Good morning, everybody. I would just like to take a moment to introduce our speaker this morning, Lama Surya Das. We're really lucky to have him this morning at Green Gulch. He's a very well-trained, very well-trained in traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice, although his mother calls him the Delhi Lama. And what he's so wonderful in doing for us is taking the richness of that very complicated and thoroughgoing tradition and really bringing it down to an American idiom. That's what he does so beautifully. And he actually has a number of books, but the one that most people know about is his recent best-selling book called Awakening the Buddha Within, which is a really good

[01:24]

book about the ABCs of Buddha Dharma for our time. So he gave a wonderful Dzogchen retreat here yesterday, and I'm hoping that in the future this will happen again. So this is a Dharma teacher in whom I have tremendous confidence and delight. So, Lama Surya Das. Thank you, Norman, another Jew in the lotus. My mother thinks Buddhism is quite kosher now, but it took her, as she says, you can get used to anything after a few decades. And I bow to the Buddha within you all, don't overlook her. Thank you.

[02:54]

May our hearts and minds follow the sublime Dharma path. May our practice and our lives unfold in accord with this great way of awakening. In following this noble path, may confusion, conflict, and suffering be clarified and be dispelled. May confusion itself dawn in the light of innate wisdom. Homage to the natural great perfection, the innate great perfection, the true Buddha within all. May we all realize it and enjoy it fully. Today I'd like to talk about this innate great perfection, this natural great completeness. In Tibetan we call it Dzogchen, the ultimate teachings of Himalayan Buddhism, of the Vajrayana of Tibetan Buddhism, the tantric vehicle, the diamond path, tantrayana, vajrayana, or

[04:20]

for simplicity's sake, Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism has many approaches, schools, levels, isms, and unfortunately, schisms. We don't need to go into all that, as the Zen teachings say, a teaching pointing directly at our own true nature. Beyond scriptures, beyond isms and schisms, pointing directly at our true nature, that's Zen. That's Dharma, heart of Dharma. That's Dzogchen also. We're dog-Zen, as I like to call it, to amuse myself. Dog-Zen, Dzogchen. Dzogchen is the ultimate teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, but it's not some kind of Oriental philosophy any more than Zen is. It's a way of life. It's an introduction to reality, to our true nature. Buddhism is not about belief.

[05:22]

It's about discovery. It's about awakening, not about subscribing. Buddhism has no dogma, no conversion ceremonies, no beliefs that we have to believe in, in order to be awakened or to be bodhisattvas or even to be Buddhas. It's about discovering. It's about recovering our true nature, our true selves, to use an un-Buddhist word, but to speak English. It's a recovery program, as it were, an eight-step recovery program. Eight-fold path, eight steps to enlightenment, eight-step recovery program to recovering our sanity in our innate natural state of health, mental health and well-being, perhaps physical health and well-being too. I just read in Maimonides this morning, since I was staying in Reb Norman's room, the abbot's

[06:23]

quarters, Maimonides says the Torah, which is the Jewish word for dharma, basically, the law, Torah has two purposes, to heal the soul and to heal the body. Let's not overlook the body. Our own body is nirvana kaya, body of Buddha. As the Zen master Hakuin Zenji sang in Song of Zazen, this very land is the pure land, nirvana, this very body, the body of Buddha, nirvana kaya. So let's not overlook our body and our life and our relationships and our family and the elements of earth, wood, fire, air and space, the natural world and nature, our pets and all beings in this world, animate and inanimate things, it's all nirvana kaya. That's the body of love. That's Buddha's manifest body of love and compassion, nirvana kaya. Let's not overlook that, not just think dharma is here to heal our minds. We're already living up in our heads most of the time.

[07:26]

Let's round it a little more. Let's bring it down into our hearts, into our bodies and even into our souls. I think we need a little more soul in our soulless anatta, no-self dharma. What do you think? A little more soul, a little spirit, a little music, a little beauty, a little sunlight. Let's put a little sunlight here. I'm in California. I live in Massachusetts where the weather is always gray. I'm in California. I wish we had more sun in this Zendo. I look out the windows and I only see the eaves. I don't know whose idea that was. I want to see heaven. I want to see the sky and the sun. That's what I'm here for in California. But seriously, healing the body and the soul, healing body, speech and mind, as we would say in Tibetan, the three kayas, body, speech and mind.

[08:27]

Our own body is nirvana kaya. The Buddha's body of manifestation. Our own speech, energy and expressions, our energy is sambhogakaya. The Buddha's body of energy of creativity of vision, sambhogakaya, manifestations. And our own mind, our heart mind is dharmakaya, the formless ultimate reality, pure being, primordial authentic being. These are the three kayas. Our own body, speech and mind. Incredible. That's the true refuge. I don't think we really want to take refuge in Buddha statues, dharma books and sangha robes only. That's the external refuge. The internal refuge is in our true nature, these three jewels. Our natural mind is Buddha mind, dharmakaya. That's the ultimate Buddha refuge. Our natural energy and breath and expression, that's sambhogakaya. The dharma refuge. Speaking truth.

[09:28]

And our natural life, our naturalness of body, of being, our true vocation, the love and tenderness that's really in us, in all of our hearts, underneath it all, call it the inner child if you like. That's nirmanakaya. That's our true refuge. Natural body is Buddha body, nirmanakaya. Natural mind, natural speech and expressions and energy, natural body. This is the Tathagatagarbha refuge. The ultimate refuge. The suchness refuge. In things as they are. Not in dead Buddha statues, excuse me. You know what I, you understand. Even if we don't, always. Not in dharma scriptures and books, which are just more books on the dusty bookshelf too often in our collections. And not just in robes and in form, as beautiful as that is, that's the outer refuge in Buddha, dharma and sangha. But innerly, taking refuge in our true nature, that's the true refuge,

[10:32]

that's a sanctuary, that's a place we can rely on, a true port in the storm of samsara, of confusion. A true port, a safe port in the stormy waves of samsara, of confusion, of bondage, of ordinary existence in this saha world, this tenuous floating dewdrop-like world. Not just taking refuge in Buddha, dharma and sangha doctrinally, but how about let's look to and rely on Buddha as reality, as truth, and take refuge, find refuge in that. In truth, in knowing truth, in recognizing reality, and so on. That's the true Buddha, gnosis, prajna, the dharma, speaking truth, living truth, expressing truth, the dharma, practice. Let's take refuge in that, practice, not just dharma books

[11:36]

and religious treatises and dharma talks, good as that is, that's part of practice, of course, but taking refuge in dharma itself, in reality, in practice, in living according to the principles of reality as we can discover them, as they are well explained in dharma teachings. And third, taking refuge in sangha, in living truly, not just in sangha club members or in sangha robes or in sangha settings, helpful as those are. I've lived in them most of my adult life, helpful as those are. Still, even in a sangha setting, we can be nothing but a useless rice bag, as the Zen masters used to call some lazy monks and nuns. What are we doing with our mind when we're in the dharma setting? Even in a session, even in the most intense Zen practice session, are we sitting on our cushions in shikantaza, in just being, in zazen? Are we sitting on our cushions making our to-do lists? Or counting up how many, I don't know, boyfriends and girlfriends we've had?

