As you may have heard, the practice of the Buddhas is dropping off body and mind without discarding body and mind. Have you heard that? And, last time we met here, I gave a little talk which might be the first chapter of a book. Today, I thought I'd give the second chapter. Are you ready? Some of you weren't here last time, so I'll give a brief comment on the first chapter.

[01:00]

The first chapter was about our original, true home and family. Original, true, and omnipresent home and family. This original home and family is imperceptible. I may have mentioned that because human beings naturally have a need to grasp things, we

[02:54]

project, our mind projects onto our original home and family a perception of it or a perceptual version of it. And, this perceptual version of it covers it, magically obscures our original home. And, because this projection of our original home was originally our original home, the

[04:09]

realm of projection, of perception, is always yearning and longing for the original home. And, because of this longing, we leave our knowable, perceptual home, in search of our original home. Some people have a perception of their home,

[05:18]

as being quite wholesome and blessed. They feel like their parents and other family members are kind to them, love them, support them, and they often feel able to accept the love and support, and appreciate it. However, even under such blessed circumstances, or even under circumstances where we actually feel

[06:26]

fortunate and blessed by our home, by our family, we still yearn for our original home, which is right here, right now. Even though our perceptible home may be quite wholesome, we still yearn for our imperceptible, ungraspable, unlimited, peaceful home. To make a long story short, I'm not going to tell a long story about what it's like when people feel like,

[07:31]

when they perceive that their home is not blessed, that they're not fortunate, that their family doesn't love them, that their family is abusive and sick. That's another home that some people have. And those people also yearn for their original home, their true home. So no matter how we see our home, any home we can see is not our original home. Our original home is invisible, and inaudible, and imperceptible, and ungraspable, and it is an essential part of our life. But it is also an essential part of our life that we naturally project upon this ungraspable world

[08:33]

a graspable version. Babies need to grasp their mothers and their fathers. They need to grasp the tip of their mother's breast or the tip of the bottle. They need to clamp their mouth down and grip their little chubby hands onto flesh. If they don't do it, they will not be able to grow up and become Buddhists. But most babies can grasp, and they grasp the whole graspable world, and at the same time they yearn for their original home. And so at some point, and it's a big deal what that point is, but at some point living beings, not just humans, particularly mammals,

[09:42]

but also reptiles and birds, they fly away. They wander off from their perceptible home in search of their imperceptible original home, which they must reconnect with and realize in order to become who they really are. So the second chapter of this book is about wandering off

[10:48]

from our perceptible home in order to find peace by rediscovering our original home, even though we don't have to go one millimeter away from where we are to discover it. But we go more than a millimeter away, and we try things on our own. We set up standards on our own. We experiment on our own. And in order to do this wandering, we may have to reject our perceptual parents, our perceptual family, our perceptual home.

[11:57]

And we may have to reject the values which our home and family transmitted to us in order to go on this journey. And generally speaking, the longer we go on this journey, the more destitute and impoverished we become. The more we deny our original home by looking for new homes,

[13:26]

the more we deny our original family by looking for new families. We don't really go away from our home, but we feel the consequences of denying the home where we already are by going someplace else. One time my father came to visit me at Green Dragon Temple over the hill from here. And he looked at my altar in my room, and on my altar there were Buddhas, and there was a picture of Suzuki Roshi. And my father said to me, Suzuki, he's your real father, isn't he? And that was painful for me to hear,

[14:38]

and I think I said kind of, no, you are. But at the same time, what I mean is, but you're my biological father. And now today I feel like Suzuki Roshi was like halfway between my biological father and my real father. My real father I cannot see. My real mother I cannot see. Suzuki Roshi stands in to help me make the transition from my temporary father, my dear, sweet, temporary father, to my invisible, omnipresent father.

[15:49]

And of course the same with mother. Our biological mother is temporary, even though she's so beautiful and so great. She's temporary. And actually we experiment with projecting on her that she's not temporary. But she's a temporary, provisional mother who stands in for our real mother, who's not temporary, always with us. Our real mother is the way

[17:04]

we are supported by the entire universe. Our real mother is the way we support the entire universe. Our real mother is a conversation which we can't grasp. And again, we're built to be uncomfortable with what we're with all the time that we cannot grasp. So again, our real mother body-mind projects upon our real mother a graspable, provisional mother. And we do grab her, and that's necessary. But then, over the years, little by little,

[18:07]

we sense, somewhat consciously, somewhat unconsciously, that we have to go find something that we cannot find in our temporary mother. And we have to go away from our temporary mother, we think, to find what's right here. And the longer we wander from our temporary mother in search of what's already here, the more we deprive ourselves of what's already here. Not deprive. Drain ourselves. Rob ourselves of what is already here. So, yeah, so this is the phase of...

