Then we'll begin. Let's start. I'd like to say a little bit about study. What it is to, what we're going to do together. The idea in my mind, and of course that subject to change depends upon the ideas in your mind, is to present an understanding of this material that that understanding reveals makes evident the request of practice and hopefully intrigues you enough that you actually practice with it and that the process of practicing with it something more than just the idea is a real thing.

[01:04]

And I would say that's the process of study in Zen, and I would say in many other spiritual traditions. It's not so much just continually a bunch more ideas in your head, but that something about how you apprehend the notions of reality is influenced maybe even reframed by the material presented. And you're inspired to try on that new description of reality and see what's created, what's actualized by doing that. So does that make any sense at all? Some people know that it's good. There's different ways you can get a sense of material.

[02:11]

One way is you kind of read it and you think, OK, what's this thing? It's saying this. It's got these three key ideas in it. And then another way is, and then you take those three key ideas and you let them inform and maybe more profoundly reshape your notion of reality. And then another way is that maybe there's what's sometimes called a turning phrase or a turning word. And often it's activated through considering it deeply, like you could say. Kastanahashi's translation is continuous practice. What is continuous practice?

[03:17]

What is discontinuous practice? What is it to think that this is practice and that's not practice? What is it in the midst of all the thoughts and feelings and coming and going of attention and awareness and concentration What is continuous practice? It's to take a single phrase and let it touch everything in your life. If someone cuts you off in the traffic and you wind down your window and you scream and yell at them, how is that continuous practice? You start watching yourself and you notice in the course of 20 minutes you've thought about six different things and sometimes you've been present here physically and other times you've been somewhere else from the past to the future.

[04:18]

All this stuff's going on. How is that continuous practice? How would it be to relate to it in a way that would be continuous practice? So the phrase itself touches every part of your life. So the first way, the understanding reframes, redefines the nature of reality. Oh, so everything changes. OK, well then, I'll see how that is. I'll see what it is to live in a world where I think of everything changing. So when I leave here and walk out the door, it will not be the world that existed when I walk in here. When I meet the people that I think I know very well, they will not be the people that I think they were because of who they were the last time I met them.

[05:23]

When I wake up tomorrow morning, I will not be the person who ran to bed. So you take an idea and you let it rework your world. as we're going to do is there'll be a set of ideas. Or you take just one. And the way I drew those, I kind of made impermanence another turning word. But you see what I mean? One way you can reframe your concept of reality and explore the implications. Or you just take the phrase and let everything refer to it, come back to it. How do you do that? So, Kaz Tanahashi translated.

[06:24]

Well, we'll look at both translations. What was that? Oh, Kaz is the... It's called continuous practice. And the one I have in front of me is called fascicle one, but maybe the other one. Yeah, same thing. And then the other one that just has on the top of it Gyoji, that's Nishijima cross. Well, yeah, Nishijima, those are the two translators. Nidovim puts in four words as elements of practice. This is aspiration, practice, enlightenment, nirvana.

[07:27]

That's Kaza's translation. And then Nishijima's translation is establishment of mind, training, bodhi, and nirvana. Establish of mind, aspiration, intention, vow, or as Dogen often used the phrase, arising way-seeking mind. Arising the notion, okay, I'm going to practice with this. Okay, this is going to be an experience, an opportunity for awareness. Just that. How does that come into being? been doing it. So you arouse it and then what Kaz calls it practice. Or here it's called training.

[08:29]

You can sort of sense it really saying the same thing. You create the motivation and then you do it. And then you awaken. Or more particularly awaken this happens and the sense of separate selves disappears. And in the process of that happening, nirvana. So the whole thing is really pretty simple. And since we're going to be doing this all the time for the next eight or nine weeks, I mean, we're just going to be in nirvana. The important thing is let everybody join in. That makes it a whole lot more fun. Or to where I was bringing that up. That process is what it is.

