In the Sutra, it says that the great being, the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, universally good, sat in front of the Buddha. And in that meeting, aided by the Buddha's awesome spiritual power, the Bodhisattva entered the Samadhi. Sitting in front of the Buddha, in communion with the Buddha, in that communion is the entering of the Samadhi. How about you? Are

[01:22]

you sitting in the presence of the Buddha? Are we sitting in the presence of the Buddha? I think the Sutra says, yes.

[05:13]

Welcome, Great Assembly. Great Assembly, welcome. Welcome. Welcome, Ranigan. Welcome, Deborah. Welcome, Amanda. Welcome, Jeremy. Welcome, Donine. Welcome, Jennifer. Welcome, Margie. Welcome, Martin. Welcome, Tracy. Welcome,

[11:38]

Rick. Welcome, Warren. Welcome, Marjorie. Welcome, Dale. Welcome, Gloria. Welcome, Gail. Welcome, Fran. Welcome, Barbara. Welcome, Rosa. Welcome, Timothy. Welcome, Christian. Welcome, Patty. Welcome, Sandra. Welcome, Catherine. Welcome, Jim. White buffalo.

[12:59]

Welcome, Cynthia. Welcome, Michael. Welcome, Ted. Welcome, Mei Chu, Radiant Ocean. Welcome, Jeff. Welcome, Jim. Welcome, Karen. Welcome, Sarah. Welcome, Basia. Welcome, Karin. Welcome, Kate. Welcome, June. Welcome, Jack. Welcome, Stephen. Welcome, Catherine.

[14:21]

Welcome, Michelle. Welcome, Linda. Welcome, Linda Hess. Welcome, Lynn. Welcome, Gayatri. Welcome, Karen, Yuki. Welcome, Kim. Welcome, Vivi. You made it, finally. Congratulations. Welcome, Angela. Welcome, Maite. Welcome, Manfred. Welcome, Vivian. Welcome, Jackie.

[15:30]

Welcome, John. Welcome, Sonia. Welcome, Susan. Welcome, Chia-Ying. Welcome, Barbara-Joan. Welcome, Jeff. Welcome, Green. Welcome, Jeff. Okay, and welcome, Reb. I'd like to begin tonight sort of where we left off last time. We considerably explored and talked about the process,

[16:48]

the communion between us and the Buddha through which we enter the Samadhi. And tonight I would say, actually, it's not so much the communion through which we enter, but actually the communion between us and Buddha is the Samadhi. So, we sit in front of the Buddha and we can offer our services to the teacher. And as we offer our services to the teacher, that's our request. We offer our services, that's our request. And when that request comes up, at the same time, the Buddha's response comes up with our request. So, we offer ourselves and the Buddha comes up with us as we offer ourselves.

[17:55]

The Buddha offers us the Buddha's spiritual power at the same moment that we offer ourselves to the Buddha. So, we talked about that in various ways last time, which maybe some of you remember. And one of the last people to speak, if I may say, may I say, Catherine Guetta. And I say that I remember you saying something like, I don't feel very collected. Remember? So, we're talking about being in this great Samadhi, wherein we are in the great collection, the great concentration of the Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas. And Catherine said something about not feeling very, very collected or very concentrated. Is that right?

[19:01]

Yeah. So, later I thought Catherine told us about kind of how Catherine's feeling. And how Catherine's feeling and how she takes care of Catherine is her practice. Each of us has our own experience and our own experience is calling for us to take care of it. And we practice with that, within that experience. At the same time, we are in the presence of the Buddha. So, we're practicing, but we're actually in the midst of the Buddha Samadhi. Our personal experience of feeling not concentrated is within, in this practice, is within the Samadhi of the Buddha.

[20:14]

Now, you might also, instead of feeling not very collected or not concentrated, you might feel concentrated. But the way you feel concentrated is your own personal practice. And your own personal practice is completely in the midst of the Buddha Samadhi. And so, in order to realize this, one of the main additional practices we need to open up to is to notice if our mind, which is judging itself as not concentrated, or our mind, which is judging itself as I don't know whether I'm concentrated or not, or the mind which says, I feel pretty concentrated. Those are examples of our own individual mind with its opinions and discriminations.

[21:16]

Like discriminating between, I feel concentrated, I don't feel concentrated. This is discrimination about my own consciousness. But there's another discrimination which occurs in my consciousness, which is the discrimination between my consciousness, whether it's concentrated or not, and the Buddha mind. Our mind often makes a discrimination between our consciousness and the Buddha's wisdom and compassion, the Buddha Samadhi. And I'm not suggesting that we stop discriminating or that we start discriminating about that. I'm just saying we often do discriminate. The key point here is that we are called to let go of, not to grasp, that discrimination.

[22:22]

It's unreal. We are not separate from the Samadhi in which we are living with the Buddhas. They are in Samadhi and they are with us all the time. But we have other things going on. And we're not trying to get rid of those other things, but take good care of them. So another allusion to this is in the story of our two monks. One is sleeping on the ground, the other sees him and says, you're too busy. So the one who's sleeping is busy. And the one who's accusing him of being busy, that's also busy. And the one who's been indicted for busyness says, you should know there's one who's not busy. I'm not denying that I'm busy, but even if I'm busy, there's one who's not busy.

