today's a true to target as ways

er this morning
as a morning
where are the children come to the talk so there's some children up in front in case you can't see
and so the first part of the talk is
especially for the younger people
and yesterday someone called to remind me about the and that the children would be coming she said the children were becoming to you
and she said them
and they do know the story about the elephant in the butterfly
you to compete
i told a story couple times before and they want a may know that they they do not as terrain
so she said whatever you want to do
i guess i can tell her story again
no okay
but maybe not i'd actually brought another story this is a story
which you know
i
i really like when i was younger and
it's a story that has kind of about my life when hours a little kid

it's called the ferdinand the bull
so ah once upon a time
in spain
there was a little bowl and his name was ferdinand
all the other little balls
he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together
you know they run into each other hit each other's heads
before they had horns
but not ferdinand
and he disliked to sit quietly under a now he'd like to sit quietly and smell flowers
a picture of here
dissidents cse smelling flowers
he had a favorite spot in a pasture under a cork tree
it was his favorite tree and he would sit in the shade all day long in smell flowers
sometimes his mother who was a cow

would worry about him
she was afraid he'd be lonesome all by himself sitting under the tree
she went up to him and said why don't you go and run and play and butt heads like the other little balls
and ferdinand would shake his head and say i like it better here where i can just sit quietly and smell the flowers
his mother saw that he was not lonesome and because she was an understanding mother
even though she was a cow
she let him sit there
under the tree and be happy
as the years went by
ferdinand's genetic endowment manifested

and he grew and grew until he was very big and very strong
very big
the receivable grumble they're very big
so he got his you know really to be a big bowl
the other boys who had grown up with him at the same pasture would fight each other all day long always fighting and butting heads they would but each other and stick each other with their horns
what they wanted most of all was to be picked to fight in the bullfights in madrid
madrid is a big city in spain
but ferdinand
wasn't like this he still like just to sit quietly under the cork tree and smell flowers
one day five men in very funny hats came to pick the biggest
the fastest the strongest bow
to fight in the bullfights in madrid
all the other bulls ran around snorting
and digging no digging their homes in the ground and kicking up dirt
and running into each other and jumping so the men would think they were very very strong and fierce and picked them to go to the bullfights
ferdinand knew he wouldn't be picked
and he didn't care
so we just went to his favorite cork tree and sat down
he didn't look where he was sitting
and instead of sitting on a nice cool grass in the shade of the tree he sat on a bumblebee is a picture of the this is the bumblebee this is an enlarged picture
you see to be this is the be over here
and this is ferdinand is but
so if britain is gonna sit his booty down on this on this bumblebee
and a bumblebee it's hard to see but you can see the bumblebees kind of looking up like this
is this book gonna sit on me
well if you're a bumblebee and a ball sat on you what would you do
right
it's damn well you would sting am and that's just what the be did to ferdinand
the wow did it hurt
ferdinand jumped up with a snort and ran around popping and snorting and buffing and pawing the ground as if you were crazy
the five men saw him and now shouted with joy here was the largest fiercest burn them all just the one they needed for the fights in madrid
so they took him away to the bullfight that day
and what a day it was flags were flying and bands were playing and all the lovely ladies of madrid's had flowers in their hair and they paraded into the bullring
and first came the bundle arrows with their long sharp pins with ribbons on them to stick the ball to make him mad
then came the pick doors who rode skinny horses and they had long spear is to stick the bowl and make him matter to understand they stick the bull to make the ball even get really mad for the fight then came the matador and matador is the one who kills the ball in the bullfight if you can
and the matador was the proudest of all he thought he was very handsome and bowed to the ladies
he had a red cape it's a red cape and a red flag and a sword and was this post he was supposed to stick the ball last of all
then came the ball who's the bull ferdinand
and you know who that was don't you

they called him ferdinand the fierce and all the bundle arrows were afraid of him and the picador is were afraid of him in the matador was scared stiff
ferdinand ran into the middle of the ring and everybody shouted and clap because they thought he was going to be the fiercest bowl of all time
but not ferdinand when he got to the middle of the rain he saw the flowers that the ladies had thrown
and he just sat down quietly and smelled them
he wouldn't fight and wouldn't be fierce no matter what they did they stuck him with pins and needles and swords and he wouldn't move
he just sat and smell the flowers
they couldn't make him mad
the matador was so mad he cried because he couldn't show off his cape and his sword
so they had to take ferdinand home
and for all i know he is sitting there still under his favorite cork tree smelling the flowers just quietly and he is very happy

that's the story of ferdinand
and it's a story of me too
yes way
when i was a little boy i like to sit in now quietly and not snip the flowers and much but just look out the window in my room all day long
and my mother was worried about me she thought i was lonely in my room
so
bent when i grew up to be full-sized young man
i got stuck with a i got bit by a b and became a football player and a boxer and all those things
but then they let me go and i'm back sitting
and now the difference between me now when i was young as now i smell the flowers
besides looking at them out the window
and i listened to the frogs and i'm very happy and my mother's not worried