[09:36]

The practice. That process is what it is. Take this and become it. It's to engage that process. So what we'll do tonight is we'll start off and we'll read the title and then we'll read the first paragraph. And then we'll look at the phraseology. What does he mean when he says that? What does he mean when he says it's unsurpassed? So that's a little bit. If you go down to the footnotes in extra small print, the bottom of Gyōji comes from two characters. And the first one means conduct, or Viki calls it conduct or practice. And then he says it's related to

[10:43]

And another term which has , which means pure conduct. And means keeping. Related to another term, means keeping the precepts. So he translated as pure conduct and observance of the precepts. And just translates it, translates it as continuous practice. and the observance is the continuity of the precepts. And then I translate it as disciplined behavior. And I thought of discipline as continuity, of keeping on track, of staying with it, and behavior that enables awakening and expresses awakening.

[12:08]

And I like the word discipline because it relates to disciples. that a disciple engages a teacher. And that's in there too. So in the early texts in Buddhism, the notion of sila, which this term relates to, or this term of precepts or preceptual behavior, The notion of sila evolved. Initially, Shati Muni woke up and then practiced being awake. And then others came along and practiced the practice of being awake. But then they formed a group. And as a group, they decided they would have codes of conduct for their group.

[13:11]

And interestingly enough, a lot of those codes arose when someone would do something that just didn't seem right. And then they'd say, OK, well, let's not do that. But in the broader sense, Sihap could be, I think, could be translated as conduct that enables awakening. And then in the Zen tradition and a couple of other traditions, that gets all sorts of wonderful interpretations that's turned on its head. It seems like these famous Zen stories of contradicting behavior. Sometimes it's set in opposition to conformity to norms. The famous story about the Zen teacher who, you know, someone comes across in

[14:12]

he has chopped up a wooden Buddha statue and he's lit a fire. And the person is outraged and he says, well, was that a live Buddha or just a piece of wood? And the person says, well, it was just a piece of wood. And he says, well, okay, then there's no problem, right? Just chopped it up and made a fire. Somehow that awakening is not conformity. So in those Zen-y stories, that point is often brought out. But there's a more earthy sense of ,, which is more of like, how do you behave in a way that cultivates, that creates a foundation for being awake, for practicing.

[15:23]

And when I was talking about this on Saturday, I talked about in terms of a shift of mind and a shift of heart. And I was using the word discipline this way as being a disciple. that a disciple is a disciple of a teacher, a teaching. And in a very tangible way, each one of us is here this evening because we are a disciple. And in following the teaching that we're a disciple of, we concluded that this was the appropriate thing to do this evening. Of all the things we could have done, we did this. Somewhere in the process of our life, we took in the teachings that led us to this conclusion.

[16:28]

We have been taught. We have had teachers. And now we're a disciple of that teaching and those teachers. This is a significant point when we look at the foundation of practice, creating the foundation. In early Buddhism, there was more of a sequential notion. First of all, you created the foundation through sima. You created through good conduct, through virtuous conduct, you created the mental stability, the mental clarity, to take on citta bhavena, cultivation of consciousness, to cultivate consciousness in a way that you could be present and awake without getting agitated and grasping and confused and sort of perverted.

[17:43]

And to be cultivated through your sila, the capacity to undergo that training. And if you think about it in the West, I would say something like this, that we tend to jump into the meditation and then discover that we need some sila to go along with it. The early foundation is sila, somebody, private insight. So conduct, mental cultivation, concentration, awakeness. And then that gives rise to a realization and insight into the nature of existence. So something in this realm of aspiration, inspiration, motivation,

[18:46]

intention, vow. Cultivating that capacity. And right along with it, two what I would call heart ingredients. And one is that we trust that we're capable of this. to put it in kind of a simple language to trust that we're already a good person that we have we have the innate capacity to take up this practice to follow the truth the courage the discipline the patience to do it and then the other is to

[19:47]

cultivate the fortitude of heart. If you think about psychological development, we develop our coping strategies, our defenses against the vicissitudes of our life. And then practice comes along and says, OK, put all that done. Let all that come down. and just stand there, make it in the moment, just as it is. So how do we do that? How do we prepare to do that? What is it to be that open and direct about existence? It's just kind of for each other. And I would say that these two qualities This trust and this fortitude are the cultivation of the heart.