[12:40]

Or whatever the monkey mind gets up to. So the true sangha refuge is in living truly. We take refuge in living truly, in finding our true vocation in life, making a life, not just a living. In living truly, in living with kindred spirits, in living and loving truly, not falsely, not ungenuinely. So then authenticity and genuineness becomes Buddha, dharma, and sangha. That's far beyond Buddhism or any ism. We don't even have to become Buddhists to live that way. That's why I think that this heart of dharma is really a way of sanity and love for today. It combines truth and love, or as we say in Mahayana Buddhism, wisdom and compassion. Wisdom, prajna, and compassion, upaya. Skillful means compassion, upaya. The two wings that the bodhisattva uses to soar in the space of freedom, of enlightenment. As a bird can't fly with only one wing,

[13:43]

the bodhisattva can't soar on the path without both wings of wisdom and compassion, prajna and upaya. Or truth and love in English. So this is a Dzogchen perspective, a sort of ultimate or non-dual perspective on Buddha, dharma, and sangha. How we can take refuge in our natural mind as Buddha mind, in our natural creativity and energy as Buddhist speech, sambhogakaya, Buddha mind, dharmakaya, Buddhist speech, sambhogakaya, and in naturalness and authenticity of body, natural living, natural eating, finding the middle way for ourselves as sangha, as nirmanakaya, as manifesting and expressing Buddha-ness, Buddha activity in the world, in the world, in form. So that the formless dharmakaya and the formed rupakaya

[14:44]

or manifested body of love in the world are not separate. So we don't feel like we're straying from the dharmakaya, from ultimate reality just because we're busy working in the garden or cleaning the diapers, or for that matter arguing with our boss or mate. Not that I advocate arguing, but the truth is if we don't know how to fight, we can't have a very good committed relationship. Has anybody noticed that? Therefore fighting must be a dharma practice. Some kind of fair and sane relational fighting. I know we don't hear that too often. We generally hear in the Mahayana, anger is poison, anger is sin. That's true. But that's not the whole story. Anger also has its emotional intelligence. There's some logic to it. The shadow sides of our personality are nothing but light. They're the wrathful deities in the tantric iconography.

[15:44]

They too are sacred. We shouldn't try to get rid of our emotions too fast. Be careful about that. And we don't need to use the dharma to suppress ourselves, our Buddha nature. Dzogchen is the teaching of the great perfection, the innate great perfection, that's literally what it means. Pointing directly to the fact, as it says in many scriptures, we are all Buddhas by nature. We only have to awaken to that fact. We only have to recognize who and what we truly are. That's the meaning of awakening, of enlightenment, of satori, breakthrough. Awakening from the dream of delusion. Awakening to reality. We're all Buddhas by nature. It's only temporary obscurations which veil that from us. Dzogchen directly introduces us to this through the practice of view, meditation and action. The view or the perspective of the natural state of things just as they are.

[16:48]

Right view, samajiti, complete view, perfect view, the first step of the eightfold path. Seeing things as they are, that's view, that's Buddhist wisdom. It's not mere views and opinions, which the Buddha himself warns us about. It's not mere opinions as the third patriarch of Zen warns us about in his long poem, where he says, do not seek for truth, merely cease to cherish opinions. View doesn't mean mere views and opinions. View means, in the original Sanskrit, the word is darshan, it means vision. Vision of reality. Seeing things as they are, that's Buddhist wisdom. So the whole practice is about seeing things as they are and being. In English, in dualistic thinking, we have to say being with things as they are. That sounds like there's me in them. Actually, it just means being as is. Being as is.

[17:49]

We are things as they are. Anyway, for practice, let's say being, just being with things as they are, as we do in Zazen, as we do in Dzogchen, sitting meditation, we call non-meditation. Not doing meditation, not striving to try to control our minds or create any special state of mind, but being as is, being present, being wakeful. Just being. It's hard to just be, so we have to do a little something. So we trick ourselves by thinking we're meditating. Look, Ma, I'm meditating. Don't bother me. But just being, that's the essence of Dzogchen, and I will speculate of Zen. I know the Sixth Patriarch of Zen. I read his book once in my Dilettante studies. He said the essence of Zen is not just sitting Zen, it's being, something like that.

[18:51]

Zazen is sitting Zen, but Zen itself is being Zen. Whether you're sitting or walking or working, whether you're moving fast or slow, being is not changed. That's where the focus or the view, the attention can be. That's the unchangeable, unshakable Dharmakaya or ultimate nature, our own nature. Then we feel less identified with the momentary arisings in our body and mind that float through this sky-like, vast sky-like infinite nature, our own nature. Then we have the view from above, the bigger perspective. Then there's room for all kinds of things to float through, our bodies and minds. Foibles, hang-ups, neuroses, sounds, sights, thoughts, even thoughts are not a problem to the true meditation. True Zazen, true Dzogchen meditation, or Mahamudra as they call it also in Tibetan,

[19:55]

is not about stopping thinking. It's not about stopping anything. Everything is equal in the great view of things as they are. In fact, if you want to talk about stopping, the truth is that everything is already perfectly at rest. But since our minds and our thoughts still move, we need to work on that, work with that. So perhaps a little simplifying our lives and slowing down, perhaps cultivating mindfulness and awareness and attention to doing what we're doing while we're doing it, can help us to come back to the being, the essential being that underlies all forms of doing. Sitting meditation is like a laboratory or a microcosm of our life where we have the opportunity to focus the microscope of our attention, attention which is the heart of the matter, attention.

[20:58]

We can focus our attention on just what is up with us right now. We can arrive in the nowness for once. The truth is we aren't always here and now fully 100%, but since we often feel scattered and distracted, we need to take a path to get from here to here, not from here to there, not from samsara to the other shore of enlightenment on the far shore of the big ocean of confusion, but to get from here to here. That's the conundrum, that's the Zen riddle. How can we get from here to here? How can we become what we are? That's what Dzogchen, again, and Zen, like Zen, they're very much sibling practices, addresses. How can we recognize who and what we are so we can more fully be who we are and be one with who we are already? That's why we don't stress enlightenment.

[22:01]

In Dzogchen, there's a saying, pre-enlightenment, enlightenment. As I said before, everything is already perfectly at rest. It's up to us to take rest a little bit. At any speed, we're moving. Dharma is not a pacifier, it's a clarifier. We don't have to pacify everything. We don't have to stop our thoughts and feelings. We don't have to slow the world down to slow motion. Everything is fine the way it is. Of course, there's plenty of injustice in the world, and we certainly feel that, and we want to alleviate it. That's true, too. That may seem like a contradiction, but so be it. We can talk about that if we want to talk more about Dharma, relative and absolute truths in the Mahayana view and so on. How it is that if everything is perfect as it is, that things seem so fucked up much of the time. But that's a little koan for us, isn't it?

[23:04]

Just like the koan between being and doing, or between inner work and outer life. That's the edge that we live on, the edge of the koan or the conundrum of life. How to be Buddha right now? If it's true, as most of the Buddhist scriptures say at heart, and I can quote scripture if we need to, but it will save us the trouble, that we're all Buddhas by nature. How is it that we don't realize it and recognize it through and through? Right now, why do we feel like so often we're caught in a quagmire? So often like we're a little tippy canoe in the middle of a storm on the vast ocean. How is it that that's our experience most of the time? That's kind of the mystery of existence. It comes to us in many forms. My Jewish friend says, if there was a God, how could he have, he noticed, how could he have left the Holocaust? But everybody has this kind of thought.

[24:06]

If there was a God, how would children be born, you know, crack babies born with AIDS? It's the same koan. I don't think we have to lose faith in God because there is suffering and evil and misery in the world. Those two are not mutually exclusive. But we're not talking about God today, we're Buddhists today, for 45 minutes anyway. Actually, in my new book, because I need to, I feel, teach Buddhism with a difference. My new book, Awakening to the Sacred, Creating Spiritual Life from Scratch, I'm talking more about God, just because we have to talk in English sometimes about the divine and people need to pray, you know, even Buddhists pray. So we need to use the words that we have for the ultimate. And also many of us are hybrid Buddhists, Jewish Buddhists or Christian Buddhists or rational, most modern scientific Buddhists.

