I probably shouldn't tell you this funny image that has come up, but it often comes up. So now I have all these wires into me. It's kind of, again, like being in intensive care. And I just thought, I wonder if when I'm in intensive care, if in addition to all the wires, the wires that the medical people are putting on me. I wonder if there will also be video cameras on me and various kinds of recording devices to record how I deal with being in intensive care. I've never been in intensive care in the hospital, but I wonder if I am, if it will be recorded. in various ways for people to observe my practice of stillness in the intensive care unit.

[01:56]

Or perhaps I should say, the practice of stillness. An image of practice which I often bring up is the practice of the Buddha way. One image of it is clean the temple and then sit. And then another image is that Zen practice, which is a form of the Buddha way, is also clean the temple and sit.

[03:09]

And another way to talk about Zen practice is psychoanalysis and ritual. So today I offer the resonance between cleaning the temple and perhaps I could say psychophysical analysis, and sitting as ritual. without doing some psychoanalysis, without taking care of our psychophysical processes, we may not be able to perform the ritual wholeheartedly.

[04:36]

without cleaning the temple we may not be able to sit wholeheartedly. But let's just say that we have done enough psychoanalysis, enough psychophysical cleaning, so that we can now sit in meditation and perform the ritual of sitting meditation. I don't know if we have cleaned the temple enough to look at the actual ritual. So I ask you, do you feel ready to look at the ritual?

[05:45]

Do you feel clean enough to look at the ritual? Or do you want to do some more cleaning? Ready to look at the ritual? place dirty, otherwise you spend all your time literally cleaning and you never sit. So sometimes I'm taking it very literally, I know we're speaking of it in metaphor, but sometimes... Yes, I'm asking you, are you clean enough to look at the ritual? Which means not cleaning completely, but yes, being able to sit. Are you cleaned enough? Do you feel cleaned up enough, that you've cleaned the temple enough to wholeheartedly look at the ritual. Do you? If you don't, then I don't know if we'll go ahead and look at the ritual if you're not ready. So let me know when you're ready.

[06:46]

We'll just wait for you, okay? You're really asking me. I'm asking you if you're ready to look at the ritual, or do you want to do some more cleaning? If you want to do more cleaning, we'll do some more cleaning. It's up to you. You're holding up the whole group. They're all ready. I think we should look at the ritual. You do? Because I think we will spend all our time cleaning, so we must move on to the ritual. He said the condition, so he's holding up the whole group. Wait a second, you should say that. Don't get her to talk for you. He's holding up the whole group. But I was confused about whether you were being rhetorical or really asking. I was really asking. And in really asking, when I really ask, my question does not exclude rhetoric.

[07:53]

My wholehearted requests and inquiries are rhetorical and ironic, paradoxical, humorous, playful, the whole universe is in all my questions. Are you ready to look at the ritual? Yes. Have you done enough cleaning to look at the ritual? Yes. She said yes. That is a ritual. And if you say no, There will be consequences. May I ask a question? Yes, you may. What do I mean by cleaning the temple? I mean dealing with your consciousness in a compassionate way, so that you feel that you're ready to look at what sitting is.

[09:09]

But some people may feel like, I can't look at what sitting is, I have to do more work, I have to deal with other things right now. I can't look at what Buddha ritual is, I'm not ready to say yes. And what are the consequences? Of what? Saying no. Probably we won't go ahead if you're not ready, if you say no. So we have certain ceremonies and I say to people, are you ready to receive such and such a precept? And they say, yes I am. Now will you receive such and such a precept? And they say, yes I will. If they say, no, I don't, then we stop. That's a consequence. They don't very often say no, but if they do, the ceremony stops. And that might be, you know, people might say, that was a great, I never saw that before, that was great.

