I had one meeting with you when I was here earlier this afternoon, January. Do you remember what we discussed at that time? Relaxation. Relaxation? What were you going to say? Remember that? What about relaxation? Anything else? Meet whatever comes with complete relaxation. Whatever. After giving heart and open mind. After giving heart and open mind.

[01:02]

What? Say it again. Rumpelstiltskin. He wasn't relaxed. He was powerful. Rumpelstiltskin. Did I mention also the words don't grasp or seek for anything? I proposed to you that the Buddhas are born of compassion

[02:04]

And that there's no seeking or grasping in their conduct. And no seeking or grasping could also be seen as a way of expressing complete relaxation. Does that make sense? If this could give me that one more graph, please. I'm not seeing that. at Green Gulch during the January retreat, I referred to a presentation on the Buddhist path.

[03:40]

Thank you. Three principles, one goal. We have a dream. One of the reasons why I had the grant was because I really wanted to emphasize bodhisattva, ablution, teshvara, passion. So I thought I would emphasize renunciation. Right here, across the heart.

[05:05]

First of all, I've got to look at the insolation. The topic of insolation. That's kind of hard for some people, but I understand that. So, I feel that meeting whatever comes with complete relaxation gives also recorded renunciation. When developing renunciation, we may not feel completely relaxed yet, not that we hear about renunciation in the intensive, but when renunciation is realized, when the mind of renunciation is realized, it is one of the specializations.

[06:08]

What Dogen's teacher, Mui-Cheng, called the notion of the softness or flexibility of mind by the softness of the heart. That's what I'm saying before, the openness of the heart, the openness in that. But, open and forgiving mind, you're open to the heart. So, a soft mind is the mind of the unfulfilled. And this soft mind is developed by what is called, it's developed by sitting in the middle of suffering of all deeds. Sitting in the middle of that. And the mind became almost soft. And this mind was realized.

[07:18]

And Dogen asked him, so what is this supple mind? And he said, it's the will to drop off body and mind. the willingness to drop our body and mind. So the willingness to drop our body and mind is the menstruation of the mind. Does that sound okay? I think there's some danger that the mind gets trapped. waiting for relaxation. Is there a danger of that, I suppose? So, another way of talking about this, I think, says, if you're still wandering around, but wandering around in your head,

[08:26]

and in your head you have ideas of how to do relaxation because you're wandering around in your head having various ideas of relaxation, you're still involved in discursive thought. Discursive thought. Discursive means going back and forth. Going back and forth about what relaxation is, or what renunciation is, I mean, you've got the spiritual thought, so when you hear about enunciation, then the topic of enunciation is put into your spiritual thought process. It then becomes... So, enunciation is one of the aspects of enunciation. You enounce the spiritual thought. And then when you hear that, then you get the spiritual thinking about what does it mean to enounce the spiritual thought. So then perhaps you catch yourself and say, oh, I'm still at the specific thinking about renouncing the specific thing.

[09:38]

I'm still at the specific thinking about relaxation. So completely relaxation is the same as renouncing thinking about relaxation. So these words are coming and We haven't renounced discursive thought as soon as it comes to us. We've been co-opted into the discursive process. So we could say it's a danger in kind of thinking about emancipation or relaxation being co-opted by the discursive thought process. I would say it's a danger, but it's worth looking for. this. However, you are making yourself vulnerable to some feedback on this. If you sit around and learn this, it's going to point out to you what else might be. And you can understand, oh, that's good.

[10:38]

This is a metaphor, and they're the same thing. So, Dogen says, if you're still wandering around, running back and forth in your mind, still involved in the scripts of thought, you might miss the vital path of the body. Where would the body lead? So somehow the mind and the body sort of hide up the description of the body. and the missingness by the path of leaping into our true relationship with our beings. So not grasping or seeking for anything,

[11:52]

to be seen as enunciation, and it also can be seen as an instruction in mental stabilization. I think I also mentioned to you in our last meeting that, as you said, something like If you forget all about yourself, you'll be concentrated on your breathing. Or if you're concentrated on your breathing, you'll forget all about yourself. Forgetting all about yourself is again like not grasping or seeking yourself and when you give up on grasping and seeking yourself including grasping and seeking yourself who's trying to be focused on your breathing uh you'll find that you that you're constantly and your breaths are like stare all the time and just pop up

[13:21]

So again, when you practice renunciation, you're concentrated on your breathing. I don't know what they think. They might think, well, I don't get that. That doesn't sound like concentration on the breath I made. Well, that's somebody who hasn't renounced. They're thinking. They have some idea of what it's like to be concentrated on the breath. And forgetting about themselves is not their idea of concentrating on the breath. Actually, we're already concentrated on our breath. That's what breathing is. It's kind of like really involved in breathing. Some people aren't breathing here, then I guess you'd say, well, they're not concentrated on their breathing. But all the people who are breathing are quite concentrated about it.

[14:28]

Very few people who are actually like someplace else are not breathing. Some people are more with their breathing here than others. And I would say that may be so. The ones who are more with their breathing, although everybody is, the ones who may be totally with their breathing, are those who are not being concerned about themselves. Am I a good meditator? It seems to me that renunciation is a gesture toward mental stabilization, but I think that or say that, I think that's kind of an unusual way to look at stabilization as renunciation, or to look at renunciation as cessation.

[15:33]

But in fact, it seems to me that's the case. concentration practices. A lot of people approach concentration practices what I do. I'm going to concentrate on something such. I've seen that in myself. I've seen it in others. But as I mentioned to you before, concentration is not trying hard to watch something. And I would stand up and say concentration is not you trying hard to concentrate on something. Concentration is freedom Renunciation is freedom. Renunciation equals freedom. Freedom equals concentration. Concentration equals freedom.

