It's a mind. Thinking mind, the second two daima. Grass and trees. The third, ridya, the mind of experience and concentration. Among these, bodhi mind's inevitably established by relying on thinking mind. Without the thinking mind, it's impossible to establish bodhi mind. It's not to say that thinking mind is Bodhi mind itself, but we establish Bodhi mind with this thinking mind. To establish the Bodhi mind means to vow that and to endeavor so that before I myself cross over, I will take across all living beings. Even if the form is humble, Those who establish this mind are already guiding teachers for all beings.

[01:00]

Here's what Leonard Cohen says. So I must say it. Whoever's in your life, those who harm you, those who help you, those whom you know, those whom you don't know, Let them off the hook. Help them off the hook. Recognize the hook. You're listening to radio resistance. The other shore. See? An image that came up in early Buddhism. In early Buddhism, it's kind of marvelous. There's an attempt not to set up dualities around what arises as a consequence of practice.

[02:18]

We can think of it this way. Yesterday I was reading this poem by Rilke. Gravity's law. Strong as an ocean current takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it towards the heart of the world. This life force that we're all part of that flows through each of us. constantly flowing, always changing. Each of us a living example of it. And then our karmic, our usual, our habituated, maybe you could even say our unsightful,

[03:30]

or lacking insight way is that we endeavor with desire to get what we want and with aversion to avoid what we don't want. And despite the evidence to the contrary, we persist with that strategy. And one aspect of practice which I think these three consciousnesses are trying to offer us a way to engage is to see into how is it each of us in our own way engages this challenge of

[04:32]

desire to get what we want and aversion to avoid what we don't want and to see into it in a way that lets us see nobody's at fault there is no great malevolence out there waiting to pints on us. There is confusion, there's misguided thinking, and there's acting on that misguided thinking in ourselves and in others, in ourselves about how we relate to ourselves and how we relate to others. vice versa, right back at you from others.

[05:40]

The principle is simple and how it plays out is endlessly varied and detailed and often complex. as we pick up science and psychology and try to decipher. Well, how come? In Northern Ireland a couple of years ago, there was a conference on trauma. I met the person who set it up. It was an enormous conference, and the man... if that's the right word, on trauma from across the world came. And I met the guy who set it up, and I thought, well, it must have been a very large, sophisticated organization.

[06:48]

They rented the biggest space. It's called the Waterfront Hall, because it's on the waterfront. It holds 2,000 people. It was a three-day conference. It was substantially expensive. Maybe $2,000, $1,000 for three days, something like that. I asked him what inspired him to put it on. And he said, my wife died about four years ago. And I was just so deeply and painfully affected by that. I was kind of in a state of shock. And when I was looking at myself, I started to think of it as kind of a traumatic event.

[07:49]

And then he said, then I thought, I'm going to learn who out there knows something about trauma. I'm going to try to talk to them. And then here's one quirky detail he told me. So he would go and he'd hear people like... Who wrote the Body Keeps score? Does anybody know? No. No, no. What did you say? Levine? Peter Levine? He wrote the Body Keeps score? Oh. Okay. Anyway, good. Wasn't the person I was thinking of, but it's a little secondary to the point. So here's what he said. He went to hear all these great speakers, and he would go to a conference, and he said, and I always wore a white suit.

[08:59]

And here's why I wore a white suit. Because they give their presentation, and then they say, any questions? And then they say, You in the white suit. What's your question? And he said, it worked nearly every time. And he would ask a question. And then he would say, if I put on a conference, would you come? And guess what? Most of them said yes. And so he put on a conference. 2,000 people came. Of course, they were wonderful speakers. But what a marvelous response. How often in our pain we contract.

[10:12]

We contract with fear, with sadness, sometimes even despair. Sometimes it turns negative with anger, resentment. We separate. And then what is it to cross over? reach out and connect I'm probably not the only one who suffered I'm probably not the only one who suffered loss or deep pain this guy ran a business

[11:15]

selling wholesale, building construction materials. How do you go from selling bricks and mortar to putting on an international conference? He had no answer to that one. He shrugged. You just do it. How does any one of us go from the kind of deeply ingrained and embedded responses to our trauma, our losses, our pains, our thwarted desires, and our futile resistances? How do we go from numbing out