[10:13]

The whole ceremony stopped. The person said, no, I will not. I came to a precept ceremony and I said, no, I will not. We do ceremonies where the person says or physically gestures by offering incense and bowing, they say, would you please give me the precepts. Or they say, would you please give me such and such precepts, Bodhisattva precepts, Buddha precepts, will you give me the Buddha precepts. And then I say, okay, yes, now will you receive them? And the person says, yes. If they say no, we will not probably proceed at that time. I say, well, then maybe later, I'll check with you later. What we just went through could be seen as

[11:17]

Temple cleaning. Maybe we did enough temple cleaning to proceed. Are we ready? Yes? I don't often know the difference between sitting and temple cleaning. You don't notice the difference between sitting and temple cleaning? Well, sometimes I'm cleaning while I'm sitting. Yeah. So I asked if there was enough cleaning going on, and it looks like a little bit more cleaning is kind of being called for. When we're in a meditation hall like this, and we sit down, many times after we sit down we realize we have to do some cleaning at our seat. When you first come in to this temple to sit, you may not have done the cleaning necessary to do the ritual. So the first, not the first, but you may have to do cleaning for quite a while before you can actually

[12:25]

perform the ceremony, perform the ritual. You may have to, for example, you might feel, I don't know what, you might come into the room and sit down and feel like, you know, I'm really sorry I came here today. Or, it was really difficult traffic on the way here. Or, somebody told me that they were going to come here today and I was looking forward to meeting them, and they're not here, and I'm sorry about that. I'm kind of disturbed that they're not here. That might come up while you're sitting. And you might have to clean that up before you can actually deal with the issue of performing the ceremony of sitting. What do you mean by cleaning it up? Like being compassionate towards it. For example, you could come here to sit, and again you sit down, and feelings of disappointment might arise in you.

[13:38]

Feelings of resentment, feelings of sadness, feelings of fear might arise when you sit down. Can you imagine that? Often times people come to the temple, they sit down and they start crying. When they're driving here, driving the car, I don't know exactly, but I imagine that people driving here, they're kind of like concentrating on the driving and maybe also having various other emotional things going on while they're driving. But they're not so often crying. So a lot of people walk in here not crying, they sit down and they start crying. Great sadness comes up, maybe when you sit still. You enter the temple and you notice things that you didn't notice before. Like this place is pretty clean. Have you noticed? When you arrive, it's pretty clean. It's not like, I don't know what, tin cans on the floor and dropped Kleenex and socks and stuff around the floor.

[14:50]

It's pretty tidy. But if you sit down here for a little while, you may notice some subtle messiness that you didn't notice before. Literally, you know, like somebody came to see me just a minute ago, and they put the cushion down, and I saw a bunch of dust come up. So I thought, well, during this work period, it might be good to shake out to pound the things a little bit outside and to shake the things, because they're quite dusty. And when you first walk into that room and look at... Did anybody who came in there notice how dusty the cushions were? Did you notice how dusty they were? Yeah. They don't look dusty, they look black. Which is one of the reasons we use black. Actually, white would also maybe hide the dust.

[15:52]

Anyway... The room looked tidy, but when they put the cushion down, I saw all this dust come up. And so I thought, let's clean that up. But I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been sitting there and the light had been coming in a certain way and they dropped the cushion. So all these things come up when you sit that you don't notice when you're driving, or walking, or talking. Have you noticed that? Yeah, many people notice that. When you're in the hustle and bustle of daily life, there's lots of subtle things that you don't notice. And then when you sit in the temple, you notice all this stuff. So how do you clean it up? With compassion. How do you clean the temple? In accordance with the Buddha way. How do you clean the temple? With compassion. Now, if while you're cleaning the temple, you think, this is a filthy temple, And the people here are really not very careful of taking care of this temple.

[16:59]

This is a below average hygiene situation here. If you think thoughts like that, then cleaning those thoughts up is to be compassionate towards them. Any more questions about that for now? Yes? Sometimes I find that when I'm sitting, actually solutions come up that I don't normally have. They're like just the right... things clear up in a way that wouldn't happen if I didn't sit. So that's another example of something that arises, that's in the temple, and then that would be another thing to clean up. The solution. The solution.