[16:35]

However, it is possible to have just concentration. Renunciation is freedom. But first of all, it's become free. And then our freedom is studied through a doctrine. find that, you know, about right here. In the beginning, how about liberation? Press the mission. Don't grasp or see anything anymore. invoking the presence of the Buddhas and Ancestors and offering incense and bowels which is offering incense and bowels is part of the invocation

[18:18]

Does that make sense? You are going to send some vows, and you say the names of the foodies, and you invite the foodies, and you invite the shepherds to come for the ceremony. And the first thing that happens is, The first thing that happens is pronunciation. And actually, I found out that there's a so-called procedure in that, right? There's a so-called way. Yes, we have an answer there.

[19:33]

Well, what's another symbol there? The symbol of liberation. It's called the robe of liberation. Yeah. The robe of liberation. This symbolizes liberation. So, the ceremony of Liberation. I'm pretty stoked. I'm shaking my head. Putting on the robe of liberation.

[20:34]

Renunciation. Father is going to do that ceremony because it's going to be dramatized. We have to go on. It's going to be a process of renunciation from the Bible. I have to make people because most of it is a service from the Bible. the denunciations in both cases. I recently read, I think it was a long time ago, I had a discussion, I saw a change in, it's this, I mean, that, that was a short term, then I heard some discussion, so I decided, similarly the same,

[21:35]

He said, well, there's certain ways that they're similar, but there's some ways that they're different. And what he thinks are the main ways that they're different is that sin is still of the majority of Buddhist schools, which means that the primary... Guess what? Renunciation. And it keeps me saying that in Dzogchen, you don't need renunciation. You need anything. It's a somewhat different ethic. So I don't know. The only way is with the path of renunciation. But anyway, it's a way that can be turned down by certain people. a lot of presentations of Mahayana number one.

[22:47]

This person that puts you into actual spiritual practice. Before that, you're not doing real spiritual practice. Are you thinking that you are, or are you thinking that you're not? Or you're not sure? Is there any other possibilities? That's all of us. At the point of renunciation, one actually enters into actual practice. Where even at mom's age, you're carrying around We're just constantly producing a complete representation of what we're doing. Some story, meaningful images of what we're doing.

[23:58]

Even if what we're doing didn't really make any sense, even if what we're doing here didn't make sense, even if we set up a practice center in a way that we can see, you know, this is total, total random presentation of films. But left-brain with this. This has been very useful. When there is some But when you present, just to test, to see what your brain will do, present people with a random situation in which it does not have any order. Well, it's the right thing.

[25:05]

It won't be the right thing. And fortunately, we've got two oxides, so right now, we've got three. So this is what I'm . So basically, most of us have a body and mind which is going to change. Generally speaking, it can be complicated, continually breaking up some unit, but that's the way it's all over the place. That's the way it's all over the place. You're not seeing the issues. Let's see. develop the willingness for that whole pattern to drop off.

[26:14]

When that happens, you can calm down. Stuff like that. And you'll be ready to enter into alcoholics. Yes? It's possible to look at that renunciation. Are you asking if renunciation, compassion, and right view is an orderly presentation? I can think that it is. I mean, when I say I can think that, I mean, the thought that that's an orderly presentation can arise in my mind than in yours. So that's, I'm saying you have the ability, and even if I mix the order up,

[27:14]

right backwards, which I may be able to do later. You and I both have the ability to try to, we both have the ability and strong tendency to try to figure out what's going on here. Why did he change the order and go backwards? Now that we've done that, what does that mean? And we'll, for a little while, we may just say to each other, I don't know, but we'll be trying and eventually we'll follow it. sometimes there is but sometimes i would say that there is order in the art box but in some situations when there is no order and still part of us continue in this world so i'm not guaranteeing but

[28:19]

We, whatever we're presented with, if it's something that doesn't have reason, we will try to grasp its reason. And if it does have reason, we'll try to grasp its reason. If you present somebody with a reasonable thing, that's been actually prepared and demonstrated as reasonable and presented to them. And when they start working on it, and they come up with exactly the one that you thought was there, and they come up with the wrong one. You know, not with any falsehood. And when they come up with one, you might be able to prove it wrong. And then you might be able to guide them to see the one that you represented. But you could also present them something which is really random, and has an order, and they'll still carry it with them, unless you tell them beforehand that it doesn't have any order, in which case they think that's overly, and they won't try. But they just did try. Because you told them it was overly, and they accepted that, that makes sense. But you told them it wasn't overly.

[29:42]

And it didn't make sense to them, and it wouldn't make sense to them. That's a given. Our worldly mind, in that sense, our dispirited mind, is operating fairly nicely, and there's lots to be said for it, positive things to be said for it, but it operates on things that it fails at. And even if it fails repeatedly, most people will just keep going. So it's not so much exactly to try to crush that content of the mind, but to train the attention to not be involved with it. To renounce it. And also even to renounce it by themselves, to publicly announce that you are renounced. Yes?

[30:47]

Right. Discussive mind cannot on its own deal with certain kinds of orderly data. It's just too massive for it. But still, there could be order. But even if you present it with a mass of disordered data, it will still try to make order. But if it's a small enough package of order, it can find the order. It can guide itself to discover the order. But sometimes it can't. And not because it's not there. because it's just overwhelming to human. But it'll try anyway. But in other cases where there is an order, it'll try too. The point is that it is, what do you call it, we are disposed to do this. It's habitual.

[32:13]

We're locked into it. And certain aspects of our processes are inapplicable and inappropriate. And they cause trouble. And they cause agitation. And they interfere with compassion and right view. They block us from entering into the practice. So, it's not that these processes are not useful. Sometimes they are. And sometimes they're not useful. So, let's have a look at one example. It's kind of... having two buttons that light up. Top button and the bottom button. And, uh, well, it would light up 80% of the time, and the bottom button would light up 20% of the time.

[33:16]

But the way that these, the way that these, like, lights got turned on, the order that they got turned on is random. You can go, like, 80 times and then 20 times. I just had to sort of, in a worded way, presenting information. Imagine that light's not going on any time, it's not going on many times. It's going to go on 20 times a minute or not. It's just going to go on. It's not going to keep up that same thing again. If we presented the lights in a random way, and rats figured out through the picture that the best thing to do is test the light. So one, two, three, press. Top one. So they figure out pretty quickly, press the top one. If they always press the top one, they get 80% success.

