So you know the image that we use through the series of classes of Buddhas sitting in the middle of fierce flames, open to them all, listening to them all, and teaching, turning the wheel of the Dharma in the midst of all this fire. sending out the Dharma into the fire. And we also are sitting in the middle of fire, too. We're sitting at the center, and the Buddha is sitting at the center, and we have an opportunity to learn how to be present and compassionate and listen to all that so that we also can become a turner of the wheel of dharma.

[01:13]

Or we can become the turning. The way we're living can become the turning of the wheel of the dharma. Tonight I thought I'd introduce another frequently offered image of the process of becoming wise and benefiting all beings through that wisdom. It's the image of a lotus plant And as you know, there's a sutra, or maybe many of you know there's a scripture, a sutra called the Lotus Scripture. The full name is more like the wondrous, inconceivable, true dharma, flower, lotus flower sutra.

[02:26]

So the image of the lotus is something like, the image I offer you is something like this. It's a plant. It lives in mud, and it lives in water, and yeah, and it has seeds and roots and stems leaves and flowers and fruit has all that stuff going on. And the process, you can bring up the process at various points, but one place I would bring the process up is starting with the seed. If you have a lotus seed and you put it in mud and you give it warmth and I guess some sunlight, the seed in contact with the mud nourished by the

[04:01]

and nourished by the water which makes the earth muddy, and the warmth of the universe, and the light of the universe, the seed will, as we say, germinate. The seed is a germ, right? And it will germinate, or it will seedify. It will break open. And when it breaks open in the mud, it starts to develop further its relationship with the mud. Now, when it's first in the mud, it has a relationship, but it's got a seed coat. So it's between it and the mud is kind of like a shell. But it is relating. It's touching the mud, the mud's touching it. And that mutual touching with, again, it's also being touched by thermal energy and light.

[05:11]

Being touched and touching, that interaction leads to an evolution of the seed. The seed breaks open and it starts to now relate to the world. the mud, but also start to relate to the thermal energy and the light by putting roots into the mud. And at a certain point, I don't know, sometimes withers I think it's first the roots, but I'm not sure, I'm pretty sure it's first the roots, but maybe it's simultaneous with the roots, there's a little stalk that comes up out of the seed. Like in a peanut, you know, there's a little stalk, that little bump in the inside of the peanut, over to the upper right-hand corner, that little thing, it's actually a little stalk with a little leaf on it. If you look at a microscope, you can see the,

[06:16]

the little leaf in there. So anyway, the roots go down and the stalk comes up. And the roots go down and they particularly relate to the mud. And now the stalk comes up into the water. And the roots relate more to the mud. And the stalk comes up more into the water and gets thicker and starts to turn green. The roots usually don't turn green because they're not getting much sunlight. but the warmth of the sun is encouraging them to extend their embrace of the mud. And roots are sometimes, well, there's a word, tendril, right? The tendrils of the roots. I think the word tendril and the word tender might be related. The roots are not rough.

[07:18]

They're tender. They tenderly embrace the mud. The stalk, however, is getting quite strong, and it's green. And then when it gets above the water, it starts to develop these big leaves that are not like lily pods that are on the surface of the water. They come out of the water. and they actually can hold water, like in their pocket of the leaf, but the leaves are also very waxed, so the water also beads on them and rolls off. So if you ever see lotuses in rain, they hold the water and hold it and hold it until they hold it quite a bit and then they dump it. And oftentimes they dump it into the water, but they also dump it onto other leaves, which catch it and hold it and dump it.

[08:27]

So a lotus plant has a number of leaves where some are catching and sagging and others are dumping and others have just dumped and are popping up and catching and sinking. So in the rain they dance, the leaves dance with the rain and with each other, dumping and receiving water. I didn't know about that until I saw it. Nobody told me, lotus flowers do this. I saw it in Japan. in a lotus pot, in a lotus paddy. They do this beautiful dance in the rain. And then the stalk does this thing called making the flower. And it starts with a bud, and then the bud bursts open into this flower. And I think the flower,

[09:28]

under not real harsh conditions, like if it's a storm when the flower opens, it just might be a one-time opening, and then it gets torn apart. But if it's not too windy, or too hot or cold when it opens, it opens, and then when the sun sets, it closes. various forms of life, go inside the flower at night, use it as a hotel, and then it opens. I don't know how many times it usually opens and closes, but it opens more than once, usually. After a while, again, I don't know how long, it's the usual number of days, the petals fall. And then you have, and I'm sorry I didn't bring you an example, but maybe you know it.