[25:08]

Or gay Buddhists or roll-your-own Buddhists or feminist Buddhists. So the language has to expand. And we need to think, I think, more about Dharma, not just Buddhism. Dharma. Timeless wisdom. Of which Buddha Dharma is one of the best expressions. I mean, myself as a Buddhist, obviously I vote for Buddha Dharma, but, you know, I'm just one of the, you know, we're all just chickens here in the courtyard. No doubt some other people's Dharma will bring them what they seek, no doubt. In fact, maybe before us. Because it really depends on one's own seeking and finding, on our bodhicitta, our way-seeking mind. Bodhicitta. Our aspiration towards the ultimate. The essence of Buddhism, at least according to the Mahayana teachings, as I understand it, is motivation and intention. Therefore, if we're practicing with confused or mixed,

[26:10]

actually we all have mixed intentions, okay. But to the extent that we practice with evolving and purifying a clear intention, we get an evolving and purifying and clear result. This is the karmic law. Cause and effect come in kind. Apple seeds don't produce lemon trees. Cause and effect come in kind. Karma, causation. Therefore, we need to check our intentions, intentions. Put attention to intention and motivation. Are we just here to have a good time? You know, which is fine. Come on, we all, that's part of it. We don't need to make ourselves more miserable than we are, let's face it. But there's more to that. Are we just here for ourselves? Do we exist independently from the person sitting next to us or from our children or mates or society members? So as we expand our motivation, our intention, our scope, our practice also expands. I'm not talking about meditation.

[27:10]

Our practice, our spiritual practice, our connection to dharma, to true dharma, expands into the boundless space of true dharma. Our little hard-boiled ego expands. We crack out of that eggshell and wow, there's a whole sky out there. Becoming less selfish and egotistical is not a sacrifice. It's like an offering. It's an offering to our higher, wiser selves. It's an offering to all. It's a service to the world. And not only that, we crack out of our ego and there's a whole wide sky out there, a boundless sky of joy, of spontaneity, of creativity. It's like splitting the atom. Where does nuclear energy come from? How is it that it all comes out of splitting the atom? I'm sure we all understand that today. All that energy was tied up in holding that little atom together.

[28:11]

All of our energy is tied up in holding our trip together, holding our ego and persona together, holding our trip together, day-to-day, moment-to-moment. When we crack that, it's like a nuclear, it's much more than a nuclear blast. And it's not a harmful one. It's a solar eruption of creativity and joy and spontaneity. All that energy is released. All that pure energy is released from holding together the ball of wax of our neuroses. And it's incredible energy, pure energy, that can take any form that it's meant to take in our karmic path. It could be poetic or creative in formal ways or it could just be spontaneous, loving, energetic activity, Buddha activity, creative, proactive, spontaneous Buddha activity, rather than replacing karmic, reactive, conditioned activity.

[29:16]

We may not see different things, but we see everything differently. It makes all the difference. It makes all the difference. It totally transforms ourselves and our world. But this is an inner transformation. Again, we might not see different things, but we see everything differently. And also we might not look that different. You know the old saying, if a thief sees a saint, the thief only sees the saint's pocketbook or pockets. So it might not be that we have to look different, but everything is different for us, which transforms the atmosphere and our karma and our world sooner or later since everything is interconnected. So in the Dzogchen view, this is the Buddha field in the pure land. This is the Buddha field of green gulch. In fact, if you just go outside after this and take a walk, I think it'll be hard for you to not notice how beautiful it is and how wonderful, how much grace we are experiencing just to be able to be here.

[30:19]

If you've traveled the world, you might notice that not everybody lives like this. And walk down to the beach and walk through the garden and just breathe there. Standing in that garden and breathing is like a meditation, a moment of grace. It's a contemplative practice. This is the Buddha field of great perfection. This is the Dharmakaya and this is the three-kaya Buddha field. Absolutely. That's why the Zen master sang, this very land is the pure land, nirvana, this very body, the body of Buddha, nirmanakaya. He wasn't referring to Japan and his body long since cremated. He was referring to this right now, land, wherever you stand, and your body, wherever you sit. We are all Buddhas by nature. We only have to awaken to that fact. Practice awakens us. Old Zen saying,

[31:19]

Enlightenment experiences and epiphanies are like an accident when they happen. We can't make them happen. We can't force this moment of grace. But practice makes us more accident prone. Because practice, spiritual practice, authentic spiritual practices, are in tune with cosmic principles. These have evolved over the centuries and millennia to experience in the laboratory of spiritual seeking. It's not airy-fairy. It's not an abstraction. Buddhism is very scientific. If that's a good word. I don't know what you think of science. But let me just give my talk here. Thank you. Buddhism is very scientific. It's very rational. That's why it's so popular today. One of the main reasons is verging on a fad today. But I think it's very relevant today to our post-modern disillusioned God is dead age. It's very scientific. Buddha and the sages like Buddha, of which there have been millions, many.

[32:25]

We don't only have one begotten son of Buddha. Anybody can become as enlightened as Buddha. That's the gospel of Buddhism. Yes, even you. I know you're thinking, but what about me? Even you. Whatever your nickname for yourself is. Schleppo, or schnookie, or blahbo, or whatever, you know. Harpo, you know, whatever. The destroyer, the victim, whatever, you know. I mean, you have your own. I'm just telling you mine. I should never talk. They used to call me tubby on the basketball court in high school. The coach would shout, go get him, tubby. Okay, I got him. Anyway. Maybe tubby Buddha. Not all spandex Buddha, you know. As his headmaster said on her deathbed, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha.

[33:27]

That means happy Buddha, sad Buddha. Dying Buddha, being born Buddha, every moment Buddha. Full moon Buddha, cloudy Buddha also. We all participate in that Buddhaness even now. Anyway, practice is perfect. We just have to do it. In the non-dual traditions, in Soto Zen, in Dzogchen, in Advaita Vedanta, in mysticism of the world, all these teachings converge in the essence of authentic being and nowness. This is the great crossroads of where we live, the crossroads of the past and future, right now. The history of religion is irrelevant to our quest right now. It may be interesting, but all of that exists just for now so we can tap into this timeless source. We can plumb this timeless spring, this ever-blooming spring, this ever-rising great eastern sun, as great master Trungpa Rinpoche used to call it.

[34:28]

Ever-rising great eastern sun. That doesn't mean Asian sun, thank you. Great eastern sun, ever-dawning sun. Not setting sun mentality. I'm 50 now. I'm on the back nine and I'll never make it. Or I'm just a woman. You have to be a man to be a Buddha and sit in front of the room and make jokes. Nonsense. It may look that way sometimes, I'm afraid, but at least here in America we're working on that kind of patriarchal limitation. But, you know, there are female Buddhas also. And I need to say that. I may not have to see that here, because this is a beautiful American Zen community with American Zen masters and mistresses and quite a bit of egalitarian process here. But in the old country it wasn't always that way. And even today you might unfortunately stumble on some old Buddhist scripture that say only a woman, excuse me, booty and slip,

[35:31]

only a man can become Buddha. I know you find that hard to believe, so please don't go in the libraries. You find all kinds of bad translations of the truth there. Don't fall into that kind of weak translation school. Even if it says that in the original Pali language of Buddhism, all words are mere translation. Don't fall into the weak translation school. Anybody can be a Buddha and is a Buddha by nature. Some are sleeping Buddhas, some are awakened Buddhas. We have our sleeping moments, we have our awakened moments. That's what makes all the difference. Remember the great ever-rising eastern sun, always dawning sun. This very moment is the dawn of creation. God didn't create the world on some date, I don't know, 7,000 years ago or whatever. However, they're trying to calculate these matters. That's, I don't want to put it down by saying it's mythology,

[36:34]

but that is wise teaching mythology. You know, teaching tales exist to make a point. If they didn't happen, they should have. This is the moment of creation. Every moment is dawn. This is the first moment. We are inherently free right now. When we can be present enough, aware enough through our zazen, through our Dzogchen meditation, through pure presence, through total attention, there is no past and future. And I know you know that. Otherwise you wouldn't be listening to this rap. It would just be bullshit. But it resonates, doesn't it? We've all had our moments, haven't we? Haven't we? I'm not saying I'm enlightened and you're all enlightened. It's too soon to say that. True, it might be in some level, but it's easier, it's more poetic, saying we're all Buddhas by nature, sleeping Buddhas and awakened Buddhas.

