I was told that there are six people here for the first time. Welcome to the people here for the first time. There's an ongoing singing that's been going on here. We're singing a song about the Precious Mirror Concentration, which is one of the many names for our practice. And I sang the beginning of that song to you earlier today. The song starts out, The teaching of suchness has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors, now you have it.

[01:34]

So keep it well. So, in this tradition, we sing this song a lot. this song of the intimate transmission of Buddhas and ancestors. This is the intimate transmission, which is actually the teaching. The teaching is an intimate transmission. And this intimate transmission acts as a guide for beings. And the use of this intimate transmission is sung about as the removal of all suffering. An intimate relationship, which is also a truth of suchness, the way things really are, is intimate transmission.

[02:46]

The way our life really is, is intimate transmission. And this is the work of Buddhas. this relief of suffering in the midst of this intimate transmission. One of the things we say often at Zen Center is we say, our unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. Our unceasing effort to free all beings so we may dwell in peace. Where do we say that? Is it in the meal chant or is it in echo? In one of our dedications of our practice, we say, we refer to our unceasing effort to free all beings so we may dwell in peace.

[04:05]

The battery is low. We speak of our unceasing effort and also we speak of we wish to make this effort. We want to make the effort to free all beings. We aspire, we vow to make the effort to free all beings so we may dwell in peace. I was talking to someone recently and she told me that when I spoke of this vow, when I spoke of the vow to care for all beings.

[05:28]

She said that she hadn't heard that vow in Zen before. And I said, in some ways, the traditional presentation of Zen sometimes, that vow is there, but it's understated. So, I feel that in the West, we sort of have to state it more explicitly. Because, like Bodhidharma, that statue of him, his compassion is understated. His fierceness is not understated. And I would say it's not overstated either. However, the bodhisattva of compassion on the other side of the Buddha, Avalokiteshvara, her fierceness is understated in that statue. She is fierce, but she doesn't look too fierce there. She looks serene, sweet maybe, loving, I don't know what.

[06:36]

But fierce, most people wouldn't say. Her fierceness is understated. You try to move her off her seat of compassion and you'll find out that she's fierce about doing her job. like she might say, we're not moving from this spot. Buddha, Dharma, nobody tries to move. Let them sit there. Yeah, you can be here. I say to the insect flying around my eyes. One of the practitioners over at Green Gulch told me that his brother came from Mexico to visit him and stayed for a few days and had a nice time.

[07:50]

being in the community. I think he worked with his brother on the farm, and I think he went to meditation. So he experienced the life of the community. And as he was leaving, he said something like, can I ask a question? He probably said it in Spanish. And his brother said, yeah. He said, what is Zen practice? He'd been there, you know, in the midst of it, but kind of like, well, what is it? What are you doing here? And I said to his brother, yeah, that's good. What is it? Like your brother maybe feels like, well, I was here but I didn't actually see what Zen was. But his question is good.

[08:52]

What is Zen practice? You can answer it if you want to, like you say, well, Zazen is Zen practice, or the precious mirror Samadhi is Zen practice, or you can say, an unceasing effort to free all beings, so they can dwell in peace. That's Zen practice. You can answer it that way. I could go on to say the least. But even though I answered that question with those answers, then I still say, well, what is an unceasing effort to free all beings so they dwell in peace? What is that? What is the Precious Mirror Samadhi? What is that? And also, how can I live the life?

[09:56]

How can I live the life of an unceasing effort, moment by moment, unceasing effort to free all beings? How can I live that life? Someone said to me recently, can I live the life of great compassion? And I say, it's okay to ask that question. I don't mind. I can live with that. Can I live the life of great compassion? Can I live the life of a Bodhisattva? Can I be a true Zen student? It's okay to ask that question. Can I be Bodhidharma?

[10:59]

Go ahead, ask it. Can I be Avalokiteshvara? Can I be a good mommy? Can I be a good daddy? Can I be a good Zen priest? It's okay, you can ask that question. But if you never ask it, it's okay with me. But what I would like you to ask is, how can I be a great Bodhisattva? If you want to be a great Bodhisattva, it's okay with me if you say, can I be? If you say, may I be? I would say, yes, you have my permission. I don't want to discourage you from asking if you can be Buddha, and can be a bodhisattva. I don't want to discourage you. I really don't. But I want to mention to you, I don't ask myself, can I be a bodhisattva? I'm too busy wondering how to be a bodhisattva.

