that situation. The caretakers, the family, the community, family, we all got more patient. Yes. You know, he was a patient. It pushed us leaning past what we would be able to do if we weren't in that situation that we had no choice over. That was a good outcome for the bed. It's a bad thing if you're sick, but it wasn't entirely bad.

[37:18]

It was good for all of us. Yeah, so being a patient is an enforced opportunity to study and learn patients. And at least a few of you in the room are professional healers in various ways, and so your patients help teach you about patients, about how to be more patient, because, you know, even if you are very skillful and are doing things that can help them, It takes time, and some things don't work, even if they might seem like the best and right things to do. So, yeah, thank you for that other aspect of what a patient is. When I was living in Japan and got sick, I called one of the Zen teachers.

[38:20]

been working with and told him about it and that I had this illness and couldn't do what I was usually doing. He said, oh good, that's Buddha's rest. And then I told him, and I'm going to have to go into the hospital for a month. And he said, oh, that's Buddha's vacation. Other comments or responses or questions, please feel free. Yes, Kathy. Well, tailgating on that a little bit, I'm dealing with that too right now. And it's that same process has happened with me. My mother's very ill. And so I find myself slowing down to be patient with this. But occasionally there's this moment of, you know, like yesterday I was cleaning a lot, talking to her on the phone, describing it, and she said, enjoy it while you can.

[39:30]

And I was thinking, my immediate response was, I don't enjoy cleaning. And then my next response was, oh yeah, I'm lucky to be able to be cleaning, you know? And so I think that, for me, that rings true, too, that there's something about when you realize the fragility of life, that you appreciate all the more what you have, what's here right now. And also, along with that, for me, patience has a lot to do with slowing down. Like, I can get into a role of I gotta do this, and I gotta do that, and I gotta do this, and I might enjoy that, but I come up against this, like, hit me in the face when I try to do meditation at home, because there's a sense of, in my head, I'd like to do meditation, and then immediately responding is, but you have this, this, this to do, and so, trying to slow down to kind of contemplate life or to move into the different space that meditation takes me, it's always coming up against that, moving forward, and so patience has to do with slowing down for me.

[40:49]

Good, yeah. And part of meditation is stopping and just slowing down, and your mind might be racing as you're sitting facing the wall. There might be lots of thoughts. Still, just come back to inhale and exhale, and it's not about getting rid of the thoughts, but can you slow down and just settle and be present and be patient with all the lists? And yes, we are fortunate to still have these problems. Good, thank you for that question. Wonderful question. Well, that's also about slowing down and about patience and about respect.

[41:55]

So part of what underlies, it's not one of the paramitas, I don't know why, but respectfulness is such a key part of this practice. And this is a yogic practice, as I said. So in the sitting meditation, we are formally learning a posture of presence and inner dignity, of attentive and relaxed awareness, and physical awareness as well. Bowing is... a kind of meditative practice or mudra, we say, for learning respect and gratitude for ourselves and for everything else in our life that we feel that way about. So, just to go over the practices that we do here, when we enter the room, whether we're coming in from the back or the front, we take a couple steps and we bow. And the way we bow, just to show you the form, and it's not about doing the form perfectly, but we have a form and that's part of the

[43:01]

structure for learning patience, so hands about a hand's width away from our body, with fingertips about equal with our nose, and then we just bow. So we do that and we come into the room, then in this hand position we walk to our space, we bow to our seat because this is the place where we can learn respect and patience. And then we turn, and we always turn clockwise if you can, and turn and then we bow to the rest of the room in the room. The prostrations, the full bows that I did at the beginning before I started giving the talk, I'll do that also at the end. And Monday night when we have service and when we have services during our longer, day-long sittings, everybody at the beginning and end does three of those prostrations. You're welcome to do a standing bow instead if you prefer, but the prostrations are a way of showing, of learning this respect.

[44:03]

So when I bow, I'm not bowing to a piece of wood, a wooden statue. Actually, that piece of wood, that particular statue of Buddha recently, as Nathan was referring to, was kind of consecrated and empowered to represent Buddha. But when we bow, we're bowing to the Buddha in all beings. including in ourselves. So we bow to our seat, we bow to the space of the room. When we do prostrations, we get down on both knees, our elbows, our hands, and our forehead, and we lift up our hands to lift up Buddha's feet. So this isn't about a particular teacher or a particular historical human being, Shakyamuni Buddha, it may be that too, but it's about this, we call it Buddha nature, this aspect of reality in all things that we express our respect and gratitude for. So you're right, in our culture there's not that much bowing.

