And to forget all things so the tape remembers. Is to leave no trace, is to leave no trace endlessly except on the tape. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be identified through all things. And to be identified through all things is to leave no trace endlessly. When you take such a poem like that or a statement like that or a poem like the Mount Lu poem again you don't try to comprehend it but rather try to know the state of mind and body of this poem.

[01:07]

If you can feel the state of mind of this mind and body of this statement of Dogen's, Dogen is with you. That's what Suzuki Roshi would say. Dogen is with you. Then Dogen is our actual history. If you put Dogen just on the bookshelf, and take him out occasionally, he suffers on the bookshelf. I'm afraid Dogen is suffering on many bookshelves. And Buddha is suffering in the Bodhisattvas and many Zen masters are suffering in the bookshelf.

[02:18]

So this is actual history that we are living forward. Now I think that the modern period Extends back two or three thousand years. Did he scratch you? And You know Much of what we're discussing right now is the result of a translator named Paramasa who lived and was an Indian who came to China. A prodigious translator and practicer.

[03:22]

And like in a minor way, the way Rachel Carson's one book in Insight has really the root of the conscious environmental movement. Two or three great translators, he was one of them, really presented what developed into Chinese Buddhism and into Zen. So we're practicing here as part of a movement in Western culture that precedes Buddhism, actually, in the West. But that as a movement means nothing unless individuals come to individual clear understandings.

[04:39]

can't be just a movement that's sort of in some kind of societal hibernation. It has to surface in you with clarity. The bear has to growl in you. The bear has to growl in you. Sorry, I don't know where I say these things sometimes. I think that at a certain point... when language and a certain critical mass of communication happen, we have what we would call now a modern period. And it weaves back into history with all kinds of non-modern periods around it.

[06:09]

But as I've often point out, there's 30 people in this room. Ninety people in much of it historical fact, some of it's mythological, but about ninety people connect us with Buddha. So if you see that society is both horizontal and vertical, I don't want you to think this is in the past. This is as present with us and in fact sometimes more present with us than I am with you. If we can become as present to each other as Dogen can be present to us, It will be quite good Sangha.

[07:15]

And we can live our actual history forward. Anyway, this is my hope. So let's sit for a couple of minutes. Who's boss? Hans and the cat remind me of a Zen saying.

[09:16]

The reed bends in the wind. Moving in the air. The boat cuts across the current to land at the shore. Both of these are sides of our life that we live in the midst of. not knowing the face of Mount Lu, the true face of Mount Lu. Maybe we are the true face of Mount Lu. The reed moves in the wind, bends in the wind, Moving in the air.

[10:27]

The boat cuts across the current to land at the shore. To take the precepts is to do both. To know the deep wind that moves us. And also to be able to cut across the current and land at the shore. Can we jam the beat?

[13:13]

Oh, yeah, I have the card. I did like the beginning of the lecture. It's okay. Yeah, I... Hey, good afternoon. Schönen guten Abend. I heard there was a suggestion that tomorrow afternoon we have a break. Actually, in conferences, when they're longer than a weekend, It's quite common to have a half day off, so maybe we should do that. And I heard that one of our founders, Peter Erxler... Peter.

[14:23]

He invited us, if we wanted to, to come to... Okay. Is this true? No, it's true. Well, I don't know. I'm just... To come to Rutte. Anyway, it's certainly part of our history. And Graf von Dirkheim's work is part of our history. So I think it would be nice to... Not only maybe take a drive through Ruta area and it's possible look at, you know, something. And then go maybe to Totmos and have a pastry and coffee or tea or something.

[15:27]

Vielleicht könnten wir durch Ruta fahren und uns die Landschaft auch anschauen und dann vielleicht anschließend nach Totmos gehen und da Kaffee und Kuchen zu nehmen. Yeah, because I think it's okay to be sometimes sybaritic monks. What's sybaritic? Sybaritic. The sybarites were, in Roman times, the pleasure-loving. And a sybaritic means pleasure-loving. Perhaps you're not practicing with your body if there's an element of pleasure-loving in your practice. But if you want to, you can stay here and study. Or sit in the Zendo. Or chase Charlie. Anyways, is this a good idea for enough of us that we might do it?