[34:17]

Human beings, when they see these lights going off, what's the reason? What's the pattern? In a sense, I think the other one's wrong. But if you could figure, but it's not always the upper. Sometimes it's the lower. If you could figure out the pattern of what's happening on the GMR, right? We have the ability to figure out the pattern. 100%. Nobody can figure it out. trying to figure out the patterns, I would usually give 100%. However, if you press the top one, we could see that, you know, we could see that with, you know, the top one. I just press the top one all the time. I mean, you can see, the top one's more common, but we don't do that. That's not good enough for us. If I can figure out the patterns, then I can just do the pattern, and then I'll get 100%.

[35:23]

Rather than most. I don't know what happens if you get 90%. If it's always the top one, you can't present that in a random way. But if it's 20% bottom, 80% bottom, you can give that information. random ways. So human beings got probably about 6 million something. And rats got 8 million something. But if you took a human being who has like a severed brain, you know, like what we call epileptics, you know, they sometimes split the brain. So if you have a seizure on one side, part of the brain still functions. So it's possible to present to these people information to one side of the brain and the other side of the

[36:28]

that it represents. And this is going to happen at this time, but I suggest that if it represents an information to the left, to the right, it's to the left right. To the right, it's to the left. So, let's take an information in. But most often it's on the top. You can do that. You can do what you want to say about it. But we're always coming up with things about the stories that are on the ground. So we're running it back and forth the whole time. Interpreting the data, making us worry about the past, predicting the future, making us worry about the past, predicting the future. Another part of this doesn't make us worry about past and future changes. When we renounce past and future, when there's renunciation of past and future, There's present. What's in the present? I don't know. We live in the Bible.

[37:35]

The very past and future is not that interesting. But if you renounce them, it's like there it is, the body and the living. You're not trying to focus on your breath. It just seems to be happening. And other things are happening too. But we have an imagination of what you can imagine. And an infinite past and an infinite future. We're just not interested. This is just one idea over and over. Or is living in the past or future past recreating an imagination? And what makes the question is renouncing imagination. I hope the world is creative. The world is creative. It's imagination. So you're renouncing the world. That's probably the best. Same thing.

[38:41]

Renouncing what you're imagining. Because imagination actually appears to you to be imagined. But there's no imagining here. Your imagination is not really showing itself. So renouncing in terms of the object. In that same chapter in Gen 9, again, I think it's called emptiness. You need to do a general housecleaning. So all objects need to move. So everything that happens when Conceptual elaboration. Conceptual elaboration. Seeing the environment. Seeing the path of people.

[39:43]

Seeing the stories about it. In other words, problem and solution. Would it seem... Say again? Seeing the clinging. Seeing the clinging, yes. Seeing the grasping. Seeing the clinging. So those things could still be coming through. Yes. So in the present. In the present, you can say the word future. You can grasp it. Or seek it. For another one of us. What?

[40:43]

Or be that for another. Sometimes it's clear that the scarcity is supported by more people. So you're seeing that discursive thought sometimes is called an emotion.

[42:05]

The whole thing with discursive thoughts is very much... For example, it wasn't like that. See, if you're angry at someone when you've got discursive thoughts, it's called an emotion. But the comfortable discursive thought, prior to the anger, So, you've been walking on the street, you're not angry, which is like a social problem. Social problems. The paths here are pretty tidy. The monks do soji. This is like the way it's supposed to be here. So, I'm an acrobat. Now, I turn and I see Yes, Kathy was Kathy. And Kathy gets, like, she thinks, I'm not going to stay with Kathy. And now I start to feel uncomfortable about what I'm thinking of Kathy thinking of me.

[43:14]

And my discomfort, I'm like, it has to have been a chance. And my expectations were trapped. And now I think of Kathy. It's true. It's true. My discomfort around here is now mixed in with some distressed thought about me. The discomfort is my distressed thought. It is possible to have painful experiences and be impatient. I think actually impatience You can have discomfort, and with discomfort, I would say, it's common. You move up into the ground of the source of thought, and you map around to the side of the truth. It's your anger. So I think most of it, when it comes, it's based on the source of thought. And then most of the anger is sometimes on the source of thought.

[44:17]

Myself, I experienced Viratasahara in 1968. I don't know if I can see mine. For quite a period of time, I don't know how I got into it, but I just sort of like specialized it. I kind of like that too. I think it's happening, and I just thought, well, I have to let it go. Don't let it go. Somebody spread it, you know. So for several days, that's what I'm trying to say, for a month or two, as soon as I got it, I was like, oh, there it is. And I just noticed, and I was experiencing anger from about 3.40, I don't know if it was 3.40, 4 o'clock or something, about 3.40, I just let myself be angry about it.

[45:27]

I think it's very helpful because in the process of being angry about three, four anger was coming from my family. Nonsense. I kind of knew at the end of that period of time that anger was not justified by the anger that I was experiencing. It was an attribute of patience. It was an irritation with the growth of my discursive drive. So even though the discursive drive was generating the anger, By just, by understanding it, I was just going to let this go.

[46:30]

At some level, some kind of awareness of the distress of thought. But really, the reason why I was angry was not because of the distress. In other words, the discursive thoughts about the problem being justified Those do not. So it took out the self-righteousness to a great extent. It took the self-righteousness to the end. I think it is possible sometimes to do and do something. There's almost no examples of that. That's our point. For example, the great progenitor didn't do it himself. In fact, if somebody was 10, it's not so bad.

[47:32]

That's justified. That's what we have found. But it was a big problem to do that. It's falling to the general public now. but I can see that this hand was not good at what they were doing by thinking about it. And, you know, probably that person thought, this is my personal channel. This is like as wonderful as some new channel like me. I'm probably helping Red Anderson. And, like that. about herself. Sometimes you're right.