[10:35]

Then you have this kind of like thing that's shaped kind of like this. Could you give me that thing right there? It's shaped kind of like this, actually. It's a little bit like, but it's curved down like this. and it has veins on it, and it has, the top is, it looks kind of like those things that people put in a vase to put flowers in. It's got little pockets, maybe about 20 pockets, 30 pockets, 10 pockets, not usually 50, more around 20 or 30, I think. And the pockets are, They're big enough so that a little seed pod about the size of a normal-sized marble that kids play with, about like that, a marble about like that.

[11:38]

So you have about 20 of these little seed pods in this, seed balls, in this pod which holds them. And they can move a little bit in there. When they dry out, you can shake them and hear them from a distance. When the plant's still wet, if you shake them, they don't make much noise. And these pods, by the way, as you may know, once the seeds are taken out, are delicious to eat. Anyway, this thing's sitting up there now. Now you have the flower. The flower drops away, and now you have the fruit. And after a while, the stem gets tired of holding this, or I should say, the stem gets limp, I should say. Somehow, it's getting less water coming up. So this is drying out, and the stem's drying out, and after a while, the stem droops, and the fruit droops with it, and it droops down.

[12:50]

usually all the way into the water. Not necessarily into the mud, but more into the water. And it gets wet again, and particularly this time, the seeds inside get wet, but the pod has a little bit of tensile integrity So it doesn't stretch very much. It sort of holds together pretty firmly. And again, if you see these dried things, they do hold together quite a long time, unless you cut them. They last a long time. But if they go into the water, those little pods swell up, and they swell up kind of together, and they build up pressure on the container, and then they usually, at a certain point, they explode, kind of together.

[13:54]

And when they explode, they propel the container out of the water. And they propel it, and they also break it. As they break it, they propel it. out of the water and the seeds go flying all over the world. And then the seeds do what we said before. They go down into the water, they sink through the water, into the mud, and maybe some of them will germinate and more lotuses. So this is a description of our life. And it's already going on, it's just a question of remembering it and participating in the process by which there's a seed, part of our life is that we're a seed.

[15:15]

Part of our life is that we're a flower. Part of our life is that we're a fruit. We're all these things. And yet sometimes it just seems like there's a seed. And then, when there's a flower, it's hard to find the seed anymore. The seed's broken over and turned into roots and stems and flowers. But when you look at the flower in the flower, the fruit's in the flower and the seed's in the fruit, And when you look at the fruit, the flower is still there because the petals fell. It's just a flower without petals. So the whole process is in each stage of the process. But we sort of need to remember, it seems like we need to remember and enjoy certain parts of the process in order to enjoy other parts of the process. If you were the lotus flower, you might not have trouble.

[16:20]

When we're the lotus flower, we have no trouble. We're just blooming. The lotus flower symbolizes Buddha's wisdom. It's effortless. It's radiant. It's liberating. It's freedom and freeing. It's seeing the way things really are, and being completely free of believing the stories about the way they aren't. Anyway, it's free of believing any stories, period, as being some reality other than mental construction. So the flower is really great, and you've all had moments of the flower, probably. And in reality, we don't hold on to the flower. We let the wisdom drop away.

[17:21]

We don't hold on to this wonderful wisdom. And that is what's necessary in order for this wisdom to go back into the mind. For this flower to not be sitting up there and holding on to being a flower giving up its flowerness. It's a flower which is happy to give up being a flower. It's the flower of not being attached to fluorescence. It's the bloom that's not attached to bloom. That's the fruit. And the fruit's for reproduction. It's for eating too, but the eating is also for reproduction. You can eat the flowers too, that's fine, and you'll be eating the fruit, but the fruit you'll be eating won't be, you know, the seeds have not yet come to a place where they're ready to be planted again.

[18:30]

So in some ways, we shouldn't eat all the flowers, we should let some of them become fruits. Then we can eat them and plant them. And then the planting is, yeah, the planting is the part where it's kind of the hard work of it, you know, being in the mud, being wet and hot, and sometimes cold, and breaking open, and embracing the mud, you know, without discrimination. which means embracing all living beings. Tenderly, precisely, and precisely just like this, and just like this. Not that way, this way.

[19:31]

Embrace this life, moment by moment. embracing this life is becoming the flower, is becoming Buddha. The seed embracing the mud is the seed becoming the lotus of perfect wisdom. But that's not all there is to it. There's also a sprout. There's also like, okay, I'm embracing all beings, and also I'm like setting up a stem a stem which is remembering that it's good to embrace the mud, because we're gonna make perfect wisdom out of this relationship. And this relationship is perfect wisdom. And this is nice, strong, green effort coming up out of this dark, challenging situation.