[19:16]

Yeah, it's kind of the phase of... feeling the... What's the word? The insufficiency, the incompleteness of our world, and sensing that there is a complete version of our life, and we long to realize it. But again, somehow, we, almost all of us, need to leave and go off someplace, and find out that going off someplace is not the solution to our aspiration. And then, maybe this is the third chapter, I don't know,

[20:33]

but then, at some point, we realize, to some extent, that this going off someplace to find what we're looking for, and we don't know what it is, is not the way. We realize that we're yearning for something, and in order to realize it, we need to not run away anymore. We need to train ourselves to be here, to be the person who is yearning for something beyond their hearing and seeing,

[21:39]

beyond their feeling and discrimination. We need training. And part of what might lead to this realization is to perceive examples of people, of humans, or animals, or trees, that show us how we might be able to think and speak and gesture if we knew our real home. We see examples of people who have returned

[22:42]

or we see examples of people who have stopped looking someplace else for their life and have been trained in being where they are and realized the way they are, and then demonstrated how you can live once you realize the way you already are always. And we see these examples and we say, maybe that person is showing me what I've been looking for. And then we find out that that person offers a training opportunity to deal with our life in such a way as to discover what our life is. And also that this training opportunity

[23:57]

is something that they did not set up on their own. They tried to set up on their own what their training should be, what their path should be. They left their home where they were not setting up things on their own. They left their provisional home where they did not set things up on their own and they decided where they wanted to go with or without consultation with their temporary family. But that path shows itself to be, if you excuse the expression, many, many dead ends, not just one dead end, but lots of dead ends. In other words, ends that are painful,

[25:00]

confusing, disturbing and not what we're looking for. So we realize that not only do we need training, but we need a training which we don't set up on our own. Because the people who showed us how we can live when we realize our true home, those people got trained, but not in a training they set up. They got trained in a training that somebody else set up. And the somebody else who set it up was somebody who got trained by somebody else who set it up. And it's not exactly that somebody else sets it up, but that we set it up together with somebody. We enter a program of training where we together with other people set up the training.

[26:01]

And in that training, we will realize our original home. And we'll realize that going away from our original, excuse me, that trying to get away from our original home, which is impossible, in order to realize our original home, which is, you know, what do you call it? I could say, it's not really contraindicated, it's more like paradoxical. And I say it's not contraindicated because it is necessary. We need to go away from our provisional home which, in the attempt to go find something which is already here.

[27:03]

We need to do it. And we need to see that going away from where we already really are in order to find out how we really are is not going to do it. However, it is going to do it because we have to go away from the way we already are in order to realize how we already are. Which entails going away from the way we aren't in order to realize the way we are. We can't get away from the way we are. We cannot. But we already feel alienated from it so we feel like we have to go away from where we think we are, and we do. So it really is necessary that we go on this, excuse the expression, fool's journey.

[28:04]

We must have a foolish phase of life in order to realize what life is. And again, as on this path of foolishness, we can start to wake up to how foolish it is and realize that it's getting to be time to enter the process, the ongoing process, maybe at first we think to enter the process of stopping this foolishness, but it's actually entering into the process of working with this foolishness. And working with this foolishness without getting rid of the foolishness

[29:07]

will realize freedom from foolishness and also our original home. So that's kind of Chapter 2. And Chapter 2 could include you in the form of your conversation about what has just been said. Yes? I feel my foolish path is essential. I needed my foolish path, so maybe not so foolish. Can I say something? May I? He said he feels like he needs his foolish path,

[30:10]

so maybe not so foolish. I think maybe not so foolish is fine, but essential, I think, is more correct. Yes, essential. It's essential to go on the foolish path. But maybe not so foolish, I think, is more foolishness. I think we need to realize it's completely thoroughly foolish. To go someplace, to be where you are. That's not going to work. However, it's essential that you try. And also, I think you said something about past. Oh, you said path, yeah. Oh, you said was. Yeah, you said was. It's still. Yeah, right. I would say it's still. It's not was. The foolish path does not end. Part of the foolish path

[31:13]

is to think that the foolish path would end. The foolish path, I would suggest the foolish path does not end. And it's essential. It's essential. The illusion that is participating in the foolish path, along with the belief that these illusions are real, which is the deluded part, the foolish part of the foolish path, is ongoing. It's an ongoing challenge to the training which realizes freedom from foolish path and also realizes our true home which we really want to be realized. So there is foolish path

[32:21]

and then there is not-so-foolish path and then there's not-foolish path. There's all those things. The same path. Hmm? The same path. And all these things are the same path. So the path of Buddha activity includes all the foolish paths and all the, what do you call it, modifications of all the foolish paths. I propose. Foolishly. Yes, yes, yes? I'm thinking of the wandering away as, maybe for me, not so much a deliberate process and definitely not a solo process. Well, you're mixing two things.