[16:29]

I think Peter feels cornered. No, no. It's fine. I'd like to show you around. Okay. We said if it rains like this... Then we do it the next day, maybe. Yes. Okay. Probably, if it's possible, we do it Thursday. Yeah, and Buddha may interfere through his gentle rain. Okay, okay. So as usual, I'm very curious about your discussion. Okay. Okay. Yes. Please. Yes. We first discussed the word trust, what it means.

[17:51]

So there are two parts. One is trust and one is the confidence to do something. Then we talked about how we can trust in something, and there were the views that it is necessary that we feel welcome in the world, that our mother, our father and the environment would be happy if we came to the world. So how do we get trust? It was necessary that when we came to this world that our parents were looking forward to having us and giving us trust. But then there was also the example of children who were obviously not wanted in the world, who also had a kind of trust.

[18:57]

I don't translate that. But there are kids who didn't grow up with these kind of parents and they still have this other kind of trust that nothing happens to them. Some kids, yeah, I think so. And then we talked about the fact that we often find trust when we give ourselves to nature. And we then discussed why this is so. We said that nature brings us in order, and if we are in order, then we have trust again. Often we go outside into nature and then we get trust and often if we go into nature we get healed and that again gives us trust.

[20:05]

Then we go to the Zen with a lot of trust and then the pain starts and then we lose the trust that we survive that we might not survive the situation And then... If we are suffering a lot with, let's say, a lot of pain, there will be an end, like losing consciousness. And there's this trust that there's an order in the universe and an order in the society, and we trust in that order.

[21:24]

We don't know really... She also said we don't know much about it but we still trust. We need trust when we go out of the order into a chaotic situation where we don't know what will happen to us. And in that situation we need trust first. And we need order in order to go into a situation that's more chaotic. So we need trust to be in such a situation. Thank you. Yes? We have solved the same... Yeah. I hope so. For instance, there is an order in the universe, and after winter, spring will come, anyway, but also that we are in this universe too, we have that inside of us, and sometimes we can feel it, and that is a ring of trust.

[23:01]

I will say, as I remember, the first thing that in our group was one person who speaks Dutch, and in Dutch, maybe in another language also, is to go married. Trust. Yes, I trust you, and you trust me, and I trust me that I will love you, or something that might go right goes with trust. The word. The word. The word. So somebody asked, did have the Buddha more friends or more doubts before he was... Before he left his wife and went to... Oh, okay. Yeah. I was reading seriously and... You see what happened?

[24:05]

Let's all be serious now. You don't translate? No. No. And then somebody saying a baby, a just-born baby, he trusts. He trusts his parents, he trusts life, and you can feel that when he looks at you, he really trusts you. So we came into the world with complete trust, but sometimes we lose it. Somebody said, for him, what he really trusts when he goes to bed, he knows that tomorrow it will be Sunday or the day.

[25:15]

Oh, yes. The world will not have a hand. And he didn't know, where does this trust come from? And so many years. Everything has a sense, even suffering, everything what happens when you are somewhere, or when something happens to you, it has a reason, and this reason you can call it God or not, it's the same, but something is, something you know, And more and more in Kona we could feel that each other more and more. And also somebody spoke about this.

[26:16]

I said, of course, with this famous stain. And we kept... There's always somebody, for instance you, who say, just let go, just do it, just let go. and you will trust the pain. And it's not easy when you trust that when you resist. That's this question. But the question with trust, is that what you... What you encounter is something you don't know, and that's why you need to be trusted. No one decided to be two voices and to trust each other. Okay, one person said that to trust you have to grow up with a feeling of trust by having a family, by living in a certain

[27:30]

a village or city and to have a certain religion, to believe in a religion. It's important to trust and to have this feeling of trust and faith in life and in yourself. And another person said to have this feeling of trust gives you a feeling of warmness and you open your heart. another person said if you don't trust you feel isolated and lonely because you don't trust anybody anything and you don't trust yourself because if you don't trust yourself you don't trust anybody you don't believe in anything if you lack this trust if you don't have it and somebody said two years ago he didn't trust He was very worried about making enough money to pay all the invoices or whatever you have to pay.