[12:03]

That's enough for me to do that every moment. How can I live the life of a bodhisattva? Now I have some confidence that if I ask that question all the time, I am living the life of a bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas want to live the life of a Bodhisattva. They want to make the unceasing effort to free all beings. They want to. They're busy wanting to, and they're also busy wondering how. Wondering, wondering, wondering. What is Zen practice? What is Zazen? What is the true path? And then again, when you ask, what is it, or how can I become?

[13:06]

Gazillions of answers may come. Fine. Enjoy them. Or they may not. Enjoy the silence. You don't have to ask the question, but I think it might be a good idea to ask the question about whatever it is that you want to be. I'm not telling you what you should be, but whatever it is that you want to be, I think it might be good to ask the question, how can I become that? Some of us don't exactly feel like we're mothers or fathers, so we don't ask that question. But even if you're not a mother or father, you still might wonder how to be a good mother or father, if that occasion ever presented itself.

[14:07]

But almost all of us might be human, we might be somewhat human anyway. How can I become, how can I fully become a human? And I propose to you, just a proposal, you want to hear a proposal, anybody? My proposal is, in order to fully become a human, we have to ask how to fully become a human. If you don't ever ask that question, you're not going to make it to being who you are. How can I fully be who I am is part of realizing who I really am, if I'm a human. And some people say that's what Zen practice is. The answer to what is Zen practice, it's completely becoming a human being.

[15:17]

It's completely becoming yourself. And when you completely become yourself, you become free of yourself. And in your becoming free of yourself, by becoming completely yourself, you free all beings. When I become myself completely, I dwell in peace. And everybody's there with me. So I'm wondering what is the way to live the life of a bodhisattva. I'm wondering, also, I'm wondering what enlightenment is, I'm wondering what awakening is.

[16:22]

I'm wondering. I mean, I am wondering and I wish to continue to wonder. I wish to wonder the rest of the day, I wish to wonder tomorrow, while I'm living my human life. Probably I'll get up early in the morning tomorrow and go to the meditation hall. I would like to wonder, as I get up in the morning and go to the meditation hall, what is Zen practice? What is the life of a Bodhisattva? As I walk in the dark to the meditation hall. Now I'm in the meditation hall.

[17:22]

What is the unceasing effort to free all beings? When I live with that question, I never regret the question. It always enlivens me to ask the question. But I sometimes get distracted from that question. I miss the opportunity. I walk in the dark and miss the opportunity to ask the question in the dark. And now I'm confessing that to you. And I'm saying I'm sorry. And I refer you to what we just chanted. by confessing and repenting my forgetting to ask the question of how to make the effort to be Bodhidharma, by confessing and repenting that, we melt away the root of forgetting. We melt away the root of missing the opportunity of our life.

[18:26]

And then when we stop missing the opportunity of missing our life, we regain all the life we have lost. Mr. Proust teaches us. When we confess that we just missed our life, or we have been missing our life, and we're sorry about missing the opportunity to wonder, how do I live my life? All these times when we miss our life, the wonderful life we have, and miss wondering what it is, and how to live it. When we confess and repent, we melt away the root of getting distracted. from wondering about our life as it's happening. And also we regain all those past times that we lost because we weren't attentive.

[19:33]

So the name of his book is, I think, In Search of Time Lost. And then there's a later chapter which is Recapturing the Lost Time. He lost a lot of time, that guy did, like most people. He lost a lot of opportunities to be in his life and wondering what it was. That was his suffering and that is our suffering. We're alive and we're distracted from it. But by confessing our distraction and saying we're sorry over and over, we stop being distracted. And not only are we not distracted at that moment that we stop, but this practice of not being distracted, of continuing wondering what our life is, regains the lost time. So we're searching for the lost time. The whole book is searching for lost time.