[33:26]

One is of what you're thinking and then you slipped over into what is. So you're thinking that this path of wandering away is not necessarily deliberate and you're also thinking that it's not solo. You're right it is not solo activity. You're right. But some people do go on this path not deliberately and also believing it's solo. Maybe you didn't. However, the way you didn't is it was essential that the way you didn't do it solo you would actually think it's solo. I'm saying to you, yeah. Right now you're making a face which shows you still think you can do something solo. That face shows you don't realize

[34:30]

that you can't think that thought by yourself. This thing about I don't think it's solo, you think actually that that's a solo thought. I'm saying that to you. Yeah, right, you're doing it again. You think, you think, I'm saying the way you're acting right now I'm reading as your thought is solo in relationship to what I just said. Yeah, questioning, questioning is fine. But you could have questioned that without actually thinking that your thought which sounded different from mine I think maybe we should close the window before that scroll falls off the wall. It's essential that you think it's solo.

[35:31]

It's not. The path you're on is not solo. Going off by yourself on a solo trip is not solo. That's correct. However, you must it is essential that you go through a phase of thinking you're doing something by yourself. If you avoid that thing you're avoiding something which you need to recognize is part of the path of realizing what you can't see or hear. So it's true nothing on this path nothing in this story nothing in this book is solo. The fact that nothing is solo is our original home. We're not born most of us anyway

[36:36]

almost nobody is born understanding their original home. Because they have to they have to go through this phase of solo which is solo biting the tit. Solo owning your mom. It isn't like the baby thinks oh, we're owning this mom. No. She's my mom. It's my tit. It's my mouth. It's my mouth. We must go through that. And actually that is the beginning of denying but even if so I would say it's essential to go on the full journey of solo. And also that you don't necessarily consciously know you're going on this journey.

[37:37]

You just think you want to go away from home. And do something. So what do you have to say? No, it's not. And even if it was the whole story it would just be a story. So a part of the story is a story. And the whole story is a story. And stories you can grasp. However, they do not reach what they're covering. You agree? Yeah. So there's no whole story really. I mean, if you say it's a whole story then I say, can I talk to you about that? And we go on. So there really isn't a whole story. So any story I tell you, you can say that. It's not the whole story. But when you say it... And vice versa.

[38:39]

And vice versa. To say that it's not the whole story is not the whole story. Okay? You good now? Happy? But that's not the whole story, right? I see you, but you're fourth, Katie. And you're fifth, Pam. Simon? I was speaking with someone this past week and she said that was there any hope for her in practice? Because the way her life was set up she couldn't imagine leaving her family. I'm wondering if she read Chapter Two would she think that you're affirming her fear? Affirming her fear? Her fear what? Of what? That you saying to leave the provisional home is essential. No.

[39:43]

The essential thing is to leave your real home. That's essential. Some people can actually stay in their provisional home and simultaneously doing what's essential which is to deny their original home. Because they're using, basically we're using our provisional home as a way to get a hold of something. Incidentally using our provisional home for the sake of being able to get a hold of something just kind of covers up our original home which we once we've successfully covered up our original home then we get to start longing for it. So she's got a provisional home it's essential that she used that foolishly and naturally and essentially

[40:49]

to hide her original home. So the possibility of practice for her will be to start training with what she's doing to cover up her original home. So she's doing something like you and me she's doing something which is covering up the inconceivable love of Buddha's enlightenment which is with her all day long. And she has the opportunity to practice with what she's doing to alienate herself from her home. And that is an essential part of the practice. First of all that she's got a provisional home that she covers the original home up with. Second of all she's yearning for the original home so she's considering practice. But the practice is to deal with her provisional home.