[23:26]

And I'm in the presence of that one. And then the other one says, are there two moons then? The busy one and the unbusy one? And the one with the broom raises the broom and says, which one is this? So we do have a consciousness and it is busy. It is busy. It is making discriminations. It is feeling this way or that way. And we are being called by that mind to care for it, to pay attention to it, to be kind to it, to be gracious towards it. To be generous, to be careful and respectful of what? Of our busy mind, which might have the opinion, I'm not concentrated or I am concentrated.

[24:28]

As a matter of fact, I'm more concentrated than anybody else in the assembly. That thought is another busyness. We are more, as far as I know, we are infinitely capable of busyness. And the busyness is constantly calling for compassion. And so it is our responsibility to learn how to compassionately care for the busy mind. And then Catherine was taking care of her busy mind. And she, you know, which she thought was not very collected. And then she thought about this other, this Samadhi, which is a collection. And she thought, I'm not feeling like that. But actually that big Samadhi is not a feeling. It's the collectedness of all beings. In which each being has their own more or less collected consciousness.

[25:34]

So the Samadhi could be that all day long we are mindful that we are in the presence of the unbusy Buddha. And that any discrimination between us, our consciousness, and our busy consciousness, and the unbusy Buddha mind, any discrimination, is just our busy mind. It's not reality, it's just our busyness. And again, that busyness is calling us to be compassionate. Not to try to get rid of the busyness, but be compassionate with it. And then when we're really, really, really kind and intimate with that busyness, then give up any distinction between that busyness and the Buddha. That's how we attune to the Samadhi in which we have entered by offering ourselves to the Buddha. So that's my kind of like review of last week.

[26:47]

And also bringing in what Catherine said at the end of, I don't feel concentrated. The one who doesn't feel concentrated can be practicing with not feeling concentrated in the midst of the great Samadhi. It doesn't say in the sutra that Samantabhadra was feeling not concentrated and sat in front of the Buddha. Did you get that? It didn't say that. That Samantabhadra was not feeling concentrated, sitting in front of the Buddha. It doesn't say anything about what Samantabhadra was thinking. Samantabhadra was just sitting in the presence of Buddha, offering his life to the Buddha. It doesn't tell us what we're thinking. For me, that means he could have been thinking anything. Just like you can be thinking anything and offer yourself in service of the Buddha, which all Buddhas do.

[27:53]

They offer themselves in service of Buddha. And in this offering of themselves to the Buddha, they enter the Samadhi of the Buddha. So now, that's, I think, going to be the conclusion of my review. And now I'd like to move on to another topic. And come back to, if you want to talk more about the Samadhi later. But I wanted to introduce something a little different tonight. Which is, I'd like to talk about kind of like the pulses or the rhythm in the process of the Buddha's teaching. And we also speak of, you know, the wheel of the Dharma. So this could be called also talking about pulses or rhythm in the wheel of the Dharma.

[28:54]

Or the cycle of the teachings. So at some point anyway, the Buddha is in the world. And the Buddha meets in the first scripture, scripture number one. The Buddha meets some people. He meets five people who he used to know. And they say, you know, how you doing? We haven't seen you for a while. Anything new? He says, yes, Buddhahood has... Buddhahood's new. Buddhahood has happened. I am a Buddha now. And I don't remember exactly if they say, well, how about having some teaching, Buddha? And he gives them the teaching. He teaches them the Middle Way. He teaches them the Four Noble Truths. That's sort of in the first scripture supposedly. But what I'd like to mention to you is that I'd like to mention to you some similarities

[30:01]

between this great Mahayana Sutra and that first sutra. Which we usually don't call Mahayana Sutra. But in a way, it is a Mahayana Sutra because the Buddha is there. And the Buddha is Mahayana. But the Buddha is also... Inayana, the Buddha is also individual practitioner and universal practitioner. But anyway, in this sutra, I see a similarity with our sutra. At the end of giving the Dharma talk, one of the disciples, whose name is Kundana, understood the Buddha's teaching. And at that time, in that first sutra, deities, various deities,

[31:06]

made proclamations about the Buddha's teaching. And then at that time also, at that very moment that those proclamations occurred, the proclamations reached out into many worlds. This is in the first sutra. The proclamations of these deities praising the Buddha's teaching, it reached out into many worlds. An immeasurable splendor was seen throughout the world. This is in the first sutra. Does this remind you of anything else you've been reading recently? So the splendor of the teaching is in the first sutra. In this sutra, splendor is sort of the main, it's the main deal. Splendor, light, splendor. But the splendor is in the first sutra too. And then it says, the Buddha was inspired by this splendor. So the Buddha gave the teaching and the people understood.