[20:38]

When it reaches its fullness in the art of meditation, it regains all those wasted times, which weren't really wasted times, but we missed them. We said they were a waste of time, but they weren't, even though they distracted us, or even though we were distracted. Now you have it. You have it already. There's not the slightest bit of difference between the ones who are missing their lives and the ones who are not. There's not the slightest bit of difference between those who are saying, right now, Saturday, September 19th, etc. in this lovely temple with these great people, what is the way?

[21:42]

How can I become the way? There's not the slightest bit of difference between that person and the ones who are distracted. However, the one who's not distracted realizes that there's not the slightest bit of difference, and the one who is distracted doesn't realize it. the situation. Yes? So are you saying that it's more valuable and important to live in the question than anything else, like them having the answer to how to live the life of the Bodhisattva or live for the benefit of all beings? Would you say that again or louder? Yeah. It seems to me you're saying that the most valuable thing we could do on this path is to actively live in the question of what is it to be a bodhisattva, what is it to live for the benefit of all beings, that that's a much more useful state than anything else, like having the answers, for example.

[23:00]

No, but thanks for that question. Thanks for asking that question, which was not the most important thing, but thank you. What is it? Being a true human being. It's not that being a true human being, the most important thing is that you're wondering how to do it. It's just that if you don't wonder how you do it, you're not going to be it. But also part of being a true human being is not asking questions, but making statements. and putting on shows. Like, I'm... I don't know what, you know, I'm a man. I'm a priest. That's not a question. But that's part of the deal. I'm here with you, practicing very nicely today. I'm feeling the heat of the day. That's not a question. But that's part of the deal. I want to be a Bodhisattva is not a question, but that's part of the deal.

[24:06]

I want to become Bodhidharma Avalokiteshvara, that's part of the deal. And then I'm saying, I also need to question, what is the way to become what I aspire to? Then also there's There is, I want to be involved in unceasing effort to free beings, and also I just think I wasn't. That's not a question either. I kind of feel like that was not really in accord, what I just did there was not in accord with my aspiration. That's another thing. Now, what I did, actually maybe even the Buddhas might say, yeah, I agree, that was not in accord with your aspiration. But confessing it is. And also saying you're sorry that you did something that didn't accord with your aspiration, that also is in accord with your aspiration.

[25:16]

Because that confession and repentance will remove transgressing into things that are not in accord with your aspiration, and also will remove the transgression from questioning. So, the practice is aspiration and wondering what we're aspiring to, and noticing when we're not, and confessing and repenting it. So, I'm not saying one part is more important than the other, but people naturally present themselves in some way. They do that, but they don't necessarily question what their presentation is or what their presentation aspires to. So I put an emphasis on that, but it's not more important, even if I said it was. I don't mean it's... It's just necessary, and most people are weak in the questioning department. And also most people are weak in the confession and repentance department.

[26:25]

Most people. We're weak, as sentient beings, we're weak in perfect enlightenment. And I can say more about perfect enlightenment in a minute. Or did you want to hear more things that we're weak in? There are other things that we generally... sentient beings are generally weak in a number of varieties of qualities that Buddhists are not weak in. Buddhists have virtues that we're weak in. However, although we're weak in them, It really means that we're weak in realizing them, but we're not weak in totally embodying, I mean, we're endowed with all these things that we're weak, we're weakly developed. Our infinite compassion is weak. But we have it.

[27:26]

It's our nature. And questioning our nature is part of realizing it. So the whole chain seems to start with aspiration. Aspiration is the... And I think I asked you this a long time ago and I would like to hear if you could give the same answer or if I hear the same answer differently now. And it's... What's the source of aspiration? And the example I gave was I have two siblings. They're not here. This is the last place they'd ever want to be. The source of aspiration, you want to know about that? The source of aspiration is contemplation of the stories of your life. A more technical way to say it is, the source of aspiration to complete perfect enlightenment,

[28:33]

the source of aspiration for freeing all beings, the source of it is contemplation of karmic causation. Karmic causation, another way to put it is, it's contemplation of your karmic consciousness, of your mind, where you're there doing stuff. Contemplate in that mind, in which there are stories, I did this, they did that, I helped them, they didn't help me. That was bad what I did, that was good what I did. Contemplating all those stories, there arises the feeling of, I don't want to do that anymore. That was not what I want. And that's what I do want. And nobody wants me to do that. And everybody wants me to do this. And so on. These are stories. And as you contemplate them, you start to want to do something about your life.

