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Freedom Within Embraced Limitations

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Talk by Jiryu Rutschman Byler at Green Gulch Farm on 2025-10-19

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The talk discusses the nature of freedom and limitation within Zen practice, emphasizing that true freedom is found within the limitations of life rather than escaping them. It explores Suzuki Roshi's teachings about finding oneself through the acceptance and understanding of limitations, and how the practice of Zen, including formal meditation and daily awareness, helps practitioners embody and realize this truth. The discussion also touches upon how embracing limitations can lead to a deeper connection with the broader universe and a more authentic experience of life.

Referenced Works and Their Relevance:
- "Becoming Yourself": This is mentioned as a chapter titled "Finding Yourself in Limitation," which aligns with the central theme of recognizing freedom within the constraints of life.
- Suzuki Roshi's Teachings: His guidance on integrating body and mind in Zen practice by staying present and embracing life’s limitations serves as a foundation for the talk's exploration of freedom.
- The Golden Lion Metaphor: Discussed as a representation of how the limitations in life manifest the 'gold' or essence of being, showing that the form is not an obstacle but the expression of true self.
- Nanyo Ichu's Teaching: The historical lesson from Nanyo Ichu, expressed through the story about his tombstone, illustrates the value of embracing smallness as opposed to seeking grandeur to find true self.

Concepts and Ideas:
- Big Mind vs. Small Room: The talk contrasts the desire for expansive freedom ('Big Mind') with the understanding that true realization occurs within the acceptance of our 'Small Room' or limitations.
- Wise vs. Foolish Freedom: Wise freedom is understanding and working with limitations, while foolish freedom seeks to escape them without true comprehension.

Together, these references and teachings form a cohesive examination of how Zen practice can help individuals find their true path by embracing rather than evading life's inherent limitations.

AI Suggested Title: Freedom Within Embraced Limitations

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Transcript: 

And the living and the perfect dharma is ready and ready in a thousand million outputs. I need to see and listen to, to remember and be searched. Thank you. [...]

[01:38]

I think it's used to be the end of this one, too. It's used to be the end of this one, too. It's used to be the end of this one. Good morning. Thank you everyone for coming today. For all the effort that you made to get here to this cold barn. All this effort to get here and then

[02:44]

If you're like me, as soon as you get here, you think, maybe I shouldn't be here. This isn't quite what I had in mind. It's not working. So of course our life goes on and on like this. Trying to get to the next thing where something will be better. And then getting there and immediately trying to get out of it. Of course, you know, there's also a big part of us that's so grateful to be here, feeling the intimacy and the opportunity, the possibility of coming back into our bodies and reconnecting with this feeling of being alive, feeling the intimacy of human beings together, the shared

[04:16]

vow or purpose, intimate and together with the light and the sound and all the living and non-living beings. So we like to talk about, and I really like to talk about the good part, you know? but it's really valuable also to get a feeling for the part of yourself that really, as soon as you got here, didn't want to be here. You know, even if it was quiet, even if it's subtle, the part that finding ourselves in some new kind of limitation is kind of start scheming right away. How do I get out of the limitation that I'm in Wouldn't we want to just ignore that?

[05:22]

Just shut that up and feel the gratitude and the intimacy and the connection? Maybe so. But for me, when I have that feeling, when I'm aware of that feeling of trying to avoid where I find myself, even if I worked really hard to get there, drove over that whole road. And even if, you know, you just clicked on a link still, there's some effort that you made. So basically, the part that's never satisfied, the part that's always trying to get free, I feel like when I get a nice glimpse of it, I have this feeling like, oh, you've been pushing me around.

[06:23]

And I'm actually happy to see you. It might seem like a drag to see that part, but I'm kind of happy to see you. And that's what our, sometimes what our Zen practice or our sitting practice is like. It's like, oh, I thought I was going to feel the bliss and spaciousness and joy and ease. But all I'm seeing is this part, subtle or loud, that just wants something else to be happening. It starts with all these great ideas, you know, about stuff that could be happening. But even just anything other than what's happening. So here at Green Gulch... Some of us are involved just starting in a nine-week practice period. Letting the turn to fall support us, you know, to quiet down and touch into some roots.

