We will now begin today's Dharma Talk offered by Green Gulch Head of Practice, Jiryu Rechmanweiler. We will now chant the opening verse, which should appear on your screen now. An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million Kalpas. having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Just to note everyone, this program will be using closed captioning.

[14:55]

This feature is automatic and it isn't perfect, but we hope it will be of benefit. To enable closed captioning, click on the CC icon at the bottom of your Zoom window. If the subtitles are distracting, click on the CC icon to disable them. Thank you, everybody. Good morning. Can you hear me okay? Thank you for coming today. So as you may have heard, it is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers, to all of our mothers, to all of the mothers. past, present, and future, and near and far. Thank you, mothers.

[15:58]

Really, thank you for this body and this life. So there's an ancient Chinese Buddhist text. It's known as an apocryphal sutra in that it was composed in China, reflecting and trying to express the Dharma through and with Chinese worldview and culture. It's called the Sutra on Filial Piety. And it lays out 10 types of kindnesses bestowed by the mother on the child. And I have long been most moved by the 10th of the 10. So I wanted to share that with you this morning. So number 10, the kindness of ultimate compassion and sympathy. The kindness of parents is profound and important.

[17:10]

Their tender concern never cease. From the moment they awake each day, their thoughts are with their children. Whether the children are near or far away, the parents think of them often. Even if a mother lives for a hundred years, she will constantly worry about her 80-year-old child. Do you wish to know when such kindness and love ends? It doesn't even begin to dissipate until her life is over. Even if she lives to 100, from the moment she wakes up, worry about her 80-year-old baby. That has stuck with me for many years. It really lands for me. Just the image, you know, whether or not it's true of any particular 100-year-old mother or not. The image of that total and constant and lasting tender concern.

[18:19]

And then that it doesn't... When will such kindness and love end? It doesn't even begin to dissipate until her life is over. So when her life ends, you know, the love then just begins at that point to dissipate. Maybe some of you know what that means. That the love of the mother doesn't dissipate even with her death. So how long does it take to dissipate? The sutra doesn't say... maybe takes several generations to dissipate completely, or maybe it never does. I was feeling the possibility that we are still, all of us, in the ripples, in the wake, in the warmth of that deep kindness and love and concern from our grandmothers, grandmothers, grandmothers. all the way back through that beginningless line of love.

[19:24]

So, of course, we may not all have mothers like this or be mothers like this. Our biological mothers may or may not have expressed or maybe even felt this tender concern towards us when we were young or when we were old. So what I mean by bringing up mothers and what we celebrate today isn't just a particular person or it's an energy or an archetype of loving care that whoever our mother is, the teaching is clear that we can, all of us, come to receive and to give, to find and appreciate in this very body this tender concern, constant, endless tender concern.

[20:33]

So, you know, as I talk a little bit more this morning about mothers, if the thought of your own mother gives you access to this loving, caring, nourishing part, please do bring her to mind. And if the thought of your own mother is too complicated or distracting, maybe some other image, some other energy, a loving mentor, the great nourishing earth. What is it, what image can help you touch this ultimate compassion and sympathy? Maybe some of the great Buddhist teachers express this for us, help us to access this. when we call their presence to mind. So what will help you touch this ultimate compassion and sympathy that the sutra is referring to and that our teaching says lives in your own deep heart? So I want to talk about two central practices this morning or two aspects of our practice of love in the Buddha Dharma.

[21:48]

And those two practices or two sides, which are one side, are the giving of love and the receiving of love. The practice of giving love universally to all beings and things. And the practice of receiving love universally from all beings and things. So often we talk in our Zen practice about Jijuyu Zanmai, the self-receiving and employing samadhi. The concentration on getting and giving this very self, moment after moment. And I feel that our practice with love is the same way. So in Jijuyu Zanmai, Self-receiving. We receive and employ this self.

[22:51]

So the image of that teaching is that we get a self. Here it is. And then we express that self moment after moment. We keep getting one and we keep expressing it. To express the one we're receiving fully, to express it fully is to receive it fully. And of course, receiving it fully, it's expressed. So we need to express it. We need to receive it in order to express it, and we need to express it in order to get another. If we don't express the self that we're receiving, it gets stuck. The flow of receiving and offering of the self gets stuck. So each moment we get our life and then fully express it, and that full expression clears the slate, opens the field for this next self to come, which we express. And when it comes, you know, we may be surprised.