[20:51]

And so one aspect of Sila is that. In early Buddhism, it talks about, when it says virtuous conduct, there's certain things it's saying. Refrain from harmful actions. Refrain from hurting others. Refrain from hurting yourself. And then the other one is Do good things. Be kind. Be generous. Help everybody. Treat them well. So that these two together create this heart grind that is engaged in a process that is cultivated through sila. And then through the furtherance of sila, as sila starts to take on what we usually think of as discipline. That the fortitude, the resilience, the trust is there to do that.

[22:00]

But there's an important ingredient right here for us to recognize that patience and kindness and in some ways towards ourselves. Directing these qualities towards ourselves are a very significant part of this cultivation. Because most of us come to practice because something feels out of place. We're hurting. Something doesn't feel right. And if our practice is motivated by our agitation, then you have agitating practice. It's very hard to become happy and serene when you're motivated by agitation and hostility.

[23:06]

You'll find yourself sitting in Zen, judging everybody else, and then judging yourself. wondering why the practice doesn't really work. So this shift of heart and this aspect of Siva, it prepares the grind. And then the other significant shift is the shift of mind. And the shift of mind is from something arises grasping it and letting it take you here and there into the past and the future and rather that attention stays here and everything comes and goes from here so that's that's the other operating shift in our consciousness

[24:14]

said all that, I just wanted to give you a feeling for continuous practice, or this sense of sila. And then as sila developed, it became closely linked with precepts. And then how the precepts were thought about from early Buddhism to Japan, the United States, has taken its own course. And we'll probably get into that already today. Can you spell that word for me, please? Sometimes S-H-I-L-A. In the Sanskrit, Pali, S-I-L-A. Thank you. On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice. And then the other translation, in the great truth of the Buddhist patriarchs, there is always pure conduct and observance of precepts, above which there is nothing.

[25:45]

Anyone like the opera? An understanding of that phrase, that sentence? It doesn't get any better than following the precepts. And what about the great road of the Buddha ancestors? Following the precepts. I didn't understand. What do you mean? What does that phrase refer to? What is the great road of the Buddha ancestors? I read like a book, Cultivating the Empty Field. There's all these beautiful sentences about mountain streams and ushering a field of all-pervading light and things like that. about is how we treat ourselves and treat other people.

[26:56]

If we treat ourselves and others well. So how did you get from altering light to treating ourselves and others well? I've had that I might describe poetically like that. And those experiences, I'm down to working with people, trying to cultivate close relationships with people. Thank you. Anyone else have a comment? Yes. I'm just putting ancestors What would you say?

[28:03]

I haven't decided, for example. You haven't what? The unsurpassable practice can be an inescapable being. Undecidable. Sorry, what was that word, undecipherable? Undecidable. Is this somehow exemplary, or rather inescapably involving? Could you say more about inescapably involving? So what is a wooden ancestor? Is a wooden ancestor a technical term, or? or is the Buddhist ancestor a being in the cycle of life that came before?

[29:20]

That's what I don't know. OK. Thank you. Anyone else have a comment? And what are Buddha's ancestors? One who's practiced. One who's practiced? OK. Say something. I think of the body, like warm hand to warm hand transmission. this unbroken sense of continuity across time. And that the behavior is an expression rather than a following.

[30:33]

It is an expression of that nature as opposed to people deciding to follow something. So it's like the people themselves are the good, and their expression creates the continuity, or it manifests the continuity that's there. What about the unsurpassed part? Unsurpassed? always points to that quality that's just there and unsurpassable practice.

[31:36]

I mean, it suggests that there's something that happens. I don't know if it's hard to articulate. But I think of it as the way the precepts express something that sets out. I'm just going to forget the word unsurpassable for a minute, just because I feel like it's stalling me. But what I feel it brings up is the way people talk about an ideal state and something that do from moment to moment. And there's that sort of relationship. The word unsurpassable brings that up for me, that there's this quality. And we live into it and through it.