[41:49]

She already left another provisional home before and now made another one. But she doesn't leave this one. She needs to realize how to train with this one to realize the original one. It happens anyway. Nobody can avoid that. Study the provisional home and then also watch how you don't just accept the provisional home but you look for something else. I'm saying that what you're looking for in your provisional home is your original home. So you think you have to leave your... you may or may not think you have to leave

[42:53]

your provisional home in order to find your original home. And if you do leave your provisional home in search of your original home then things usually get worse for you. Because then you keep doing that over and over you keep leaving your provisional situation to find your original situation. And the more you leave your provisional situation to find your original situation the more alienated you become from your original. However, when you start to notice that then you can practice compassion towards this foolishness which is essential. And by being compassionate through training by training and compassion towards your foolishness with your provisional home you don't have to get rid of your provisional home and you don't have to get rid of foolishness in relationship to it or foolishness in relationship

[43:53]

to the way you're using this all this stuff to get to your original home you just need to be compassionate with it all. And you realize you've always actually been in this home and in this family. Homa. It's only 12 o'clock. There's no end to this process. There's no end to this process of being at home there's no end to the process of foolishness there's no end to the process of training with the foolishness and there's no end to the process of enlightenment. This whole thing of being where we are and being how we are and obscuring it with our normal processes

[44:57]

feeling bereft and looking for what we really are and all the foolishness we do and the training we do with the foolishness and the enlightenment as to this original home they're all together all the time. Yes. But. But's there too. And my but is as long as I keep looking for an original home in my look I'm creating foolishness. Yes. Well, not some of you are, but that's foolish. That's foolish. It's foolish to look for it because it's invisible. So, therefore, the foolishness is being created by me. Not by you. By your life. By life.

[45:58]

By life looking Yes. for itself. Yes. It's somewhere other than here. And that's foolish. So, this is the... I don't... I move. I move, but I like... I don't want to move, but I move. But the non-moving of this whole is not foolish. No, it's not foolish. However, it's inseparable from foolishness. The original home is not moving. It's not going any place. And that original home is how... is how... Our original home is the way that the whole universe gives rise to us who give rise to a need to grasp things.

[47:00]

And how our need... Yeah. And how our need to grasp things gives rise to the entire universe. So, because of our need to grasp our mother we make the whole universe graspable. Or I should say the whole universe is made graspable by our need to make the whole universe graspable. Of course it's not, but we make it that way. And that... And then we know that... You know... But not only that, but we feel like even though we've got our mother's attention, we've got our mother's care, even that still somehow it's not enough. So, because we're looking for what we abandoned in order to get a hold of our mother. So it's not enough. So then we think, Oh, I've got to go do something in addition to getting food and drink and warmth and love,

[48:02]

in addition to that I've got to do something more. Because this isn't everything I'm looking for. Which is true. You're looking for... You're looking for how everything you're doing was created by the whole universe and you're looking for how all our foolishness is creating the whole universe. We're looking for that because it's real. We want the real. And rather than look at our stupidity, because it's right there, we think of going someplace to be smarter or whatever. Katie. I guess I'm struggling with why common foolishness in the first place if it's what human beings do and the foolishness is full of greed and delusion

[49:04]

but whatever comes after or before the foolishness, greed and delusion are also going to be a part of that too. Yeah. So I would call... Yeah. So I'm suggesting we might use the word foolishness for greed and hatred. You want some other word for that? I do. I guess I feel like... Oh yeah, go ahead. Let's hear another word for it. Human being activity? Human activity. Human being activity? Human being activity. Yeah, I agree. It's human being activity. And now that you said that, may I mention that human activity is sometimes very painful? You know? Causes lots of problems and fear and cruelty? Yeah, they do.

[50:15]

How about cruelty? Do they react to that word too? Yeah. How about injustice? I just picked... Part of the reason I think cruelty and foolishness came up is that foolishness is often used to describe the journey of the hero rather than the path of cruelty or injustice. But you could also substitute injustice and cruelty in place of foolishness. The path of cruelty. The path of foolishness. The path of injustice. Human being activity. Exactly. Exactly. Right. That's what I'm talking about.

[51:16]

Trying that stuff in order to be where you are. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Pardon? Well, it isn't a problem. It's just that the more you do it, the more miserable you feel. And the more... the more impoverished you become. And the more desperate you become. That's not a problem, right? What? Yeah, but you don't know how to pay attention because you haven't been trained. What? You don't... rather than pay attention... rather than pay attention, you've gone off and doing these things. Rather than paying attention to I'm here and I'm yearning for something and what is that? Rather than that, which you have no... almost no... very little training to do, you think you should go do something and it can be fun. Lots of fun. What do we call it?