[29:40]

And one of the things you want to do about your life is you wish to free yourself from these stories. At least you wish to free yourself. At the beginning you wish to free yourself of all the bad stories. You wish to free yourself and others of the stories of misery. That's where the aspiration starts to come up. As it comes up and gets trained, you will eventually wish to free yourself from even the good stories. But at the beginning, you might not have that aspiration to free yourself from all stories. But at the beginning, like some people say, I would at least like to be less harmful. Or even I would like to be not harmful. As they review the harm they've done, they want to do less harm.

[30:43]

People who don't review the harm they've done might not yet have the aspiration, I would like to do less harm. So we have a number of people in recovery programs in the Sangha, and they're people who saw the story of harm. Harm they did, harm that was done to them, and they want to stop that. But it doesn't mean that they want to stop it, they stop remembering, looking at these stories. They keep looking at the stories to refresh their aspiration to not live those stories. which will eventually lead them to the aspiration of not dwelling in any stories. So you have the story, I want to be a princess, I want to be a bodhisattva, I want to be harmless, you have that story, which comes up out of reviewing other stories. And then you move on to actually developing the story of, not the story, but the question, what are those stories?

[31:49]

What is the life of being free of these stories? What is a person who is free? What is a bodhisattva? A bodhisattva doesn't dwell in her stories. But what is that? So the aspiration actually evolves into wondering what the aspiration is, or what it is that you're aspiring to, if the aspiration is to Buddhahood. If you aspire to be deluded, you don't have to ask any questions. Because when you're deluded, you know what delusion is. And you know what enlightenment is. I mean, you think you do. When you're enlightened, you don't know what a delusion is anymore. You just question it. And you don't know what enlightenment is. But you don't need to. You are. And you question it.

[32:51]

joyfully questioned, well, what is it? I'm just going to mention that there's a piece of music called Stabat Mater, which means Mother Stood, and it refers to Mary standing by her son while he's on the cross. This is a wonderful teaching. Stabat mater. Stabat mater. Stabat mater. Dello rosa. Juxta crucium lacrimosa. The mother stood in pain, full of pain, next to the cross, crying.

[33:56]

That's appropriate to what we're talking about here. Did you want to bring something up? So it just seemed to be you. It was my hand. It was your hand, not you. Yes? Ordinary human or being fully human, you know, that just boggles my mind because what you're talking about, living from compassion, that doesn't seem ordinary. Living from, did you say, living from compassion doesn't seem ordinary? Yeah. Yeah, I can see how you would... Like, if I'm being cruel, then it doesn't seem at that moment like I'm being compassionate.

[35:01]

At that moment that I feel like I'm being cruel, I don't feel like I'm being compassionate. Yeah. But you might feel you are being human. And I might feel like I'm being human, and feeling like I'm being human might be a little bit compassionate. It's not cruel for me to think that maybe I'm human. That's kind of fairly kind, actually. So then I'd be back on the compassion track. But anyway, someone also recently said to me, well, I want to be who I really am, but aren't I always being who I really am? She said. And then she went on to say, maybe the stories I have hinder me from being who I really am. And I said to her, it's not that the stories that you have are hindering you from being who you really are, because who you really are is a storyteller. What might hinder you from being who you really are is if you believe the stories you have of who you are or who other people are.

[36:08]

So normally we have stories of ourselves and others. This person is suffering, this person is not. I'm suffering, I'm not. I have these stories about myself and about others. This is like part of being human. The stories themselves are not necessarily hindrances. They're really not hindrances. They're part of my nature. And part of my nature is the storyteller and the one who is completely beyond all stories are not the slightest bit different. But my job as a human is to question all my stories until I don't dwell in them. Because again, if I dwell in my stories, if I abide in my stories, then that abiding can hinder me fully realizing that I am truly who I am, and that that liberates all beings. So does this have something to do with an understanding that we're created through a dependent process?