[32:09]

And in that teaching and being understood, this great splendor came up which pervades the world. And the Buddha was also inspired by this splendor. And then the Buddha praised the student who understood. Okay? So that's an example of the Buddha giving a teaching. Kind of the first teaching, we sometimes say. Now we also know that the Avatamsaka Sutra actually occurred before this sutra. But not getting, hmm? They're just saying no. The Avatamsaka Sutra says it occurred before he was talking to those disciples. But you can tell us more about how that's not true later, Linda. So the Buddha's teaching is given. And then people listen to it and remember it. And then gradually, maybe while the Buddha's alive, but certainly after the Buddha,

[33:10]

the disciples who have heard this teaching start interpreting it and systematizing it. They make it into a beautiful system which has great power. And they call that system the Abhidharma. And people who study the Abhidharma sometimes find it very influential on their mind. It interprets the sutras in very deep and wise ways. And when people read the Abhidharma interpretation of the sutras, they sometimes are converted to that view. So some people look at the sutra, the early sutras, and then they systematized it into this great Abhidharma. And then other people continue to read the sutras,

[34:12]

but they also read the Abhidharma. And the Abhidharma, to some extent, convinced them so that it was difficult for them to be creative and innovative with the sutras that they were reading. And then new sutras came to kind of free people so that they could approach the sutras in a creative, innovative way again and make the sutras relevant to their time. And then after that happened, then people came in and wrote commentaries on those new sutras or those new teachings. And then again, this tightening occurs, the systematic tightening occurs, which again thwarts the creative response to the teaching. So then the next thing happens is people go back now,

[35:15]

particularly to this sutra in China, they went back to this sutra and used this sutra to free themselves from the extremely powerful treatises of the Indian Mahayana commentators, like Nagarjuna and Asanga and Vasubandhu. Those great teachers were so great that almost nobody could do anything but agree with them and or carry on their teaching. But in China, using this sutra, people use this sutra to come up with new, innovative interpretations of the Buddhist teaching and free themselves from these extremely brilliant Indian Mahayana commentaries. And from that freedom came the school dedicated to the sutra, the Zen school, the Tendai school

[36:19]

and the Pure Land school. Maybe not even school, the Zen movement, the Tendai movement, the Pure Land movement and the Hawaiian or Havatamsaka movement. And then these brilliant commentators on this sutra became also rigid. They were so great, everybody had to follow their rigid interpretation of this great sutra, which they used to free themselves from the rigidity of the Indian teachings. And then they became rigid. They made a system and that tightened up. And then people had to come along and go again, go back to the sutra and find inspiration for not getting stuck in the interpretations of the sutras which came to free themselves

[37:20]

from previous interpretations. So I just like to... And right now, I hope we're doing that right now. I hope that this sutra is inspiring you to make your own innovative interpretation of it in your own way of making it relevant to your own daily liberation. That is my effort with you and I wish you to pick up the baton of being creative with this sutra. I have not been bringing in the, what do you call it, the theories and commentaries of the school which is based on this sutra. There is a school based on this sutra which is named after the sutra. So it would be like the Havatamsaka school but it was a Chinese school. And in Chinese, they call the sutra

[38:22]

Huayenjing. So the name of the school was the Huayen school. And this school was very influential, very powerful, very brilliant, just emanating splendor throughout the cosmos. However, it got rigid and the people who were in charge of it were, excuse me for saying so, monks. And so people sort of had to like go agree with the monks who were so brilliant. And then there came along, and this person you can find in Cleary's translation, there came along a lay person and his name was Li Songxuan. And he disagreed to some extent with these great Huayen Dharma masters.

[39:23]

And he may, and then he again made this sutra accessible to ordinary lay people and monks and found new ways to use it in creative and liberative ways. And his work then also stimulated a new wave in Zen practice. So basically, I'm trying to demonstrate and bring up the issue of the teaching. It gets commented on, it gets tightened. And then go back to the teaching and find inspiration to become free of the tightening. And then watch out because the freedom might get systematized and then it'll tighten. So this is tightening, breaking loose, wonderful creativity, and then tightening on the creativity. And then using the sutra again to come up with inspiration and guidance from the Buddha to break free of that tightening again. But the calcification

[40:25]

of the understanding of the sutra is something that happens over and over. Just like, you know, human bodies, our blood, our arteries sometimes get some calcification building up. And some of you may be hearing about that I recently discovered, not I recently discovered, but the medical professionals recently discovered some calcification, some buildup in my abdominal artery, severe buildup in my abdominal artery. And I'm on the verge of having a procedure to try to clear up that artery so my blood can flow into the lower part of my body. But this calcification or this building up of accretions in the arteries of the dharma also occur. They occur in our body

[41:26]

and the dharma artery plaque builds up on the inside of the artery. So maybe we have to have a procedure or certainly become vegan, you know, Buddhist vegans. So anyway, that's my introduction tonight. And so I'm open to discuss with you both that presentation and also to go back to the great discussion of the Samadhi. If you want to. I'd like you to ask about how to how to practice the Samadhi or practice with the Samadhi. Jennifer, can you split the screen with the person I'm talking to? I talked to Jim. I see Jim, but not me. I guess Jim's good enough. Yes, Jim.

[42:27]

Oh, there I am. Jim, yes. Yeah, I feel you're so kind to invite us to bust loose of our own reifications. Yeah. And I'm also have been wondering in the progression that you've described about what's new about Zen and the Dharma coming to America. You know, how are we collectively possibly busting loose of the reifications that may have been in China and Japan and Japan and Korea? So I have some intuitions about it.

[43:29]

I'm not sure I want to quite give voice to them yet. But I do feel that that there's something fresh and new. And I'm so disheartened by the, you know, current political situation in America and the world. But I also feel some gratitude for America that it's not just a nation. It's a rendezvous. I feel that scripture is a rendezvous. So I oftentimes think about what it is that's new, that's arising. Good. And also you're disheartened.