[18:00]

Or the insight. You know? Sometimes the things that need to be cleaned up are like beautiful flower arrangements. The thought, you mean. The thought of a beautiful flower arrangement. Yes, but also the beautiful flower arrangement. Those flowers have to be cleaned up at some point. They have to be taken care of. And the some point is right now. Be compassionate to those flowers. Which includes being compassionate to all the people in the room. So we're still kind of, not still, but we're working on cleaning the temple right now. To clarify all the things that come up in our life and that Part of what we need to do is we need to tidy up so that all these things do not hinder us from

[19:07]

the ritual, so that our psychological and physiological processes, that all the perceptions that are arising, are cared for in such a way that we can work on something somewhat different from insights and emotions and perceptions. Yes? Is cleaning up essentially not leaning in Is it essentially not leaning towards or away? Or you could also say, is being compassionate essentially not leaning in or leaning away? Yeah. Cleaning up is to be compassionate to the temple. Compassionate enough so that you can now perform the ritual of the Buddha way.

[20:18]

I'm not in a hurry to talk about it, I just wondered when you're ready. Yeah? You keep saying the ritual. I keep saying ritual, yeah. Compassion is the ritual. Is that true? You could see compassion as a ritual, yeah. You could see cleaning the temple as a ritual. What is the ritual of sitting? Is that different? Than the ritual of compassion? No. It's not. The ritual is not different. from compassion, and compassion is not different from the ritual of the Buddha way. But isn't the cleaning just an endless process?

[21:52]

Isn't the cleaning an endless process? Yes. How about the ritual? Well, I guess they go hand in hand, you have to do both. They go hand in hand, so the ritual is an endless process too. Isn't the Buddha way an endless process? Yes. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about the ritual of sitting. The ritual of sitting. Or, the ritual of the Buddha way.

[22:53]

So, I... For example, I could sit. Like right now, I'm sitting. The sitting could be the performance of listening to Prajna all day long. It could be the performance of listening to Prajna all day long. It could be the performance of the Buddha way. It could be the performance of the practice. Which is the practice of all of us.

[24:07]

There is a perception of sitting, and this sitting which can be perceived is offered as a performance of something which is not a perception. The way we are practicing together right now is not a perception. The way we are supporting each other right now is not a perception. The way we are in harmony right now is not a perception. The way each of us is living with perceptions, moment by moment, The way each of us is living with perceptions, moment by moment, in harmony with everybody else, that is not a perception.

[25:54]

The way we are living together in peace and harmony right now is called many things. One of the things it's called is the Buddha way. Another thing it's called is The intimate transmission of Buddha mind, the Buddha mind seal, is the activity of our true life. The transmission of the Buddha mind seal is our actual life. and it's not a perception. The way we are living in peace and harmony is a transmission of an intimate harmony and peace, which no one can perceive, which is not an appearance or a disappearance.

[27:16]

all the different living beings in the universe who have consciousness. In consciousness there are appearances. In consciousness there are appearances of appearing and disappearing, of arising and ceasing. And all these different consciousnesses are living in perfect peace and harmony with each other. And that is not an appearance. And that does not arise or cease. This posture is not an appearance. This sitting posture here is not an appearance. human minds can make this posture into an appearance.

[28:22]

Cleaning the temple means be compassionate with this appearance, so you're ready to let this appearance be used as a performance of a reality that's not an appearance. The ritual is to use this appearance as the performance of reality which is not an appearance. To use this appearance, this body, and this mind, to use this to affirm. the inconceivable, liberating intimacy of our life. When I was talking with you about cleaning the temple at that time, I could have been using that conversation to perform the ritual.