[52:16]

It's called... It's called sex, drugs and rock and roll. Lots of fun. Lots of things you can do rather than pay attention to where you are, which you don't know how to do because you have to be trained to do that. Yes, even... No, well... We're talking about a training where you're mostly paying attention. You need to be trained to mostly pay attention to where you are. And if you feel an impulse to go do something fun in order to realize where you are, you pay attention to that. But you need training to pay attention. We try to train children, you know, we try to train them when they're little, but as they grow up, they want to go off and try stuff that's fun. They definitely want to try stuff that's fun.

[53:17]

But really what I'm... Pardon? I missed that. What? Well, you know, you say we don't want them to, but some people do want them not to go off and have fun because the fun they want to have, you think, is very dangerous. Like they want to drive a car really fast. You don't want them to do that. You understand that the death rate for automobile accidents is highest at 16. So you wish that they won't start driving until they're 18, or it drops down to half. You don't want them to do what's fun, but it is really a lot of fun for a 16-year-old to drive a car at 130 miles an hour in San Francisco. It's a lot of fun. It's so fun. You don't want them to do that. You don't mind them having fun. You just don't want them to use a car to do it. So I don't agree with that, that we don't want them to have fun.

[54:20]

We don't want them to harm people and themselves. No. It's essential that people go off on these trips which are they're looking for something that they do not have to move to find. What they need to do is pay attention to where they are to find it. Yeah. That's a perfectly good definition. Foolishness is something that harms you when you don't want to be harmed. Now, what if you do want to harm yourself? Well, I would say that's foolish, too. Because the reason you want to harm yourself is because you can't, you can barely stand not being yourself. We need to go on this trip,

[55:27]

you know, on this path of running away from where we are in order to see that that doesn't work and also to see that we can't just stop that because it doesn't stop. We need to have training to deal with it. Not to stop it, not to stop foolishness, not to stop cruelty, not to stop injustice, but to realize that these things come from not realizing our original home. A whole bunch of hands are up. I see you. I'm saying that the path of greed, hate and delusion comes from not realizing our true home. And I'm saying that if we don't realize our true home, we feel a deep unconscious and or conscious or both and or...

[56:29]

we feel a deep need to realize it and that gets translated into doing something called going looking for someplace else other than being aware of where we are. Is everybody okay with that one? Because we don't realize our original home, we feel a deep need to realize it and then we start doing things of going away from where we are which is where we will realize it. We go through that process. It's essential to find out that that doesn't work. But it doesn't mean that we stop that. It means that we bring awareness to the path of whatever you want to call it. We bring awareness to the path of foolishness. We bring awareness to the path of cruelty, of greed, hate and delusion. We bring awareness to it

[57:30]

and we need training in order to do that and that training process follows from this process of basically trying to set up standards on our own. Doing things that we think would be fun and helpful and maybe even give us what we deeply want. I think the next person was Pam. When you talk about the biological temporary mother and father and the true mother and father, they're not separate. One is just how they appear in consciousness and the other is true nature. Not quite. The biological mother and the biological mother is a perceptible version of the working of the whole universe. The working of the whole universe supports the biological mother. She's not... She's inseparable from the real mother, from the original mother. Same with the biological father.

[58:30]

He's inseparable from the real home, the real family. But the biological and the biological parents are a perceptible version of the way of our true family. Which, you know... And we need that. We cannot be without it and we do have it. And if things go really well, great! Like Shakyamuni Buddha had kind of like pretty nice parents and they... Maybe they didn't abuse him. There's nothing about them abusing him. And... Yeah, and... So, because he had this nice perceptible family, he could realize that something's missing in this perceptible family. And he went to look for it and he found it. But he found it by being aware of his own suffering,

[59:31]

which is due to not realizing his original home, which he didn't realize in the palace. And after he left the palace, it took him a long time to realize it. Actually, eons to realize it. And this is the process we're in. We're in the process of realizing our original home, our original family. This is the journey we're on. And we have perceptible parents and family and teachers to help us learn this. So, I think... Edward and Jackie? Edward? Yeah, I had a... I had a question that came up as you were speaking, Katie. I guess the way I phrase it is do you feel like there's a... an equivalent training for... being foolish or being triumphant that is worthwhile to do?