[44:30]

You're feeling disheartened. Yes. It's also a rendezvous. Yes. And the rendezvous of so-called America and the rendezvous of how you're feeling, which might be disheartened, discouraged, that rendezvous is what you're offering to the Buddha. That's the platform from which you start your negotiation. Your communion with the Buddha. And in that communion, you can come up with new things for this world. So I'm not trying to get rid of your... Did you say disheartened? Yeah. I'm not trying to get rid of that. I want you and I to take care of that disheartened and use that in the presence of the Buddha

[45:31]

offering. Yes. And then in that communion, you will come up with new stuff. In that communion is where the Dharma wheel is turning. And the Dharma wheel will turn into new, unprecedented weirdness. Yes. V.V., we're in Chapter 3. Which is Samantabhadra's samadhi. And one more thing. Not only be kind to the disheartenment, which is the rendezvous place, but the rendezvous isn't just a place. The rendezvous is when we eliminate, not eliminate, when we don't cling

[46:33]

to the discrimination between the participants at the rendezvous. So one or more beings are rendezvousing at that place. And they can be discriminated. But we don't want to attach to the discrimination between the lovers who are meeting in the rendezvous. But they're different. I took great delight when I first came to California in finding Beginner's Mind Temple. Because in spite of my own delusion, I knew that I'd always be a beginner. And that same discrimination last week, or not feeling familiar with samadhi, having the discrimination, enough discrimination, to know what a rookie I am compared to the ancients.

[47:35]

Yeah. And then please do not, please learn to not attach to the discrimination between the rookie and these other creatures. Please don't attach to that. Do me a favor. I think I do. I think I do. You think you do not attach? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Great! That's just what I want. Thank you. And I'm just, in spite of being disheartened, I am very excited about moving into what I think is new in our time. Yeah. We need you to go in there and discover new weird dharma. Thank you. Good evening, Brad.

[48:40]

Good evening, John. Well, I'm very encouraged by this teaching this evening. As you know, I've been involved with the mindfulness movement now for a decade or more. And a number of people who have engaged in that movement have sort of hit a ceiling in a sense. They want to go further. They want to go deeper now. But they're turned off by Eastern religion and the rituals and the foreignness of it all. And I think what you're talking about, and there's a group of us who are discussing this right now, we're using a code name called Native Buddhism, for lack of anything else. But it's something that's growing up in this culture. And so we're sort of wandering into the wilderness with this right now. And most of these people are deep practitioners of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. But we really have no idea where

[49:42]

this will lead. And one thing I'm personally finding I'm struggling with is the wonderful thing about this practice for me is the comfort I find in the structure of it. And finding a way to recreate that structure in a helpful way without alienating new participants is a real challenge at this time. And yet I'm off. I've always been very wary of the mindfulness movement watering down things in a sense. It becomes its own restriction. So how do you help people go deeper without throwing them over the cliff, in a sense? You know, I feel a great responsibility about that myself. And just curious if you have any wisdom in that area. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is we don't want some people to get what do you call it, attached to or limited

[50:43]

by watering it down. We don't want them to get stuck in watering it down. So if we have some forms, then for us not to get stuck in our forms will help them not get stuck in watering down. And when they're not stuck in watering down, they may be open to some forms. And then they've already seen them. And part of the reason they may be open to the forms is because they saw us not attached to them. If we have forms and we're attached to them, that's just going to push them more into being attached to watering it, to taking away the forms and not having any. Because they see the bad example of people who are holding on to traditional forms. But those who know the traditional forms show people how they're not attached to them. And the people who have been somewhat afraid of traditional forms could open to them. And then when they

[51:45]

open to them, they still might not get involved in them, but at least they're open to them. Or they might start doing them. But at the beginning, when they start doing them, because they're beginners, they're not so attached. They don't think they own the forms. And they're trying to get other people to do them so much, whatever. So yeah, whatever forms you have, the way you can help people who are not into form is by showing them how you're into form, but not attached to it. Thanks. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. I'm totally into forms and totally not attached to them. And the more I'm not attached, the more I can be into it. Yeah, I'm really into form. Linda.

[52:58]

Hi. Hi. This is just a little question that keeps popping up. It's not what I was shaking my head and waving my hands around for before, but that was just a historical thing. But, you know, you said you're describing the situation in which this samadhi can take place and in which we can actually know this stuff. And you said you sit in front of the Buddha and you give yourself to the Buddha. You offer yourself. What does that mean? I don't know how to do that. And you sometimes said teacher. I sit in front of the teacher. What does that mean? Well, it's like, let's say I was sitting next to you, okay? Let's say I'm sitting in front of you now. Yes. And I feel right now. I may not say it,

[54:01]

but I feel right now I'm here to serve you. That's not usually what I feel when I'm sitting in front of you. I mean, to be honest, okay, for the moment, but this moment's honesty, like just that's the honesty of this little sitting in front of your facsimile here. I sit in front of you and it's not the first thought that I have that I'm here to serve you. It's more like I want some help from you. Or I'm going to share some stuff with you. Or last time I sat in front of you I sort of got my calendar out and said, you know, I'm not sure when I can fit you in. I mean, it was kind of interesting like... So that's you. I could offer myself to you. Pardon? Is that a nice idea for me to learn, to offer myself to you? Totally. But it's not you being

[55:03]

different again, you know. It's you who wants to, as you said, the you you described, that's the you. And that's the you that's sitting in front of me. It could be a different one. Sometimes there's a different one. But you used that example. And that example didn't say anything about wanting to be of service to me. Right? That's correct. What I'm saying is that person, just like that, I'm saying say this person like that is here offering her services to the Buddha. And you don't have to say it, but you feel like whatever I am all day long, I want to offer my services to the Buddha. Well, I don't have any reaction against what you just said at all.