[12:20]

embittered. Having a baseline of uneasiness that preoccupies us. That when we sit as us and squeezes us. You want to know what the do in dukkha is? That contraction here. How do we cross over into interbeing? He was a spiritual person, but not, as far as I could tell, and by his own accounting, not in some way. He said he didn't think of himself

[13:24]

It's either having a spiritual practice or being part of having a religious identity. And that other shore of where we start to see this reactive desiring and aversion isn't working so well for me it doesn't bring a deep peacefulness it doesn't it doesn't blossom in my life as contentment and happiness

[14:26]

isolating from others doesn't feel like a party. It feels more like a wake. Rick Fields, who was a Buddhist teacher who died about 20 years ago, And he wrote a poem. And here's the totality of the poem. He had cancer, and then it got worse, and he died. But as when he learned that his cancer was terminal, he said, and his poem was, My heart is broken open. My heart is broken open. Dogen Zenji says this movement in our life someone who makes this kind of movement this kind of shift they're already a teacher even if their form is humble even if the way they do it is not so sophisticated

[16:09]

not so extraordinarily eloquent and profound even if their form is humble those who establish this mind are already guiding teachers for all living beings and as I mentioned before Even when we start to, you know, we hear the Dharma and we say, okay, that sounds like a plausible approach to life, a helpful one. Sign me up. Still we can be a living contradiction, you know. Okay, here's my vow, here's what I espouse to, and here's these behaviors that are still rattling around inside of me and in my interactions.

[17:24]

And maybe this way of engaging these consciousnesses helps us resolve, relate to, and learn from that contradiction. I particularly like Leonard Cohen's version. So I must say it. Whoever in your life whoever is in your life. Those who harm you, those who help you, those who you know, those who you don't know. Let them off the hook. Help them off the hook. Recognize the hook.

[18:35]

Saint teacher said to me once, Dharma is like a good joke. Everybody gets it. I think that little admonition's a little bit like that, too. Yeah. Okay. Let them off the hook. That person that did that terrible thing to you, yes, it was unfair, it was unkind, wasn't appropriate. Maybe it wasn't even legal. The Dalai Lama is being interviewed about how the Chinese are methodically trying to dismantle the Tibetan ethnicity and culture. And he was, in a very straightforward way, laying out the details as he knew them.

[19:42]

And then he said, and my good friends, my enemies, the Chinese, I'm always willing to talk to them. My good friends, the people who have harmed me, and then for us, many of our grievances, not about genocides or destructions of cultures or ethnicities. Well, maybe for us they are in that moment. So in a way, Dogen Zenji is saying, even if you just start by thinking about it,

[20:48]

initiate sound shift. Then he actually goes further, which startled me when I first read this, and says, and the thinking about it is an essential part. Since I'm not persuaded by that, being a cynical, stubborn person I am, I thought, well, citta can also be, you know, it covers a range. It can also cover just the very process of conceptualization. Like, if in your own mind you conceptualize us and them, me separate from interbeing. Maybe Dogen's saying, well, if you conceptualize me separate from them, then you can call them the object of my good intentions.

[22:22]

Let them off the hook. one short saying that works for me, and I'd encourage you, have your own versatile mobile version. I mean, I like to let them off the hook. It says a lot with a few words. My own notion is, don't give up on anybody. I mean, I would add, don't be stupid, you know. Don't think because you smile at them and say, have a good day, that they're going to transform immediately. But maybe someday they are. Maybe someday they will... In City Center, there was someone working in the kitchen.

[23:32]

And I knew he had a history of... of drugs, hard drugs. And I asked him, are you in recovery? And he said, yes. And then after, he was in the kitchen for many months. And then every now and then, it seemed like he was kind of like in a funny mood or funny state. And I thought, hmm, I guess we're all kind of funny at times in that way. And then one day he came to talk to me and he said, I've been using heroin. And he said, you're just so trusting that I couldn't not tell you the truth. And he left and he went into rehab. And we sort of stayed in touch. And he told me somewhere on the East Coast, he's starting a sitting group.

[24:35]

And now he's been clean and sober for decades. Don't give up on anybody. And then in a more yogic way, in the workings of our human existence. The other day I was likening our attraction to sukha, like our wish for the pure land. That our desires and aversions are in their own way an attempt to diminish our dukkha and emphasize our sukha. And how to, without abandoning that endeavor to become skillful, what in a deep way, what in a thorough way enhances sukha?