[60:32]

Well, again, the equivalent training... The equivalent training... The equivalent training of awareness, because then I wonder... Yeah. I wonder if there are... Yeah, we can... more or less skillful ways of triumphance. Perhaps we can think of that as a soulful impulse as opposed to a spiritual impulse. Before we get into that distinction, I would say that our perceptible parents and family and teachers, they do teach us to some extent how to pay attention to our... our life. Because the going off... the going off to do fun things starts before you actually leave your... you know, the home of your biological parents. It starts before that. The human nervous system is geared to try to do things fun. But along with that, there is also a deeper wish to realize our true home. And so we get training

[61:34]

of how to deal with, for example, the impulses to do things fun. We get training of how to be aware of that or we don't. So some people actually do get some training which helps them when they... when they start to realize that they want training in realizing their true home. Because they see what... they somehow get a glimmering of what's possible with that realization. And then they realize they need to continue the training which they've started but maybe in the tradition of realizing the true home, not just the tradition of, for example, getting through school or having good relationships with your family. So there is... there is training... there is training going on. Yes? Isn't this whole thing about the karmic condition

[62:34]

in our path and given that instead of foolishness or greed or hate, which probably encompasses all of that, but also by being present and watching causes and conditions that led to where you are as a perceptual human being, kind of helps you drop away body and mind or see your own path. Original nature. I didn't quite understand your question, but if... let me just try... Are you saying that it would be good to watch your karmic activity? Yes. Yeah, so...

[63:35]

And the causes and conditions that led to your path. The Buddha has taught that we cannot actually see the causes and conditions that lead to our karmic activity. We cannot. That the causes and conditions leading to your karmic activity or, for example, the causes and conditions leading to my speaking with you now, me speaking to you, those causes and conditions are... Actually, guess what those causes and conditions are? Huh? They're imperceptible. They're imperceptible. The causes and conditions which give rise to my current karmic activity, which you can see, right? You can see my hands moving. This is my karma. Okay? This is my words. This is my thinking, which you can't see, but it's here. These karmic activities, the causes and conditions which make this possible, are imperceptible,

[64:37]

but they also have a short name. Hmm? Now, they are karma. They have a short name other than karma. The short name is Original Home. The causes and conditions of my activity right now is my Original Home. The causes and conditions of me speaking to you is how my speaking supports the whole universe, and the whole universe supports my speaking. That's the causes and conditions. They're imperceptible. They're inconceivable. However, maybe I'll stop there. And that's what Buddha taught us. The actual causes and conditions to a non-Buddha for sentient beings is inconceivable. However, the Buddha recommended observing, paying attention to karmic activity. Very important.

[65:38]

Again, so that's we need training in paying attention to karmic activity, to speech, to thought, and to gestures, mine and yours. By paying attention to these karmic activities and getting training from other people, it isn't just you do it on your own, which is what sometimes people try it, but as you may have noticed when people do it on their own, they sometimes overlook a few things but in training we're saying please join my observation of my karmic activity. Please, please support me in my study of my karmic activity. Please let me support you in your study of karmic activity. In this way, we start to ritually practice in a way to realize our true home, to realize the causes and conditions

[66:39]

which are not something that a human being can recognize but we can realize it with training together. So there's a difference between watching what you can see with compassion and watching what you can't see which is the causes and conditions. However, watching what you can see with training you get this little present called complete perfect enlightenment where you realize causes and conditions of all the different karmic activities in the universe. In other words, you realize your true home which has been here all along, all the while, while I'm doing this karma. The whole universe is supporting me in doing this. The whole universe is supporting me

[67:39]

in the changing in directions of my hands and the changing in directions of my hands as they move in parallel circles is not done by me, it's done by the whole universe and this turning of my hands turns the Dharma will of the whole universe and the Dharma will of the whole universe turns my hands. How that works? It's invisible. But you can see it, it's working. You can see it. And you can practice with it and train in your train your practice of it, train your practice of watching your karma and watching other people's karma and the story is everything that we do is an opportunity to train with and to realize the true home of that thing. Everything has a true home, each moment, all over the universe.

[68:40]

How is that, Jackie? Yeah. Wait a second. We have a new person here and a new person up in the sky. Yes. Yes. That the realm of the real home which I'm assuming if I'm conditioned and warm is also is not different from karmic activity? I'm misunderstanding that. Are you saying that are you proposing that leaving home is like karmic activity? I thought you were proposing that the that the always present original home Yes. which is unconditioned

[69:44]

and warm also is also linked to karmic activity. Yeah. It is. The original home is the way karmic activity really is. Like, see my hand? Is this karmic activity? If it is then this karmic activity is supported by the whole universe and this karmic activity supports the whole universe. The way this hand is supported by the whole universe and the way the whole universe supports this hand with all these cute little fingers the way that's happening is the original home. And there's no action I do which is not happening in an original home way. Leaving home is also supported by the entire universe and supports the entire universe. However, it's also