[37:35]

But let's be more practical. Have we all had that moment where there's no past and future? I don't mean necessarily in the zendo or on a meditation retreat. Maybe it happened by accident when we were eight years old and mummy told us, don't talk about that anymore. So we didn't. We don't even think about it. Maybe it happened in bed somehow, cosmic orgasm or something. I don't know. Maybe it happened through love or giving birth or crisis, when the headlights were coming straight at you in your car accident. Anyway, this is the moment. This is the only moment. First moment, only moment right now, as many Masters say. Our only practice is to access this moment, that moment right now. That is where all the practices converge. That is where all the practices stem from. That is the alpha and omega. That is the beginning and the end. This moment.

[38:36]

In Dzogchen we call that the timeless instant. It's beyond past and future. Therefore even to call it the present is the wrong word because present time is the linear thinking time, past, present and future. This is the timeless instant. And through practice we can enter it. We can access it. Now can you see how contradictory that may seem? What do you mean enter the present? We are present. Well prove it. How many things are you doing at once, Mr. and Mrs. Present? How present are you when you're driving your car from here to San Francisco? Are you in your car seat or is your mind already across the bridge without paying a toll? Bad karma. You've snuck into San Francisco illegally. See we are totally present. But we shouldn't call it the present.

[39:39]

We call it the timeless time. It's like the fourth time. It's beyond past, present and future when we can actually access it right here and now. And I think that's what the point is of Shikantaza, of just sitting, of just being, just walking, of just working. And that is the point of Dzogchen meditation. Direct access to total presence right now. Total attention. We might say our minds are scattered, but the truth is there's nowhere for them to scatter to. They are totally present. We might say he or she is a conscious being and he or she is less conscious. But that's just relative. That's like saying sleeping and awakening, conscious and unconscious. From the point of view of being or totality or our Buddha nature, it's all totally 100% present right now. Always. Enlightened Buddha, diluted Buddha. So in the Dzogchen tradition, we talk about discovering and developing. Just because we have to tease it out a little bit, there's the discovery or the recognition or the awakening,

[40:42]

similar to what we call Satorian Zen. And then there's the practice of living that out. Discovery and development. Actually, in Dzogchen, we have it in three stages to make it even more teased out, although it's only one thing. It's like yin-yang. It looks like two things, shadow and light, but it's really one. There's only light. Right? Is there such a thing as shadow? Is there such a thing as cold? There's only heat. There's only movement, energy. Cold is the absence of that. So shadow is less light, but it's still a light phenomenon. Similarly, to tease this out, to twist emptiness a little bit so its arms and legs can come out, there's a Tibetan saying, if you twist a snake, you get to see its arms and legs. I mean, a snake moves, so it must have arms and legs, right? As the lama told me. Anyway, it has some muscles or some way of locomotion. Similarly, emptiness, to get dressed up in drag

[41:45]

and to move around at high speed, as it does in all forms, you will have to twist and turn a little bit. So to twist and turn emptiness, so we can get our teeth into it, we talk about discovering and developing and then stabilizing. We're really not developing and stabilizing emptiness, shunyata. We're developing and stabilizing our view of it through practice. That's why enlightenment experience alone is not enough. The timeless time has passed. Enlightenment experience alone is not enough. Having satori is not enough. Even the great Zen masters had to have many satori before they were satisfied, if that's the word. I think it was Dogen, but it doesn't matter who, one of them, wise guy, said, satori is not the end of the path, it's the beginning of the true path, if you get the point. Having an awakening is not enough. Then you have to live in a wakeful fashion, not just go back to sleep again

[42:45]

or pretend you're asleep or continue sleepwalking with eyes closed even though you're awake. So, it's easier these days to get enlightened than to stay enlightened, I'm afraid. That's where discovery has to be developed and stabilized so it becomes unshakeable so that we are there where we truly are. This is the practice of the view, meditation and action. The view of the great perfection, the meditation of non-meditation, the meditation of true being and the action of Buddha activity, of the great perfection of Dzogchen. I think it's very parallel to Zen practice, to like dharmakaya practice and some nirmanakaya practice manifesting your koan in the world, whatever. These are just words. I think it's very important for us today to recognize that the Dharma today is something we have to live in daily life. Integration is the name of the game, not reclusion and seclusion. It's good to go on retreats,

[43:47]

it's good to have a daily meditation practice, it's good to come here on Sunday or whatever we do, but there's still the other 23 hours of the day and the other six and a half days of the week. That's where the rubber meets the road, integrating in daily life. Bringing this view, meditation, into action in daily life, bringing our mindfulness and awareness into everything we do, not just sitting and walking in the Zenda. What about sitting on the bus and walking on the street downtown? It's really not different. It just seems different because we make that distinction. So we come here as a little laboratory to remind ourselves that we can actually live truly out there in the rest of the world, sitting and walking in the world. In the ultimate view, this entire world is an altar and all who sit and stand on it are the deities,

[44:48]

are the Buddhas, are the deities. That's the sacred view, that's the way to see Buddha and everyone and everything. In Tibetan, we actually make it into a practice. Tibetan Buddhism is famous as the path of upaya, many different skillful means. In fact, there are probably too many, it's complicated. I'm trying to simplify that down to basic essentials. The practice I want to leave with you today, having talked about the view of meditation and action of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection teachings, is the practice we call in Tibetan, dak nang, or pure perceptions, seeing the Buddha in everyone and everything, seeing the light in everyone and everything. And when you start to practice that, I mean, just look around you, you might notice some other things will come up. That's very revealing. That helps clarify all of the projections and karmic perceptions that we have. It's like having a clear mirror. We can see all the reflections in it. What is it that's keeping me

[45:50]

from seeing my difficult boss as Buddha, right now? What is it that's keeping me from seeing my acrimonious ex as Buddha, right now? Bring it into the now. Practical practice. What is keeping me from seeing myself as okay, as lovable, as Buddha, right now? And not just right now in my best moments, but in my worst moments. If you practice that, I think you'll meet Buddha every day, and you won't have to kill him or her. Buddha will live forever. Thank you. . . . It's a rosary. People in all religions use rosaries for prayers and chants and as a centering device. So, in Buddhism also, we have rosaries, counting prayers,

[46:51]

using it as a centering device, counting the chants, and other purposes. is, for example, if you, let's say you have a mantra or a prayer that you chant every day many times and over years, if the idea is that it seems like the power of your prayer or the breath of your inspiration is sort of somehow partly in this, so you can use it to remind you of that or even to like remind somebody else or to heal them by touching I don't know, you know, everybody has their different belief systems, but if you enter into the realms of practice and healing or white magic or initiations and empowerments like we have in Himalayan Buddhism, then we sometimes use this for that too. But in general, I think the first thing to say about a mala or rosary is that it's a centering device and you count mantras with it, just like in Zen practice, you might count your breath to help you stay one-pointly focused on breathing, breathing in one, breathing out two, and then

[47:56]

you might notice you lose count, so it helps you get some feedback, so then you can come back and start again counting when your mind wanders. Similarly, there's a centering device and you would say your mantra or your prayer, let's say a mantra like Om Mani Padme Hum, [...] and there's a certain number like 108, which is a mystical number, 9 times 12, there's all kinds of numerology attached to all numbers and religions, but we don't have to study that today. But anyway, in simple terms, if you have to do a hundred mantras, then you don't have to look at it, you don't have to think about it, you just concentrate on your mantra and click the bead once every time until you complete the circle and you come back to the head bead and you know you're done. In Tibetan Buddhist practice, we do thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, so it's very helpful to have something that you don't have to count and count up. These are little abacus counters also, so you can just click one of those to make one 100, two 100, three 100, and then here 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, these slide, these

[49:03]

little rings, so you don't have to write it down or keep track. So in that way, when you spiritual bank book is full, then you get enlightened. Yes? Well, how can you get married if you accept that everything changes?