[23:53]

I love this line of Suzuki Roshi saying, here it comes, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, here comes this next self. And then that one we express flows forth. So the image, the feeling of love for me this morning is very much the same way. I'm appreciating how it needs to flow into me. to flow out from me. And the love that I want to offer to others is not mine. No, it's not something that I have or generate or store up and then get out from some limited ration or even some large storehouse. It's about a flow. It's about the capacity of receiving an offering sort of in one moment of opening. So how do I let the love flow in so that I can let the love flow out and through?

[25:08]

How do I not get it stuck? So first, some words on the practice. We'll take one side at a time maybe. the practice of giving love. So when we talk in our practice about giving love, for many of us at Zen Center, easily coming to mind is the line from the Metta Sutta, the loving kindness meditation. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below and all around without limit. So let one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world. So this really is like all of our meditation practices.

[26:38]

First, we structurally, you know, first we focus on one spot and then we widen that spot. So we don't just jump in and say, all beings, love. We find some love and then we see if we can widen that. Just like with our concentration, we don't just roll into the Zen and say, okay, everything, all of existence. We find some concentration, some awareness first, and then we extend that, we widen that. So in this image, there's this first time focusing on this one image of love, like this mother and her one child, and then finding that feeling that then extending. So not too long ago, and some of you, I know we're here as I was reflecting and sharing during our love fest sishin a couple of months ago. on the four immeasurable aspects of love. By the way, and I'm feeling this again today and wanted to share it, that the love of a mother for her child is so natural, so ordinary.

[27:49]

Not universal, but totally unremarkable and ordinary. So I shared this image with which is still very poignant for me, of dropping my two kids off at school, which I do many mornings, and really registering. I'm trying to register and study and appreciate the depth of the love at that moment. And it's hard to let it all in. There's so much love in that moment, and it's so ordinary. It's just a morning with a bunch of parents dropping, A bunch of harried parents dropping a bunch of fussy kids off at school. And yet there's this depth of love there that's completely marvelous and totally ordinary. Mothers and fathers telling their kids that they love them, using those words or totally different words. And then the kids, just their bodies, you know, expressing, showing that love in turn.

[28:59]

And thinking about this image, I was remembering this sort of snapshot I have that really was moving to me at the time, standing at Green Gulch here above the garden gate with my friend and seeing down in the garden, his daughter catching sight of him and just running up from the garden towards his arms. You know, on this image of the dad with the open arms and the daughter running, you know, at full tilt towards him, just that total mutuality. And I thought, I want to, I want that. I want to love and to be loved like that. I think we all do want to love and be loved and sense how true that would be to love and be loved like that. You know, that image is at the surface of something that's much more broad. So this teaching, this radical teaching of the Buddha Dharma is that we can understand We are actually in our deepest heart loving and loved by all beings in that way.

[30:09]

Reality itself at its core is that dad's open arms and that daughter at full run. That is the total mutuality of reality itself. This is the proposal of the Buddhist tradition. That not only can we love and be loved in such a profound way, but that there's nothing but that. That is what we are. So this infinitely deep and totally ordinary love. The love is maybe not so extraordinary, even though it's boundlessly deep.

[31:14]

It's all around us. What's the extraordinary call of our practice is that we extend it. So with a boundless mind, should one cherish all living things, you know, running full tilt into the arms of all living things and receiving with wide open arms. the full run of all living things, the boundless minds cherishing all living things. So how do we give that? How do we extend that love? So first, maybe it would be good to distinguish. And again, this has been very alive for me this year. So some of you have heard me share this before. I really want to emphasize that That this, you know, there's a great feeling of affection and love in this image of daughter and father. But having and sharing this boundlessly deep love for one another may not be affectionate.

[32:20]

It may not be sentimental, warm feeling. In fact, in many cases, perhaps sentimental, warm feeling, much less like falling in love with all beings, might not be quite right. It's not about sentimental affection or having a warm feeling towards everyone necessarily. It's about this deeper, deepest love that is knowing what we are and sharing what we are. So Dr. King reminds us in so many of his sermons, this great redemptive love is not eros and not philea, but agape. Universal, unconditioned love. He says, when we love on the agape level, we love people not because we like them. And elsewhere, you know, in fierce and excruciating detail, he suggests some reasons why not to like some people.