[07:34]

To sit together and study and work together. So we'll be following a kind of rigid schedule of formal Zen practice. And so I wanted to say a little bit about that and how we understand that in terms of our practice of liberation. Is Kika here? Kika. This practice period, our head... student or head priest is Kika, who many of you know as having been the Eno here for a long time. So it's a wonderful opportunity for her, as she so, to help to lead the practice period and to kind of start her path as a Zen teacher. So our theme for the practice period is the way of

[08:42]

Suzuki Roshi, our San Francisco Zen Center founder, so we're taking up and practicing with his teachings of coming into our body, finding our upright posture, caring for the details of our posture, so that we can feel the flow of our breath coming back and staying close to that feeling of the flow of our breath sometimes letting it fall deep into our belly all the way out and all the way in And then with that ground of embodied presence to let the things that are in the mind fall away if they can, to empty our mind so that everything else can fill it up, the light and the sound and each other.

[10:09]

Just cleaning the house a little for these marvelous guests of light and sound and sensation. So to empty our mind. And then with warm heart, warm heart to feel that intimacy when we're in our body and when the mind is not so cluttered, everything is included. As he says, everything is included in our being alive. Open to that intimacy. That kind of In the way he sometimes put it, become one. Become one with our surroundings, which already aren't separate. It's not like a heroic effort. It's just what's already happening. We just settle and clear our mind and feel this intimacy with everything that's here that's giving us light. This teaching, you know, that in our actual being alive, in your actual being alive right now, there's this incredible spaciousness.

[11:36]

Suzuki Roshi talks about big mind. Big mind. The big self that includes everything. And so we get excited about that and we want that. We want to keep that and we get frustrated to lose that. Give me more spaciousness. Get me out of this little, limited, constricted, tight situation and give me that vast, spacious, free, one with everything. For me, in my own path of coming to practice, this was a fundamental theme, you know?

[12:39]

I think that maybe early on, as I started to turn to spiritual practice, I got some sort of taste or feeling of a kind of vastness that our life is. And so naturally I thought, I want that and I don't want the other thing. I had this little, constricted, limited life, and then sometimes I would feel the sort of vastness of being. So naturally I wanted to get away from the little thing and be the big thing. And that didn't go so well, it turns out. And if you know what I mean, it felt pretty bad. It was, you know, not much of me left down here with you all.

[13:51]

And that's not such a solid way to live as a human being. So we have this idea of this kind of spaciousness and freedom and ease and big mind. And then we have this everyday moment after moment kind of experience of our life as this kind of tight, small, constricted, limited place. And we imagine that these two are sort of fighting with each other and we want to get free of the small so that we can enter the large. So we come to the temple, for example, for practice period, as some people just did, maybe searching for this big mind that they had read about. And the first thing that happens is that they're shown a seat in this room and said, stay here today. All day.

[14:53]

We'll see you tonight. take a little break for a meal you have to go to the bathroom fine you came for something really big here's something really small as our friend Nicole was saying the other week three foot mat so coming for something big and then being given something small What moved me so deeply coming into Zen practice is this possibility and practice that that vastness is found right in my fully being in the smallness.

[16:04]

So what is that vast freedom? What is big mind? And we say it's put your left thumb in your left fist. And cover with your right palm. Hold the teacup with both hands. Sweep the leaves. Be exactly in the small room in the limited conditions in which you find yourself now. And notice and appreciate that what that actually is is vast and ungraspable and intimate. If you go try to find the vast thing, you're going to get very confused. It's right here in the left fist, in how you hold the teacup. So there's a chapter I wanted to share that is sort of dedicated to those folks struggling in the practice period, you know.