[28:36]

And this kind of insecurity is gone, has disappeared in two years. And now whatever happens, he trusts, he's very trustworthy, that he will be able to pay in whatever way. I mean, however. By going to jail. Anyway, he doesn't worry about it. When he manages, he doesn't worry about it. How to pay his... That's my problem too. Actually, I don't have it anymore. I gave this example because I said to you I would like to take the precepts and we had this talk and then you asked me, why do you want to take the precepts?

[29:46]

And I said, I don't really know. And I don't know whether I'm qualified or whatever I have to do. And you said, I don't really know. And I thought, oh, it's a good start. I don't know as you don't know. And I think that's the way of how things happen. I thought it's a good decision I made. I don't really know why. And I gave another example, but it's my own example, that until 12 years ago, I had no trust in life. I didn't know what to do. I had no roots. I didn't have these roots of family, religion, and village, and profession. I had no idea, really. And so I did my first Sashin in Japan with Harada Oishi. And during the Sashin, we had these interviews, and I... During my first interview, I started crying and I said, I have no roots.

[30:50]

I don't know where I belong to. I don't belong to anywhere, to no place, to nobody, not even to myself. And he looked at me and I was just crying on the floor. And he said, you're very lucky because by not having these roots, these kind of firm roots, you can get rooted everywhere. It gives you a lot of freedom. It gives you a lot of capacity and big dimension to settle down anywhere, to make friends everywhere, to do whatever you like. It's a really great freedom you have by having this or having... this feeling by having new roots. And this was like a kind of enlightenment. Since then I have this trust. I have this trust that my life will sort out somehow. And this trust really gave me strength. It was quite important to me.

[31:51]

You have written an article in this book about the precepts for war being possible. Yes, yes. For a future to be possible. And in that book you wrote Karma is your luggage and you put things in it during your whole life and one day you have to let it behind you. And last year I had luggage for three months. I was on the chaotic train And they were TGV, I don't know how to say. Left, there was a train, and right side. And I don't know why, I thought my train was the right side.

[32:58]

And I came up on this train, and I put my luggage, and I go back to the cave, and then the door... And Bilewicz was on. He magically was speaking to you. One day you must let your luggage. I had nothing. Everything was there. My dad, my shoes, my clothes, my tattoo, everything. I had only my wiring and money. And instead of being free, I thought, I don't want to be free. Thank you. Something else? We said a lot of things.

[34:31]

Not very original. But we saw truth on different levels. There was a man with no truth in anything. He was lost, desperate. He was going to die, he was going to drink. On the other side, somebody who trusts, but just trusts, not trusts in something, just trusts. Trusts in life, trusts in love, I don't know why, but I have this feeling that life has a sense. Have a sense? And we noticed that all the society was going on with trust.

[35:49]

Everybody, when you call somebody to come, he trusts immediately. There is no question about it. So just like believe something without seeing it. It is the domain of feeling. There's nothing else.

[37:00]

Okay. Okay, that's fine. One more? Yes. Thank you. more in myself than me, but I will say it in the right way. So the first question, is trust necessary? We agreed very far that it's necessary, with a great but. It's not easy to trust the human being. How it feels, it feels, it's trust. Trust feels to be valuable, and you only can trust if you open up, if you risk to get hurt.

[38:01]

And it feels, if I trust, it feels like being one, I'm not separate anymore. And I think the most we talked about, do I have trust to anything in my life? And we talked a lot about childhood, the same thing that the other groups. It's important to start with, with trust, and how it goes further. is it necessary to have a trust for childhood to stay with it? The same with these children that don't have it as sight and still use it as an adult. I understand that. And some say also the pain

[39:05]

and doesn't, they only have trust then in the position, that's only what's left, or in the breath. On the other side, two of us said that they don't trust much in life, like I said, mistrust, they have a lot of mistrust because often see that relationships and visions go by, nothing's left, and for me it's somehow like the Hinduism, the word is maya, that often it shows it's been an illusion I trusted in. There's nothing to trust in. Yes. And it's not easy to go with this. that trust only has to do with something on the other side, it's trust too, there must be two to trust.