[50:05]

Okay, since you haven't answered that one, how can you do anything if you accept that anything changes? I mean, how can you put the tea on to boil? I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere, you have to do something. You see what I'm getting at? So you can't just be frozen? Yeah, if everything changes, how can you just be frozen? What kind of strategy is that? That's even sillier than making a commitment. But isn't, I guess what I'm saying is... We have to flow with change. Flow. Flow with change. We're also changing. It may be that our commitments will also evolve and change. We don't have to be afraid of them, that we're going to be stuck forever here, just because we're here now or because they closed the door. Doors are not locked. So since you brought up acceptance, this is a common question that we all have. It's a kind of a koan or a conundrum that we have to work out. What is the balance between,

[51:11]

of course we all want to and need to be a better person, work for a better, see a better world, bring up children or do our work in a better... Let's not be too materialistically grasping about better, but as well as we can, parenting or working, being in this world. So, what is the balance between addictive, always wanting more, on the one hand, got to have a better everything, a better maid, a better house, a better car, a better job, a better body, a better diet? I mean, where's the end of that? I mean, that is really addiction. There is no peace in that. So, if we're going to recognize, on the one hand, there is the indefinite, genuine aspiration, not just desire, but actual aspiration. Even Bodhichitta used the Buddhist word, way-seeking mind for the better way, the true way. Still, doesn't have to be some other perspective on that too, that this is part of that, that we're not

[52:14]

just waiting until we get there, that this is part of it, right now, that we can accept who we are, who is trying to be a better person. I'm a good enough person to be trying to be a better person right now. That's kind of balancing the future, like past-future orientation, with the, let's say, horizontal, linear way, we get from here to there, we grow up, we get better, we whatever, we learn Buddhism better, we get more spiritually evolved. That's very linear, with sort of the horizontal dimension of right now, it's all here right now. And if you notice, that's a cross, which is an ancient symbol of wholeness, it's a mandala of wholeness. These two dimensions, the horizontal, where we live and exist and train and develop, and the vertical, which is very sudden, ascended, we're connected right now, in the highest and lowest. Right in that point, that's where we live. If we get too far out of any of those elbows, there's a lot of wobbling and flopping going on. So, how do we try to perfect ourselves

[53:21]

and have a better world in one hand, and also recognize the perfection of that very process, from beginning to end? That's the koan. I think as Zen Master said, somebody said, well, you say we're all Buddhas and we're all perfect, then what's the point of practice? What's the point of building a temple, or growing a garden, or doing anything? And the Master said, I think it was your Master, Suzuki Roshi, correct me if I'm wrong. He said, everything is perfect. He didn't say, I am perfect, but it's like, we are perfect, yes, and we continue perfecting ourselves endlessly. Does that sound familiar? To continue perfecting ourselves endlessly. What is the exact ... Everything is perfect, but it could use a little improvement. You see? Even better. Just to make the point, because that's how humans think. Just a little tweaking. Otherwise we get frozen. Oh, everything's perfect. I'll just lie here in my rut and

[54:23]

not even get out of bed. I mean, what's perfect about that? You're free to get out of bed also. Why get frozen into that position? It's also perfect to feel like getting out of bed. Then you get out of bed. You accept that. If you want to redress the injustices of the world, that's perfect. Please do it. Why hesitate? Why hold back? It's all in your head. You have to recognize that's part of it. Our low desires just for things we want are part of our larger aspirations for things we don't even know about to want. Bodhicitta, longing for union or wholeness is aspiration, but desire for a mate, for happiness, for love, whatever, that's part of it. Human love is the tip of the iceberg of divine love. We shouldn't freeze ourselves in position, not doing anything, until we can have divine, perfect, unconditional love. Do a little sloppy loving now and then. It's not so bad. Get

[55:26]

a pet. Whatever it takes. Oh, let me say one more thing. This is a very important point about action and non-action, about doing and being. You see, this is a dualism, about acceptance and transformation. Surrender and acceptance and equanimity doesn't just mean dropping out and dropping everything and not caring. It's very caring. The master in the Tao Te Ching, one of the great wisdom classics, says, the master does her best and lets go and whatever happens, happens. She keeps doing her best and letting go and whatever happens, happens. She keeps doing her utmost best and letting go because she knows that whatever happens will happen. So we do give it our best. That's the transformation and the aspiration part, want to be a better person, work for a better world, relieve suffering and injustice. But we also have to accept and surrender enough still to let go, because

[56:29]

whatever happens, is going to happen. We're not the sole doer. We can't determine how it's all going to work out. We just make our contribution. We can't do it all, yet we're not free to do nothing. No one can do it all, even the great sages and saints. Still, we're not free to just do nothing. I mean, try to do nothing. It's very hard work, verging on impossible. Yes? How does cause and effect relate to a non-linear cause? That's a good question. I think we have to recognize that these are both co-existent. There's the conventional past, present and future. I'm getting from here to there approach. You are growing up. In the same way, you are a full, whole human being, from youth to middle age to old. That's non-linear. You are Hoposapien from beginning to end. So cause and effect

[57:31]

is in time, in the conventional level. In Buddhist philosophy, rather than trying to say everything is one, or everything is illusion, or any definite assertion, it's much more process-oriented. Flow, impermanence, indeterminacy, any assertion can be undermined. These are just Buddhist principles. So karma exists in cause and effect in sequence, in linear time. Like if you eat poison, you get sick. That's karma, cause and effect, in practical terms. If you're a loving, gentle, non-violent, helpful soul, you probably have mostly that kind of thing coming back to you. That's karma. What goes around comes around. We reap what we've sown, cause and effect. But that's in sequence, you see? You do something and you get a result. Now if you're just in the present moment, that's more like this dimension. It's much more ultimate. There's no before and after. If there's no before and after, you can't

[58:35]

really say that you're a Homosapien, because it takes too long to think that and state that. You follow? There's just is-ness, indescribable. It's just presence. There's no subject, verb and action. That's all sequence. That's the world of karma. So Buddhist philosophy calls this dimension the conventional or relative truth, this horizontal dimension that we live in. And this dimension that is in every moment of this horizontal, connected totally, every moment of this has this in it, right? That's the absolute truth of the ultimate reality. So even while we're perfecting ourselves, trying to wake up from being sleeping Buddhas and turning to awakened Buddhas, gradual sequence, karma, good actions brings good results, good training brings awakening. In this sense, it's Buddha training him or herself all along. That's not karma. You can't produce a Buddha. You can only awake to what is there. See,