[32:49]

I don't know. It's kind of like surpassing and not surpassing at the same time. Can you see how I've taken up the phrase to get your thinking going, but not so much to have more fixed ideas. But there's something about the process of sorting something out other than just have a fixed idea about what the answer is with more almost more like to have an appreciation for the proposition. And then sometimes the appreciation for the proposition might almost be something that you can't easily put into words. Sometimes it's more like a feeling, like you have a feeling for the practice. It's not that easy to just rhyme out, oh, well, it means exactly this.

[33:50]

is possible Again, I would say to you that sort of hold the idea in your mind and let it register or let it resonate, let it be considered deeply. A very interesting thing about our faculty of thought and consciousness

[34:57]

that we can sort of grasp an idea and think, OK, I know it. Or we can open up hyper-relating to something. And I would say that's part of the heritage of Zen study. And there's also a Latin term, lecto divina, those sorts of things. which is very similar in my mind. You consider the scripture in that way. Okay, anyone else have a comment? Yes. I don't know how to get in there, but it seems, I guess it's the word, unsurpassable.

[36:23]

It seems like and ultimate. And how do I start practicing good being and perfect? I guess I just also kind of, Thinking about what you said about the practice of agitation, then you have agitated practice. So how do you practice with agitation? How do you practice your imperfect self? It seems like this is already primitive and I feel like, why bother? Things like the wall. That's a good question. Exactly. Because it seems like agitation is an energy. We all came here because we're dissatisfied. We were completely satisfied with that motivation to search, to look. And yet, part of, I would say this, part of our dissatisfaction is not just the fact that we're suffering, it is also

[37:29]

as I said earlier, that has been taught, that has seen the truth, and that has left the truest register to the degree that we've acted on it. So this is our human condition. There is our agitation, our hostility, our loneliness, our unrelenting yearning that's just feeding our karmic life. And then there's this other part that has experienced the truth, experienced the teachings, the teacher, and has taken them into heart. And in the midst of the disease caused by karmic afflictions is this other quality that has not been

[38:30]

overcome. There's a wonderful phrase where Dogen likes to quote where he says, and this innate quality is not diminished by karmic affliction. If you think about it, it's an amazing notion because we all know how easy it is to have it obscured and to just be totally motivated by our afflictions. We've all done it. But still, when something's allowed to, when those karmic afflictions are allowed to not be so noisy, something else starts to shine through. And this is the heritage This is the road.

[39:31]

This is the discipline of everybody who has awakened, even if they've only awakened for a moment. Everybody from Shakyamuni Buddha who lived 40 or 50 years in an awakened state to someone who just had a few glimpses every now and then. I was thinking of the poem, the sky has, the great road has a gate. It begins in your own mind. The sky has been marked for it, and yet somehow it finds its way to . And when I read this for a sentence, You can think about this very little, and you can think, well, there are all these, read all the Buddhist canon and Buddhist sutras.

[40:49]

There are all these amazing Buddha ancestors that would chant their names. And then there's all the Tibetan ancestors, all the Surabhadin ancestors, all these amazing teachers. then we can think about our own situation. I would say the intriguing thing about our own situation is often there are many ways in which we hold and adhere to a deep truth. And we don't quite know who taught it to us, who were our teachers, who were our ancestors. And in some ways, we don't quite know what the truth we hold to is. This is an intriguing part of our exploration. What is that truth that I hold so dear? How did it come about?

[41:50]

Who were the ancestors that so wonderfully gave it? And what is it to receive it? What is it to receive it completely? And so often, when we have an initiation or an ordination, it's about receiving more fully what you've already received. So this is the road of the answer. And what is it to be available to learn? What is it to be able our hearts moved from the contraction of discomfort, disease, and pain to the openness, the expansion of a sense of ease, a sense of joy, a sense of gratitude.