[40:12]

If all is one, there is no question of trust. Yes. Yes, and I also have that I trust in you, or in a Master, We talked about different masters or gurus that they support us. We trust in them that they will support us to get developed. We hope so. And what maybe we found that this circle of simply like the last days to discuss is very opening, and it makes me intimate in the group, and I give it trust, and this knowing each other starts from just sitting together and talking about these questions together.

[41:16]

Very helpful. Anyone else want to? May I have something to tell first? In our group we also talked about trust in practice or what does it mean and trust, like you said, in a teacher and this... where it leads us and how the connection to the precepts and then came also up this the Buddha said don't trust in me just trust in your own experience and don't trust anybody else and it was just yeah we saw and didn't come to any conclusion or we didn't solve the problem Yes. Something else I noticed with me, when I trust, I don't control, and when I control, I don't trust.

[42:22]

I noticed that. Your trust has been growing over the years. You are nearly perfect now. Yes. Anything else? Yes. We also talked about trust, knowing and wisdom. If we know something we don't need trust, then we just know. Okay. Yes, let me say something about this guru-master stuff, which...

[43:39]

You know, I don't like it too much. And if people think I'm a good teacher, I guess I feel good about that, but basically it makes me mistrust the situation. But still I have to take some responsibility. And continuing a little bit, yesterday one of my big mistakes was I said in Zen Center, which, as I said, got quite big, I said the people who practiced were Zen Center students. It's like if I said here, you are Johanneshof students or you are Dharma Sangha students.

[44:49]

So, It's our practicing together in the situation in this nice building, which is the teacher. Now, this came out of some modesty in me and maybe a certain amount of wisdom to stay out of the hot seat. But it also allowed Zen Center to get very, very big. Because if I'd said to myself, I'm the teacher of these hundreds of people, I can't be the teacher of so many people.

[46:03]

But in fact, they all developed a teaching process with me which I couldn't take responsibility for. I could not, yes, because it was too many people. So if I'd recognized, yes, hey, you've got to face it, you are the teacher, then I would say maybe 25 or 30 people is already a lot. So now my feeling is, if I'm doing this, I have to take responsibility as a teacher. So if I can share a little bit of that with you, makes me very happy.

[47:17]

So my rule is now that I only will will enter into a practice relationship that's like this mentorship process with someone in which I feel a continuity, a connectedness of experience. And so if I feel I can feel their experience, and I feel they can feel my experience, then I trust the relationship.

[48:26]

But a lot of times, sometimes, I can't feel, I don't have this feeling. And then I say to them, you should practice with someone else or some other place. But this is not easy to say. And it's particularly hard to say with someone who maybe there's been that connection for some years but for various reasons it changes and then I have to say to that person there aren't affinities in our practice anymore so you should not practice here at Crestone or something. And there's two problems with this. One is there aren't many teachers. Now there's a lot more than there used to be, but there aren't still so many. So where do they go?

[49:45]

Now, in the 60s, when Zen Center was developing, Zen Center was the only Buddhist practice place in the United States. Later in the 60s there were a few more and there was a Tibetan practice place in New Jersey, quite small. So I let everyone come. I wouldn't do that, no. Even if there aren't other teachers to go to, I still wouldn't do it. This is a little off the subject, perhaps, of taking the precepts, but I think it's important to talk about. So that's one of the problems.

[50:46]

Where does someone go Another problem is often the person you say that to feels profoundly harmed. They feel really seriously rejected. And unless the person is quite mature, which then you probably accept them anyway. But if they're not so mature, then it's very difficult for them to not feel criticized. But as Buddhism and this kind of practice relationship develops in Europe and America, it'll become understood that

[51:55]

that there are various affinities and you find in a mutual way this relationship. And sometimes the teacher is saying, go away just to shock the student, the practitioner. And if they can't handle the shock, then they shouldn't be practicing with you anyway. So if they handle the shock, then sometimes you let them come back. So there's many, like you said to me, I'm not qualified. You said you didn't know if you were qualified.