[20:37]

Challenging. You know, again, the word challenge comes from that thing that the French, I guess mostly the upper-class French people used to do, the men, they would take their glove and slap somebody in the face and they would say, Chalange! And I said that to some French guys one time, they said, that's an English word. I said, well, we got it from you. You used to say it when you slapped people. I'd go, oh yeah, right. They would embrace each other with their gloves and say, challenge, I want to embrace you for my honor. Anyway, it's challenging to embrace everybody and to embrace every feeling and thought we have. It's a challenge, like, can you meet this challenge?

[21:46]

Well, I'd like to, but I've noticed I do sometimes kind of miss it. I sometimes want to turn away. even though I know it's silly, I sometimes want to turn away. And sometimes I don't want to turn away, and it takes all my courage to really face, face the face. But that's, facing each other is putting the roots down, which are going to give rise, this facing each other gives rise to this flower. And the facing keeps happening, and the flower keeps happening, and the facing keeps happening, and the flower keeps happening. And this isn't just to make flowers, which it is, it's to make flowers, but it's also to make seeds for the next generation. And these seeds go all over the place.

[22:50]

And sometimes some lotus fields dry up, or they build apartments on them, But because they got blown around, they got blown from one country to another, to another, and then back to the country. So we will spread, our life will spread these seeds. that come from the wisdom which we're working on developing, and the fruit of the wisdom which we're working on developing. And we're actually doing all the different parts at the same time, but as conscious beings, we need to focus sometimes. We get called to focus on one part or the other, and we're generally called by the mud as an ongoing basis. We can also, and so we can remember, oh yeah, I'm being called and I want to listen.

[23:52]

Okay, I'm doing the embracing the mud part. That's good. And then you may also notice that you're doing the other parts too. You may notice that you're developing wisdom, that you're able to, because you're embracing, you're able to evolve, your understanding is able to evolve, and you start to develop something which is transcending the mud, even though it's completely connected to something that's totally embracing the mud. So embracing and transcending our one plant, our one life. Our life is engaged with all kinds of challenges and bondages and entanglements, and it's also, it's a transcendent life. So I just heard recently Jimi Hendrix saying, I'm coming to get you.

[25:08]

The Lotus Sutra is coming to get you. The Lotus of the true Dharma is coming to get you. It's coming to get me. I'm so happy. It's coming to get me. So, as I said, while we're sitting, we sit and we observe all sentient beings, and we compassionately converse with all sentient beings. Compassionately observing and conversing with sentient beings, this is how the blessing of the Buddha way is generated.

[26:11]

I'm smiling because I'm thinking about this person I know who I sometimes refer to myself as her slave. Happy slave, but kind of like a slave. I told you about her before. I think I told you about her during this series of class. She said to me, you're like my servant and my horsey and my sailor. No, she said, and my salesman. Salesman. And what she meant by salesman was that she was in a hammock, and I was pushing the hammock, and the hammock was her boat. So I was her salesman. I said, oh, you mean like sailor? She said, oh yeah. So I was her servant, her salesman, and when she gets out of the hammock, I'm her horsey. And as I don't have to tell you, I got some knee pads.

[27:29]

Yeah, it's much more comfortable with knee pads. And I also smile because she has these very nice parents. She's a lucky young person. She has a really great father and a really great mother. And those people just love to go away from her and have us take care of her. They love her so much and they so much want to go do something else other than listening to her. Non-stop. With them anyway. And wanting to get away from somebody you really love is another little chunk of mud to embrace. Don't hate yourself for wanting to take a break from somebody who's calling to you who you really love.

[28:37]

You feel that way for a reason. I don't know what the reason is, but you do feel that way. And you should embrace that you want to get away and embrace that you're devoted to this person. They go together, don't they? Yes, EJ. I think I have a question about no lotus flower. You have a question about? About no lotus flower. No lotus flower, yeah. Because sometimes you hear about there's actually no flower, there's actually no mud. Yes. So, I think my question is, how can we say there's no flower when we're observing a flower? Well, one of the ways you can say there's no flower is because of the flower. That's one of the reasons you can say no flower is because of the flower.