[43:00]

Can you say that one? Our hearts to be moved from a sense of contraction around our affliction to a sense of opening and blossoming around gratitude, joy, appreciation. Can you use the word ease? Because that resonated for me. You didn't want to drop that. And that's another important point. Learning the intimate language of your own being You know, one person might think ease, and they feel like a deep resonance. And then for another person, it's like, hmm. OK. But to know what that is. And so part of our practice is to explore the teachings we already know and know them before.

[44:07]

realize that we are on the path already. It's not like we came here and we're going to start the path. The path has brought us to here now. And the knowing of the path and the knowing of the Buddha ancestors has brought us here. And then this path is not upholding this and putting down that. It is not creating a higher or a lower. This path is just offering a continual way of awakening to what's happening in the moment and not grasping it and struggling with it. So it's not unsurpassable in competition to something else. It's not like it's surpassing some lesser path. It's just that it's not trying to conquer anything or compete with anything or prove something right against something else being wrong.

[45:28]

It's just trying to reveal the intrinsic nature of all being. everything to be fully and vibrantly what it is. In that sense, it's not possible. Yes? Would the word boundless? Boundless? Boundless. That's quiet. Boundless practice. There is always boundless. There is always boundless practice. What do you think? You like it better? Is it good? Dharma gates are boundless. Dharma gates are boundless, all right. Ceaseless practice that continues endlessly. So bindless, endless, unsurpassable, ceaseless.

[46:34]

It's like that quality of sitting. Your mind and your emotions are just constantly doing what they're doing. And there's this boundless willingness to just see them for what they want. Okay, that's what's happening. It's not good, it's not bad. There's nothing to compete against, overcome, just to awaken. Any other comments before we move on to the second sentence? I wondered if the great road was like the way or the path. That was what it was translated from.

[47:37]

The great road? This translates as the great truth. This one says the great road. So I was thinking way or Tao. Yeah. Francis Cook calls it the great way. And this one calls it a great way, too. Because that made me think like laying a path down and walking. So our way is our doing. It's like the mind and body are not separate. We're continuously manifesting that. And that kind of inescapable being is unsurpassable. I mean, there's something other than it. And yet we have to make the effort to be it. Although we do a lot of sitting, we're not just sitting on our hands. Thank you for that.

[48:39]

Any other comments? Yes. I was thinking about the Great Road. I found myself kind of mystified. what was the great road in the Buddha's ancestors. And I don't know if this is a sneaky way of making myself feel better, but I thought, well, maybe those Buddha's ancestors weren't always the great road. Maybe they were on a common road sometimes, too, like I feel. And so it made me feel like there was an aspiration. Like when you were on the right way with the great way or the pride way, there was the possibility of what was sustained as the unsurpassable practice. But you're not always there when you're trying to get that. Yeah. The Dharma would say something like this. So from a karmic perspective, we can feel that. And we may think that, and we may assess it that way. But when we wake up and see, well, this is just a karmic perspective, then it's just a relative.

[49:45]

rather than an absolute truth. OK, right now this feels crummy. This feels limited, a limited road. This doesn't feel like a bondless road. That's just how it feels. I think Suzuki Roshi said something like, things as they is. And our tendency, probably most of us, is to make something else or interpret, overlay, judge. And earlier, when you were talking about letting that fall away, then things are as they is.

[50:50]

And that's unsurpassable. In other words, our tendency is to try to do more, but it's already, like we say in the Hebrew tradition, it's already enough. Is that what that word means? Yeah. Yeah. Or in the Buddhist way of thinking. It's already completely itself, or it's already complete. I mean, the idea, it's a crummy wave. From a karmic sense, that's placing a limitation on it. But when we just say, when we just allow that to be completely itself, there's no limitation. It's just, OK, that's the experience of the moment. It's just complete in itself. It's unsurpassable.