[48:37]

That sometimes happens when you're simple. By the end of that period, I was, I wouldn't say 100% there, but I sort of for the rest of my life, 31 years or so, I have had some sense of why am I angry at somebody? But that was like brown ink to me. I've just seen this a few times. I've seen this quite a few times sometimes. I've read this all the time. I've read this all the time. I actually tried to see if I could. So I actually got angry with the big guy. I got angry with the walls.

[49:38]

I got angry with the startups. I got angry with the laptops. I got angry with the founders. I got angry with absolutely everybody. It must be a fun scene. And after a while, the anger didn't really bother me. Because it wasn't confused with the objects. And the objects were safe from me. In the early part of the section 730, the objects were not safe. But the objects were safe. But they weren't safe. Also, the time I chose to do this experiment was the silent half of the Passover. We had worked in the morning. We worked in the morning. So I'd work with people to have talking. At that point, this experiment was no longer safe. But in the morning, people didn't write them too much.

[50:42]

You know, they didn't talk to you in the Zen bell when you were a champion. They'd just say, what do you think I can do? You'd like to like these bits. You don't know, right? And you can imagine what would happen if somebody did. But we don't do that because somebody might one of the self-righteous comments. So during that sound period, I could do this, and nobody got hurt. Some people knew what I was going through. Sometimes after working with them, when we got into the work, so when I was safe, I just closed back into this space, and actually one guy who I was working and he was carrying down the old bathhouse. The old bathhouse you see there, that's actually a new bathhouse.

[51:46]

There was an older one there before. When we first got here, there was a second civilian. And so in that practice, you couldn't tour the second civilian. It didn't work. And this guy turned to me and said, it's perfect. In other words, it's not even as fun as it is. It's not as fun as it is now. So it wasn't hurting, you know, we had to try to go and die. This was an opportunity for me to explore. See what's possible now. Are you clean today?

[52:52]

I think so. I think at the end, I don't think I was. I think I started, but it's not just clean to the anger that it was. It was clean to the stories. So you have this person's chanting, and you have a story about it. When you're clean with the story, when you're clean with the story, you feel uncomfortable. Believing the story is the same as thinking. You don't think it's just a story. It's true. You don't let the story move. So you fix on the story. You cling to it. And you miss this thing that discomforts others. Even if it's a story where this person is an excellent champion, you may have some different kind of pain when this person is a malicious champion. this person is like an enchanter that shouldn't be allowed in this room.

[53:55]

So, this person's an excellent enchanter, they actually shouldn't be allowed in either, because they're interfering with the enchantment. We should have excellent people send somebody to deal with it. So the rest of us can continue our thing. This person's like, oh, it's a genocidal enchanter, right? This is like a master enchanter. Master enchanter. Whatever, you know. any kind of culture so that is one way of cultivating renunciation we do to cultivate disbelief in stories so you are cultivating in a sense you cultivate disbelief but you don't do it by trying to not believe you do it by admitting that you do and then And then you consider the practice of letting go and releasing the grip on the stories which you do believe.

[55:01]

If you try to tell yourself another story about how you should let go, you've got to be careful of that because then you're just going to get into another thing. You are cultivating releasing. But I don't think it should be by pretending as though you want to leave this thing. But sometimes I I told the story, you know, one time I was talking to somebody and I was saying over and over, to this person, I do not believe what I'm thinking about you. Sometimes you know that might happen. You should remind yourself very strongly that you're slipping into believing something about somebody. I'll tell you something, I believe this, I don't believe this. But really you're saying that because you really just sort of do believe it. You know how it is, you believe it. So you kind of continue to disqualify it. I'm kind of insane because I believe this terrible thing about your soul. I don't keep my mind on something like that. I shouldn't believe this.

[56:02]

I shouldn't grasp this. Yes? For me, it's unworthy. I hope not. So when I let go of my concern with myself, I open to other people, but actually I open to myself too. When I stop being concerned with myself, I'm presented by noticing.

[57:11]

Without trying to notice I'm breathing, it's presented to me. That is a word of rootless. I never sense of rootless. That's not what I'm going to grow into. I didn't know they migrated. They're still around? Like, you know, I put down an apple on it. Sorry, what's the time now? Yes, I think, anyway, I think these things have to be going together. It has each other. It's part of life. It kind of reminds me of a question that always comes up with the idea of the drop of God in the mind.

[58:32]

People are always at the point where we're like me and I think that's who I am. So, you know, the idea that it's not so special, that I think it's me being myself, that, you know, it's very well happening. Yeah, so there's considerable There's fear of renunciation. Fear of what would happen to you. So I don't know. Forget all about yourself. Forget all about yourself. So letting go of discursive thought is very similar to letting go of discursive thought. Discursive thought is sometimes part of your purpose.

[59:37]

Whatever happened wasn't. and the interpreter is very close to the middle, more or less the center. It's more or less the self. Our identity is tied up with this interpreter. So I'm letting go of the interpreter, letting go of the description of thought, which seems very close to letting go of the self, renouncing the self. However, without that view, you still may think that There is such a thing as a fearful and very sympathetic society. It's more like renunciation of self before letting go of it. But we still haven't been seen through the nature of this whole process. It's such a people who try to accept the teaching of his own grasp and then they'll seek it

[60:40]

In fact, that is Nirvana. Nirvana is scared. Well, again, you know, it's natural for a discursive thought to ask, how do I let it go? That's a reasonable discursive response. But that's just another discursive thought to let go of. I responded to it, tell you that that was the minute we let go of it. Of course, how do I let go of it? How do you let go of it? There's nothing you can do to let it go because if you did let it go, it would still be there. So in fact, you're right. You cannot let it go. However, it can be released. Release can happen. Sometimes somebody comes up to us and says, relax, and relaxation happens.