[59:43]

that's not karmic. That's not causative. On the other hand, it is, because it could just be a little more awake. It is perfect, yes, but you still have a little improvement. I think this is very important for us to recognize so we don't get paralyzed with some kind of idea that we read, which is just a rumor, we're all Buddhas or everything's perfect. Well, we hear it today from some people who were influenced by the non-dual school of Advaita Vedanta of Indian philosophy that says there's no need for practice. Then we paralyze ourselves. We're miserable, suffering, unhappy creatures looking for a better life, but somebody says, this is the better life, and we say, oh, great. If it's a charismatic, powerful person in front of us who's telling us that, it might work for right that day while we're there. But what happens the next day or the next year when we go home? They've got the absolute truth. I am criticizing now. They have the absolute truth, but they're

[60:52]

losing touch of the conventional reality we live in. If you drive on the left side of the road, you're going to have an accident. We have to live in conventional reality. Now, if you don't mind having an accident and whatever happens from that, then go ahead. But still, it might involve some other people too, some children in the other lane. So you might think about that before you just say, it doesn't matter. So we shouldn't paralyze ourselves with the already enlightened way of thinking. That's only half the story. There's still the truth of, could need a little improvement. Because what isn't growing is dying. That's just the truth of reality anyway. There's no end. There's no enlightenment like you get to the other shore and it's a concrete bunker where you hole up. It's much more a big cycle, spiral, whatever. There's no end. Buddhism is much more process-oriented. It's a greater ecology. There's no way to stop, to fix anything. And we do have to live according to karma. In the ultimate, it may not matter very much

[61:58]

whether we feel good or bad, or whether we take poison or medicine. But in relative day to day, everything we do, think and say matters a little. It matters a lot. That determines our experience. Every little thing counts in the conventional level, day to day. That's the world of karma. That's the relationship. That's where we live. Of course, in the sweep of cycle of cosmic time, of billions of years of geologic time, it doesn't matter very much whether we have a good hair day or a bad hair day. But to you and your mate, it matters. So if you hold both, it sort of loosens that up. It matters, but it doesn't drive us to suicide. We have a bigger perspective while we are dealing with every moment as it is. So then we want to know what the laws of the road are, so we don't have these unexpected accidents and feel victimized. Why did this always happen to me? You know, some people

[63:02]

seem to have a lot of car accidents and others don't. That's no accident. There's some reason probably for that person having a lot of accidents. So as we drive through life, if we don't know what the principles of the road are, if we have our hands on the rear-view mirror of our car and we don't understand why we keep having accidents, it's a little problem. If we're not steering our karma and we're just steering our doctrines, it doesn't steer our wheels. It doesn't bring the results. You know, oh, my car's going left and you're turning the rear-view mirror right. Get your hands on the wheel. What is the term? That's why causation is so important to understand and interdependent origination, interconnectedness. Most of us don't just get sick, we make ourselves sick, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. So the question is, what are we doing and how to do it better? Accepting it is the beginning.

[64:03]

It's very important. Denying it doesn't help. Ignoring it doesn't help. First we have to see it and accept it. Then we can do better. In fact, if we accept it, we might be a little more relaxed so we really can do better rather than just floundering. Okay, questions. I'm talking too much. Yes, ma'am. Hello. Can you give me an idea of what daily practice entails? That's a good question. In fact, that's why I've written my new book, Awakening to the Sacred, Creating a Spiritual Life from Scratch, talking about all the different things that people do and have done and can do. So what are you thinking about, just so we have somewhere to start? What does daily practice entail? You mean piano practice or Zen practice or prayer practice or yoga practice? What are you thinking about? Well, I'm thinking specifically of Zen practice. We should ask him. Zen practice, you challenge me. Zen practice entails total attention,

[65:08]

100% doing what you're doing, that's Zen practice. So when you're doing Zazen, you're 100% just sitting. If you're walking, Keen Heen, you're doing Zen walking practice, just walking. If you're working, you know, whatever example you want to say, just chopping, just, I don't know, tapping the computer keyboard, you know, whatever you're doing, just doing that 100%. Now, it may entail some other, some little, you know, tweaks. Maybe there's some questioning or exploring involved, like a koan, you know, like looking into who am I, or in some other way using your mind, your rational and also your intuition to plumb deeper into the mystery of being. Because it's hard just to be, so we do have little doings, you know, skillful means, upaya, to help us be more fully. There may be some chanting, there may be some study, there may be some attitude transformation, you know, Mahayana mind training, Bodhisattva

[66:11]

vows, unselfishness training, all of this is Zen practice. There may even be more, maybe Zen arts, maybe Zen and martial arts, however you can work in a well-rounded way to have a spiritual life. That's what Zen practice is, a well-rounded spiritual life. Maybe we need to exercise, so Zen practice is not just sitting, it's also walking, it could be a martial arts that takes your full attention, or tea ceremony, or sumi-e painting, uninhibited one-stroke painting, or haiku poetry, so we get into spontaneity of expression, that's Zen practice, learning to not edit what comes up for us. So specifically, if you want to know what do you do every day, this is why I've written this book, to say, these are all things one can do, but then what do you do every day, where do you begin? I think you have to begin at some beginning, like where you are. So you begin with something simple, like sitting on the cushion every morning. And if you miss a morning, you're

[67:15]

not going to go to hell, let's be realistic, it's like exercise. But if you get four, five, or six days a week, year-round, you have a Buddhist practice. And then carrying a little attention into the day. Mindfulness in the day, not just on the cushion, that's Zen practice. And if chanting helps open your heart, that's a great practice. And then coming to retreats and Dharma studies, maybe teacher interaction, that's a Zen practice. Are you doing these things? Are you familiar with what I mean? Well, you described me earlier in that, you know, I'll sit down and my mind will start running. Yeah, that's what the mind does. We all have that monkey in there, monkey mind, grasshopper mind. So your talk has given me a lot of hope in just sticking with it, you know, every day instead of, you know, throwing the towel and saying, God, my mind just won't stop, you know? Yeah. Which is awesome. No, you don't have to throw the towel. You just throw the clutch. You understand clutches?

[68:15]

If you throw the clutch, the engine can keep spinning. It will eventually run out of gas. You're no longer feeding the gas tank. Throw the clutch. The engine will not drive the wheels. Your karmic actions won't proliferate. You can just sit. This is easier said than done, admittedly. But I'm from New York. I have motor mind. I know. I've been there, I've done this. You sit down and your mind's just running. You throw the clutch. You drop into neutral gear. The mind is spinning, but the wheels aren't connected anymore. You're not reacting. See, this is where you cut the tangle of karma. There's no causation. It can spin all at once. It's no big deal. It's not connected to anything. The spinning is empty unless you harness it. Then it drives karmic activity. Or you use it skillfully. You analyze things out. You figure out the best route to get from here to home. That's what the mind is for. You don't want to stop your mind and get a lobotomy

[69:17]

and become a Buddhist vegetable. That's exactly the wrong direction. That's the problem of the quietest trend that we sometimes fall into because our minds are such a pain in the ass. That's where our minds are half the time, but that's another story. We can elevate our thoughts a little bit. It's a good thing, too. But still, too much thoughts makes us a victim. The intellect, the thoughts are a good tool, but a poor master. So, tell me again about your meditation. You sit down and that happens. Do you know how to drop into neutral? So you need to practice meditation. Ask your teacher or read the teacher's scripture. How do you drop into neutral? What does it mean? If you're just breathing, that might help. Or a little chanting, a bow, a little work. Work out some of the energy so we can be more centered and whole. Were you here yesterday? Yesterday I taught a little bit of starting to meditate. Breathing in and breathing out. That's easy. We all know