[29:46]

There's no no flower without flower. When you understand that the flower is no flower, then you can say no flower, but it's not the same as saying there is no flower. Is it saying no flower because my projection of a flower is not the flower? Your projection of the flower is not the flower, that's true. But that's only part of the reason that the flower is not a flower. So the flower of wisdom does not say there's no flower. It does not say there is a flower. Wisdom doesn't really get into there is or there isn't. Wisdom cuts through there is and there isn't. Wisdom leaps free of there is flowers or there isn't flowers.

[30:50]

Wisdom is the flower is not a flower. EJ is not EJ. But it's not there is no EJ or there is EJ. I mean, people do say that. And by embracing and sustaining there is EJ, you will realize EJ is not EJ. So you're saying that EJ is not EJ because EJ is beyond what we conceive of as EJ. Yes. But it's not just your idea that is beyond. That's another perception. Yeah, but that's one of the things that's beyond. One of the things you're beyond is your idea of yourself, but you're also beyond everybody else's idea of you. And you're also beyond your toenails. And you're beyond my toenails. You are everything other than yourself.

[31:52]

You are totally otherwise. And you're also like what you think you are. You're also, you're like, your ego, you're also that. You're that. At the same time, yeah. And those are in conversation. And so by developing the conversation, we wake up to how we're otherwise. But it's not that we flip over into being otherwise. We become the conversation. Like the flower is in conversation with the mud, and the mud is in conversation with the flower. And the people who realize that the flower is not the flower, they can do all kinds of fancy stuff to help people. Like they can say, there's no lotus flowers in the universe anymore. They can make startling statements to get people's attention. Or they say, lotus flowers have just been changed into roses. They can do all kinds of things to help people embrace the mud more.

[33:00]

Like if I say it's Tuesday, okay, you may, okay, fine. If I say it's Wednesday, you go, wait a minute. How are you gonna embrace if I say it's Wednesday? But maybe you do, and you grow in a way that you can't grow if you can't embrace it's Wednesday. You don't have to believe it's Tuesday to embrace it's Tuesday, and you don't have to believe it's Wednesday to embrace it's Wednesday. You just need to listen wholeheartedly, and you'll embrace whatever they say to you. People say, you're a jerk. I don't have to believe that. When I embrace it, I don't believe it. They say, you're a nice guy. I don't know if I embrace that, I don't believe it, but I listen. Yeah, they think I'm a nice guy. They think I'm helpful. They think I'm unhelpful. I don't push any of that away. I embrace it. And grow lotuses out of all the praises and blames.

[34:07]

And that's what attracted me to Zen, people who can grow lotuses out of praise and blame. Same practice. lotus growing, no matter what happens. But of course, it's hard to do that. To never get distracted from, oh yeah, this is an opportunity for growing lotuses. This is a job for Superman. This is a job for Buddha. I just heard this story recently about somebody who wanted to get revenge. And I read an article one time by somebody who said, revenge should be added to the list of basic instincts, along with greed and hate, we should have revenge too. Anyway, rather than revenge, grow a lotus. Is that little devil, the one who made you go up and down a hill,

[35:14]

many, many times because she couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted to be at the park or at home. Is that the one? My leader, that was the one. And that process she invited me into was one of the most joyful moments of my life. to basically, for a little while, be free of getting anything out of life. And it wasn't just that I was doing what she said, it was that I was also becoming free of what she said. I was simultaneously listening to her, following her instruction, and becoming free of her instruction, because she kept changing her instruction. So I had to keep... Yeah, that's the way our life is. People are telling us what to do, and then they're telling us what to do, and then they're telling us what to do, and then they're asking us what to do, and they're simultaneously liberating us.

[36:25]

It's a matter of waking up to this. And we're in the process of waking up to it. Say again? Would they? I don't know if anybody's tried. I think it might not get hot enough in agriculture. They grow really well in Texas, I understand. And I think also maybe some parts of Southern California, they grow them. But Texas is, seems to be really, somebody gave me a catalog for, a lotus catalog, and it was from Texas. And they had all these different varieties of flowers, of lotus flowers in Texas.

[37:28]

I never saw anything remotely, any remote, I haven't heard any hearsay of anybody trying to grow lotuses in Minnesota. But Minnesota has lily pods. Yes. Well, it sounds so beautiful when you describe that whole process and the whole part of the lotus. So I got this thought in my mind, which was, did the mud or the roots ever hurt? Or different parts, did they hurt? Well, I think... I think maybe the roots sometimes hurt. I think so, maybe. Like, if they would, I mean, if they would be doing their thing, and there would be a shaking of the pond, if there were something sharp in the mud, it might cut the root.