[53:27]

If I say, yes, you are, then it means I don't trust your own perception of yourself. So if I say, oh, well, I don't know, maybe you're not qualified, then I'm trusting you. So it's not simple what you say or don't say. But also there's this practice in Zen. You say, I'm not qualified. And I say, you're not qualified. What is that? Two identical statements. That's a kind of trust. There's a Zen story like that. The teacher says, ah, there was a great wind last night. And the monk says, there was a great wind last night.

[54:31]

And the teacher says, a huge pine tree came down by the gate. And the monk says, a huge pine tree came down by the gate. And then this same teacher went and said to another monk, there was a great wind last night. And the monk said, what wind? And then he said, and a great pine tree came down by the gate And the monk said, what pine tree? Then the teacher said, one gain, one loss.

[55:32]

So we don't know what is going on here exactly. So let me try to say something about... We have to end in 15 or 20 minutes, or should. Although we cannot isolate trust from other virtues, because, for instance, I feel so badly when you talk about the pain in zazen, and I'm sorry that there seems to be a slight implication that I'm causing it.

[56:58]

It seems to be a small movement that I am to blame for it. By encouraging you to sit through it. But we need some strength also in order to trust. Trust also means to be able to stay in a situation. To trust a difficult situation to stay in it. takes strength. So in a way you are trusting practice when you stay in the situation where there may be considerable discomfort. But then also you have to trust yourself and say, this is too much, I'm going to change my legs or something.

[58:16]

So then you have to know how you feel. How do you feel good when you sit through the pain? Do you feel okay when you move? When I started sitting, I had very tight legs. No one thought I would ever be able to sit like that. And I still don't sit very well. And I'm ashamed to say I don't sit for lotus except in a very hot bath after 20 minutes. And it took me about 20 or 25 years before I could even sit with my right leg up on my left side. And my knees, when I would sit, would be way up in my air.

[59:37]

Reminds me of that joke about the Trabi, why it's such a silent car. Because your knees cover your ears. Two of your knees cover your ears. So I used to sit with my knees way up here. And I would push them down. After a few months, I guess, I could push them down. And I had three pillows, I said. Yeah, and I never called it the half lotus. I called it the half lily.

[60:37]

In America, you associate lilies with funerals. And the half-lily posture was killing me. So I would push my knees down. And they would stay down about five minutes, then plop! So you're seeing a miserable failure here who's persisted. So after a while I got so I could, in the middle of a 40-minute period, I could sit if I change my posture once. In Suzuki-Oshi he had a rule which is when he walked around with a stick

[61:51]

you could change your posture. So I think he was being quite kind to me to make this rule. Because maybe he'd see me, my knees start to, you know, he'd get up and carry the stick and bow. Sometimes he'd come and give me a hit. But anyway, I... People said, you should not change your posture, you're a bad Zen student and things. But I knew I would never learn if I didn't continue as well as I could. So I trusted my intention to continue.

[63:04]

So Kershye, after telling the story about Oka Soten and the little boy who was when he got back, of course, the meal was half an hour late because he brought the tofu half an hour late. But Sukri said he wasn't a bad boy. He was following the precepts. He said he wasn't a bad boy. He was following the precepts. And his hat was still on his head. But still, his teacher had to punish him. And he was quite punished for being half an hour, having the whole monastery wait half an hour.

[64:04]

So anyway, it's... we have to in the end discover and trust our own intention. Okay. So what I'm trying to talk about is our taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. So this means, what can we really trust? What can we take refuge in? Because it's pretty hard to actually trust anything. As the historical Buddha, the story of the historical Buddha, he discovered there is old age, sickness and death.

[65:35]

We get older and our body you can't trust, it may get sick. And eventually, of course, we die. So what can we depend on? And we want to depend on other people, and we do. So even when we can't, but as we know from experience, often people betray us or betray us without even knowing they're betraying us. And our society is continuously betraying us.