[29:40]

I could have been using my perception of the conversation about cleaning to perform the ritual of our life together, which is not a perception. But I can also just say, this posture and these words are offered as an affirmation, a ritual affirmation. These words and these postures are offered as an act of service to all beings, but also an act of service to the actual relationship of this perceptible body and the peace and harmony of all bodies.

[30:48]

And I mentioned that there may need to be some cleaning in order to realize that the cleaning can also be sitting. The cleaning can also be the performance of the Buddha way. And that the cleaning and the sitting, or psychoanalysis in the ritual, are not actually separate. And this perceptible performance and the Buddha way are not separate. The Buddha way is the non-separation of our life and all life. That's the Buddha way.

[32:00]

But if we don't perform that, we will not realize it. If we do perform it, it's not that we will realize it, it's that's how we do realize it. That is the realization of it, and there's not another realization. And saying this, what I'm just saying to you, could be seen as cleaning the temple. To clear away any distraction from this as being the performance of peace and harmony. And this performance is the realization, and there's no other realization of peace and harmony. But in consciousness, there may be a thought like, no, there's another realization of reality than this

[33:09]

perception. But the teaching is that there's not another reality than this perception. But if you don't make this perception a performance, then you miss that there's not another reality from this perception, from this performance. Without serving reality, we don't realize it. Even though we can't get away from it, We can't make it happen. Reality is already the case. Are you making a distinction between perception and reality? Am I making a distinction? I don't know if I'm making a distinction, but the distinction can be made. Part of cleaning house is to clean up the confusion between a distinction being made

[34:12]

and I make the distinction. Without cleaning the house, if you say there is a distinction being made, and then you say I make a distinction, you may notice that when the statement I make a distinction occurs, that there is some confusion about distinctions as part of cleaning a house. And being compassionate with a distinction being made, and I make a distinction, being compassionate with that, allows the making of the distinction an opportunity to serve, make that distinction the service of the peace and harmony which is not a distinction, and which makes no distinctions, and which is not the least bit distinct from making distinctions.

[35:24]

No matter what distinction you're making, you can never really ever be separate from peace and harmony. If you think, if the distinction arises, this is peace and harmony, how great, how distinguished this peace and harmony is. If such a distinction arises, that doesn't disturb the peace and harmony. Nothing can disturb it. But if I miss the opportunity, when I say, this is peace and harmony, if I miss the opportunity of making that statement, the performance, of the Buddha way, then I don't realize that this is the Buddha way and this is not the Buddha way, neither one of those are the least bit separate from the Buddha way.

[36:30]

But sometimes when people think, oh, this is, this is, they make the distinction arises, this is the Buddha way, they maybe feel good, which is fine. And if they think this is not the Buddha way, they may feel, oh, too bad. If the temple is clean, you can use both of those, not to hold on to either one, because when you clean the temple, you don't hold on to the dirt and you don't push it away. You use the dirt or the broom as an opportunity to perform the Buddha way. You use it as an opportunity to perform reality. And if I do not use the broom, these words, any distinction, these feelings, if I don't use them to perform the ritual, it's not realized.

[37:38]

Even though it is the case. This is a strange thing about our life, is that if we don't perform our life, we miss our life. If we don't serve our life, if we don't affirm our life, if we don't pay homage to our life, we miss it, even though of course we cannot. And if you're not ready for what's going on right now, to be the performance of reality, then we should clean the temple. Until we realize that cleaning the temple is the performance of what we weren't ready to do before. I cannot yet say that these words are the performance of peace and harmony. I think there's some other peace and harmony

[38:40]

than me performing Peace and Harmony. So we have to have some more cleaning until I say, oh no, wait a minute, I'm going to use this life as the opportunity right now to perform reality. I understand that's a strange situation. I have to serve reality, otherwise I'll miss it. I have to pay my respects, I have to pay homage to reality. If I miss, I have to make offerings to it, even though it's already what's happening. Yesterday I was talking to a group of people about the transmission of the Buddha mind seal, which is the same as the transmission of reality. The Buddha's reality is not an unhappy reality.