[17:12]

Having made such a great effort to be here and already wondering, you know, how to get out of it when it's going to be over. Managed to like put, you know, take leave from my job and figure out my family and day two. I wanted the big thing and I got the small thing. I wanted to be free. And they put me in this room. I can't even go for a walk. I was walking up the day after that Tongario period, so that Tongario refers to this small room that traditionally in a temple you go sit in for a while, kind of indefinitely, when you arrive at a temple seeking vastness. You're put in a small room indefinitely. And...

[18:13]

That's our life, you know. That's where our life is. So we celebrate that ceremony here in the meditation hall. So Suzuki Roshi really is into this finding ourself by entering the gate of the limitation that we find ourselves in. It's one of the important themes in his teaching, and so I wanted to share this chapter from Becoming Yourself that is called Finding Yourself, or it could be Finding Yourself in Limitation. walking up after Tongario, in the parking lot here, one of our residents has a van with a license plate that maybe you've seen that says, live free or die on it.

[19:36]

That is so intense. Live free or die. I thought, so this is like this fundamental value. This being free is this like deep value that we have worth dying for, you know? And so then seeking that freedom, these people have willingly kind of relinquished their freedom to just sit on a tiny mat and not even go for a walk on a beautiful day at Greengold. What are they thinking? They could be free. what do the people think who drive those vehicles? That to be expressing that freedom is like this most important value. But it can't be that people feel that freedom in their life, especially when you're driving, you know? When I'm driving, that's like my least, it's not like live free, that's my most, you know, you're trying to get somewhere, you're probably late, the kids' times don't line up, or you're at work, you know, driving.

[20:53]

How do we have this value of freedom? And then how do we bear that actually our life is completely confined and limited? We're not free. Of course, there's great range in the relative freedom that we have in terms of control over our environment or ability to move freely. And yet, as one of the Sangha members in San Quentin, Sangha so deeply... And powerfully and directly expressed to me, yeah, there's a huge range of what that is in our relative life. And yet, fundamentally, we are all in a condition of limitation. To think that freedom is this vital value, and so then we need to surpass the fundamental limitation of our life, is a recipe for total confusion. How are we going to get out of the limitation?

[21:59]

So I was actively distressed by this license plate. And I thought, can you opt out of this license plate? And I actually Googled that. Maybe you know that you can't. There was a Supreme Court case. Somebody thought that was too much. It's so intense to have on my car. Do I have to have this on my car? I'm not free. I'm in the limitation. So you don't have to. You can cover that up, apparently, as of 1977. But still, you know, whether we cover it up or not, we have this wish. We have this wish that I think is maybe especially American, but also it's innate. We want to be free. We intuit that our being is not limited, is not confined. is vast, is oceanic, is spacious, is one, you know? And then we read these teachings that affirm that, and then we come back into our little life, and then there's this kind of tension.

[23:05]

Then I wondered, you know, what is California, please? Do you know? Have you noticed you'd have a car in California? It's a URL for the DMV. DMV.ca.gov or something literally is the thing. I lived in the land of enchantment, in the land of Lincoln, and now it's a URL. I guess that expresses something. I don't know what. To let ourselves, I think the inspiration of that is to let ourselves, you know, externally, may all beings be free. And also internally, may I be clear about what freedom is, you know? And even as I work to liberate myself from the confining conditions that I should be released from, and even as we work to help others to be released from confining conditions that they should be released from, can we not be confused fundamentally about the existential limitation we're in?

[24:18]

And notice our constant chafing against that, the constant resistance we have to our little life, there's a kind of wise idea of freedom and a foolish idea of freedom. And we get those confused and think that there's wisdom in our foolish idea of freedom, which is like, I shouldn't have to be limited. So Suzuki Roshi says, Nanyo Ichu was a famous teacher and a very good Zen master. He was one of the disciples of the sixth ancestor of Zen in China. He didn't have many descendants, so we don't know much about him. When Nanyo was dying, the emperor asked what kind of tombstone they should make for him, and Nanyo told the emperor's messenger, ask my disciples. So, before a tombstone was made for him, the disciples had a discussion about it. One of the students said, it should be...