[56:04]

And I often do... They're like mantras. I often do things like that where I say, you know, some mantra. Could be offer myself to the Buddha, but it could be silence and stillness, but it could be open the heart, but it could be... But they're like a... They're like a ritual. It's like they're like a remembering, you know, like Smriti. They're like a remembering, yeah. They're like a remembering of being in the present in front of the Buddha. Yeah. It's just true that I appreciate this, what you're saying, and I would do it somehow, you know, but it doesn't seem like... It doesn't seem like it's directly happening. You think it's directly happening? So, just let me say, during when we've been talking, I often think of this time I was going to Portland with Suzuki Roshi on the airplane.

[57:06]

And I was there to serve him. I was his attendant. I was sitting in the chair next to him. I wasn't doing anything, but the name of my job in my mind was I'm here to serve this person next to me. Meantime, various things are going through my mind, but I'm there to serve him. And like right now, I'm here with you, talking to you, and I'm here in the presence of Buddha, in service of Buddha, which means I'm in service of you too. And I wasn't saying anything to Suzuki Roshi, but I understood. That's what I'm here for. I'm here to be his servant. I'm here to be your servant. I'm here to be... But not just your servant. I'm here to be in service of the Buddha. And I'm in the presence of Buddha, offering my services. And my understanding is it is required of me

[58:07]

that I do so in order to do my job. I'm required. If I want to be on the Buddha team, I'm required to be of service to Buddhas, and all Buddhas do that. And I do it at the same time that I'm being of service to you. And I remember that. I sit in the Zen Dojo and I sit there and I offer my... I sit in the presence of Buddha, and I offer my services to Buddha. And I don't necessarily get a message from Buddha, get off your seat and go, you know, adjust postures. But sometimes I do get that message from the Buddha. When I'm leading the practice period, I get this thing about, now please go adjust people's posture as a service to Buddha. So now I'm asking, what is...

[59:11]

I mean, I don't really want to take up your time by asking you to answer this, but I'm asking in myself, Oh, what is Buddha? What am I really in service to? Yeah. What am I sitting in the presence of? What is sitting in the presence of me? I heard that the Buddha is just sitting in the presence of me. What is that? And the sutra is saying, well, it's... It's all pervading light and it's ungraspable and it's quiet and if it's necessary, it will appear. But right now it doesn't have to appear. Now I'm just in each other's presence for the time being. And Samantabhadra is there with us too. No. Good evening,

[60:27]

Tenzin Roshi and Great Assembly. Good evening, Barbara. Thank you. I was wondering if you could talk more about how to not be attached to forms. Well, it's not so much that you're... Yeah. Take it back. The first thing in order to be not attached to form is to look and see if you are. Before you came to Zen Center, I don't know, you probably weren't attached to Zen forms too much. Right. Before I came to Zen Center, I actually was a little attached to Zen forms. I was attached to the image or the form of somebody sitting cross-legged on the ground. I was kind of a little bit attached to that and that form has kept appearing for the last 55 years, the form. And I have sometimes

[61:30]

seen in myself attachment to it and I've heard about it from other people that they also are attached to that form. But there was some point in my life that I wasn't attached to that form and then I was attracted to the form and then gradually I think I got attached to the form. And then I noticed that I was attached to the form and then maybe I tried to stop myself from being attached and just got more attached. And then I thought about just like being kind to my attachment to the form and had become unattached to the form. And then after I got unattached to the form, I got attached to being unattached. And then I noticed that and then I could be kind to that. So it's by the attachment is kind of like natural for us human beings. But we can notice that we're attached and other people also can help us notice it. Like they can say to us,

[62:31]

Barbara, are you attached to that form? And you can say, you know, who asked you about that? Or, you know, they could say, well, thank you for asking. I'll check. I'll look. And then you might look and come back and say, you know, I did check and I couldn't find any attachment. And they say, well, look over there. And you say, oh my gosh, you're right. I didn't notice it. Thank you. So that's how we help each other. But we can also help ourselves by noticing it and then putting it out in front and confessing and repenting it out of compassion. And also tell other people and they might say, oh, you missed a point there. You actually got part of it, but not all of it. So by this conversation around the attachment, we realize that really there's nothing to attach to. And there's no, and there actually there's no place in attachments

[63:33]

impossible. Yes? Well, I've taken up a form of chanting the sutra. Yes, yeah. That's a good one. It's actually really enjoyable. but to get to do the whole sutra requires a commitment to really dedicate myself to this practice. Probably. And so I'm creating a form and then I want to commit to it and then the question is, well, what would be the attachment? Because I really need to it seems like it's part of the commitment. Part of the commitment is to ask keep an eye out for the attachment? Yeah. So in the process of

[64:33]

being committing to studying the sutra to really study the sutra most effectively, it's good to be vigilant about possible attachment. For example, you might say, okay, I'm committed to it, but just to check I'm going to see if I don't chant today is that okay with me? Or you could ask other people, hey, do you think I'm getting attached to chanting the sutra? And they might say, no. And then the next day they might say, I think you are. So then you see the attachment. It doesn't mean you have to stop chanting, you just have to be kind to the attachment while you're chanting. And by being kind to the attachment and wondering what is attachment and what is the sutra, that's part of that's facilitated by not being attached. But taking care of the attachment will deepen the practice of chanting the sutra.