[61:49]

That's not because you did it. It's because they said relax, and they said relax. Relax sometimes happens. But other times they pick them up and they say relax, and you try, and you don't. Or other times they say relax, and you say, leave me alone. But sometimes just the word relax And there's relaxation. Sometimes, rather than the word relax, sometimes it's just relaxation. So these words are coming in various ways to stimulate the attention to be trained somehow. And the training will be most effective if you don't think you can pose and interpret it in training. Namely, I'm going to train my attention, pay attention towards that which doesn't interpret. I'm going to train my intention, my attention, to not grasping and not seeking.

[62:54]

That's a little, it's kind of like a beginning is going to be kind of cumbersome. Little by little, it may be just the language might change, just the attention is being trained to not grasping and not seeking. And it's sort of like, the intention seems to be looking at these concepts. More and more it's just like, non-grasping nonsense, non-grasping nonsense. More and more the feeling of non-grasping nonsense. The tension is extreme. How does it happen? It happens by just, the way things actually happen, maybe like, in order to be together with all things, these words are coming up, So it becomes optional. Also, we live with beings, and people aren't teaching don't grasp and don't seek. They're teaching other things, and then other things happen. So we have a brain which is capable of grasping and seeking, and we're just stimulated to encourage grasping and seeking, grasping and seeking, and there's not remonstration.

[64:06]

And we suffer. In some other situations, there's other kinds of language, other kinds of responses between us, and this grasping and seeking starts to be learned, this starts to be non-grasping and non-seeking, and other things start to happen. So, renunciation is somehow, I wouldn't even say necessarily that renunciation is being encouraged here, but the word renunciation is coming up. It's, we're all hearing it. It's effectiveness. For some reason, I'm saying it and some of you are saying it. And as the class is over, the word renunciation may appear again in your mind. I don't know how that happens. Nobody's in control of it. And again, you're non-renuncious. Mine wants to get in control of the renunciation. It wants to say, well, that was nice to hear about renunciation, but how am I going to be able to keep thinking about renunciation? Well, that's kind of frustrating.

[65:11]

He says, are renunciation and energy antithetical? No. I'm just saying that this one particular Shroud Chen teacher said that. Well, he made a different method using energy rather than renunciation. So I'm just telling you that, that I don't, I'm not, it is said, you know, that the main method in Buddhism is renunciation. But I don't want to say that's the only one. there's energy all the time and emanciation is one of the things about emanciation is that it would make it possible for us to understand well actually uh in some texts that the um

[66:46]

they actually say, well, how do you know when the emancipation is actually happening? And the answer is sometimes scary, because one of the answers is that you find pleasures of psychic existence in our group. Pleasures of what existence? Psychic existence. And, uh, Some pleasures are possible. The other answer would be that you never, moment by moment, you do not see the pleasures of the world. Pleasure, in my life, the pleasure that comes to me is the pleasure of So I'm thinking, how do I relate to this without seeking or grasping my focus?

[68:01]

So I'm looking at this question. It's mostly a question. I'm not going to relax with it. I want to be compassionate, I want to be of service to them. I want to be devoted to them. And I actually feel that I'm not grasping the pleasure of being with them, for making a better service. I feel that I'm compassionate. So, when moment by moment, there seems to be actually, I'm not seeking and grasping for this pleasure, All day long. Even at night. Not seeking. Not grasping its pleasures. Which is very similar to after you're going to drop off.

[69:05]

It wouldn't be a pleasure if you weren't enjoying it. Before you know it, the pleasure has hit you. Snuck up on you and bit your eye. But I think it's possible to not be happy about the person, but not be sad about pain. There's a quote, it's the walking photo of seven. It's a woman who makes a game of his delusion, losing his mind. Basically, pronunciations came up. Getting stuff over here, using stuff over there.

[70:16]

Lots of pleasure there. We have people saying nice things about you over here. So the pronunciation came up right in the middle of that. So, like, again, when my grandson sees me, what's happening? Something happens. It doesn't look like something else. Everything he does, something happens. Nothing to be done about it. How can it be balanced there? The theory is that if I practice renunciation, I need to need it for liberation. If we touch the face, face it with the heart, face it with the pain, move the eyes.

[71:29]

In both cases, then we are ready to serve. We are ready to practice compassion. And to practice compassion, But it's a good life. The presumption is giving pleasure and giving pain. Faces that look like, faces even that say, I hate you. I hate you and I want to say some bad things about you. Faces like that. Faces that are saying you would I'm very happy that I died. I'm happy to see you too. A lot of the spaces in this process challenge us to practice reconciliation. Practice meaning of purpose. There's no grasp of what you see. There's no holding on to what you've got.

[72:32]

H.R. says to Doug that if your ropes are falling apart, you might think that you should mend them. If you mend them, it's like you're cleaning two old ropes. If you're going to go get new ropes instead of mending the old ones, that's like seeking new ropes. See, they're both wrong. We know how to practice it. The Bible says, if you're mending your robes in order to hold on to them, that's not good. And if you're seeking new robes, that's not good. But if you're not trying to hold on to your own robe when you're sewing, and you're not seeking new robes, that's not good. I mean, again, You got those, probably going to take care of them.

[73:38]

But if you're taking care of them, you just can't. If you're taking care of this body, it's no good. But if you're taking care of this body, no. If you're doing this, you can't do anything. But you just take care of it. There's no time to think. Serve it for a while. It's the best thing you can do for it. pretty much try to train your attention to giving up on this. You're not. And that puts you in the best position to take care of it. So, actually, that was neat. So basically, I would say that this is the end of it.

[74:43]

The question is, are you seeking, are you going to be That's the main question. If you're going to be with your brother, seeking that, seeking his grandson or child, clinging to his pleasure of being with him, then it's no good. The question for you will be, look into your mind and see, is it going to be with your brother? And even the practice we heard earlier is important with reconciliation. If it's not in the practice, then so be it. If it is, And also standing there would be pretty fine too. In the state of renunciation, it's possible for us to have the right view to see God's response.