[70:44]

kind of a delusion because you can't leave this home but you can leave a perceptible home and you can do that as an attempt to get a better perceptual home which a lot of people do, right? Get a better house but I'm saying that underneath you're going to get better and better houses. Okay? I'm saying there's a deep yearning for your original home which you don't have to get a better house to live in. It's already here and no matter how good your house gets you're still yearning for that. But as part of realizing it we have to do this thing called going away from home which is, again, karma but the way you go away from home is supported by your original home. Your original home supports all your journeys and it supports your return. And before you go anyplace

[71:47]

it also supports you not going anyplace. Now you're clear, right? Pam? What? What was your question again? Oh yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. It's like form and emptiness, yeah. This is about form and emptiness. This is a new way to talk about form and emptiness. The reason why I'm talking about this way is because the structure of the book is a story in the Lotus Sutra about a young man who leaves his home. What's he looking for? He's looking for his home but he doesn't understand his home so he goes off and he goes off for a long time and he doesn't find his home because he's still looking for it someplace other than where he is

[72:47]

and he gets into really tough straits and then he just happens to wander back to his original home. However, he doesn't recognize it. He can't believe it so he has to go through training and so I'm using this home thing to connect with that story in the Lotus Sutra which is a story about the Buddha way. It's a story about the Zen practice which includes going away from home. You already got the home and then you go away and then you go away and you get in big tough times and then you wander back and you don't believe it. Like right now I'm telling you about your true home. It's really hard to believe this that everything, every moment is supporting the whole universe and the whole universe even if you hear it you don't understand it because you're still projecting foolishly an image on your real home and that makes it uncomfortable. So you got to have training

[73:48]

and the first training in the Lotus Sutra story is shoveling shit. So today... Yes? I have a notion two points one, I think that there might be some beings that don't actually yearn for their true home and that being sitting in this room or standing I'm wondering if it's connected to Buddha nature wanting to realize itself? It's very closely related to Buddha nature wanting to realize itself. Does that fit in the story of Buddha nature? You were talking about that before and wandered away from Buddha nature. Did I say... I don't think I said Buddha nature today. I think you brought it up. And I say thank you for bringing it up. This is also the story

[74:49]

of Buddha nature being realized. Is it the impulse to search? To yearn? Is it the Buddha nature that leads you is the ingredient to journeying and wandering? Buddha nature includes the entire universe. So whatever you say it's included. And do you think some people actually don't have that inspiration to yearn? I think that all sentient beings have the inspiration of their true home which is stimulating them to realize it. But they don't necessarily know that they have this inspiration. But this inspiration to realize Buddha nature to realize their true home drives them to try stuff which they do try

[75:49]

and they realize this isn't getting it. And then they say maybe those people the way they act makes me feel like maybe they could help me train in such a way that I could awaken to my, I don't know what it is, true home. So I think the inspiration is there for everybody and the wish to realize who we really are is in everybody. Now you say what about a rock? Can a rock... Does a rock have Buddha nature? That's one of the questions we ask. Yeah, so being clear on who and what you are is one of the things people try in order to recover their true home. And it seems like

[76:52]

kind of like foolish to say I know who I am as a way to find out who you are which is beyond your knowing. It seems like it would be more conducive to realization to say you know, I'm not so sure who I am. I've been wondering lately what I am. That sort of like is sort of what you sometimes come to after saying for a long time I know, [...] I know. And you see where that leads you. You say well maybe I don't. Maybe at least maybe I don't know completely. So I often use in the last few years I've been using the example of yeah, so my grandson says what's your favorite animal? And I said human. He said it's not an animal. And then he asked me a couple years later what's your favorite animal? Human. He said it's not an animal. But then a few years later what's your favorite animal? Human. Oh, maybe so.

[77:53]

So if you fight reality which we're doing it's part of the process is to fight it. To fight what? The way the whole universe is making you and the way you're making the whole universe into the way you do this by yourself solo and the way she does that by herself solo. That that we go on that trip and we realize the fruit to some extent we realize the fruitlessness of it but I would say that actually we need to be trained in order to realize how totally off it is. But when you realize how totally off it is it's done its job. Because when you realize how totally off that's all you need to realize. So it isn't really totally off. It's just that you have to go completely off and train at being completely off to realize you never did get off. You all you never did stray away at all. Like I also use

[78:57]

the story of Proust writing that book called Remembrance of Lost Time. So the book's about all the time he lost. But the the hysterical conclusion of the book is that huge huge huge book of all the time he lost is a masterpiece. All of our blank you know blankety blank wasted time actually is exactly the same as not wasting time. It's our great masterpiece. And so you know write a book like that and you'll you'll be Buddha. Yes? Yeah. Yep. It's what we're doing right now. Yes?