[66:39]

But as you said, still there's basic trust. across the street and cars stopped and, you know, and so forth. And in English, too, it would be betrothed. Betrothed means to be. to be trusted, and it means to be married. But in the Protestant ceremony, it also says, I think it's not in the Catholic ceremony, but it says the priest, the minister asks, do you plight your troth? And this is quite interesting because it means to plight means to endanger. Do you put yourself in plight?

[67:47]

Do you endanger yourself? So to plight your trust means do you endanger your truth? Do you love this person enough to endanger your truth with them? This is even a deeper trust. So what can we trust? We can't trust language. We know that various systems of looking at the world are incomplete. We can't trust our own thinking even. We constantly fool ourselves.

[68:55]

So what can we trust? Now, we can't understand human nature unless we understand that Buddha and Buddhism is mixed in with human nature. If Buddha and Buddhism were not mixed in with human nature, there'd be no Buddhism. Buddhism exists because many people have noticed that Buddhism is already mixed in with human nature. So the Buddha is someone who noticed that Buddhism is mixed in with human nature. So he decided to make this his nature.

[70:01]

And so he became Buddhism, and we consider him our founder, our historical founder. Okay. So when you decide to take the precepts, and I'm not saying all of you will take the precepts, but we're talking about it, and on some level, even if you don't formally take the precepts, I think in your heart you will take the precepts. So if you decide to... If you take the precepts, you are noticing that Buddha and Buddhism is already mixed in with your karma.

[71:13]

And in fact, you're deciding to recognize this. But since we're all, I think, pretty much following the precepts already, what's new? So, why take the precepts? We're already following them. The precepts are the same old precepts, so it's nothing new. What's new is the vow to take the precepts. The intention to take the precepts, this is new. And it is to take possession of your own life.

[72:18]

And to be reborn from this vow. So we can say that Zhukai precept ceremony is essentially a rebirth ceremony. So we can speak about taking the precepts is to give birth to a vow body, a precept body. And part of transmission ceremony is you do several things with pieces of paper and stuff, and one of them is to acknowledge the precept body.

[73:26]

No. Although we can't trust our thinking always and so forth, and can't always trust other people, We can trust our taking this vow. So by taking this vow, you are creating something you can trust. We may not be able to trust our human nature exactly, but we can trust our human nature coming to the point of taking this vow.

[74:33]

So when you're reborn from this vow, you have taken... possession of your own mind. You're no longer just the creation of your parents and society and genetics. You said, this is what my intention is, and I'll live this way. So the vows may be the same, but this precious tender moment of taking the vows is a point of rebirth. There's a moment of rebirth.

[75:39]

Then this moment may have occurred six months ago or two years ago or it might occur in the ceremony. But even if it occurred two years ago, When you first intimated, you might take the precepts. It'll be strengthened by taking, reawakened by taking the ceremony. So if you've already taken the precepts, like Jacqueline did in Belgium, she's okay to take them again. And Jacqueline, for example, has already taken the sermons in Belgium and it is totally fine if she does it again.

[76:46]

So that's the vow body that arises from your karma. In a sense, karma and your vow are the same thing. But instead of living from your karma now, you will live from your vow. The vow body arose as an answer to your karma, as a response to your karma. And when you take this vow, which is arisen from your karma, You now shift to live from your vow as a point in you. in a more rooted way than just living from your karma.

[78:25]

And this means that you vowed to recognize the way Buddha and Buddhism is already mixed in our life. And of course it has to have risen from your culture too. You might be continuing something your parents basically have. Or it might be, although it was by other names, it might be still, we could say, Buddhism or Buddha mixed into your grandparent or aunt or uncle. Or a friend. So, by taking this vow, you are also acknowledging how Buddhism and Buddha are mixed in your own culture.

[79:29]

Even though under some other name. So when we take the vow, we're also vowing to live with others so they recognize how Buddhism and Buddha are mixed in their life. Now this is Buddhist way of thinking, I'm expressing. Because this is a human creation. It's not some imagination or something fancy. It's just plain and simple that this is how we exist.