[25:23]

as big as this country, the tombstone should cover the whole realm south of Sho and north of Tan, all of China. Another student said, no, it should cover the whole world. Our teacher's realization of big mind, he was so big that the only tombstone that would be appropriate would be one that covers the whole earth. He was free of limitation. But I would rather say, says Suzuki Roshi, just as their teacher Nanyo said when he was asked, any stone will be good enough. Even a small stone is good enough for me. Which do you like? The whole world? Or a small stone? Wonderful question that he's giving us.

[26:29]

What about you? What do you want? Do you want the whole vast, free, oceanic world? Or do you want the small stone of your limited life? All the things that are constricting you, keeping you from the other thing you had in mind. You know, when we misunderstand this fundamental sort of existential Zen view of freedom, then everything that's actually giving us life we think is blocking our life. All of these people and circumstances that are keeping us from doing the thing we want and being with the people we want to be with, those circumstances are actually what's giving us our life. The delusion turns the thing that's giving us our life into the thing that we imagine is blocking us from our life.

[27:31]

And then we start treating it that way. So Nanyo said, I prefer a small stone that we can carry or move. If you know what a small stone is, you know that it is you yourself and that it covers everything. But if you think that you need to see, the entire universe, in order to see yourself, you will be lost. You need one small room for yourself. That is very true. When you can really find yourself in a small room, then there is you yourself, and the whole universe is there, and the whole universe makes sense to you. Without your one small room, the whole universe doesn't make any sense. So what you need now is a small room, and what you will need after your death is a small stone.

[28:32]

That is the actual reality, which is always true for everyone. Always true for everyone. If we didn't have the limitations, we would not be here. Our body, our being is dependently arisen. Everything in the universe makes our life. And in a way that it constricts our life. Without it, we have no life. To imagine being free of it is imagining not being. And you could say maybe that that's the early Buddhist approach. that it's not the way in the Mahayana. Naturally, I work and strive to be free of limitations, but to not be fooled.

[29:40]

One of the ways that I like to talk about this that some of you have heard is through this old Chinese image, Hawaiian Buddhist image of the golden lion, where the Buddhist teacher is instructing the empress on some of the principles of Buddhism using the example of a golden statue of a lion. Without the shape of the lion, there's no gold, you know. The shape of the lion is not like constricting or obstructing the view of the gold, that nature of being that freedom or spaciousness or oneness of our actual life. The shape isn't like blocking us from that. The shape is what's manifesting that. Does that make sense? Our life is like this. So we're looking at the lion and trying to see the gold and saying, maybe if it was not a lion, I'd be able to see the gold, you know?

[31:06]

We're trying to find our self, our big self, our true self that includes everything. And we're saying, well, if my situation were different right now, then I could be seeing that. The shape of my life right now rather than being actually the way that the gold of my big mind is showing up, becomes this thing that I think is blocking me from seeing the big mind. So entering the formal Zen practice, you know, part of what we're training in is just quieting down the impulse to be always trying to manipulate our environment in order to feel better, you know. Whether it's that we're sitting for 20 minutes with some kind of intention or commitment not to move even if we want to, or whether it's we're giving ourselves to this full, you know, early morning to night schedule of kind of knowing where we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to be doing every moment of the day.

[32:16]

Either way, the point is an opportunity. I think of it, it's a terrible image, but I do think of it this way as... we have a kind of like dashboard. Isn't that a terrible idea about our life? So we're at the dashboard with these kind of switches and dials, you know? And we're trying to adjust them all the time because it's not quite right. A little too hot, it's a little too cold. You know, what's the shape of my life? That make sense? We're trying to manipulate all of these external conditions all the time to get our well-being and our comfort and our ease and our freedom and our spaciousness, right? Just trying to have a little less of that, a little more of this. trying to manipulate our external circumstances, and that's very natural and appropriate. That's the activity of our human life. But there's these other, on the dashboard, there's these little dials at the bottom. There's a couple of them, you know, like, how is your heart?