[39:48]

It is a happy reality. It is a peaceful reality. The Buddha's reality is peace and harmony. The Buddha didn't discover that there's war. The Buddha discovered that there's peace, and that this peace should not be held onto. etc. Every moment something comes up and in a way there needs to be temple cleaning. What is the temple cleaning? It's kind of like what Kathy said, listening to wisdom, did you say? listening to prajna all day long. Another way to say it is listening to prajna every minute, every second.

[40:49]

So when something arises, it's temple cleaning time, which is to clean away any distraction from listening to what's happening as a performance of wisdom. If you're ready, For this listening that's happening right now to be the performance of reality, tempo cleaning has been successful. Because you are now ready and you are going to make this listening your service of reality. And make this looking and this touching the current example of performing listening to the Dharma.

[41:51]

So again, temple cleaning could be called whatever you need to do, whatever kindness you need to do in order to let go of distraction from performing your real life. And if you honestly feel, you know, I'm not yet ready to have this be the performance of reality, then I would say, well, tell me what you need to be ready. Let's do whatever you need to be ready. And later, when you're ready and you do perform, you will realize the way, and you might also realize that when you weren't ready, and you said so, you were actually performing your life at that time too. You never are not performing your life. You always are. Like we say, this intimate transmission, now you have it, so take care of it.

[43:05]

How do you take care of it? Clean the temple. Wash away any doubt that you have it. And even though you have it, you have to take care of it. How do you take care of it? You perform what you already have. Is there another word besides perform? Serve. Is there another? Just a second. She said, she made a face and she said, here's another one. Now, I think, you ready? Before we go on to another one, we need to clean the temple. Because when I, you know, the first time she said, is there another word besides perform, I said, okay, now I'll give her another one. But do you notice she wasn't satisfied? You need to clean the temple. You need to clean the temple. before I'm going to give you another word.

[44:06]

Once you clean the temple, then if I give you another word, you might be able to use that one too. You could use the first one too. We can go back to the first one. The first one was given to you and you said, no, I'm not going to use perform to realize my true life. I'm not going to use that word. Give me another one. So I gave you another one, that wasn't good too. We can continue, but two is enough. Now it's time to clean the temple. Which means that you'll be ready to use whatever I say, and therefore whatever you hear. You'll use that. And you will use that as the performance of your life. And if you're not ready to use whatever you're given, as the performance of your life, as the performance of the Buddha way, then we need to clean the temple. And I'm happy to clean the temple with you because when I'm cleaning the temple with you, my dear, that for me is performing the Buddha way.

[45:18]

When I asked about that and these questions came up, for me, that was performing the Buddha way. And I need to make whatever conversation I'm having with you, I need that to be the performance of the Buddha way. Otherwise, the Buddha way will not be realized during our conversation. The possibility here is to realize it on every occasion. And this teaching is saying, you can realize it on every occasion. Not later. I am saying that this is offered as a service to reality, and if I'm not a servant of reality, reality doesn't have a servant. And I just wanted to say that yesterday, when I spoke of the Buddha mind seal, that word is a translation of the word mudra,

[46:34]

And mudra means a seal, like you can seal a document with a seal. And somebody said the word seal can also mean, I think she said it means like the same. So the word seal, Like a replica? Yeah, like a replica. He said the same seal over and over, the same seal. That's one of the things about a seal, it's the same seal over and over. So it has a sameness quality to it. It also has a sense of authenticity, or it's a mark of authenticity. It has that quality. It also has the meaning of a circle. The word mudra also means circle or ring.

[47:39]

And it also has a meaning of joining things. So the word seal has all those meanings. It's the same thing over and over. It's the mark of truth or reality. And it's all-inclusive. So the Buddha mind seal is always the same, and it is the mark of authenticity, and it is all-inclusive. And that's what the Buddha way is, it is the transmission.

[48:21]

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