[79:58]

You're welcome. Mm-hmm. It doesn't no no no no no no see this is training. Okay? See the training? No no no no no. He asks the question I say no no no no no. Okay? This is the training. You see it? He's trying to understand his original home. He's always been trying to do that. So now he says what he said and then I say no no no no no. This is the training. And then I say further you never leave your original home. No matter how much you grasp your mommy you never leave your original home. And if your mommy leaves the room you don't leave your original home even if you crawl after her. And then if you try to

[81:04]

crawl out of the house and go downtown you don't leave your original home. You bring it with you downtown. Everything you do you never get away from your original home. It's just as maybe I'll use the word silly Katie it's kind of silly to go downtown to realize your original home which is already with you. To drag the whole universe with you in order to realize downtown that the whole universe was dragged with you. It's kind of silly but it happens. We do not leave our original home and we want to realize that because when we realize that it saves the whole world. This is where the world is saved from. Saved from what? Saved from ignorance of our original home and all the things that follow from ignorance. We do not

[82:08]

leave our original home but we do cover it up and the way we cover it up is our original home. The way we cover it up is our original home. The cover up is not the original home it's just an overlay. However, the original home sponsors us to cover up the original home and then we do not create the fact that once we cover it up we feel bereft and we feel yeah we feel like we lost our original home except we don't call it that. We just feel like I think maybe if I said I really know who I am maybe that would work. So we try a bunch of stuff to deal with the longing which we have which has been created by overlaying where we are which we never get away from here but we can overlay it

[83:09]

and when we overlay it then we can get a hold of where we are but not really we just get a hold of the overlay. Okay, got that? You cannot get a hold of where you are so you put an overlay on it then you can get a hold of the overlay but the way you are has not been grasped it's ungraspable and then you go oh, I got I got a I got a graspable version of something which I think I really want but that's not it. Let's try again and again and again yeah, right let's do it until we say would somebody please watch me when I do this and give me some feedback and they say yeah, you seem to be grasping at something and then help us be aware of this grasping and the frustration and then realizing oh

[84:10]

great balls of fire great balls of fire but we need to be trained in order to deal with the great balls of fire we need to be trained by not turning away or touching the overlay and if we train at not turning or touching away from the overlay we also don't turn or touch turn away or touch that which cannot be turned away from we cannot turn away from our original home we cannot get away from it and we can't get a hold of it but our human tendency is to turn away and touch is to go away and grasp and we're not going to get rid of that we're going to be kind to that and by being kind to that that drops away and then we're home and we realize we've always been here and we always will be and then the next grasping comes and we train with that and that drops away drops away

[85:13]

but not dismissed or abandoned so there's no end to the grasping and covering and there's no end to the compassion to the grasping and covering and there's no end to our home or beginning of our home anybody who had a question who didn't get called on? yes I didn't have my hand up but going back to the beginning I'm curious about something you said our our firstly our provisional mother and father our sort of stand-ins for our true mother and father and you implied that the mother was the principle of we're totally supported no, father is true oh, ok I thought maybe you were saying two different parents parents

[86:14]

and whatever you want to do you can use parents, uncles, aunts brothers, sisters house car money they can all be used as stand-ins for our original home and we we can't stand we we cannot grow up from birth out of our mother's body we cannot grow up without putting a stand-in for our original home that we can grasp with our hands and teeth we we need to do that so it's a phase we go through everything we use is basically a stand-in for that particularly our parents particularly our own little apartment or house or shed where we live though we use those things but we can grasp them and then we and then we realize

[87:15]

something's missing and then we start looking for it even when we get a hold of our mother something's something's been covered up something's been turned away from something's been ignored and that that is an inspiration that pokes at us which in one sense makes us want to go someplace else but in another sense eventually makes us want to get trained in how to be there with the situation yes you mentioned the hero's journey and that you're leaving and that you're returning and there are many variations of that in different cultures and I'm wondering if you see the notion of training showing up in these different variations or whether there's something unique in a sense about the training that you're talking about in terms of your journey that you described well it's this morning talk

[88:17]

has gotten to be almost a little long and you people look like you're going to faint so I will if you are you going to be here this afternoon? so I will bring up a hero's journey this afternoon during this second talk how about that? so if anybody wants to hear some examples of hero's journeys of foolish people and training I'll give it to you thank you I'll even tell you one of the titles is the myth of love and the mind amour and psyche that's a myth about this about this foolishness and the training to recover so yeah

[89:05]

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