[65:34]

So being kind to the attachment and being aware of it and embracing it as part of what's arising it allows that seems like a good way to be aware and practice with it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me, Rob?

[66:40]

Now I can. Good. So when you talked about serving, what immediately came to mind for me was those occasions at no abode when I'm able to serve you for the day. Yeah. And how those days feel very focused for me. Concentrated. And then I thought of everyday life for me. it's like this jumble of feeling concentrated and focused and serving and then becoming annoyed or becoming happy or becoming worried or becoming distracted and it just sometimes feels like such a churn

[67:42]

just cycling through all of these things. I think I had a notion before I retired a year and a half ago that when I retired that level of stuff would gradually reduce and instead it hasn't. That's hmm? Interesting. Yes. And I don't know if it ever will reduce. I would like for it to. Well, again, liking for it to facilitate the churning. Facilitates the opposite. Wishing for the churning to subside stirs it up more. Being generous towards the churning, the churning calms down.

[68:45]

Generosity is not trying to calm it down. It's letting it be churning, just like it's churning. And when you let the churning be just like it's churning, that's the situation is calmer. So one of the main differences between I think in a way a difference between you could say between retirement and when you were working is now you have a new job your new job is to be is not to do all those things you used to be busy doing but to be generous towards the fact that you're going to continue to be busy doing things. Your job is to be generous to your busyness. Before your job was the busyness, which was busy and churning. And you kind of want to break from that churning someday. But your new job

[69:47]

is being generous to the churning and the generosity towards the churning will give you peace. But not if you're trying to get it. That's not generous. Yeah, that's a clinging. It's a clinging. It's not a giving, it's a trying to hold on to. So when we most of us in this assembly sometimes feel churning but not always are we generous towards our churning and when we miss the chance to be generous with our churning that's too bad because the churning wants our generosity and without even changing the churning this great calm comes up in this ocean of churning because the churning is really being allowed to churn. So your new job is not to do less

[70:47]

your new job is to be more generous to what you're doing. That's your job now. And what form would that take? As a notion I understand what you're saying. You know, the thing I do is if I see churning in myself or in you I welcome it. I welcome it. Okay, that's good homework. Not that I like it and also not that I dislike it but if I like it that just creates more churning and if I don't like it that creates more churning, you know I would say all the better more opportunities for being generous with this churning. The Bodhisattva is

[71:48]

trying to learn how to welcome everything and everybody and when you can welcome everything and everybody we are in this completely calm samadhi. We have this expression in the precious mirror samadhi we say outwardly still while inwardly moving. So the Bodhisattva is completely calm and they've embraced all the turbulence and the Dharma wheel is turning unceasingly but they're not trying to get it to go faster or slower or turn sideways they're just riding the waves with great generosity and there is composure there. We're not trying to calm the oceans down we're trying to find serenity in the midst of it by being generous with the turbulence and in this samadhi all the swirling worlds are in samadhi. It says that

[72:49]

on the first page of chapter 3 all the swirling whirling worlds are in this samadhi and they don't disturb it at all because this samadhi is generous with with all the churning and also with all the trying to get rid of the churning yeah yeah and all the blaming for other people for the churning hmm all that yeah it's like the story of the two monks that you yeah gave at the beginning and I feel like I experience the monk who is busy but I don't feel like I experience the monk who is not busy well in that story there wasn't a monk there was not a monk who was not busy

[73:51]

in that story. We had two busy monks one who was busy sweeping and the other was busy inviting laughing laughing well I'm both of those yeah but then again when you raise the broom and say which, is this the busy, which one is this is this the busy one or the unbusy is the indicting the busy there's no separation between the unbusy and the busy and to open to that realize there's no separation between great serenity and busyness we have to be generous with busyness which is just what busyness wants it wants us to be generous with it it wants us to welcome it it doesn't want to be more or less busy it just wants to be embraced just as it is and then it's a happy child okay thank you you're welcome Catherine, thank you

[74:55]

good evening great assembly good evening Reb I wanted to thank you for your kindness in helping me understand Samadhi and I see there's this feeling of always putting myself outside of it well I'm not there but from what I'm getting is that it's all encompassing and whatever the Samadhi is all encompassing yes and sometimes you're a busy person who's thinking I'm not there right, exactly but and you can offer this person who thinks I'm not there, you can offer this to the Buddha and then you're in the Samadhi however, you can still discriminate between the Samadhi and you saying I'm not there and watch out for that discrimination and see if you're attaching to it and if you are be generous towards it however, you might sometimes see the