[38:33]

And I think the root would have some intelligence about saying, uh-oh, we got cut root here. Maybe we should move away and repair this cut. So I think a cell has, in a sense, a cell has some sense of its own integrity, and when it's breached, it has various responses to kind of maintain its integrity, which is sometimes in biology called the self of the cell. And also roots, I heard that redwood roots the finest part of the root, the thinnest part, they can tell the difference between other roots from that same tree and the roots from other trees. And they react somewhat differently to the roots from their own main tree and the other trees. Not super aggressively towards the other ones, but differently. And I think they may have some precursor of what we might call sensing, go towards and away, so yeah.

[39:40]

We were just talking about them like plants just now, but then you said this is our life. Yeah, we also have roots by which we go out among other beings and we touch them and they touch us. and we have tendencies to move towards them or away from them depending on the touch. And we hear people suffering and we reach out to it or we go away from it. We're in the process of trying to learn how to not run away from our relationship with each other. So that's our life. And sometimes it looks like some people, it looks like they're mostly running away from their relationships with other people who are the mud, because the mud is living beings. But this is a temporary thing, this running away.

[40:42]

They're not going to run away forever. They're going to get some help, and they're going to come back and try again, just like my leader's parents do come home. and they do want to take care of her again after a break. We're in this process, but it's organic, you know, and there's so many factors that it can go so many different ways, but I'm just saying, we are heading in this direction, is what I'm saying. But willy-nilly, up and down, right and left, Discouragement is part of the mud. A pond with no discouragement is a funny pond. Discouragement, despair, these are part of what we are being called to relate to. And sometimes when we're tired, we just feel like, I can't relate to this, I need to rest.

[41:47]

In describing the bodhisattvic activity, if a bodhisattva aspires, for example, to be patient with people, or generous, and they don't follow through on that aspiration, the text says, if they don't follow through because they're sick, or really tired, it's a fault, but it's not a big fault. Or it's even hardly a fault if they're really tired. If they're not tired and they're just not following through because they don't like, out of spite, then it's more of a problem. But that happens too. Well, what they aspire to do is they aspired to treat that the way they didn't treat this. So, if you've already aspired to to be kind, and then somebody maybe does something to you that hurts you, and you feel pain, and then you feel spite towards them, and then you think, well, I'm not gonna be generous with this person, right?

[43:01]

So then you embrace that by admitting that you just didn't do what you aspired to do, and you're sorry. So can, Did you say I might be psychic? I didn't say you, but I would say that also. It feels very psychic, because I'm in a situation where I'm furious at somebody, and I think, oh, what a bad Zen student. So you're furious at somebody, plus also you're saying, oh, what a bad Zen student. So you've got two things to deal with here. So even when I acknowledge him, then the blossom doesn't start blossoming, I'm still furious. Well, the lotus isn't going to blossom before there's a lot of roots. And there can be roots in each thing, each interaction. If you can fully embrace it in the moment, the thing, the person's face, can reveal to you the truth.

[44:10]

So you're looking at somebody's face, you're thinking, this is the face of someone who did something that... Disappointed. Disappointed you. You feel disappointment, etc. Okay? And then you really, like, embrace that disappointment, etc. Maybe I don't know what that means. Maybe I'm just pretending to embrace it. What does it mean to really embrace it? Well, one of the things it means is the lotus flower blooms. So one of the things... There's this thing about verification, it's one of the threads of the Buddhist teaching. You verify that you care about people. One of the ways you verify it is you understand who they are. You know, you could say, oh, oh my God, she's me. And that's a reward for being compassionate.

[45:14]

I think it does too. It would be like the root hares would realize that the root hares which aren't theirs are really who they really are. Which is a lot to ask of the root hares of Redwood, but it's a lot to ask of humans too, that they would actually see that the person they're looking at is who they really are. More so than who they usually think they are. And if you were worried about whether you were really embracing your disappointment, et cetera, that would be a confirmation.

[46:20]

Maybe there was full embracement, because I'm suddenly free of what I thought this person was, which I was disappointed with. Now I understand who this person really is. So embracing this person really was a good idea, and I think I actually did. Because I'm completely free of the disappointment. And I'm totally full of gratitude to this person who I thought disappointed me. I mean, I couldn't be more grateful. And the way I got there was by doing what again? By embracing your disappointment in this person. Which includes embracing the person. Because it includes embracing your version of the person, which entails embracing that they disappoint you. Well, that's what I meant by et cetera.