[75:48]

Whether we're going either at the birth, which is not which, given our other self. But before we practice renunciation, we can't see stuff. Because we haven't cleaned our mind. All your objects are kind of all cluttered by all of that pain. It's hard to see where to think. It's hard to see what you are. You're still trying to get something out of this life. So the funny thing is that we have to give up on this life. to give up on this life in order to be able to concentrate on anything that needs your concentration, your non-solution will help you. And when you're concentrated, you can be of service to death.

[76:55]

But first of all, let go of all of our views about the situation. Let's stop trying to get something out of it. Give up. So renunciation is the first step in a process of formal entering the world. The next step is, so renunciation involves Shaving the head. Getting a new home. Getting a new brain. Selecting this new person. This new free person. Then, this new free person can recognize also that there's still an old baggage around. Even though we've got this new person, we also have this old person. He's running out of compassion and penance. These habits have been going on a long time.

[78:05]

They still seem to be happening. So it isn't that necessarily that these old habits of clinging and seeking are going to evaporate. It's just for the moment. There's been a moment, a few minutes where you stop worrying about your life. Just a few minutes to stop. You can let it go. Try it for a little while. If a few minutes is too long, how about a few seconds? Try to find some amount of time when you can actually consider the possibility of just completely giving up. If there's something that would be more difficult for you to consider giving up, Just consider giving up whatever you have trouble giving up.

[79:07]

Life's easy for you to give up. And yourself. And your position. Give up. Give up. Any people that... Yes, Sonia? Yes. and I worked with some of them while I was still a junior in high school. I think that's about it. And also, it's true the same thing you have said, that life is about them. So, to renounce, well, to talk about the truth, [...] the truth Naked in the present.

[80:22]

Very nice image. And so now we're in our self. And so I would like to go deeper into this practice of enunciation with you and bring up some other aspects of various little doodads that might be clinging to you, that you might be clinging to, to try to find out what complete utter nakedness would be. It might be a good time to mention that last practice period, some changes were made in, for example, in the form of offering meal to Manjushri, to Zendo.

[81:26]

And I actually think they're kind of beautiful. The form that's happening now, I think, is really quite nice. However, I'm also concerned that we don't lose track of the fact that it would change, and that if we're going to do it this way, that we consciously decide to do it that way rather than just changing it. Because sometimes we can make a change, and whatever it gets changed to tends to stick because it's easier to do that than switch back to something else. So even though it's difficult, I would suggest that we switch back to what we were doing before And then the people who, the abbots and former abbots, who decide what the forms and practices are, decide whether what we're doing now will be what Tassajara generally does, or whether it'll just be what Tassajara does during some practice period. But I would be interested to hear how you feel about the different styles.

[82:29]

So you've seen one style now for about a month. And I would suggest for a couple more days we do it. So you can look at it, appreciate the way that the food's being offered now. And then we're going to switch back to the way we did it before. And you can see that. And then at the end of practice period, you can think about which one you think is most appropriate to Asahara. Same thing. I actually don't really have a preference myself. I think they're both good. I'd like to do this experiment of switching back to the previous one. So if you have any thoughts about it, things that you've seen before, I'd be interested to hear. Why?

[83:30]

Just so people can see the other one. Some people have never seen the other one. And also, some people know how to do the other one. I might think, oh yeah, the Dawans already knew how to do the other one. But some people think the Dawans don't know how to do the other one. Maybe they do. We'll find out. So maybe they'll just like, without any instruction, we just say, do the previous one. They won't need any further instructions. But maybe there actually would need to be some instruction, because maybe some of them don't know how to do this. So then the dawns would be able to know how to do both types. In Japan, within Zen, there are different styles of doing various things. Within Soto Zen, there are different styles of doing various things. So the way of offering at Eheiji and Sojiji are different. And the way of offering smaller temples is different.

[84:31]

There's all these different styles. And Before you go to... A lot of American Zen students, before they go to Japan, they think, this is Zen. But when you get there, you realize there's really all many, many, many... There's really a tremendous variety in it. And so I guess the question is, some of them say, what is actually the thing that they all share? What is invariant and pervades? all the different Zen schools, all the different Zen temples, and all the different Zen monks, what is it that's like there that, you know, isn't just another form of... Hmm? I don't know. But that thought might cross someone's mind and someone might try to find out what it is. And if they found it, they might feel really good about it. Because that's one of the characteristics of... Ultimate reality is that it's the one taste of everything.

[85:35]

It's the way everything actually is, no matter what form it is. Among all the different forms, among all the different tastes, the ultimate truth is what is all of the same. What is that? And if Zen was actually the same everywhere, someone might think that the form was the ultimate truth. But fortunately or unfortunately, it ain't that race, so we don't have to worry about that. Daniel has been here a few times. He's got questions. Yes.

[87:13]

Yeah, I think that, I don't know if I should get into that now. Just a second. Sorry. You can see why that's not good. You've said twice that. Well, freedom is not the whole story of Buddhism. You can be free. It's possible for you to be free and still not be in the other platform.

[88:23]

They still won't help you. So some people who practice Buddhism are primarily concerned with liberation. Some other people who are practicing Buddhism are concerned with becoming Buddha. So you can be free and yet not... If you practice your enunciation, you're basically then you may not know much about compassion. Now, if you then take your freedom and apply it to compassion, then by working with compassion, compassion opens into a kind of a chair that you can work with. So, renunciation by itself is freedom, but it doesn't come with truth unless it is joined with compassion. Compassion together is renunciation. then lead to the act of liberation of beings, the ability to save beings.

[89:24]

Part of the purpose of the glory of the being is to guide us in that direction. Not just to talk about it, but to actually help beings to be able to save themselves. Like we often say, like Mugenzi says, the Bodhisattvas vow to save all beings, but they have to have the right view in order to save all. And right doers, I think I mentioned this last time too, right doers, there are no other doers. In order to save other beings, you have to understand that there aren't any other doers. So you can have compassion, but not yet have right doers. You can have compassion, but you have not been able to save beings. Compassion is not only right doers, but it's also means. Because you're not going to care about them. So dearly. And you also have no attachment to them, even though you're totally devoted to them, you have no attachment to them. So the combination of not clinging to them, or seeking anything, together with working with them, implies the right view.