[33:25]

So seeking to destroy him, for example, and his family. So when we love on the agape level, we love people not because we like them. not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but because God loves them in his terms. So in other words, not because of who they are, I love you for who you are, but for what you are, for that you are, is maybe how we might put it in this tradition. Loving beings for that they are, what they are. So this deepest universal love that we're Practicing extending to all beings is not just affection and it's nothing like complacency or complicity. It's just the only true thing, the only really redemptive force. In Dr. King's words, redemptive force.

[34:28]

It's the only way of actual transformation for ourselves and each other. And furthermore, as we notice when we sit in stillness and silence, when we open our heart, our deep heart is longing for this. Our deep self, our deep heart, the core of our being longs to extend this love universally. It's not just a favor to someone else. It's what we long for, to leave nothing out. So in the four immeasurables, the teaching of the Brahmavaharas or the four immeasurables, this extending of this love to all beings is the aspect of upekha, equanimity, or universality. That's the breadth element, universalizing element of love. And of course, we can't do this with our small mind.

[35:30]

We need to call forth. We need to rely on our big heart. No views here can help us. Our small mind, factory of views, factory of separation and violence, our small mind cannot help us here. Only our big heart, our intuitive body wisdom, can extend universally this deep love. And the stillness and silence of our deep heart can do it. Or it is done there. So I've been connecting in this last week with my friends and Sangha members in Colombia, where they're having like so many places now, a difficult time as a country.

[36:37]

the seeds of frustration and inequity, great poverty and corruption, and feeling that COVID has been really badly mismanaged, has become kind of explosive and exploded again on the streets. So some of you know San Riqui Jaramillo, our branching stream's San Francisco Zen Center affiliate temple in Medellin called Montaña de Silencio. the great mountain of silence from which this universal love extends. So feeling the growing hatred and confusion all around in the Sangha and in the streets, Sanriki called the Sangha to sit, to go near to the site of the strikes and protests and riots and police backlash, and just to sit in love and universal compassion And doing so, he quoted, he urged the Sangha on with words from Thich Nhat Hanh that really impacted me.

[37:46]

Asking them to heed these words of Thich Nhat Hanh as they sat. Meditate until every reproach and hatred disappears. And compassion and love rise like a well of fresh water in your heart. Meditate until every reproach and hatred disappears and compassion and love rise like a well of fresh water in your heart. So in the Spanish translation that Sandiki cited of this text composed by Thich Nhat Hanh in Vietnamese, it comes through as inundate, inundate. May this heart be inundated with love and compassion. I love that image. an inundated heart. So this is not, you know, what my small mind would do to give love, which is dole out rations, dole out drops.

[38:51]

You know, you get one, you get two, you don't get any. This is the inundated heart. The small mind won't let itself be inundated. No, it will not. So that's why Thich Nhat Hanh's implying we need to meditate. It may be a while. It may take a long time until the small mind can receive to reveal this great heart that allows itself to be inundated with love and compassion. And part of the power of that image, you know, of going where there's hatred, bringing ourself to the place where the hatred in ourself will arise as a study of the boundary of the capacity to love in ourselves. And as we practice this extending, this seems to me like the most important point or unimportant point is to study and care for what is left out.

[40:01]

Where is that border? Where is that boundary where my love does not extend past? So where is there some place, you know, in myself or in the world that the love can't quite reach yet? And can I ask about that? Can I open that? Can I invite that to widen? So exploring that edge and trying to widen little by little that border of love. Slowly, gently. Or sometimes all of a sudden, brilliantly, you know, the whole world included. What's left out of my heart? Maybe some people, some beings, and maybe to some aspects of myself. And I extend this deep love to my own unclarity and hurt and grief and anger.

[41:04]

Confusion, disconnection, ill will, self-aggrandizement or self-hate. What is left out of my love? What is left out of your love as it grows? As the waters rise, you know? What's left dry in this inundating heart? And how can we help the water reach there too? So while we work on widening in Zazen and in our daily life practice, this capacity of our, this breadth of our giving love, we also nourish

[42:06]

the love giving through the vital practice of this love receiving. And that's the other side that I wanted to talk about. So I want to say a little bit about receiving the love from all beings so that it can flow without me even needing to be involved, can flow through. What a relief to all beings. If I can receive and just not gum it up, then maybe it can flow on through. And that won't be divided. That one that's received won't be doled out, you know. That's inundated. So our practice of receiving the love of all beings. And as you know, you know, if this now is called receiving the love and support of all beings, then it sure doesn't feel like it. So to say that we are actually receiving the love and support of all beings isn't just like a declaration.