[47:26]

There was like, I look at you, okay? or look at somebody, not you, because you never disappoint me. Too bad for you. I mean, too bad for me, not too bad for you. So you look at the person, you haven't yet figured out how to like really open to all they are, and that's shown to you by some part of what they're giving to you. You say, no thank you, I don't need that. So then you embrace, no thank you, I don't need that. Like a lot of people say to me when I talk about practicing compassion towards all beings, they give me some examples of where they can't do it. I can't be compassionate to him, they say. I say, well, can you be compassionate to your inability to be compassionate? And they say, yeah, I can do that. So you can embrace this person, but you might be able to embrace this disappointment.

[48:30]

And if you can't do that, you might be able to embrace, well, I can't embrace the disappointment. It's too disappointing. You find a place and then you work from there. And then suddenly when you, suddenly sometimes, suddenly, oh my God, this person has done me the greatest kindness in the universe right now. not even the past and future, just right now, this is the best. Like I said to my leader on Sunday, I said, you have a really good dad. And she said, yeah, he's the best. But sometimes she doesn't think so. But at that moment, she could see it. So sometimes you do have these little verifications, which kind of like, well, maybe I'm Yeah, maybe now that I see that these people are really who I am, maybe this is because I actually did a little work of accepting them.

[49:33]

Maybe that's what led me to be able to see that all the people that are disappointing me are my best friends. Now, the people who are not disappointing me, they're my best friends too, in a different way. in a way that's not so painful right now. But tomorrow they might disappoint me and the other people not. But sometimes the people who disappoint you are the ones who most call upon you to be wholehearted. Because you're trying to help them and they say you're not doing enough, they don't appreciate you, you're disappointed. So those of us who have lots of people who are disappointed in us are really fortunate. If nobody's not disappointed in you, I'm disappointed.

[50:36]

Not in you. I'm not in you. I'm just disappointed in your environment. They're not challenging you enough. But I think you have plenty of disappointment. So it's good. It's good. I'm not disappointed in that. You have a lot of opportunities. You're so fortunate. So I don't have to worry about you. You have major disappointments all around you. You've got plenty of flames and mud. Yeah. And sometimes you don't say thank you. I understand that. What about when we try not to disappoint others, like too much to the extreme? Yes, trying not to disappoint people. Do you do that sometimes? Do you try not to disappoint people? Yeah, I do that a lot. And that doesn't disappoint me that you try that. But to tell you the truth, Kim, I really appreciate you, and I don't try not to disappoint you.

[51:39]

It's not on my agenda to not disappoint you. I'm not working on that with you. Now, if you really needed me to work on it, you say, would you please work on it? I might say, okay, tell me how, because you're an expert. You might say, Rabbi, I need you to learn how to try to not disappoint me. I might take it on. But I'm not so much working at not disappointing you, I'm more like working at meeting you and talking to you. I'm not so much like trying to get you not to see me in a certain way. I'm not trying to control you into not being disappointed with me. So just now I told you that, even though there was a risk that I would disappoint you when I said that. Did I disappoint you? Not so far, no. But, you know, you might have just, oh, I'm working at Not Disappointing People, why isn't he?

[52:42]

Oh, it's so disappointing. You might have felt that way, but that's not where I'm at. So I'm just telling you, honestly, I don't try to not disappoint you. And I also do not try to disappoint you. That's why I don't miss classes, have you noticed? Not to criticize anybody, but the only class I missed in whatever number of years I've been coming here was because the bridge broke. And the cars couldn't get over. And I could have taken a helicopter, but I was stuck on the approach to the bridge. And people were behind me and in front of me. I couldn't move. And I didn't have a cell phone. And even if I had a cell phone, I wouldn't know who to call. That's the only time I missed. Because I'm wrong. I didn't want to disappoint you. I didn't want you to come and may not be able, so I guess I do try to not disappoint people. But when I say I'm gonna come here for whatever number of classes, I try to come because I don't want to disappoint you.

[53:47]

So I guess I do do it. But I don't think that's too much, do you? Right? But I think I could do it too much. Like, you know, I don't know what. If I broke my leg and I tried to crawl over here, that would be too much, right? Because I didn't want to disappoint you. So I would watch out for it. It's too much. I canceled a weekend workshop last week in Sacramento, and I think that disappointed the people. And I'm sorry that it did disappoint them, but I wasn't trying to not disappoint them enough to go to the retreat when I didn't feel good about going anymore. So, I think working with disappointment is an opportunity for you to find out how to not do something that you don't feel right about.