[51:53]

One thing I've been thinking is that when reading Dogen, it's probably always the idea to use multiple translations, because there's no way I would have come to the conclusion that unsurpassable practice might mean pure conduct and observation, such as observance of precepts. might have crossed my mind if I really thought about it a long time, but there's no way I would say that's probably what that means. Yeah. You know, so one is a very poetic way of saying something, and the other one seems to be much more specific, but without reading both of them, I think that would... I might be going off on all the tangents, but if I only read the causes... Yes. Yeah, the great thing is, But we realize they're all pointing at something beyond the words they're using. And sometimes the shift in emphasis that comes out of a different meaning helps us have an appreciation of what's beyond any particular articulation.

[53:10]

Yeah, exactly. Can you hear the next sentence? That's bad, only took 30 minutes. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Can you make a different statement? It continues in an unbroken cycle. Well, let's read the two sentences together, because the ideas work together. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and narana, there's not a moment's gap. Continuous practice is the circle of the way. It continues in an unbroken cycle, so that there's not the slightest interval

[54:10]

between establishment of the mind, training, bodhi, and nirvana. Conduct and observance is a continuing cycle. So what do you make of that? That's the teaching of Durban's life. The practice and enlightenment rise together, continuously, simultaneously. But he threw in a few more. Well, he's talking about how it happens, I guess. How what happens? how it's manifest in action. And what's this unbroken circle? Simultaneity. Simultaneity? It happens at the same time. But is that a continuous circle? Yeah. It is? Tiny circle. Oh. A string theory or something?

[55:20]

They both say unbroken cycle. Yeah, somebody said samsara. Yeah, so it looks like a circle. Or a 12-fold chain. But this translation says, there's not the slightest thought between awakening the mind practice and enlightenment in nirvana. Ceaseless practice continuously revolves. What's that? Is that a dictionary? No. This one is Nishijima. This is Nakayama. Oh, this is Nishiyama. Nishijima and Nishiyama. That's Kazu Tadahashi and Nishijima Cross.

[56:22]

Well, it seems like it circles. You know, small circle, big circle. Something comes and it goes through all of that. Yeah. Four steps and then... Because you think about it earlier, the way I was talking about sila, and I was talking about cultivation and preparation. So let me tell you a story. So this person came to see me. And they were in a pretty disturbed state. And they had a particular agenda. They didn't want to be in a disturbed state. And they'd worked on themselves a lot. And they had a lot of notions about who they were and why they were in the state they were in. So I said to them, well, what do you feel in your body? And they said, well, one feeling's not very good.

[57:34]

It's not bad. helpful, the one I want to do. And I said, yeah, but what are you? And they said, well, and then they gave me another idea about something, who they were. So we played that team for about three or four times. And then they said, OK, my body's, what was the word they mean? Pulsing. My body's. your whole body? And they said, no, not exactly my whole body. Well, what part of your body? Well, somewhere around here. Is it that big? Is it the size of your, like this? Or is it the size of a quarter? And they said, about the size of a football. I said, well, where's that located? They said, well, right about here. I said, well, is it pulsing or is it a steady? in fact the whole thing is shifting now it's shifting down into my lower back is the size shifting no it's about the size of a mango so and as they went through this process the agitation

[59:18]

The disturbance was changing. Again, my heart is not racing the way it was. And my mind is not so... have to do with the sense. Samsara, I think he was suffering. Did you say he? I don't think so. Did I say he?

[60:20]

He started off by saying, well, obviously, he was in samsara. So he was suffering when he... And there is this continuous cycle. And no matter where you get on the cycle, you'll eventually get somewhere else. At least that's my experience. And get a little closer to the sentence.

[61:26]

A cycle of aspiration, practice, awakening, nirvana. Bodhi, awakening. Bodhi mind, awakening mind. Bodhi is awakening. To me, your story is about closing the gap. Because you helped this person of indeterminate sex get very close, get really close to what was to their experience. Close the gap. Because it was the gap that the suffering was pouring into. The gap that the suffering was pouring into. Yeah. So we're going to say there's no gap.