[43:15]

We can't just say it's so and you should take my word for it. Even the Buddha did not say this is so and take my word for it. It's instead a call or inspiration to practice towards the possibility, realizing that all beings are in their basic nature, are loving and supporting us. So do you feel that? Do I feel that? Do we feel that loved and supported by all beings? Not really. Not really. I was... Trying to characterize this feeling I sometimes have that maybe you have it too. It's kind of the feeling of, well, nobody's being nice to me, but I'm supposed to be nice to everyone. Or nobody's loving and supporting me, but I'm supposed to love and support everyone.

[44:22]

Maybe mothers know this feeling. I'm not getting the love and support, but I'm supposed to be giving it. So this is a block. This is that, of course, you can't give. in that condition, you know, with that posture. So how do I receive this love and support from all beings? What do I imagine that would feel like? How do I know that I'm not? How do I know that I'm not? Because it doesn't feel like it, doesn't feel like what I think it would feel like. So the teaching, the Dharma is that Fundamentally, by our birthright, by having a body, we are loved and supported by everything. We can doubt this, of course, and we should doubt and question it. But the problem, you know, as we doubt and question this, is that if we use our small mind to evaluate this and have our small mind look around to see, to look for and identify the love and support,

[45:33]

What the small mind will see is a lot of non-love and non-support. And then if we're lucky, some little pockets of love and support. And that's what our small mind sees. So small mind, you know, as we question this teaching, really, I'm loved and supported by all beings? We question it deeply and seeing if we can entrust that question to something deeper than small mind. Small mind can't reach the truth of this teaching. Only our big mind, our great heart, a deep heart of wisdom and compassion can know or touch or be inundated by this. So how do we access this teaching that we're truly loved and supported? Suzuki Roshi says, Buddha will take care of us. Buddha will take care of us.

[46:40]

Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. So Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. So We don't have that warm feeling of support and nourishment and tender care. We don't feel like anybody's child. So we may feel that we just have ourselves. Nobody's taking care of me. I just have to buck up. And of course, that attitude, that mind and heart is not conducive to the great flow of love through us. How do we recover? How do we find that feeling that Buddha will take care of us and recover that feeling of being at our mother's bosom? And Suzuki Roshi says, yet fading away into emptiness, fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother's bosom and we will feel as though she will take care of us.

[47:59]

So this idea of fading away into emptiness, which sounds so strange, is for Suzuki Roshi this most warm thing, this warm feeling of being held and nourished and nurtured by our mother, by Buddha, by all beings, all of life. So if I want to extend love to others, somehow I need to fade away into emptiness in order to feel the nourishment and love that I'm getting, to feel how Buddha's taking care of me. So fade away into emptiness. He means letting small mind fade away into emptiness. To stop, you know, trying to live, as he says. To stop doing anything. To just stop and see what's holding us when we stop. As long as we're moving, you know.

[49:07]

Nobody's holding us. I'm doing it. But when we stop, it's the great test. Well, is anything holding me? I'm not doing anything. And there we can feel, oh, I am at my mother's bosom. Buddha is taking care of me. So here's the practice that Suzuki Roshi says is the fading away into emptiness to recover the feeling of being at our mother's bosom. And I highly recommend this practice when your own love feels stuck, either on the receiving side or the giving side. When you doubt or wonder, am I truly held? And many of you know, and hopefully practice this practice. So first,

[50:07]

This is Suzuki Roshi. First, practice smoothly exhaling, then inhaling. Calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhalation. If you exhale smoothly, without even trying to exhale, you are entering into the complete, perfect calmness of your mind. You are do not exist anymore. So as an embodied practice, I'd like to lean towards that calmness of mind beyond the end of the exhalation, allowing myself to linger there a moment and appreciate that Complete, perfect calmness of mind beyond the end of the exhalation.