[70:20]

how to do that, but do we all know when we're breathing in and breathing out or are we somewhere else? We don't all know how to know when we're doing it. So you start to focus on breathing in and breathing out. In Zen practice, perhaps counting one to ten and starting again. See if you can get to ten. It's not as easy as it sounds before the grasshopper jumps off that little train. So then you start to learn. Then you can train your attention more and more. Then maybe you don't even have to count. You can just follow the breath. Then maybe you can breathe in deeply and feel it here, your navel chakra, and hold it there. By stopping and holding your breath, you sort of stop and hold your energy. You sort of stop and hold your mind a little. You get used to how you can relax into that. Stop. But that's not the ultimate. That's the means. That's not the end. So you can find that place of rest in any speed, not just when you're stopped and slow. So if you're doing practice, maybe you have a teacher or some Dharma friends you can learn from, that's helpful. Teacher

[71:24]

practice, getting teachings, reading, studying, whatever it takes, very helpful. Coming here, these are great opportunities. It's always available. Good luck. But practice, it makes all the difference. Hearing about it won't help much. Yes, sir? When your mind keeps changing and you're not involved in something, learning the practice is one of those techniques to avoid it. Your mind can be determined by some trauma or hurt or an obsessive will. When you're not doing any of these practices, you're going to get into a further trauma or obsession. Is there any way out of that, rather than just activating the mind with another practice so that that moment, that time, is not there? That's a good thing to start with, because the mind can only have one thought at a time

[72:25]

or something, just vaguely speaking. So you can replace it with something else. That's practice, as you just said. But you also understand that's not really necessarily very long-lasting. That's kind of reconditioning. It takes a while. Also, there's a little bit of delusion in that, because you're averse to what you've got and you're replacing it with something you'd rather have, if you see what I'm getting at. So in a deeper sense, one could cut right through to the point and see it as it is, or accept it as it is, or be in the bigger view of just recognizing that tape loop going around again. Now, it's one thing if the tape loop is just a television jingle from a commercial that you can't get out of your head. That's no big deal. One can just listen to that and say, instead of watching the breath, you just make that your object of meditation. But if the tape loop is your victimized trauma from your past, and it makes you miserable, and

[73:27]

it sparks your negative perceptions of yourself, or your bad habits, reaching for a drink or whatever we do to insulate ourselves from it, then maybe we have to take a little more forceful action to purify it, to transcend it, whatever, there are different ways of thinking about it, to see through it, to understand it, so that it doesn't afflict us in the same way. One of the things, most important practices is the practice of presencing. If we can be more in the present, when we're more in the present, then the past has much less hold over us. Because it's only about memory and conditioning and habit. We can throw the clutch and just be, quote, in neutral. This is just an analogy, but you know what I mean. Go on. Question from the audience Then you have to go to the mattresses, total war. There are always some other techniques,

[74:33]

more powerful ones, but that may be an endless pursuit. Maybe you have to go in a different direction, and just surrender the battle. Throw yourself into the fire, rather than try to put it out. Could you imagine doing that? There's an old story about the Master trying to get enlightened, trying to get enlightened, trying to get enlightened, trying to wake up. Then it became the day of the meeting of the Masters, and he wasn't a Master yet, and trying and trying to see things as they are, not getting enlightened, and meditating all night, and sitting up. The meeting was going to be at dawn the next day, and he's not getting enlightened, and not getting enlightened. Finally, he gives up, and he starts to go to sleep. He leans over and says, I'm not enlightened, and he got enlightened. He let go. He saw things as they are. He told the truth. Whatever you want to say, he let go. He stopped beating his head against that particular

[75:34]

wall. Maybe that changes everything. Are you dealing with some particular thing that you've got in your mind? I don't need to psychoanalyze you in public, but you have something particular that you're referring to, so we can get more specific. What is it? So, you mean recently? Recently or many years ago? Yeah, that's painful. So maybe we haven't thoroughly processed the pain and grieved over it, and we need to, not just wish it would go away. It will go away eventually, you can understand that, but it's painful now, so maybe we need to feel the pain more thoroughly, not just wish we didn't feel it. That would be throwing yourself into it. Maybe you need to grieve over it. Maybe you need to complete something about it that you haven't. Because if you want the pain to go away, you might be insulating yourself

[76:38]

or killing your feelings, and then it might also go away with that, some of the pleasure maybe of your next relationship. Be careful before you desensitize yourself too fast. That's the problem with our bad habits and compensatory behavior. So, yes, it is painful. Where it really hits us is in our lovability factor, so maybe you could just work on that, like do some loving-kindness meditation or some kind of thing that warms you up. Or not meditation, some loving practices or service or help some other people so you stop focusing on yourself so much. We can only work at our problems so much. In a way, service is the cost of a better life. Take a little focus off ourself and pay attention to someone else. It's like when you start to have children, one has a lot less time to focus on one's own neurosis and preoccupation somehow. The kids are crying in the middle

[77:42]

of the night, you have to deal with it. That's not the same as denying neurosis. It almost just relieves the pressure that you're putting on the neurosis. Yes? Right. Yeah. You can replace that thought in that moment with another thought. We're just talking about thought now, but it could be feeling, practice. It's almost a practice. Obsessing about that wound, you could call it a practice. It's just not like a liberating practice. You might want to replace the binding, crazy-glue practice with a liberating practice, whatever that

[78:44]

is for you, whatever could work. That doesn't just mean put your mind on something else, turn on the television. Maybe working on the loving and giving out some love is better than thinking about how you didn't get love. Practices of love can help you heal that wound also, because there's a lot of love in this world, here and there and everywhere, not just from that one person. It would help you feel loved more. There's no easy answers. These are things you can go to therapy for for a long time, and even in practice. We have to practice with them maybe our whole lives, because we have deeply wounded feelings of unlovability. It didn't just happen from that person one year ago. Maybe that sparks off what you felt when your parents were divorced and your father left or died or something. I don't know your story. We have to remember that the law of karma sounds like a big mysterious thing, but it

[79:49]

has a lot to do with conditioning and habituation. If you have one of these, I'm looking for a Zen scroll, and I don't know why I don't see one here, but I guess they're in the other halls. If you have a scroll and it's rolled up this way, that's like a habit, a way we do things. It's very difficult to just say, let's lie out the scroll and leave it this way so we can all walk by and look at it, because you lie it out, and then as soon as you move by, it goes whoop, before you have another look at it the next person, because it's been rolled up that way for so long. It takes a while if you hang it on a wall. It'll still crinkle up like this for a long time, until eventually it's like this, which was its original state, right? It was just a piece of paper, it was never a scroll when it was born. That's like our natural state, or our natural mind, or the present moment thought. It's not yet a chain of discursive thinking, it's just a moment's spark. It's not yet a chain of barbed wire that tangled us up in a chain of thinking. So if we're

[80:53]

in the present moment, the freshness of the moment, the feeling comes up and then it's gone, the thought comes up, the sound, the this or that, it doesn't become crazy-glued with our attachments and concepts. I wish that would go away, then I could be peaceful. See, all of that, that's the discursive thinking of the chains that roll us up. Now, if you have the scroll and it's rolled up like that, and you have some experience with scrolls, before you hang it on the wall, you roll it the other way. I don't know if this works with these elegant, antique scrolls, but anyway, with a calendar scroll it would certainly work. You roll it up the other way, so when you hang it on the wall, the scroll doesn't know which way to bend anymore, so it'll just hang there. So similarly, we really can iron out and recondition our conditioning, until really we reach the decondition, the natural state, where there is none of this big history of being rolled up a certain way, so we always assume that shape. You know, we're always bent out of shape a certain way. Oh, don't touch. Where did we learn that? That wasn't how we were born.