[76:02]

discrimination and realize hey there's a discrimination between the way I am and the Buddha Samadhi I see the discrimination but I'm not attached to it I just see it, it's just a discrimination it's not a reality it's just a little thought coming off me and I offer that thought I don't hold on to that thought and also I notice if I hold on to that thought, I'm more upset however if I discriminate between being upset and being imperturbably calm, that's okay to discriminate, I just am not going to attach to it and if I attach to it, again I'm kind to the attachment and then the attachment will melt away and that is in service of the Buddha would you not say? All that is in service of the Buddha all that is in service of awakening of what did you say? of awakening all that is in service of awakening

[77:03]

awakening needs that work to be done thank you, thank you so much you're so welcome Good evening Tenzin Roshi Great Assembly I wanted to see if I can articulate how I'm understanding your invitation and that is cultivating how I'm seeing it is cultivating a quality of being the generosity and the kindness or patience patience is a quality, it's not so much a doing for instance, you could do the same thing do the same action in a warm hearted way or functional way, but the quality

[78:03]

of warm hearted is not something you do, it's something that becomes a state of expression or being, and then that applies to various confusing states or not knowing or judging, then you can bring this quality of generosity that's not a doing so much as a I mean, somebody might interpret it as generous, but it's a quality or a state of mind a state of heart yeah, I think I think I could see how you wouldn't think that being open is doing something yeah that's what I think yeah or feeling like you see somebody and you feel welcoming it's not making that something you do right, it's who is showing up or what's showing up in a moment however, before you get to that place

[79:04]

you might actually say welcome as a way to initiate yourself into the actual welcoming that's what I'm calling a quality of cultivating cultivating a quality of being but you might do something to cultivate it like you might say in your mind or out loud like when someone comes to see you, you might say welcome, and then you look and see, did I mean that? and you might say no and say it again did I mean that? you say yeah, that time I did so somehow I used the action of welcome to discover the actual welcome-ness which is maybe the actual welcome-ness isn't really doing anything it's the way you are you actually do feel welcoming of some beings but you might use the action of saying welcome to get a feeling for it and you might do the action of putting

[80:05]

a rice cake on the altar to get into the giving so the giving isn't really doing anything but you might do some things that look like giving to get in touch with that to cultivate it but I think for myself anyway, I have to know or or want to understand that I'm that in offering the rice cake, I'm cultivating generosity yeah and the kind of understanding what is the heart of the matter I'm using heart, but anyway, what's the heart of the matter of whatever I'm doing is being done yeah, and actually sometimes when people put a rice cake on the altar they might do that but forget to really like remember what they're doing but the game's not over yet and then I was just thinking, which you could probably say more

[81:07]

words to, just many of the ways they describe the Buddha as the qualities of Buddha in fact we read that in the sutra, what are the qualities not what he did or didn't do, but what are the qualities of a Buddha I'm stuck on that, so to say cultivating a quality of being being generous is a quality of the Buddha yeah being patient is a quality of the Buddha being fearless is a quality of the Buddha and then so which is different than being fearless say again which is different than necessarily being fearless I don't know, I didn't follow never mind, it's okay, go ahead one of the qualities of Buddha is fearlessness and all those qualities it also says in the sutra, all those qualities can be cultivated yeah yeah thank you you're welcome, thank you

[82:08]

hi Rob Kim when you asked the question when we were sitting before you started speaking you know, are you in the presence of Buddha I think that's what you said, something like that and I thought well how could I not be in the presence of Buddha there's no way, you can't it was a rhetorical question in a way and it's a reminder in the same way the reminder of generosity is Buddha is Buddha is ungraspable and formless so there's no way to get away from Buddha so Buddha is, the only place Buddha is they're practicing with us, that's the only place they are still it's maybe good to say, are you in the presence or do you want to be in the presence and if you want to be your wish has been granted

[83:17]

yes, I do want to be me too I was also interested in you saying that you knew you were of service to Suzuki Roshi, that you knew that that was your role in a way that was part of your agreement yeah, nice simple situation, I'm here to serve him yeah really nice I would like to serve you too by just being your student and I don't know by being in your presence and offering yourself offering yourself to my presence, in my presence and also in your presence when you offer yourself to me, you're offering in your presence yeah

[84:28]

I think it's a nice way to go about in the world, it's to offer your presence to people hallelujah thank you high five good evening Rob good evening Great Assembly good evening I this evening and what you've been sharing is helpful but I just wanted to sound something off out about it and it has to do with right now I have at least four or five people in my life that have dementia and it's astounding to me that all of a sudden people that have been in my life for many many many

[85:29]

years are and I think I was I've been getting stuck on that I have to help them or fix them but really from the way I just need to welcome them the way they are and that's all it is I think and that will help them, that will be transmitted to them the welcoming will pervade them and that's a huge difference from feeling responsible for them, it's not about feeling responsible it's welcoming this new stage really okay thank you evening Rob

[86:36]

and everyone I I was really enjoying earlier when you were talking about the pulse kind of the Dharma I really like that and it brought up for me a question that comes up quite often when I'm in contact with the sutra which is what kind of mind thought this up and not only what kind of mind thought it up but what kind of human beings wrote it down, you know they're anonymous they're unnamed and unknown to history but I am imagining there were perhaps quite a few people who were involved in transmitting this in writing to us and I'm really grateful to these unknown people but I don't know how to offer them my gratitude because it would help to know more about who they are yeah