[25:55]

Don't we all yearn for intimacy? Don't we all yearn to love and be loved in a way that has a nurturance? In a way that offers us trust and reassurance? Don't we all want people in our lives where we can be completely ourselves without fear of retribution, scorn. And in some ways, how do we do that within ourselves? How do we integrate with radical honesty, with patience, with compassion, with insight, how do we integrate the multiplicity of our own responses to be alive?

[27:18]

And how do we see that as part of the flow of life through our life? Do you need to run a building construction company, have a white suit, have suffered a heartbreaking loss? Yes. In your own way. Some of the details might be a little different or absolutely, completely different. reach of us to meet this on this shore this world of dukkha and find within it the aspiration the alchemy that allows us to open and let the world off the hook and let

[28:43]

people off the hook and recognize the hook. I don't know why he said, this is radio resistance. I was going to drop that line and I thought, no, it's his poem. You know, sometimes my mind immediately would follow this. You know, sometimes it's called, you know, like Shakyamuni gets awakened. Don't ask me why, but he throws his bowl in the river and it goes up against the stream. Instead of going with the karmic flow of habits, you know, okay, well, if you hurt me, I'm going to hurt you. I can't get what I desire here I'll keep trying over here it's fine to work eventually to go against the stream and then that disposition offering

[30:20]

something internally and something externally. Okay. Here we are. This is the workings of human consciousness. This is the workings of the human heart. Is there a single person in the world that you would coldly and thoughtfully say, yes, I want this person to suffer intensely. I want them to be brokenhearted, destroyed. Somewhere within, although Of course, in moments of rage, in moments of bitterness, such thoughts and feelings can arise.

[31:28]

But in our moments of sadness, don't we really wish that everyone could blossom? Everyone could say, my good friends, my enemies, minor part that we're struggling to resolve something the major part is we're in it together and each of us sitting she she going through the contractions of the immensity and intensity of being alive

[32:29]

and finding within it the expansion, the way in which all sorts of things offer us insights and something in us expands with those insights. And I read within this Dogen Zenji saying, okay, so there's still contradiction. You've embraced the principle and your behaviors, mentally, physically, still offer some exceptions and contradictions to the principles.

[33:37]

But still, the intention is there. Still, each time sitting down, wholeheartedly as we can committing to presence to many committing to being what is in the now of this this has a transformative quality all of its own and just these three consciousnesses the formulating conceptualizing thinking mind this heart energy this Hridaya this flow of

[35:04]

life that we're part of and this marvelous human capacity for insight that we can become aware and see who's on the hook and what the hook is that we're all in it together. The person I was thinking of is Gabor Mate. Marvelous speaker in person if you ever get a chance to watch some of his talks.

[36:04]

And then Dogenzenji, in this fascicle, he takes that and he blends it into the iconography, the structure of our Buddhist religious heritage. I think some of us are deeply attracted to that, and some of us want to run quickly in the opposite direction. First thing, I don't think it matters which you're inclined towards.

[37:23]

I think the basic principle Maybe we could get extravagant and say falling in love with it so that it's as fundamental for you as breathing. To me that's the guiding star, the alchemy, the catalyst of the alchemy of transforming our limited self into our abundant self. I mean, who can say how we can sit intensely individual and somehow become part of the one body of Shashin?

[38:28]

There's someone who has a theory about that. Transmorphogenic field, it's called. Just in case you want to get scientific. Rupert Sheldrick. Maybe it's enough to shrug like the guy in Northern Ireland. How did I do it? I don't know. How did I know to put on a white suit? Seemed like a good idea at the time. No. But to watch carefully for your own openings Where and how does that crossing over happen for you?

[40:00]

Or for any one of us? What is it to help someone off the hook. Help them off the hook. You know that story I told about the guy at City Center? I was just gullible. If he says he's not using it, obviously he's not using it. Someone with more experience with addicts. could have told me, well, it's a little bit more complicated than that. But who knows? But to find your own spark, even if your form is humble,

[41:16]

Rilke is saying, how surely gravity's law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it towards the heart of the world. Each thing, every stone, blossom, child, is held in place. If we surrendered the world's intelligence. We could rise up like trees, rooted like trees. But instead, we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making. So, like children, we begin again to learn things. Because they're in God's heart, they have never left. This is what things can teach us to fall patiently, to trust our heaviness.

[42:39]

Even a bird has to do that before it can fly. Thank you.

[42:47]

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