[33:19]

Dial. And how is your posture? How are you meeting your life rather than what's in your life? What's your schedule? What are you going to be doing? Who are you going to be with? We're so in that that we kind of like forget these little dials down here that are like, how is your heart? How are you taking care of? How are you welcoming each moment, whatever it is? So in a way, in Zen, we kind of like put formal Zen practice. We put masculine tape over all the dials that are external. We don't like saw them all. masking tape on them for a while so that we can try to see, okay, I'm miserable. Oh, wait, I can't do the dials. There's tape on them. What am I going to do? I can't just sit here miserable. Oh, wait, there's these other dials. How's my heart welcoming this miserable situation, this achy body, this confinement, this being with who I don't want to be with, not being with who I want to be with?

[34:22]

not feeling how I want to be feeling, feeling how I don't want to be feeling, not doing what I want to be doing, doing what I don't want to be doing. How is my heart? How is my body? How is this capacity to welcome and be with and even see the gold in the life itself, the wonder, the depth? When we let go of our views, I like it, I don't like it, it's big, it's small. as Suzuki Roshi says in this chapter, then we actually can touch and remember and appreciate our actual self, our actual life, that anything is happening. So we're trying to give a little energy to these little dials down here just so we get the hang of it there in the picture too. And then we come back into the full, you know, panel. It's not like never touch those external ones again.

[35:24]

But know that that's not, sometimes they don't work, you know. There will come a time when they don't work in your life. So we practice kind of giving ourselves into limitation to study. how can I work with things not going my way? How can I work with my suffering in a kind of inner way to give balance to my habit of always trying to solve my problem externally? How do I get out of this room? So I don't talk about the whole universe. Or some mysterious experience.

[36:26]

But just about finding yourself in a small room. Or in the strict practice of formal Zen where we say you should cross your legs in just this way. Under this kind of limitation you will find yourself. Your real self is there. But. Because you discuss whether this room is good or bad, big or small, you lose your real room. Before you discuss and before you are caught by discrimination or thinking mind, it is your own real room. So this kind of softening of our view of what's happening to grow the ground of our being. with the life itself. That's what's happening. So to find true joy under some limitation is the way to realize the whole universe.

[37:35]

There is no other way for us to get an approach to the whole universe. To find joy under our limitation. When you exist right here the whole universe makes sense to you before you think about it. It is important to give up your foolish discrimination or foolish ideas of freedom. This is the way of practice. So our faith and our teaching and our experience is that practicing finding ourself, finding our actual life.

[38:55]

You can try this at home. You can do this moment after moment. Notice that you are uncomfortable and trying to get free and appreciate that. Feel what that feels like. And remember that there's also an opportunity to find yourself right in that discomfort, right in that limitation. And that that doesn't mean you're going to be stuck there. But if I just find myself, if I'm just open to being in the limitation, then I'll never get out of it. How will I do the right thing to get free when it's time to get free? Our teaching is that this way of finding ourselves right in the actual circumstances of our life, no matter if we think it's good or bad, is actually the ground of how we're going to be able to then act in a way that helps the situation be better and more spacious and more free for ourselves and each other.

[39:59]

This is bodhisattva practice. This is practice for all of us who have a deep innate wish and vow to be of benefit to others. have any question or comment about that? Is that clear and actionable? Don't go looking for something big. Notice what's actually, what this small thing actually is. And you can't get a handle on it. You can't grasp it because it's vast. It's bigger than... You can't... Is there a comment or a question? Or concern? Especially concern? I'm really resonating with the idea of struggling with with accepting myself and my limitations.

[41:12]

I constantly have this idea that I could be so much more. I get to intuit the sense of, I could be, could be. But then I'm thinking, how do I appreciate others? And I look around, and I'm not looking for them to be other than who they are. When I look at other people, it's all the nuance, it's all the limitation, it's all the... That's all beautiful to me. And so, you know, to try to turn that same thing to myself, I think, a practice. Thank you. for your teaching.