[54:52]

knowing that it might disappoint somebody, how to handle that. How to not always do what you think won't disappoint. Because sometimes doing what you won't disappoint isn't right for you. And people don't know it unless you tell them. And sometimes you would tell them, you know, I don't feel right about this anymore, and I don't want to disappoint you. And they might say, well, Yeah, that would disappoint me, but actually I want you to do it anyway, even though you don't want to do it. You might say, okay, and feel good about it. It might change your mind. You might say, no, I still don't feel right about it. And they might say, okay, I'm not disappointed. Now that I know you don't want to do it, you made it very clear, you're not disappointing me anymore. Because you didn't just not do it, you came and gave me your face. and you really gave it to me, your face, and you showed me a face that doesn't want to hurt me, doesn't want to disappoint me, but also doesn't feel right about what you previously said we were going to do together.

[56:01]

So, yeah, I really appreciate it. I know that was hard for you to tell me, and it was a little hard for me, because I am kind of disappointed, but although I'm disappointed, I think I got something much better than what we were going to do together. I got this meeting. This meeting is better than the thing we were going to do together, whatever it was. This is an unexpected blessing, because you had the courage to show me who you really are. Thank you. And was it hard for you to tell me? And you might say, yeah, it was really hard. But I think it was right. I did the hard thing. I told you I didn't feel I should do it anymore. That was hard. but it was true. I was being honest with you about who I am. If I had done it, I think I would have deceived you, because you would have thought I was okay with it, if I didn't tell you. You can also say, when I first agreed, I thought it was right for me, now I don't, and I'll still do it if you want to, but I don't think it's right for me.

[57:07]

The person might say, okay, do it, yeah, do it even though it's not right for you. Or they might say, okay, well, don't do it, if it's not right for you now. It's the conversation where the Buddha is, right? It's not in me not wanting to disappoint you and not telling you. It's me not wanting to disappoint you and telling you when I don't feel right about something. And then the conversation goes on to who knows where. Well, I'll tell you where. It goes to Buddhahood. That's where it goes, but what that looks like, none of my ideas about what it's going to be like reach it. So I'm aspiring to this process, I'm aspiring to this destination, and I don't know what it is really, but I still want to go there. Yeah? I mentioned the little devil a little while ago.

[58:11]

What about the little devils in this... What about the little devils in this universe, and big devils, and so on? How do we relate to them? Well, it depends on whether you want to join the Buddha path. If you do want to join... Well, then you're servants of all devils, large and small. You're what? You're a servant of all devils, large and small. I'm servant of all devils, large and small, and they are also servants of me, in the Buddha way. All the devils are working for me, I'm working for all the devils. One time the leader of the devils came to the Buddha and said, friend, you know, I'm gonna quit. Everybody thinks you're the greatest, they worship you, they say thank you to you, you know, they follow your teaching, and, you know, it's all really good.

[59:18]

And they all hate me for trying to get rid of me. I quit," the Buddha said, you know. Yes, it's true what you said. People do really appreciate me, but, you know, you can't quit. I need you. I can't go on without you. my darling, and I'm doing this for you, and you need to keep doing this for me. We're a team here." And apparently the devil kept going. Yes? Since last week I've been thinking a lot about fragility, to bring that into my interactions with people, and that there's fragility. I'm seeing fragility around me. So I've been working with that, but I find it very challenging.

[60:22]

I forget about it a lot. And for example, somebody I'm not interacting with, but maybe just overhearing, like say on the bus or something like that, And so my question is how to bring that forward in situations where it's not, there's not a lot of intention there, it's just going back to life and things are happening and when I think about it and there's some situation that I feel like is calling me to be mindful and bring myself, Would you say the last part again? Well, I feel like I want to be able to bring back an awareness that we're all struggling and have a lot of difficulties to my everyday life, and not just getting when it's clearly, oh, here we are, and there's a conflict or something that I'm faced with.

[61:33]

I guess that's my life, I guess. Did you hear? Because I feel like people become one-dimensional in the world around me, unless I'm calling forth this feeling of, okay, here we are. Okay, what? Here we are, and... Yeah, you said it. You said it. If you don't do that, people can become one-dimensional. That's the sad story. If you don't do this, they might not, but they might become one-dimensional. So if I don't remember this, okay, here we are. Here we fragile beings are. If I don't remember that, I can miss the opportunity of meeting this person. They can suddenly become one-dimensional. or less.