[51:15]

He says, when you exhale this way, then naturally your inhalation will start from there. All that fresh blood bringing everything from outside will pervade your body. You are completely refreshed. Then you start to exhale to extend that fresh feeling into emptiness. So this is the key point. Just focus on the exhalation. Exhale completely. And of course, don't resist the inhalation, but don't reach for it. Naturally, your inhalation will start... from the end of the exhalation with no special effort on your part. We just feel that life energy coming in from somewhere outside of ourself. Not my inhalation. I didn't make it. I exhale completely and then receive it. And then we turn it back over in the next exhalation.

[52:29]

It says your breathing will gradually vanish. you will gradually vanish, fading into emptiness. Inhaling without effort, you naturally come back to yourself with some color or form. Exhaling, you gradually fade into emptiness, empty white paper. That is Shikantaza. The important point is your exhalation. So as we exhale smoothly, completely, until the inhalation naturally comes, then our breathing and our self will gradually vanish, which later, he says, is becoming one with everything or dissolving into everything. It's not that there's nothing left.

[53:32]

It's just there's everything else. There's just everything left. You will vanish. So exhaling, we let everything go. And then naturally, the inhalation offers us a whole life with color and form and sound and light. So if we want to return to our mother's bosom, to feel that nourishment, that being held, we need to exhale completely. Stop doing anything. Stop reaching for anything. And then allowing ourselves to be surprised by the gift. So he says, instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, where am I? Fade into emptiness as you exhale. Letting the inhalation surprise us.

[54:36]

Instead of trying to get something, or keep something as you inhale, just fade into emptiness as you exhale. When you practice this, in your last moment, Suzuki Roshi says, you will have nothing to be afraid of. You are actually aiming at emptiness. You become one with everything after you completely exhale with this feeling. If you are still alive, Naturally, you will inhale again. Oh, I'm still alive, fortunately or unfortunately. Then you start to exhale and fade into emptiness. Maybe you don't know what kind of feeling it is. but some of you know it.

[55:41]

By some chance, you must have felt this kind of feeling. And if you haven't, my friends, yet felt this kind of feeling, now would be a good time to surrender to the out-breath, to exhale completely letting it all go, and then letting the inhalation surprise us. Wow, I'm alive. Suzuki Roshi says, when you do this practice, you cannot easily become angry. When you are more interested in inhaling than in exhaling, you easily become quite angry. You are always trying to be alive. So again, this is why this practice is so important. To be knowing, to be receiving this life, to be receiving this love, letting in the Buddha's caring for us, being in our mother's bosom.

[56:55]

When we think that we're alone, you know, I'm doing this. I'm inhaling. I'm busy being alive. We're doing this being alive. It's so easy to become frustrated. angry. We're so busy being alive. We think it's our responsibility and ours alone to make the inhalation happen. And so, of course, that's quite a burden. Every moment, this burden of inhalation, we're preoccupied by that, trying to stay on top of being alive here. Of course, we become frustrated and angry. So it's hard to give the love to anyone, much less everyone, if we're more interested in inhaling than exhaling. When we're trying to be alive, we don't have any energy or space to give love. So Suzuki Roshi is asking us to just focus on the exhalation, to stop trying to be alive, as he says.

[58:00]

And then we can't be frustrated or blocked by things. There's nothing we're trying to do. It's just that we keep receiving life. He says, to take care of the exhalation is very important. To die is more important than trying to be alive. To take care of the exhalation is very important. To die is more important than trying to be alive. So this is the key to feeling ourselves at our mother's bosom. He says, when we always try to be alive, we have trouble. Rather than trying to be alive or active, if we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness, then naturally we will be all right.

[59:03]

Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. Yet fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother's bosom and we will feel as though she will take care of us. Moment after moment, do not lose this practice of shikantasa. And so if we can keep this attitude, not just when we sit, but moment after moment, keep this attitude, keep refreshing and returning to this attitude, then we will be fully receiving the support, the love that is being offered to us. Just after the end of each exhalation, immeasurable love and support is being offered to us. When we're in tune with that, then naturally we can turn over that love and support to all those around us.

[60:06]

You know, we can't really say that the receiving of this love and support leads to the giving of the love and support. Or that the giving of love and support leads to the receiving of love and support. It's not divided in this way. It's just full receiving and then full giving. One peace, one flow. Just this inundated heart. This inundated heart. The mother in all of us. This inundated heart flowing in and out on each breath. So moment after moment, as Suzuki Roshi says, do not lose this practice of Shikantaza.