[42:15]

And I want to congratulate Kika for your work. Thank you for your teaching. This sounds like a promotion for you. And you so deserve it. I was thinking about the folks who were here for the nine-week practice session. I saw people gathered by the bill. And I want to thank them for coming here and doing this. I can't do this, but... I was wondering if you had some, from your perspective, if you had a few recommendations of something I can do in my day of life to support their work. To support their work? Well, thank you for asking. You know, you can make an offering to the temple, you can donate to San Francisco Zen Center, you can volunteer, you can contribute to the temple by, say... coming every single Sunday as you do. And most of all, you know, through your own practice, which is in a moment, coming back to life, coming back to awakening, noticing that we're trying to get out of something and get somewhere else.

[43:30]

And remembering that right here, no matter how uncomfortable or not what we want, it is. Our actual true big self is right there too. So the teaching is that when you do that, even in a moment of your life, that resonates inconceivably and uplifts all beings. You don't have to believe that, but you can't. Thank you, Julia, for the teaching. My question is, in life, there are these moments of career or life when you get at some point, you want to get to the other point.

[44:41]

Yeah, it's crazy, right? And progress and get better responsibilities or bigger ones. And you know how it ends, right? Yeah, you want more and more. Yeah. So in spiritual practice, you will get one beautiful moment of satori and you want more and more and stay in that vastness as you described. So my question is, how do you, one, balance both aspects of being content in both areas yet maintain your... life at the same time yeah like keep working for what you value keep trying to get the thing you want keep trying to liberate beings keep trying to make your life better and um together with everyone yeah it's our our kind of um either or mind makes zen teaching very difficult because zen is trying to show a side or an aspect of our life and then our either or mind can kind of

[45:52]

You're like, oh, so you're saying I should just stop being a human being and just be stuck in some kind of passive just inactivity? Do you have that doubt? I have that doubt all the time. Trying to say something about Zen seems like if our either or mind is going to grasp it, it's going to be something that's the opposite of something. The point is every moment of your life is just naturally unfolding. You naturally have this aspiration and are naturally growing and changing and moving and trying to support yourself and others. That's just what it is. We don't have to be confused by that. That's why this is bodhisattva work. Bodhisattva ground is kind of like that work that you're doing in the world is so important that you really need to not be confused about what it is. Each moment... They say your life or Buddhist practice is like a, it's like a goal, again, a golden rod, solid all the way through, gold at the beginning, gold in the middle, gold at the end.

[47:01]

You know, you're working through your career, you know, gold at the bottom, gold at the middle, gold at the top, all of it, you know. Then you're in the middle and you're like, oh, that was nice, but it was just with the people at the bottom. It's gold all the way through. And that's the confusion thing. It's not that we're active and changing. It's that we so easily miss the actual miracle of our being alive as it is right now, constrained in the current way it's constrained. We're just holding off just a little bit, you know, until it gets more open and then we'll be it again. So I think they're together. I think they support each other. If you start to get some idea of like cutting off your natural activity, or your natural love and devotion to others, that would be a really dangerous misunderstanding of our practice. Moment after moment, we're in a limitation.

[48:04]

Right now, you may not be having the feeling in your body or your mind or your heart that you want. You might not feel big and free and vast. And so notice that you want to get out of it to get to some other way, some other state. The Zen approach is, Suzuki Roshi's teaching is, this mind and body and heart that you have right now, just as it is. What is it? Any other comment? Thanks for your sharing and also sharing in a very vivid way.

[49:06]

And my question for today is how can I integrate this Zen practice into my day-to-day life or how can I start this meditation practice? Thank you. There's many ways, you know, to practice sitting or walking now and then for a little while is really helpful. The seed of that, as we know, you know, the seed of that kind of dedicated or formal practice, even though we might not experience it directly, maybe other people will. It just kind of softens our life in some way. It just sort of starts to open some channels in our life. So, and in terms of the teaching, you know, there's many approaches to meditation and to establishing Zen practice.