so this summer there's some other stories of some other bulls that that like to fight but does not this stories about nothing against those both but this is just a ferdinand story
so thanks for coming to me young people
what gets him

did you like that story it's an okay

and tonight we start a period of
seven days where about seventy or eighty people will sit under this roof and
and smell
and listen and
think and feel
and look
and taste and feel their body
and all those ways
and maybe be happy
and maybe have some hard times but this is the way we celebrate the and ever
six or seven weight training period here at green gulch
we call it says sheen read sure
means to care for and unify
the collect and
he is the mind to receive and express compassion
at the beginning in the practice period i
i quoted an old zen teacher who said that
ah
ah
the touching is an era
practicing zen is
dropping off body and mind
letting go of body and mind
and then is said
is a few a shortcut or a nickname for ah

for the peace and harmony
in the world

it's a it's a short expression for the dynamic
interplay and the entire universe manifesting everywhere without hindrance
realizing the full potential of life
practice and then touching this this place are vital
peace and ease
ah is interesting is the dropping off when body and mind

now implied in in implied by this to some extent are intended to be implied is that there is another another truth of the world and that is
holding on onto body and mind grasping
and being attached to body mind that's another possibility

and that's the world of
i'll vom i paid of fear of war
of disharmony

so as i spoke at the beginning a price paid there's a sense there's a wounded aspect of the world and there's a healed aspect of the world
there's a way the world is wounded and there's a way the world is healed the world is wounded in the sense that
i expected in the sense that we we grasp onto our psycho physical experiences
we hold them were attached to them or we try to get we tried to you know get rid of them and get some other kind of psychophysical experience
in this way in here are living in this way are we wound our the world
our experience arises
i'm out of the world
out of a world that goes beyond it
and
ah our our experience as as living beings
i'm is completely enfolded into the world and the world is enfolded into our experience
when we'd let go of our experience we realize this
harmony between our self and our environment
when we attached to our experienced
it's as though we're cut off from our environment cut off from the world
suzanne practices
is not holding onto our experience is that getting his parents drop off

and and realization ah
in then is the actual world the actual healed world
the world of arm mental experience i meant on physical experience
arising out of the world and the world arising out of our mental and physical experience

we have the capacity to develop a sense of self
which most of us have developed
and interject he sends herself into this ah smooth process of inter dependence
so as as are mentally physically as our mental experience arises out of our body
we are part of our mental experiences to have a self a sense of self which we
enter enter interject into this experience that will have a moment by moment
and interjecting the self in there
we think we do our experience
we think the self does the thinking does the feeling does the acting
which which there is an experience of the feeling thinking and acting
and one of the things we experienced one of things that can be experienced as a self and we make the self do all this stuff
interpose it there and this causes this wound in an otherwise
freely flowing relationship between world and experience
they can never be separated except by this composition

if we study our experience if we study experience mental physical experience
we can we never do find a subject who's having the experience
herself was having the experience we just find experience
and we find that there is an experience itself but not a self that has the experience
there is an experience which you could call self
but that self
is not having the experience is just one of our it just one on our experiences one of life's experiences
and therefore not really the subject
if we look out to try to find out what the objective world is
we never find a ground there either
because the world we find is a world born
have our mental projections and histories
so we never really can find the subject of our experienced or the object of our experience or i should say the subject of experienced where the object of experience
we find that experience is this interplay between mind but we call mind and environment and environment is born of mind and mind is born of environment and they're working always without a hitch in perfect harmony
never
there's anything happened without these two working together perfectly if they don't work to get a perfectly and that's what's happening and that's perfect working

so the practice is to
i don't know what the practices is something about are we call the middle way
the practice is called a middle way which means basically ah to relinquish
to relinquish all of our views
the relinquish body and mind

in the wounded world in the wounded world the buddhist said generally speaking
in the wounded world there is a in inclination
towards
views of existence and non-existence

and existence means in our self existence means that that the self exists the other exists that things actually are an arnold our existing out there on their own or in here on its own
there's a that view of self existence and in the world generally speaking there is an inclination towards
this exists or this doesn't exist
or another way to put it generally in the wound and world
there is a lack of being upright with the view that something exists
our doesn't exist
so the practices zen is partly being upright with these views of existence and non-existence
with these flowers
the views of existence and non-existence arise from the world
through
our bodies
the world
has allowed the arising of bodies and bodies allow the arising a minds and minds create views
and they create views of existence and non-existence
and they can create attachment to views if you of existence and non-existence so generally in the world there is a situation like this of having living beings
wherein views of existence and non-existence arise and where attachment to those views arises to and this is called
our ignorance
ignorance is grasping
these views has real
ignoring in other words not looking at what's happening
but grasping what seems to happen
and grasping without looking carefully while grasping
grasping the view
at somebody or something exists
seeing the view and then grasping it but not watching carefully when the grasp new yorkers
spring works better works best when not observed
and therefore with suffering can reach its full potential