[90:28]

And also, in the Eightfold Path, as presented in the early tradition, even, you know, in the Apollo Test, there's two kinds of right view. There's right view with altruists, and there's right view without altruists. So when you first do Right View, the Buddha says it's auspicious and all those other good things, and it has outbursts. But there's another kind of Right View that doesn't have outbursts. So when you first practice Right View, you still think there's other people, you still think of yourself. When you practice Right View, in other words, you think that karmic acts have consequence. It is possible to achieve liberation, and so on and so forth. you accept these basic teachings of Buddhism, you still may have a heart that will cure you. With outflows, it's good and blah, blah, blah.

[92:07]

Without outflows, it's good and liberation. Back to your question, who's saying, you know, if you have a view like, he said, jumping pox the waste into the environment is not a good idea. You realize that? And the question is, does letting it go facilitate realizing the protection of beings. Or does holding on to that view more realize the protection of beings? For example, the view might be dumping toxic waste into this environment harms beings. So therefore it's bad, it's evil. Is holding to that view conducive to protecting people from this harm? Or is renouncing that view conducive to protective duty? And so it's hard for you to understand how renouncing that view is going to be conducive to protective duty.

[93:13]

No, renouncing just means let go. Not trying to get something out of life doesn't mean the life evaporates. It just means that you're no longer trying to get something out of life. So I think the proposal is for your consideration is that if you have some value, like protecting beings is good, let go of that. That will help you be more compassionate about the situation. For example, letting go of that view will probably also help you be more open to the fact of how much time you're But some people who are, some of us who are trying to protect beings, if we hold to that, then we probably think, well, that's a good thing, protecting beings, and I'm holding to it, so I'm pretty good, because I'm holding to a good thing. So, you know, isn't that something reasonable? Doing good?

[94:22]

I'm totally fixated on that, so I'm probably pretty good. So, that view doesn't go very well with me admitting that I have some shortcomings. Because, basically, I'm like on this high horse. Really, I'm in this titanium tank. You know, me being the protector of beings. And, like, this is, you know, it's like people are going to be knocking on the door and say, do you have any problem? Are you selfish in any way? I'm going to be, but do you realize what? I'm in a major way here doing something really important. So I'm going to have some problems. Self-righteousness has not been listed by the Buddhist ancestors as a characteristic of protecting beings. What protects beings is to be aware of your shortcomings.

[95:24]

And when you're holding on to what is good, that means it's harder for you to be aware of your shortcomings. For example, there's one problem with holding on to the right. You tend to overlook how you're wrong. Does that make sense? This is right, and I'm associated with it, so I'm right. Well, that's right. I mean, what can I say? I'm right. This is right, and I'm right, and not me. It's right. I'm right. We're right here. How about you being wrong? People say, we're not talking about that right now. We're talking about me being right. Could you ever be wrong? Yeah, maybe later. But right now, I'm trying to emphasize the fact that what I'm talking about here is right, and I know it's right, and I'm right too. When are we going to be able to talk about you being wrong? Well, okay, let's talk about it now. Then I temporarily, I'd like to, I'd renounce it.

[96:27]

is one of the value non, that's the first part of what I'm doing wrong. Well, I think you do this wrong, this wrong, and this wrong. You're kind of, you know, you're open to it. Why not? Why not be open to hearing about things you're doing poorly? Unskillfully, are your shortcomings? Could that be part of this practice? And if you can do that, then you can say, after doing that, go ahead and take it. And I also think it would be good to do this. You didn't forget, you know, you still thought it would be good to do this, but you're now approaching it from the point of view of not being better than those other people. And they see it. They see you're not better, and they see you don't think you're not better. And also, you can see that those people who don't even agree with you are not necessarily worse than you. These people who love to plumb toxic waste. They've actually helped you realize that you're no better than them. So now you're talking to a person to person, you know, I've got problems, you've got problems, we'll work out something here.

[97:35]

You know, I admitted that I've got these problems, but you might admit that you've got some problems too, but you've got this toxic company problem. It actually starts to be possible there. And these kinds of interactions over toxic waste are the kinds of interactions wherein right view is realized. It isn't right view isn't realized by me holding to my idea of what's right and dominating the rest of the world. It's realized by me letting go of what I think is right, interacting with people and that interaction where they actually also because of this renunciation spread to that renunciation and all parties are in a state of renunciation, all parties are liberated and in that free interaction The right view is more important. The right way to deal with the situation of, you know, we've got toxic waste right now.

[98:37]

What are we going to do with it? I mean, it's not going to evaporate. The toxic waste that's going to evaporate, you're not so worried about that one, right? We're this hard, this long-lasting, poisonous stuff. We're all on the planet. We've all got to figure out what to do with it. And if we don't agree, We put it over here, and they take it over there. We're putting it over here, and they're making more over there. The right view is how we're going to work this out. And if everybody's holding to their position, it's more toxic. It's poisonous. It's like this right person and this right person. There's some possibility that they'll work it out. They're ironed. One of them's ironed. When I was in college, I saw this experiment.

[99:44]

I don't know if it really happened, but I saw this film of this experiment. There were two people in this room. One of them was driving a trailer, and one of them was driving through a road between me and a truck. And one of the trucks looked at me with a little bit of black leather, and his hand was just swept. and they got money for it, and the truck was stuck on the other side. So it was a one-lane road. So I went and started picking up the truck, and I said, whoops, you can't jump over it. You have to keep the truck on the road, and you can't jump after it. So you're going to bump into each other. So I thought, wow, stupid. So you know that. Okay, I'll back up. You can go through it. That's one scenario. The next scenario is one of them has a tank in their engine. And this one, you can imagine on this one, this guy says, I'm going to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go.