[62:37]

Yeah, that's right. That's the risk of forgetfulness. And so, yeah, like that story I tell about my friend who's a martial arts teacher who was in Japan. He was on a bus. Did you hear that story? And this bus stopped, and a big man got on the bus, and he was storming down the aisle. I don't know if he's yelling, but looking here, it was like... And my friend did not have this thing which you're saying, like, okay, here we are. He thought, I'm a martial arts teacher, and when he comes back here, I'm going to show him a thing or two. Can you hear that, Jeff? And then the trolley stopped again, and a rather tiny, fragile, elderly man got on the bus.

[63:51]

So this might have been somebody who's like, okay, here comes fragility onto the bus. I don't know, I'm gonna get on this bus somehow. And then he sees this large, aggressive bull, and he sees this fragile being. He's already doing the practice. He's accepting that we're this way, and then he sees somebody that way who's not handling that very well. He sees somebody who is fragile and is really trying to get away from it and using alcohol probably to augment his not facing his fragility and therefore becoming even more like indestructible and not feeling more indestructible. He's taking medication so he won't have to deal with his fragility and then he's scaring everybody and maybe gonna hurt somebody. This man sees a fragile person And he knows this person, the other people on the bus, they're fragile too, but they're not like really super into like getting away from it.

[65:09]

He is, and he's used, he's intoxicated himself. When we turn away from our fragility, like if we turn away from the fragility of our life, life becomes intoxicating. and then we do unskillful things. Anyway, this man got on the bus, and when he saw the guy, he said, what's the matter, sweetheart, in Japanese? What's the matter, little guy? And the guy felt that love, which was directed towards his fragility. Fragility is basically what love is looking at. Because fragility, when you see fragility, you see how precious a brute is. He's a living creature, but he's precious too. Just like a little tiny frail baby is fragile and precious, a big tough guy is precious.

[66:12]

And I feel like he could see that this is a precious, a large precious life form. And so you could say, what's the matter? And the guy broke down and started crying. He said, my wife just died. Now he was facing his fragility again. And now he was not intoxicated. Even though he was drunk, he wasn't intoxicated because he was facing his fragility. Now maybe you could be walking along and not paying attention to how fragile and precious life is, and then suddenly come out of it and apply it, just when it's needed. That can happen sometimes. Which is great. We do forget and then we remember. But it's also possible to be remembering and then remember. So if you've forgotten, you can remember, you can recover.

[67:16]

from intoxication, which comes from forgetting. Forgetting fragility makes whatever the thing which we're forgetting is fragile, it makes it turn into something that intoxicates us. Youth is fragile. Beauty is fragile. Health is fragile. Life is fragile. Our job is fragile. Our reputation is fragile. Everything we love is fragile, and if we forget that, then these things intoxicate us. We get too excited about them. And then when we get excited, we can do unskillful things like step on people's feet, you know, because we're not being careful, drive while drinking. We can do major harm when we're intoxicated, even if we're not angry or mean, spirited. And if we remember fragility, then we might not get in a car uncarefully, and so on.

[68:26]

So, again, if you can remember when it's needed, great. And I would say it's needed all the time, so remember all the time. Everything is fragile. All living beings are fragile. They're all calling for you to see how each person, without exception, is a precious being who might be just on a rampage. You can handle a rampage if you love it, and if you have these skills, which sometimes means get out of the way, but sometimes means to say, what's the matter, sweetheart? It's just the right thing. But we have to remember, fragile, if you remember that, you see precious. like E.J. and I, when we were at Tassajar, the head monk of the practice period, told us about when she was in a zoology class.

[69:34]

The zoology teacher had them take the top of, take a little piece of the shell of a chicken out, so you could see inside. And then after they did that, she said, well, now we're going to put the top of the shell back on. And the teacher said, No, it won't work. And the teacher said, I'll take care of them. I don't want you to have to take care of them. But I wanted you to see how fragile they are, because I want you to see how precious life is. And I take responsibility for this experiment. And this person that really like touched her to the core of her being, about how fragile life is, and from that time on she's been a vegan. Because she realizes how she's so impressed by how fragile, particularly little beings are.

[70:37]

She doesn't necessarily see how fragile I am or Bernard is. But if we were like one-tenth the size we are, she would like really see how fragile we are and how precious we are. fragility, preciousness, love. They work really close together. But again, big, strong-looking people who say, I can't be hurt, we sometimes fall for it. But we're waking up. We're waking up. Aren't we? We're waking up. Thank you so much for this series of classes. As I said, I really appreciate that when I come here, you come here.

[71:29]

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