[80:50]

Let's notice how we really exist. We exist, society exists, because there is basic trust. In the millions and millions of acts that comprise a society, 90, 90, 90, 99% of them are trust. There are 31,600,000 or so seconds in a year. And most of those year-long moments... No. Most of those year-long moments are moments of trust. But that allows many people to be dishonest, because if everyone's trusting, you can... Dishonesty only works when most people trust.

[82:06]

If everyone's dishonest, no one can be dishonest. Okay, so I think... Yeah, sorry, but I have to continue a little bit because otherwise it won't make sense out of context. Okay, see. So that's... the vow that arises from our karma, which helps us live in a way that's partially free from our karma.

[83:11]

Now, there's another important sense of trust in Buddhism. The trust that rises not from form or karma, but the trust that arises from emptiness. These two work together to make Buddhism. So let's go back to this, we all close our eyes. And we open our eyes, I open my eyes, and you all appear.

[84:13]

And in one level I trust all of you. And another level, yes, I trust you, but maybe you don't understand. I can't trust you understand what I'm saying. I can't even trust the ground is translating it correctly. And I can't trust even if I'm my own way of expressing it is truthful or unbiased. And maybe any of you find cigarettes or beer or another love affair or something like that, much more interesting than zazen.

[85:29]

Yes, it may be actually a deeper addiction than zazen. I would rather have you addicted to Zazen, but, you know, if you... But I can't, I don't know. You're here now, maybe tomorrow you'll be gone. So I trust you but I don't know if I can trust you to carry on this practice, for example. My heart's desire is that you carry on this practice. But I can't depend on that. But what can I trust?

[86:30]

I can trust this mind in which you arise. Do you understand? I can't trust exactly what you are doing, but at this moment I trust the mind in which you all appear. And I have an absolute trust simultaneously in your mind in which we all appear. This is trusting in big mind. And this is called the Dharmakaya. So I can trust this emptiness or this ground or big mind in which everything appears.

[87:38]

This that allows everything to happen. Okay. Okay. So Buddha also means one who trusts in the Dharmakaya or in big mind. Now, again. Although I can't trust in my thinking or that I'm teaching right now exactly, accurately or effectively or usefully for you.

[88:48]

And I can't trust that how I describe myself to myself It's true. So I can't trust that I know who I am or something like that. But I can trust that I'm here. Or that something's here. Something's here with me. So I can trust this completely, that something's here. So this is zazen. You sit down in zazen to give up who you are or what you are. To study the self is to forget the self.

[89:58]

So when you can really make this kind of alchemical shift, It may sound like a nuance or something unimportant. But trust is an immensely powerful force. Makes the world go round. If you can release this trust in yourself, into something you can actually trust, something happens. So practice is also, Buddhism is also to discover that which we can release our trust into. So we have emptiness and Dharmakaya, big mind.

[91:10]

So as we create the vow so that we can trust this living which arises from the vow, So we create this vow so that we can trust this living which arises from this vow In like manner we trust this big mind from which everything arises and we allow the full power of our trust to come into this, then we trust what appears in a new way.

[92:23]

Because it's rooted in trust. And trust in That we are here. And the more you go into zazen, since we're talking about this practice, The more you go into zazen, free of language, free of karma, thoughts about yourself, etc., free of Comparative thinking.

[93:25]

With now this trust of here-ness. You don't have to do anything. This is called Shikantaza. this trust. And this is also the Sambhogakaya body. When you have this trust in big mind and you bring it into your actual experience, the Dharmakaya, it's not just your trusting emptiness, the Dharmakaya merges with your life and produces, gives birth to the Sambhogakaya. So now you have experiences which are wider than just your personality or thinking. And now you begin to be in the realm of what we call non-referential thinking.

[94:29]

Feelings that arise for no reason. Feelings that don't arise from your karma, but just arise. So trust just arises. Gratitude just arises. Feelings of contagious bliss just arise. Mm-hmm. And now you really see that Buddhism is mixed in with our human nature. We get rooted more in our mysterious source.

[95:40]

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