[45:04]

How many of you have been to Japan? Yeah, so if you go into a department store there, for example, the people will bow. They may not do this, they may just do this, but people bow to each other. So we do that in a temple also. If we're passing each other, we bow. In the meditation hall, there's a particular form, but this bowing, again, is just a physical way of learning respectfulness. So it's an important part of our practice. I think for most Westerners, coming to Buddhist practice via full prostrations is the weirdest thing that freaks people out or something, because we're just not used to that. And we have this commandment in the Ten Commandments, isn't it? Not to be idolatrous or bow down to images. And again, it's not about this particular wooden statue. It's the Buddha and all beings. So I think there's some cultural aspects of that and the way in which Western culture is infected with kind of celebrity idolizing, idolatry.

[46:21]

The bowing is just to express respect to Buddha and everything. Thank you for the question. Who is that? That's one of the many names for a Buddha. So, there are various names that a Buddha, in the scriptures, in the sutras, there are many various words that are used to describe the Buddha or any Buddha. Tathagata means, depending, it could be the one who comes or the one who goes in vastness or suchness. I translate it as the one who comes and goes in suchness. In presence of reality as it is. So one of the ways of it, I haven't talked about emptiness this morning, but one of the basic teachings of reality of Buddhism is about the interconnectedness of all things.

[47:27]

And there are various ways of talking about it in terms of the technical term emptiness, which isn't nothingness, but the emptiness of independent existence of anything, which has to do with the fact of interconnectedness, that everything is deeply interconnected. The causes and conditions for each of you showing up here this morning are innumerable. and we can't track them all. Another way of talking about that is just suchness, and it's very related to our experience of sitting as we sit facing the wall or the floor, just to be present and aware of this, just this experience of sounds, visual field, thoughts going by, and our uprightness and our breathing. So the Buddha, one name for the Buddha, traditionally, is the one who comes and goes in this sushma suryali. Thank you. Time for one more question or comment or response, anyone?

[48:29]

You said some long sentence, I can't pronounce it. Is it like patience or impatience? The Anupatika Dharmakshanti? Yes. Patience with impatience is part of it, yeah. Literally it means patience with the unknowability of anything. that we can't really totally know the fullness of the reality of anything. Pick any topic, any subject, any person or event. It's the reality of it. The suchness of it is beyond our grasp, yes. And so, yeah, and part of that, yes, patience within patience is very important to the practice of patience. This posture of uprightness is a yogic way of being more available to patients.

[49:39]

Uprightness doesn't mean being some idea of uprightness. So our spines are curved. Each of us has our own way of sitting. Some people can sit better kneeling. Some people sit upright better, more comfortably cross-legged. Some people can do this upright sitting more effectively sitting in a chair. That's fine. It's not about some idea of uprightness. It's about how do you find your way of being present? So patience has to do with fully being present, not just reacting based on some itch in our arm or some little discomfort in our knee, but actually being present and upright and paying attention to that. Going down what you mentioned, isn't it like humility and self-respect? The practice of bowing? Yeah. Well, yes, it teaches respect, as I said, and gratitude.

[50:44]

And part of that is self-respect, which means humility, to see that each of us is this tiny piece of the whole interconnected web of suchness. And yet each of us has the responsibility as the piece. So one image in Buddhism of interconnectedness is called Indra's net. and the Indian god Indra, one of the creator deities in Hinduism, the story about this is that reality is this huge, vast, multidimensional network. And at each place where the meshes of the net meet, there's a jewel. And each of those jewels reflects the light in all the jewels around it. Each of them reflects the light in all the jewels around them, and so forth forever. So actually, each place in the net, each tiny bit of suchness, totally expresses the whole universe. And yet, each one does it in its own way.

[51:47]

So this is why I say it's not that if you think of some good way to respond to whatever problem, that then you should get everybody else to respond in the same way. We each have our own way of fully responding.

[52:00]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v005
@Score_87.44