leaning towards our views that something exists or something doesn't exist because something is this all by itself or doesn't exist or by itself
all by itself doesn't exist
we suffer and the we feel we have we have we have joined the world of alienation
from health and harmony
the practice of the middle way is to not inclined towards these views
which are flying up
out of the world through this body mind all day long
to sit in the middle of this fountain of views
without leaning towards them or away from them
to sit in the onslaught of a cornucopia or views
of attitudes about what's happening and not attached to them

miss being upright with that one will see
that there's no object to grasp no subject to grasp and grasping is really not possible even if grasping if you watch the grasping you'll see the grasping is an illusion it's not possible really the grass
sp
it's only possible to grasp
we're not looking
in an upright way

but
the world has given rise to bodies like ours and these bodies
have become such that they find it ah very are not very just till they find a job relatively more or less
frightening
to look at the grasping
and perhaps even more frightening to not grasp and frightening means thinking about grasping thinking about grasping and then imagining not grasping or even just dirt grass
being without thinking about that you're grasping because you can grasp without even noticing it because it's mostly unconscious and imagining what to be like not to grasp your experience and the kind of days we are when we if we think about that
we have become often frightened we think we wouldn't be able to function with are grasping our views that we would we would become non functional
and if we even if we think about looking at how are grasping things that might either seem to be obnoxious before you start and or once you start you find it obnoxious
and the body and mind that we have
it normally finds his kind of work

obnoxious

they're generally in the world we are inclined towards grasping
these views so generally we are disinclined to watch our inclinations

we are generally inclined towards grasping and we are generally declined away from letting go
have this grasping

the middle way at the buddha taught his are uncomfortable if you think about practicing it as you keep it it is uncomfortable to think about practicing it
but actually when practicing it it is comfortable
when not practicing the middle way it seems comfortable to not practice it but when you don't practice it you're uncomfortable
when you don't practice the middle way your
perplexed and anxious
when you're perplexed and anxious and you hear about the middle way
and then you think about practicing it from an inclined position it sounds like it would be even worse than your usual situation
because you're uncomfortable in the new imagine having everything taken away
are given up
so all you uncomfortable at least you have a mode of operation
to give up your mode of operation in the middle of being uncomfortable seems even worse at least you can carry on with things being like they are if you hold on and it's true you can carry on with this way by holding on
but when you don't attach
there what's going on he don't have perplexity and you're not anxious
and you join the harmonious working of mind and environment

so in the place that i tentatively call here
there seems to be the arising
of thoughts
and what i tentatively call now
that's arising
left right forward and backwards up and down costs arising feelings are arising

and maybe somebody should get going to contribute control of these

me and there's another one
there's another thought that somebody should get control of all these thoughts
and get them coordinated into a nice package for the welfare of all beings
so they la so that everybody will understand how to practice zen
had a practice not holding on to all these thoughts and feelings that are rising
but then they're also rises the thought that i wouldn't be appropriate the practicing zen
he wouldn't be appropriate to find a way
for people to get a hold of how to practice the middle way in the middle of all this experience
what would be appropriate would be to encourage
the non grasping of what's happening
but once again encouraging the nine grasping
includes encouraging honesty
an honesty would involve admitting if there's any grasping or any seeking to get ahold of
what's going on
simple the meaning of what's going on so you can get a hold of it
and take it to sausalito
or keep it here in this valley
for future reference

can you feel this tendency
try to get hold of what's going on now
so you can practice than if you wanted to or take a break if you wanted to

rather than
bit
live be have lived
life
in an upright way without inclining towards
any views of existence or nonexistence
while these views are arising all around you
the equipment is
here it's called a body mind it's generating views all the time
is generating are even habits
which has been programmed
the maintained habits to grasp what is generating
it's been developed to imagine that somebody's in charge
and
somehow it also can feel pain
that arises was imagining somebody's in charge

and here comes a dangerous aspect which is also in built to notice as dangerous and that is it's able to imagine that somebody is responsible for the thinking that's going on here
and if that somebody who's responsible
cares about that somebody who's responsible
then that somebody who's responsible better control what that somebody was responsible is responsible for doing
so the net next that somebody was responsible imagine that that somebody was responsible is pretty uncomfortable with this responsibility

so mrs called whatever you want to call it rat race hell
ah imagining your in heaven and you you have no problem with being such a responsible independent operator
this sounds like a dangerous situation how would you dare
like a body and mind now
when the body and mind tells you if you let go
you might get in big trouble
now you may not think you're in control but if you let go of it the idea of control you might get in more trouble
they might get you way the world the environment my punish you
for practicing dropping off body and mind