[61:19]

Moment after moment, let's please not lose this practice of loving, warm-hearted Shikantaza. So my palms together in gratitude for your sincere and kind receiving and giving today your attention. And again, to all mothers, May our practice repay the kindness of you, of these endless generations of mothers. And may the love flow through us completely from everything and to everything, moment after moment. Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend.

[62:24]

True merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. I want to thank everyone for coming today. Please know that we do rely on your donations now more than ever. We are currently having our spring fundraiser, and I'll be posting a link in the chat to that website.

[63:25]

I encourage you to visit to read stories about your friends, teachers, and fellow practitioners about the heartbeat of their practice and contribute to the Zenathon on their page. You can also make your own page and become a fundraiser. Your generous support allows Zen Center to keep on providing opportunities to practice together and share transformational teachings with thousands of people worldwide through our online programming and residential training. We will also be taking a five-minute break before coming back for Q&A. If anybody needs to sign off right now and would like to say goodbye, you may feel free to unmute yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks to you. We'll return at 1110.

[64:49]

Thank you. Welcome back, everyone.

[70:18]

We'll begin Q&A now. If you would like to offer a question or a comment, please raise your virtual hand. You can find that under the reactions button in your Zoom window. If you click on the smiley face with the plus sign, there's a raise hand button there. You can also send a question in the chat. And I will also check the video feeds to see if anybody is raising their actual hand. Looks like our first question is from Linda. Beginning, you spoke about receiving the self and giving, expressing the self. And. I've often been encouraged by. especially by Zen teachers to fully express the self. So the question arose for me that, you know, I don't know what self is being expressed and I might express myself and it might come out very harsh and cruel and stupid and so on.

[71:36]

So, you know, should I wait until my heart is totally inundated? before I express anything or what's your guidance for expressing the self? Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that, Linda, and it's nice to see you. I guess I understand what you're saying. And for me, this practice doesn't kind of bypasses the managerial part. So that's a conversation. That's a question about, say, right speech or right expression. And that's a good and important conversation to have. But for me, this practice is like about not managing. It's about total authenticity. And that authenticity includes sensitivity and care, an appropriate response. And it works together, right?

[72:40]

There's also the managing part, and our practice, of course, has integrated those pieces. But when I think about receiving and expressing the self, there's no, like, there's some trust that that will be or can be in harmony with everything, and that that will then continue. You know, the next moment will help me. with whatever I just messed up in the last, you know? So staying with it. So yeah, maybe that's not so helpful, but just that they feel like separate practices and to somehow not mix them up. The careful managing part and the letting flow. Somehow it's like completely being myself, right? How does that work? And also being sensitive and careful. Sounds like two pieces. I guess I don't really trust the manager part of myself.

[73:47]

That's like giving my practice to small mind in a way. Like, hey, small mind, like figure out what I should say or do. And that doesn't feel right. So part of it is this faith that if I can really surrender, there will be some sensitivity and natural care and harmony that's already there. And my failure to do that isn't a failure of like management in my, but it's a failure of like really opening that sensitivity. So then the call is, okay, become even more authentic, you know, even more open. Good luck. This is aspirational, aspirational teaching. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Looks like we have our next question is from Sonia.

[74:53]

Thank you for your talk. Thanks for being here, Sonia. Actually, I wonder if it's easy for you to just find that Thich Nhat Hanh quote again? Yeah. That was really wonderful. It's from a book called, it's from a manual for activists from 1976. And it's called... What's it called? I'll find it. Actually, just give me a moment. It's wonderful. It's called The Miracle of Being Awake. And it's on here. Just put it in the chat. Let's see if this does it. Okay, I put a link to it in the chat, The Miracle of Being Awake.

[75:59]

And the quote was, Meditate until every reproach and hatred disappears and compassion and love rise like a well of fresh water in your heart. And in the Spanish, it had the sense of like, let your heart be inundated with the love and compassion. That's wonderful. Mostly, I guess I feel like I'm thinking about Linda's comment. It's just like the practice of the long ending road of patience. and fall down, get up. And... Yeah, I think my own practice is just when I don't know what to do, I sit and do nothing.