[87:39]

well you said you don't know how to express your gratitude, you just did then right then you did it yeah even saying that you don't know how implies that you would like to so there is in you a wish there is a gratitude in you yes for these unknown bodhisattvas who somehow entered samadhi discovered this teaching and then sang it and then after singing it for a while somebody wrote it down yeah so there were maybe the first people were just singing it, they weren't writing it down and then the other people heard the singers and they learned the songs and then other people wrote down the songs and then other people wrote commentaries on the songs and we don't know about who

[88:40]

these people are seems like we don't know anything about them we don't know too much about you know, about, no and we don't know when this composition started, we do know when it started to appear in writing in India around the 4th or 5th century it seems to be there are fragments from that time but how long before that were they in samadhi and singing the songs and then, and not writing them down but just singing to each other and commenting each other what were they doing yeah yeah what just came to my mind is I went to I went to Turkey right after 9-11 and I went to some of these monasteries which were in caves in Cappadocia went into some of the caves and you can actually sit in the cave and sort of see

[89:42]

how much space they had to lie down and how much space they had to eat and then you sit there and think what are these people doing in here all day long what kind of life did they have in this cave it's like just yeah, human beings are like inconceivably wonderful Thank you, I'm so curious about them and then you know and then that Clary decided to translate it and you know what a gift what a gift thank you welcome did you know that you're muted

[90:45]

okay I need to start over hello rep hello assembly so I just wanted to share my appreciation for you telling us the story about the human relationship to sutras which you offered today as I listened to it I thought it's really a story of human you were so so generous saying it they were trying to be creative what I heard was they were grasping they were trying to squeeze meaning out of something that is ungraspable and as I listened to you I thought well it's it is a history that's one of the phases is to try to grasp it that's one of the phases but then another phase of it is

[91:48]

to look to see how the sutra is saying you know look at all these colors and things like that and so you don't have to grasp this thing you don't have to be caught by this grasping it's a pulse you know like the heart closes and then it opens so there's a grasping phase and a letting go phase grasping letting go yeah so I just thought that it's in a way that history that you presented is also a history of each individual struggling to do the same grasping and hopefully gradually will just learn to just read the sutra not trying to get anything out of it just like doing house chores or going to the garden or going for a walk

[92:50]

it's all just doing but I know myself how long it took me for trying to squeeze something extra, some meaning out of things and hoping to find just the right meaning so yeah it will be so it is a good practice to read this the sutras I think that's the essence of sutras is to actually read them read them and read them and memorize them so yeah so I wanted to just put out the word that I live on the Atlantic coast in Canada so if people who are near my time zone if they want to connect we can form a group and read and play together thank you

[94:06]

thank you thank you so much I'm really appreciating the teachings tonight especially I've missed some of the classes and I just had this thought about Zen as I guess I attached myself to it the period of Zen where there's a lot of Zen stories of sudden awakenings or non-rational actions to express that and I was thinking about, I'm thinking where I wonder where we are right now in this cycle yeah, I wonder and I think we're each a little different obviously because I just saw that form in my mind that I love those stories, I love the

[95:07]

record of the transmission of light and but it's not just individual, we're also moving together and so, I don't know do you have an idea of where we are in this cycle of yeah, well one idea I have is that you know the idea I started out with is I'm going to try to live 10 more years because somebody asked me to so then somebody asked me to do 10 so I thought, okay 10 so what am I going to do while I'm living 10 more years, well maybe I could open up some new kind of teaching you know, start studying a new kind of teaching and maybe I could see if somebody else wants to do it with me so there seems to be this new turning of the dharma wheel, this new

[96:08]

phase of practice is that various groups with me are engaging with this sutra so this is some new thing we're doing and we're having new experiences we're running into new problems and new wonders that we didn't have before that's one story about where we're at now which we weren't at a year ago we weren't studying the sutra a year ago I wasn't really studying it a year ago, were you? No and I wasn't studying it, but now I'm studying it in groups with various people and various people are also studying it in groups with me and in groups with each other, so this is a new kind of thing we're doing Can you express how you see this as, what kind of new thing you see this as Can you? I see it like this right now, this is how I see it right now

[97:08]

Huh? What? What we're doing right now is how I see it I'm talking to you Yes In this assembly, that's how I see it and we never did this before and we never did this before and this is the fresh new dharma of the moment which everybody's enjoying with us That's how I see it How do you see it? I'm having an impulse to want to categorize it, to think Yeah Is this an opening? Is it a beginning? Is it the end of something different? Yeah, and you're telling me that and you're telling the assembly that so they can see who you are and what you're up to and you've never did this before Thank you Thank you

[98:10]

Some more to think about Some more to More to think about and more to tell about Thank you Thank you I just wanted to say thank you Reb and thank you Great Assembly This has been really wonderful and so so helpful I'm excited to listen to it again and again and I'd love to be participating in further studies of this sutra with people It's been great with you It's been remarkable It really is a beautiful beautiful sutra Thanks so much for tonight especially, but thanks for all of it And we have another session next week I hope you all can come It will be

[99:12]

called November 21st Okay We'll have another meeting I hope you can come I hope I can be there too Oh Scott, you came late Welcome Scott Alright, well thank you everybody for another wonderful meeting

[99:37]

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