[81:54]

Yes. Well, that's a good question. Many teachers have said this is the time of Dzogchen, because the Dharma is dying in the East and in Tibet, and also people today, we don't have 10 or 20 years to wait. We're not Buddhists that are going to memorize scriptures and do rituals for 20 years before we hear what the meaning of the rituals is. So Dzogchen, like Zen, will go right to the heart of the matter. Zen, remember, was a reform of Buddhism in China and India, to get back to the heart of the matter, beyond all the philosophy, iconography, theology, rituals, and so on, right? It was a reform, a teaching outside the scripture, pointing directly at the heart of the matter. That's a quote about Zen. Dzogchen also, similarly.

[83:00]

So it's come in waves in Tibetan Buddhism. Whenever things got overly ritualized and tradition bound, there was a new renaissance of people who were iconoclastic enough to try to go right to the heart of the matter. So Dzogchen has always been taught openly. It's not a secret teaching in Tibet, but Tibet's different than here. It was an illiterate country, so people couldn't read the books unless a teacher read them to them. People didn't own those books, they were all in the monasteries. And also it's a subtle teaching, just like Zen. It's a formless teaching. You know, Zen is not the most popular form of Zen. People praying, chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha to be reborn in his Buddha field after they die, because that's what most people understand. So in a way, Zen is a secret teaching in Japan. Most people don't know it. A lot of Japanese don't like to go to Zen temples. Are you aware of that? They think of Zen as very austere and very difficult.

[84:02]

Get up at dawn, hit you with sticks, and ask you impossible questions. Who needs that? If Amitabha Buddha will save us, let him do the heavy bullying. So Tibetan Buddhism is mostly, you know, not Dzogchen also, but Dzogchen and Mahamudra is the heart of the teaching, of course. So this is a time for that. And also, look who I'm talking to. In Tibet, it took ten or twenty years to educate the illiterate Buddhist nomad herds person about Buddhism until you could talk like this. But I'm talking to people who have been educated from Sunday school through graduate school for thirty years, and in therapy, and read philosophy, and come to Buddhist center. So you've already done a lot of that homework. So what's the secret? What I talk about is in Suzuki Roshi's book, which was published twenty-five years ago. It would be more absurd to hold it as a secret, not

[85:05]

tell anybody. Who would that serve? Service is the essence. Who would that serve? So the teachers want to give it the best they have, just like parents want to tell the kids everything they know. But it doesn't mean you tell the kids about sex or show them your sexual activity when the kids are five years old. Of course, when the kids are ready, we all hope we'll hear about it from the kids, and we'll talk to them about sex, so they don't have to hear it in worse places. So similarly, there's no secret teachings, but it's considered an advanced teaching, an esoteric, a mystical teaching. You know, it's like mystic Christianity is like a secret teaching today. Where can you find it? Of course it's there, but you know, it's a mystical teaching. So many teachers do teach Dzogchen today, as I'm sure you know, and there have been books on it for decades in English. Trungpa wrote about it. It was published 20 years ago. It's no big secret. Yes? If I understood correctly, I thought I heard you say yesterday that Mr. Denning will present

[86:06]

a Dzogchen book. That's right. Read the introduction. Hopefully, with his practice, at our moment of death, it will be fully enlightened. We won't be going through all those different stages. You never know. Right. I'm wondering for the relevance for us today to really read and understand that, to understand about the deity and so forth. That's a lot to try to understand. Are you a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner? No. Yeah, so you don't need to deal with all that. That's a lot of stuff to study and to learn about. What kind of practitioner are you? What kind of practice do you do? I'm a Dzogchen student. Of? Of Chan Tuku. Right. I completely enjoy it. Great. The simplicity is very important to me. I'm an older woman, and I'm thinking about all the variables. That's right. That's good to think about. So, have you asked Chan Tuku Rinpoche about this, about Dzogchen, about what to do, or

[87:09]

about your dying process and time? Have you asked your teacher about this? Have you asked your teacher about this? I've done some practice with him, and he told me to concentrate on Suryoga and Dzogchen. So, did he teach you about Dzogchen? He's gone now. So, is there somebody there to teach you about Dzogchen? Lama Inga, or Lama Nguyen, his assistants? Will they teach you about Dzogchen? So, you can practice Dzogchen. If he taught you Powa, then if you practice Powa, what happens? What do you believe will happen? So, you can do that. That's all you need. The ultimate Powa is Dzogchen anyway, where you are released into Rigpa, into Buddhah-ness. Any questions? Yes?

[88:09]

Could you talk about the nature of loneliness? Say more. You talk about it. What's on your mind? I'm a lonely guy. Now your turn. That's why I love the Sangha. In summary, in lay terms, I have a very hard time on weekends. I used to have a partner, and I don't have a partner anymore. I just really struggle with the lonely feeling. And I tell myself that I need to make friends without loneliness. And it seems like if I'm doing that, I'm alone all the time. And it almost seems like there's a imbalance. I don't want to be all alone, because space can be lonely. So, I'm really struggling with what's the middle way there.

[89:15]

Yeah, excuse me. Well, I don't think we have to shoot on our heads by saying we have to make friends with loneliness. Loneliness is a hard thing. We all have our different strategies for dealing with it. But perhaps, you know, it's not as simple as what you said. If I make friends with my loneliness, I'll just be alone all the time. Maybe the more you can accept to make friends with your loneliness, then you'll be a more complete, you know, integrated personality. And then that sort of attracts rather than repels, if you know what I mean. And then you don't have to pull back into solitude. You also don't have to reach out all the time. You're a more complete being that can meet, you know, naturally interact with other more complete beings, rather than very partial bouncing and pulling and pushing all the time with other incomplete beings, if you see what I mean. Now, we're all somewhat incomplete, but, you know, just to say, not idealize this about being complete, perfect, so we can meet another complete, perfect being.

[90:19]

If you see what I'm getting at. Well, what kind of practice are you doing? In what style? She talks a lot about loneliness. If you quote Trungpa, you know, like, as our young friend over here said, she got a lot of hope from what Dharma was saying. If you quote Trungpa, he would say it's completely hopeless. See, I didn't give her that medicine. That's too strong medicine for her. But maybe for you, that's what you need to hear. Trungpa would say loneliness is a natural state. That we're all lonely Buddhas. There's only one, you know. I mean, he would have his own way of saying it. Do you know what I'm getting at? You have to make friends with your aggression. You have to make friends with your loneliness. You know, maitri, kindness.

[91:21]

You have to be kind. You have to, like, nurture it like a child when it has a tantrum. It doesn't mean to feed it and make yourself more lonely or more aggressive, but, you know. I think maitri practice, loving kindness and compassionate practices, and Mahayana mind training, lojong, tonglen, can help a lot with loneliness. But if you really get down to it, aren't we all born alone and die alone? This is the strong medicine that Trungpa would give you, as I'm just translating for him. Born alone, die alone. Come to this world naked and with nothing except our karma and leave it the same way. That's also true right now. That's our true existential situation. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to feel this way or that way about it. That's just how it is. That doesn't mean you have to feel lonely or depressed. That's not necessarily depressing. That's just the fact you might be liberating.

[92:21]

It's not just that we don't have anything, but we don't have any burdens. We're not stuck with anything either right now. We can get from here to anywhere. There's a freedom in that. So how lonely are you willing to be? And then throwing yourself in to feed that demon, feed yourself into that demon, rather than trying to get away from the fear, from the demon of loneliness. Sangha is a beautiful thing. We take refuge in sangha because no one can do it alone. But we also have to do Buddha practice, which is very solitary. Buddha practice, Dharma practice, and sangha practice in different amounts at different times, different phases. Sometimes we're more in sangha practice, sometimes more in solitary Buddha practice, whatever that means. If you really get into practice mind, practice mind is yogi mind. It means how you practice in the present moment,

[93:25]

not I'm a Vipassana student or I'm a Tibetan Buddhist. That's just clothes.

[93:30]

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