[62:27]

To me, for what it's worth, what I got out of Paul's story was that he was helping this person find the place where there was no gap by getting closer to his experience. Okay. Yes, sir. To me, it's very clearly a form form of focusing or concentration that goes out of thinking into the body. But it kind of also occupies capacities that might go into thinking with a very immediate attention to the body so that it can be fully experienced. I guess. I think that's what happens when I came closer and closer to experience. And what about aspiration, practice, awakening, and divine?

[63:30]

To me, it describes a model of practice. So how would you like see that activity the person was going through in those terms. As Vince mentioned, the person was carried away either into the future or the past into some kind of concepts about themselves. You mentioned that some of the times they came up with another concept and another concept. So it sounds like you are. The effort was to bring them right here, and to completely realize the bodily sensation in the moment closes that, and it just makes you be right here. The same, in other words, so I don't know.

[64:39]

Can I give another shot? Yeah, absolutely. Well, you have to wait. Yes, Lee, go ahead. It seems like you were helping guide him to directly experiencing what was happening in the moment, not conceptually, but in the moment. And in doing that, he actually touched on the wisdom of everything changes and that being in direct contact with what was happening in the present moment, there was a diminishment or alleviation of the suffering that he had been describing. So it was practice realization in the Oh, we'll stay on this one for a bit longer.

[65:50]

What's coming up was pretty much how I was thinking about it. If I was to think about it in terms of aspiration practice and awakening the rana, I was stimulating, guiding, aspiration practice. It wasn't a rising out of his being. Just attend, just bring very attention to what's happening on a physical level. Something I was stirring up to my question. And then something was awakening just on the realm of phenomena on the realm of just meeting the moment as is. And then meeting the moment as is had its own consequence. And all this was happening together.

[67:01]

Because each time the mind takes over again. Oh yeah, it's about this. And then coming back Meeting the moment as is, you know, the aspiration to practice are brought back again. And then the awakening and the release. So it was like a cycle. What was coming up for the person was, oh, it's, yeah, and then you have a conclusion or a comment. said whatever he said. But if you think about it, isn't this what we're all doing all the time in our own zazen?

[68:10]

All your stuff's cooking away, and then it's like, come back and be fully present with the experience at the moment. And in a way, it's like the necessity of giving up the very agenda that brought you to do it. This person came in, they had an agenda. This is what's happening. I don't like it. I want this stuff. And it was almost like, forget your agenda. give over to what's happening. It's not that far from the very reason you came. So this sense of what I was calling earlier a shift. A shift of heart and a shift of mind.

[69:13]

You're practicing because you have an agenda. You have something that you want to have happen and something you don't want to have happening. And that's what it's all about. Well, then that just all happens within the context of your karma. There's some way that need to trust, to rely upon, to listen to, to be moved by something more than that. And that when that place, when that's activated, the aspiration, the engagement, the direct contact, and the release of marriage. And when we reintroduce the world according to me, then we start all over again. So it's like, where were we again? In a way, practice is about remembering what you already know.

[70:24]

How do you practice again? What are you supposed to do here? And then you do it. You bring forth, in response to that question, you bring forth the aspiration, the engagement, the experience of connecting awaken this, and that brings forth its own consequence. And maybe, like in this, this story had become sort of a happy ending. There was the initial version. And then guess what? The consequence wasn't so far from it. But of course, when you give over to what's happening, It may or may not be in close accord to the agenda you brought to it.

[71:29]

And that's part of it too. And we'll get to that later. That's part of the context of practice. This being so, This is a great sentence. This is a very juicy sentence. This being so, continuous practice is not undivided, and it's not forced by you or by others. Another translation. For this reason, it is not doing that is forced from ourselves, and it is not doing that is forced from the eyesight. does not depend upon individual powerful acts, nor on the spirit of others.

[72:38]

OK, what's your Bodhi mind think of that? It's like what Robert Motherwell said about eating, that it can't be taught, but it can be learned. It can't be taught, but it can be learned. Can you say a little more? Well, there's cultivation and then there's forcing. And a teacher can help to create a context, as you did, where the person can bump up against something that maybe they were too convinced wasn't there. A teacher can help create an environment for it. person still has to open that little bit to respond to what the person speaking to you felt and to let it start to have a little more air.