[37:18]

I think what you said was correct. Would you say it again, louder? I was wondering if this being fully human means understanding in some way that we have this dependent process. Yes, I would say that to realize our humanness involves understanding how we dependently co-arise to be suffering. But it also involves understanding how our true nature also dependently co-arises. So both our deluded side, And our enlightened side, both dependently co-arise. And we have the capacity to understand both. And so our responsibility in that situation, because on one side sometimes people say, well that's just how I am. And it's a statement of irresponsibility.

[38:22]

So how do we be responsible for that? Well start with what you're ready to be responsible about. And you will eventually realize that these other fairly advanced realizations would be part of your responsibility. So, we are responsible to be fully human. I would say. And if we don't fulfill that responsibility, or I should say, as we don't fulfill that responsibility, we have stress. When we do realize that responsibility, we realize freedom from suffering. And there are certain aspects of it, of the responsibility, that we're not yet aware of. Like when I first got ordained as a priest, I had some idea about what my responsibility was, but over the years I realized,

[39:25]

I didn't know that that was part of my responsibility, but now I see that it is. Like when I first got ordained, I didn't know that people would trust me because I was ordained. But then I found out that they trust me because I was ordained, so then they said to me, don't betray that trust. We can't help but trust you because you're ordained, So don't disappoint us, don't frustrate us, don't betray us. I didn't know what I was getting into. But still, I was into it. And when we get born as humans, we don't know what we're getting into, but we're getting into a big responsibility. And if we don't live it, we have more or less stress. But there's also the idea that our responsibility is to be what we actually already are. Now you have it. It's your responsibility to take care of it.

[40:27]

You can't get away from it. But if you get distracted, it'll be sad. Or it'll be painful. But it's not eternal damnation. So we can recover from not... having fully realized who we are. In the midst of wondering, I thought I might mention a few other things. Maybe I'll just say this and we can talk about it more later, and that is the word awakening or enlightenment, part of me wants to say, I don't like to talk about it.

[41:29]

Because I kind of don't. And I also kind of don't want to talk about the Buddhas, but it's kind of my responsibility somehow. I have to sort of talk about it. I'm sorry. I even kind of want to say I hate to talk about Buddha. I don't hate Buddha, I hate talking about Buddha. And I just did. So in this context of wondering, what is the life of a bodhisattva? How can I live the life of a bodhisattva? What is freeing all beings? How can I live that life? What is the enlightenment which frees all beings? In that context, I just wanted to say something about enlightenment. I'm recently feeling it's helpful to mention that there's sudden enlightenment, and you could say the gradual practice of it.

[42:44]

So there's like waking up from delusion. And that is sudden. It's a sudden waking up from delusion. And then there is a transformation which follows that sudden awakening, which is gradual. the gradual practice which follows the sudden awakening is actually a gradual practice of that sudden awakening. So, for example, I mentioned earlier that, maybe it was even more than a mention, that there's not the slightest bit of difference between humans who have not yet fully realized their humanness and those who have.

[43:55]

There's not the slightest difference between them. Those who are abiding in their stories about their life or their world, and those who are not abiding. There's not the slightest bit of difference between them. Those who do not abide understand that there's not the slightest bit of difference. Those who do abide, even if they think the thought there's not the slightest bit of difference, they don't really realize it. They're not really convinced. But the convinced and the unconvinced, the convinced, say, are not the slightest bit different. and enlightenment is sudden enlightenment, you can suddenly wake up to the statement, there's not the slightest bit of difference. I think many of us already have some awakening about, if there is a difference, it can be a big suffering.

[45:01]

I think many of us feel that. Do you know what I mean? I think you can sense if there's a big difference, of course, there could be a lot of suffering. There's a big difference between being stuck in our stories and being free of them. A big difference would mean a big difference, but even a little difference can be quite a stress factor. And stress fractures and stress factors can be quite a problem. especially if you try to walk on them. And then the stress factor can turn into a major break apart. So we understand that. But to realize no gap, that can happen suddenly. So in one sense the Buddhist path is sometimes characterized as five paths. Two are preparations for sudden awakening. And two follow sudden awakening.

[46:04]

So we practice sitting, we practice virtue, we just listen to the teaching, we discuss the teaching, we hear the teaching, we hear the song,

[46:21]

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