[50:07]

For the aspect of the teaching that I'm bringing up today, I might say an important feature would be do some kind of practice like sitting or walking with some limitation on it, with some commitment. Like, even if it's just 10 minutes, you just sit for 10 minutes. even when you want to stop sitting at three minutes. And to just feel that, to notice, to have that encounter with the part that's trying to get out of where you are and to have this intention of like, I want to study that part. I'm not going to be dismayed when I see that because I'm actually, I want to get to know that part of myself that's pushing me to never quite be settled. and to welcome it and to try to befriend it and to feel, wait, what is this thing that I'm trying to get out of?

[51:09]

As you slid a little bit in your life and start to connect with your spiritual intention, your innate kind of spiritual longing, this other teaching from Suzuki Roshi is that you may have to kind of organize your life a little bit differently. So it's not exactly enough to just say, well, however you're living your life, just go with that, but drop in five minutes of meditation. You could start with that, but it's a little bit of a trick because actually to support that five minutes of meditation, you might have to change your whole life. If you start to acknowledge or touch that innate part of yourself that actually has a vow to be the love that we are and the intimacy that we are with everything, and that that inmost request is the most important thing actually for us. If we let ourselves sort of touch that, it might have some requests that we would want to honor.

[52:15]

So Suzuki Roshi says to find your inmost request and to organize your life around your inmost request. That means something different for each of us. But... You also have to kind of take care, that's where the precept practice comes in, you know, not killing or stealing or lying or exploiting or dividing. Those things are like, make it hard to establish a meditation practice. So how you care for your whole life as the ground for even just a few minutes of sitting a day. We have events here, you know, once a month, these half-day sittings, which are wonderful introductions to our formal practice. Day-long sittings, et cetera, are also helpful for giving us that boost. where other people are helping us not leave the room, you know. Well, I'm the one who chose to sit down. I could choose to get up. We all do it together. We usually, we don't all have at the same moment that felt like, why are we doing this? Let's get out of here. If we did, you know, the thing would fall apart.

[53:18]

But we all have different cycles of it. So there's always enough people in the room who are like pretty sure about being here that creates this kind of pressure, you know, that is like, well... I don't want to let them down. And that's so handy because then we think it's, you know, then we even blame them. Like, why are they making me be in here? But I ask for their help to be in here, you know? I just, you know, the feeling of wanting to share that this is not, it's not about a formal practice. Formal practice is just a really powerful gate into encountering our dissatisfaction and our trying to wiggle, you know, and trying to kind of open this possibility of finding other ways in our heart and body and mind to be with difficulty and limitation. But all of us can do that. We are doing that all day. Breathing out and welcoming actually the circumstance that we find ourselves in.

[54:20]

Is there one more? One question here, maybe that'll be the last question. Thank you. During the teaching, you mentioned there's, I think you said, a wise freedom and a less wise freedom, or I think I remember full freedom, but maybe it was just less wise freedom. I'm new to this practice, but it seems that discipline is one of the tools to find a more wise practice. Thank you, yeah. Is there a less wise discipline that leads to a wrong place and a wise discipline as well? Yes.

[55:33]

I'd say the foolish idea of freedom is like I want to be free to not have to be limited. I want to be able to do whatever I want to do. the wise idea of freedom is that anything we can do to be more free and to help each other be more free, like, let's do it. If we take on the discipline, you know, forgetting that the purpose of it is to find ourselves, you know, and to find our life wherever we are, then we can kind of get on a disciplined trip And that's not so good.

[56:34]

It's not so free. To find yourself in the small room is how we enter and realize the whole universe. Try to leave your small room to get big. You're going to get very confused. Thank you so much for your kind attention and discipline. Any benefit of our gathering, the whole point of this practice, is for the freedom from suffering of all beings.

[57:34]

So may this teaching, may this practice support us in however we manifest this vow to work for the liberation of all beings. ... [...]

[58:38]

I don't know if it's not a surprise, but I don't know if it's not a surprise. [...]

[59:01]

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