so one in the famous stories in the zen tradition is about
a monk who was saying goodbye to his teacher
and he said
the by teacher
i did you said where are you going and the monk said i'm going on pilgrimage and the teacher said
what's a point of going on pilgrimage
and the monk said
something like i don't know and the teacher said not knowing his most intimate or nearest

but i watched like today to suggest that not knowing is nearer than knowing but it's just near
it's not really the middle way
it's just not knowing is nearer than knowing
the middle way is not knowing and is not not knowing but not knowing is closer than knowing
knowing is really quite far away
knowing like i know what the middle way is
i went to green launch and finally now i'd got what the middle way as a non and a practice it
that's still holding on that still inclining towards
the view of existence that bears the middle way
the middle way is not grasping views of
existence and non-existence and finally i see what the middle way is
other words you have a view of the existence of the middle way and you grasp the middle way which is not to grasp the view of the existence of the middle way
can you grasp that because it's middle way is super great it's like the best way it's like freedom from perplexity doubt and anxiety gets like piece gets like it's nirvana it is
and there it is and now you got it
that's called knowing the middle way
well that's pretty far that's pretty far
how about like okay i don't know it the middle way as has quite a bit closer
and now i do i not know it or not not not i do i not know what
but i'm gonna go now walk the middle way my teacher my mom
my friends were going i'm going to walk the middle way what's that i don't know
i'm gonna walk away i don't know
that's nearest
but it's not the middle way
because the middleware is not know it isn't not knowing
did you can't make it into that okay i don't know i got it
i'm completely like i don't know anything anymore
guts the nearest but that's not yet

some will say well okay well it knowing the middle way isn't it
and not knowing even though as closer isn't it roms can go back to knowing because not knowing is really uncomfortable
and knowing is uncomfortable to but it's knowing and a familiar way so i'd rather have familiar discomfort than unfamiliar discomfort
so i guess although i'm not in control of what's being said here you're not in control of what's being said here you're not in control of what's heard here i'm not in control of what's heard here still for some reason this talk is happening to encourage people
will humans
the practice away
not grasping extremes of existence and non-existence
in order to
be an advocate
and protector of all life and even of inanimate worlds

so i asked myself
are you are you willing to walk this path which is beyond knowing and not knowing
which is free of knowing and not knowing the middle way or you are you willing to

are you willing to walk away which is peace and harmony among all beings
freedom from anxiety

i asked myself that and i say yes
i am willing
to walk a path that i can't do
and that nobody else can do for me to me
on me give me at me
but is the way that were already walking together
it's the way we're already
in peace and harmony
and to realize the way we're already in peace and harmony we simply need to
realize
the letting go of attachment to all views

are looking at your faces
i feel you look like you just about like over more views
and you're contemplating going back to them
but haven't yet haven't yet can't quite gone back
so i i
i feel like kind of we're all kind of in the right place right now
like almost nobody is on like everybody's upright now that nobody's inclined towards the views of existence and non-existence
the buddhist said generally
in the world there isn't an inclination towards views of existence and non-existence
but it's not always the case now they're words sometimes people can be in the world
where there's views of existence and non-existence and be upright
not lean towards them not be inclined towards them not grasp them he can sometimes happen
and maybe that's happening right now here in this room this is called the middle way
this is called healing the world
this is called being a person
who's let go of the idea of a person
and let go of the idea of not a person was let go of all views

some i see that person in each of you know
i hope you can accept
being such a person
who is healing the world and who is the healed world
and if you should happen to slip
and fall back into being a person
who wants to hold onto being a person
and goes go back to grasping views of economics existence and non-existence and fall off the middle way and be a scared little person again
just admit that you did it say i did it i've i think i did it
i think i'm back up trying to get in control again i admit it and then just get back on the middle way again start over another step down the path which is
free of knowing
closer to not knowing and beyond not knowing
beyond knowing beyond not knowing
beyond perplexity
beyond existence beyond non-existence
without leaning away from either one of them are towards either own of them his peace
is freedom from what in chains us
and what changes is not the views of existence and non-existence
but leaning towards or away from them it's our imbalance
in the world of experience that in chains us not the world of experience
the world of experience is
the opportunity to realize
the middle way

you know you may notice a smile
coming and going across this face
at this tentative location called here by me tentatively spoken of such
the reason i'm smiling as because it out
it just seems so kind of like wonderful that you know sunday morning here in america
this words about the middle way are happening in the world that this that the discussion of the middle way however it's happening
on the mark off the mark totally upside down twisted confused misrepresented but still the message of the middle way is been
it's appearing and disappearing in this wonderful world i just think it's really amazing
this middleweight thing is still being discussed after two thousand five hundred years
men away middleweight middle way

me