[77:13]

And so maybe that's the difference of... It's an expression of the self without creating harm. But I'm not... I'm not clear that that's... I'll excuse this word, but progress. So anyway, it's a question mark in my mind about how to respond and how long to sit quiet and wait for that spring refreshment in the spring. Yeah. Yeah, he also says, along with that, meditate until... He says, make a vow to work for peace and reconciliation in the most silent and straightforward way possible. So along with that, yeah, along with that sitting is a vow and some work, but it's the most silent way that struck me and straightforward, at least pretentious, straightforward way possible.

[78:25]

yeah I guess what I'm what I'm reflecting on is when say not knowing what to do to just tap into that as we know you know this practice of feeling held feeling supported you know feeling that support and then trying to let that move you know rather than try to move without that like I'm not feeling supported and there's something to do you know just wait like okay tap into that flow of my life and then See if I can connect with that rather than try to pull myself up by the bootstraps. As I'm listening to you, I'm also thinking of the three filters that Linda Ruth often brings up about, is it true? Mm-hmm. Is it helpful and is it the right time or place? So there's kind of a feeling it out and maybe what you're pointing to in your heart and where am I coming from?

[79:36]

Does it have some spaciousness? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, is there love, you know? That's like... Not self. Yes, exactly. Is there wide love rather than am I getting this right, you know? Thanks, Sonia. Question is from Shindo. Thank you so much, Uriu. Thank you, Shindo.

[80:38]

For your mother mind on Mother's Day. Appreciate it. You talked about agape. So I was wondering about the unconditional love. We've also heard that love is there when you're not there. Could you say more about unconditional love and if it's possible at all? I don't, I guess, I don't think it's possible. I think it's what is, you know, I think it's another word for, it's a, it's a way, it's a word for what is, I think. It's dependent arising, this emptiness. It's that mutuality that from the point of view of separate things is like the word love expresses pretty well. So I don't think it's possible for a small mind to love unconditionally because small mind can only be rationing and...

[81:47]

Even if it gets very good at that, even if the small mind thinks it has a lot of love and can get it to lots of individuals or something, it can't do it. So, yeah, I don't think it's something we can do. It always has conditions. But knowing that it's what we are, some kind of faith, just like we don't know, really, we can't do our own boundless depth of what we are, you know? Nobody's going to grasp that. Nobody's going to do that, you know? But this teaching, this aspiration is that, you know, big mind or great heart really can and is doing that. And somehow I can feel supported by that and inspired and have some kind of access to that, even though it's not me doing unconditional love. It's also like the study of seeing where it's conditioned, you know, and this kind of like as the practical part, it's not like

[82:50]

trying to be unconditional or something, it's like, well, that's, that's conditions. There's lots of conditions. I'm seeing, you know, I'm like seeing the conditions on, on my love. And then I'm questioning them because I have this teaching of, well, I I've heard about unconditioned love, unconditional love. And now I'm having all these conditions on it. And so that's helping me question those. And maybe just one at a time grain of sand. Yeah. Yeah. I like how you're connecting it to. to emptiness and the spontaneity of the moment which comes up and arises in the dependent co-arising. I really like that, how you differentiated it from that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think just like, it's a little bit, honestly, it's a little bit like the Sutra on Filial Piety. in that for me, for my culture and pre-existing worldview, you know, love is such a powerful idea, such a powerful teaching, such a powerful principle, that expressing the Buddha Dharma through that term, just like in China, expressing it through this filial piety, it's like it really lands for me, it brings it alive for me.

[84:14]

And so I think that it's... Even though the sutras don't say, you know, what I mean by emptiness is love. Buddha did not say that. Not even Nagarja. Nobody said that, you know. But what better way? What better way for me, you know, to like, to really feel that total mutuality. And then the warmth as a practice of that. Thank you. Hi. Thank you so much for your beautiful view. Hi, Laura. Nice to see you. Good to see you. Good to see everyone. I just had a question. I was thinking about mothers and how specific a mother's love is. It's really like this child, right?