[101:05]

But he occasionally lets his other side go. I'm going to go, I'll beat you. I'm going to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go. The one thing that I think the highest number of transits happens when one side is ironed. This one was about an organ. The total productivity is greater than this side's iron. and the other one is disarmed. And they both have, you know, that's not as much to produce if they're not even. Neither one of them is in the class. So being armed is basically, you know, what do you call it? It's the last stage of self-righteousness. You're so right that you're going to get on with it. And you have to, because what can you say? I'm right, right? So there's no choice.

[102:06]

I mean, I have to win. So just by your vision of being right, you feel that you have no choice but to go for it. That's it. How am I giving that up? Now then, so talking with upwards through, right, is impossible. That's why I said, just try for a few seconds, and I'll use them, like, in some doubt. I'll go up to breakfast, and just for a few seconds, just let go of it. Just let go of that for a few seconds. Or even a half a second, just to see if it works with the hummus. And he's only going to come, say, like, talks to the waist, or eyeballs. If it does stop in the middle of a second, return to your protective mode of protecting the world, it might not happen. But what might happen, you just see what happens.

[103:09]

Try and see. You can tell us what happens when you actually, like, announce that you're never sad. What kind of life is that? I read recently, I think it was in your book, that right view, like the right and right view, can also be translated like right view. Comprehensive. Yeah, like those two trucks, you know, trying to get across the road. The right view, one right view is, I'm right, let me get across. Comprehensive view is, well, let's look at the whole situation. If I keep going across, you know, eventually you're just going to tip the table over and you're not going to be able to experiment anymore. Right. It's not going to work. So the comprehensive view. The unbiased view. Yes.

[104:12]

So this is Yeah. Boy, you are doing something even before you become aware. You know, before you train yourself into being aware, you're still like, I don't know what, relatively more or less polluting.

[105:18]

Yeah, so we're acting. We're not going to wait until we're perfectly and lightly going to do anything. We are doing things right now. So that's going to be the case. Just that, um, And what I am doing is I'm not out there doing X. I'm in the valley doing Y. Given my personal understanding, I'm in this practice group. I experience order. Given my personal understanding at that point, I will do something else. I will spend time with my grandchild. And I'll be a soft diaper, so I'll be able to do that. But I'll be working. Whether you're on this side of the controversy or on that side of the controversy, both sides seem to be able to cling to their view and be self-righteous. And they have different values. Like one value may be, you know, is self-righteousness moving?

[106:23]

Of the variety that says, you know, it's okay to harm beings. as part of this right. And this side may say, as part of this right, it's not okay to harm them. But these people sometimes then go ahead and harm beings, you know, as part of their not harming beings. And once in a while, these people over on this side, as part of their thinking it's okay to harm beings in order to maintain the right, they sometimes give up on that. So this side with self-righteous right-wing sometimes feels something compassionate, and compassionate left-wing sometimes feels good. For there to be a meeting, both sides are going to have to renounce their positions. And once in a while that happens, and then there's a moment of peace. Whichever side you're on, if you're holding your position yet, I'll probably turn out You don't have to quit anyway. Take drugs or go to a monastery and recover.

[107:28]

And then I would take drugs and recover. So anyway, we are going to do something. The question is whether we're doing something to, along with everything we're doing, whether we're practicing renunciation. And is renunciation actually undermining any good? So I'd like to hear about it. You're not supposed to overlook some relative need because you're letting go of it. So if something seems to be helpful and you let go of it, you can still do what seems to be helpful. And if you're holding on to what seems to be helpful, you might be able to still do it. But actually, you might be less able to do what you think is appropriate if you're attached to it than if you're not attached to it.

[108:31]

Because if you're not attached to it, you may not feel so embarrassed and self-righteous about it. And also, other people may interfere with you less if you're just coming to, like, do something. Like, if a misright's coming at you or something. And they don't even know what you're doing and you see a misright coming and you want to stop it. Because they hate the person because they hate the person who's acting like it. So I think, actually, Lack of self-righteousness helps you do what you think is right. Now, you still may be not totally visionary about what is right. You still may not have found this place that you're actually working together without ease where the true response is coming, where the real, where the true relationship is coming. You still may not have reached it. But if you have Christ's renunciation, you're open to that. You're open to, you know, this may not be the right thing. It seems to be the right thing. I'm going to do it, I guess. But I'm not sure. And if I see that it's really odd, we can do that.

[109:36]

We can let that in. And maybe say, well, what would you do? We can tell you, and we work it out. Anybody else that didn't speak yet? Yes? Who's listening? Well, you know, I would say just basically everything we do without renunciation is off. That doesn't mean that relatively speaking, Some things aren't better than others, relatively. But confession, you know, if you look at the ordination ceremony, confession follows renunciation. So there's something about confession which I think is really closely related to renunciation.

[110:41]

Because usually people are, you know, going around, going around to the idea that, you know, they're pretty good and so on. And some people say, no, I'd go around holding on to the idea. I say, do I need control of holding on to that? I say, yes, are you good at holding on to that? You think that's better than if you go around thinking that you're good? So basically, the story you've got, you go around holding the story, controlling it, And to confess is an expression of letting go. So I think renunciation in some sense is implied by the practice of confession. The practice of confession unfolds.

[111:43]

The precepts of compassion. So the first renunciation, and then I would say that confession is a further... further aspect of the process of becoming naked. Making myself like a infant. Not just a baby, but a human. So when we receive the precepts, we say, will you receive these precepts? And they say, yes. In a state of emancipation and confession. So I think, anyway, confession is when the tendons are very almost implied that there's been renunciation already. But it may not be perfect, so you might feel like I haven't reached that place of where day and night I don't, you know, I don't hanker after or attach to pleasure.

[112:44]

But there's some renunciation to just admit where I just sit, that I haven't really got to the state of There's some renunciation and admitting that. So there's confession and some renunciation and admitting that I have a restriction of renunciation. And also when there's no renunciation, then there can be four confessions. Since I'm not holding on to life anymore, I'm going to admit now fully what I have to admit. Not overdo it or underdo it. Because that's the way I'm responding to it. Dangerously, though. Dangerously. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

[114:19]

Amen. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. I live in Kentucky.

[115:01]

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