[73:59]

And then they can also learn to, oh, well, what were those circumstances? It helped me feel that way. And then start to internalize that kind of quality that was created in that room. But it has to... It can't be rushed. It can't be rushed. Get closer than that. Can't be... He uses the word forced. Yeah, coerced. Coerced. Can't be made. Pushed. No one can tell you your own secret. No one can tell you? No one can tell you your own secret. No one can tell you your own secret. Like, it's just, I don't know. I mean, I like the way that it brings up this whole hot, like, it's a very, it doesn't deny.

[75:08]

interaction and collaboration, but still leave space for kind of development that people, I don't know, I feel like, but I'm just repeating myself. Okay. Yes, Garvey. I feel like he's talking about If we ask who it is that's practicing, you really look at that, and you can't say, well, I can't say anything. I can't say, I'm doing the practice because of my own effort. And neither can I say that I don't have anything to do with it either. more than we can imagine.

[76:19]

So for me, that gives me a real sense of gratitude. It's like when we sit, not only is it a matter of remembering, okay, now what are we doing here? It's also, and how do you do it? How do you be in the moment? Or as I was saying earlier, of course we come and we're moved by it. karmic agenda. But if you're just furthering the karmic agenda, well then you're just furthering the karmic agenda. And that will produce a further karmic unfolding, depending upon your karma. And on the other hand, if you give over to someone else's karmic agenda, well you should be doing this. It'll make me happy. So in a way this is talking about the nature of effort.

[77:31]

What is the engagement of practice? How does that come about? What is the kind of engagement? And so the previous sense is talking about this kind of organic, spontaneous working of these different attributes of coming into contact of the moment. And saying, OK, well, that's the proposition. And keeping that in mind, how is it engaged? You know, in one way, And what they're saying is here, you can't force yourself to be happy. And nobody else can force you to be happy either. This is where a sense of control about it as well. I mean, when I sit down, I don't really, I can't really make up the stuff that I want to think about.

[78:32]

I mean, I can't sit down and go, OK, today I want to think about this. I just sort of share it with what comes up. For me, there's this sense of I can't control it, nor can someone else control it. It just is what it is. That practice just is whatever's happening, and that there's not really an element of control. Practice is coming into intimate engagement, non-separation. Right. Who controls what comes up? How does that come about? So I have a homework assignment, and you can do it if you wish. So normally, we think of practice, and we think about freedom.

[79:36]

And so we're busy. trying to cultivate freedom, experience freedom. Now, what if you were to think this way? Think, well, what about stuckness? Where you get stuck is where you get stuck. And that's a very informal place. But your moments of joy and ease and openness, well, hey, if it isn't broken, don't fix it. That completely applies. So normally we have our moments of stuckness. And then we bring forth our karmic agendas.

[80:38]

We get frightened. We get angry. We get discouraged. We numb out. Whatever our learned responses. our coping mechanisms, our defenses. What if you were to say this ridiculous thing to yourself? Something like, hey, wait a minute. This is stuckness. This is kind of good. This is a life of learning here. What is it to experience stuckness? That's fully possible. How do you get stuck? Do you get stuck in desire? Do you get stuck in aggression? Do you get stuck in fear? Do you get stuck in busyness? Do you get stuck in inertia?

[81:43]

at yourself for having noticed and try to experience it as fully as possible. And of course, remember that the great way is unsurpassable. nature of stuckness can reveal the path of liberation just the same way and maybe more so than some other moments but just the same way any moment can and that the challenge is how how do you engage it are you going to grasp it and shape the victims out of it or are you just going to touch it

[82:53]

see it for what it is? Are you going to be like that person who came in and said, wait a minute, I have a lot to say about this. I've been thinking about it a long time. I've been feeling it. I have a lot of stories and commentaries on it. Or can it be some kind of amazing endeavor? unsurpassable involvement in human existence, in the person that you are. Can you make yourself imagine that your whole life you've been receiving these teachings and they are

[83:45]

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