[85:18]

And there's a way in which that could extend to other children of empathically but that that kind of yeah very personal very specific bond um seems characteristic of a mother's love so i was wondering if you could just speak a little bit more and you have some but um of like the nitty-gritty of extending the kind of individual specific love into the universal collective thank you Yeah, I don't know if I'll be able to find it usually here, maybe. But Thich Nhat Hanh, there's another quote from him that I appreciate. I don't have it here. It's like this upeka, this like universal, this loving of everyone is not, he says, you know, some people misunderstand this equanimity to think it's like indifference, but actually it's

[86:24]

It's like a mother and her many children. She loves each of them, you know, and it does not, none of that takes away from any of the other. And, but each one is, is like particularly loved, I guess. There's no, there's not a zero sum, you know, it's not a fixed amount. And that's part of the, A part of what's up for me is this idea that this feeling of it's a fixed amount that I have to give out rather than it's a flow to receive and let flow through. I think, you know, another way to get at it is this deep feeling. And it's part of why I appreciated, like, okay, we have this practice of warm heart and warm feeling and motherly care or whatever and affection. And that's wonderful to practice. But also, what if we put that aside?

[87:27]

What if we sort of take that off the table and say, don't look for it to have these characteristics, you know, because that's going to confuse you. I mean, that'll get you like maybe through, I don't know, a few people or 10% of people, 50% of people or even 80% of people. But there's going to be some enchantikas, you know, there's going to be some beings who do not possess Buddha nature, according to me, you know, that's going to be like hard to get to. Especially if I think, oh, I'm supposed to have affection or like this is going to feel like warm. And so to just take that off the table and say, okay, this thing that we're looking for is not like that. It's not just that affection. It's some kind of, it's you are thus, you know? It's like we are thus. Suzuki Roshi has this... I don't know if I can express it, but something like when we sit, you know, and realize what we are, we realize that everything is that, you know?

[88:28]

That's maybe more like what I mean, rather than having kind of a unique affection for each thing. But I think it's a great inspiration, or it's a great source, or that particular love as a kind of... I think we can tap into that energy, but then maybe it's not exactly the extending it changes it a bit. That's some thoughts, but thank you for engaging anyway. We have another question from Ida. Good morning, Jiryu. Good morning. And it's lovely to see y'all see the Sangha today. I woke this morning and felt such unrest and dissatisfaction and until I didn't know until I came to the Dharma talk that it's the grief because I didn't I didn't I this this Hallmark holiday is so painful and

[89:50]

um and i've been listening with my with bodhicitta and um really trying to listen and then there's a question that comes up like do i have the resilience and i do have the capacity to call my mom today because it it would only be for her benefit um and then i was recalling um my sister and I often talk about how this is such a painful day because we don't, we don't fit. We don't have that. Is it little mind that, you know, is it still my ego that holds all the, it wants to keep me alive and she's the caregiver that barely did keep us alive. So holding this with the, I'm excited. I get to turn this equally. I'm, I'm really curious what you could offer me at the moment because I went to fight or flight and overwhelm with how to proceed with my day.

[90:57]

What is it that I want to – the one thing that I want to nurture or support at this moment and then equally know that if I just call my mom and say a few words, she won't remember anyway in time because she's a – She's an alcoholic that is now not she's not she's not the mom that birthed me. She's another being. So how do we hold that to this birthright of the human experience, the spiritual being that has now progressed to a mentally ill and someone who's a stranger that I see every day on the street. So you're going to offer if you're open to offering any. Any words I will. That's what I am hearing that I would like to ask today. Thank you for. For staying present. And it sounds like you.

[91:59]

You did stay present. You didn't just stick it out, you know, but stayed present for this painful, painful talk and painful day. And I appreciate. your story, and it helps me. What's coming up for me is all the more reason to do this practice of exhaling completely and feeling, you know, being at the mother's bosom. And it's not a person. It's not a particular person. It's that you are held and nourished and nurtured and given life by life itself in this moment, you know? And that we can actually touch that by exhaling completely and allowing that incredible support of an in-breath. So beyond that, you know, I don't have any suggestions.

[93:03]

But that your activity could come from that, that knowing that you're supported deeply. And then... And then whatever you do is just trying to express that, turn that over. Thank you, Ida. Maybe we can end there. Again, thank you all very much for coming today. Really appreciate your presence and attention and doing this practice together. Please feel free to unmute yourselves if you'd like to say goodbye. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you, everyone.

[94:06]

Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Thank you. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you, everyone.

[94:38]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.08