After I finished giving a talk yesterday, I should do a better job of describing the dynamic that nobody was talking about in that class. I should try to. It's a better way to put it. I make my usual attempts at such things. It's a peaceful room. Keep walking. There is no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move within. But don't move the way fear makes you move.

[01:09]

You can say, don't move the way Fear makes you move. Agitation makes you move. Aggression makes you move. Don't know the way fear makes you move. Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and afraid. Don't open the door to busyness. begin studying. Take down a musical instrument. Of course, he was referring to night-dreaming practice. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss there. cosmology of pure land.

[02:18]

The delight of the pure land is that all your afflictions are gone. All your afflictions and your hindrances, all the things that distract you from practice, agitate you, distress you, and the resolve to follow the way. in case you haven't noticed that's not quite what's going on but each of us has our moments you know but in a way what dovid's talking about in this fascicle he's saying of us have our moments and there's something about how we relate to them that opens up the path there's a cynical voice in me and I read something like this where it goes

[03:46]

Yeah, right. Yeah, just do what you love. Let the beauty of love be what we do. Of course, it's completely correct, right? Do you want to be booed by that generous, appreciative spirit that's within you? Or they want to be moved by the kind of suspicious, fearful aggression. There's a Native American question, and it's a two-headed beast. One hand is fierce, aggressive, and nasty. And then the other hand is kind, loving and generous, which one will dominate?

[04:48]

And the answer is the one you feed the most. So from that perspective, how can we argue with the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss them. to it on this classical actually for many years reading it rereading it comparing translations you have to become quite fascinated by the translation of the word dritta and actually translates it as instead of trying to remember

[05:53]

I will quote this passable direct. Essential Assembling Consciousness. So there you go, that says it all right. Essential Assembling Consciousness. Nishijima, the Roshi translates it as experienced and concentrated mind. A few years ago, I was in Southern India with Chenda, who will be here in a couple of weeks. And she mentioned to me that the person we wanted to visit, you know, the doctor was involved in a long project with the Sanskrit scholar. In my years, the Sanskrit scholar, I could ask him

[06:57]

And so when we got to the destination that they were, I negotiated a time to visit the Sanskrit scholar. And indeed, it turned out to happen. I went into the room and there was the Sanskrit scholar and there was the Ayurvedic doctor. And they had computers and books and papers. They were working on it. The Ayurvedic doctor had written a book on the Ayurvedic treatment of elephants. And I thought, as I said to the Ayurvedic doctor, I said, and this is a metaphor for practice, right? He said, no. So this is about Ayurvedic treatment of elephants. So not only had he written work on the Ayurvedic treatment for elephants, but they decided, the two of them, that they would pick it either, I guess it was him not young, the language, and translate it into Sanskrit.

[08:27]

But when writing Sanskrit to write quartets, and there's a lot of other linguistic formalities that you have to comply with. And so, this was one of these forever projects that they worked on diligently. It actually reminded me of Hastan Ashi. Hastan Ashi spent 30 years translating the ship against me. Now he has finally done, he would have started. I would have started. I did think he'd be glad to get rid of it and send it off to the publisher. No, he decided to go through it. in very fine detail and make all the little corrections that he saw neatly.

[09:34]

And so we spent another year or two to do that. So they were working on this idea for all of it. But they didn't follow us. I asked, I must admit, I asked him a stupid question. Do you know, I mean, asking a Sanskrit scholar, do you know a Sanskrit word? So, do you know Vrita? And he said, oh yeah, of course. And I said, what does it mean? And he said, it's kind of impossible to say. Because the context is everything.

[10:45]

Like a little bit like asking about life. What is life? What does it mean? How do you do? It's kind of impossible to say the context is everything. If you want, call it assets. If you want, call it experienced. And we are it. This is consciousness. being utterly self-absorbed and afflicted and then at other times utterly magnanimous and wide and deeply accepted of what is

[11:58]

With Christmas holidays, I got up to visit my grandkids out in Portland and my ex-wife, the ladies, and I was staying. And so we hung out together in a casual, friendly, appreciative way. So many times when we were trying to make our marriage work, such simplicity was utterly unusual. And now, nothing to it. Just sitting here, anxious, chatting about nothing. This funny

[13:14]

human existence. Sometimes we work so diligently at making it work right, with great sincerity and dedication and persistence. getting the irony of it all, that we're getting in our own life. And then sometimes, thank goodness, the way it just falls off. Or you meet two people working on the eye-bladed treatment of the elephants. And they say,

[14:15]

Why not? Elephants deserve treatment as much as anyone else, right? And then if we are going to be foolish enough to attempt something purposeful, I don't think the energy He is linking that purposefulness with the citta. That discerning, discriminating, thinking, formulating aspect of our consciousness. Well, in India, I'm going to ask a Sanskrit scholar about that. good idea when I had it.

[15:22]

He's a good guy. He's pretty chill. That's the book. As is Kazutana Hatshi and Peter Love. Maybe it's a note. Just work on this 30-year project. Maybe it'll take a little longer, but it's okay. Once a couple more years, I have to put 30 years in. But I read He's diluted. That's what I think. He's trying to cut us.

[16:23]

Keep walking. Though there's no place to go. Keep walking. Don't try to see it through. And then this happened. And then everything will be right. I'll see this guy. He'll tell me exactly what it is. That fascicle. All open in utter clarity. And I'll know something about something. Or I'll know something about nothing. What do you say after? Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move within. And don't move away. And we spent a lifetime doing some version of it.

[17:35]

Moving the way fear makes us move. Sadness makes us move. Resentment. Desire. You look back to patience. When I read this facet of Navajjogin, the way it makes sense to me, and maybe that's a question that makes sense, is that our very humaneness and how it's engaged. related to a stitch I would say the patience is the ingredient this is me the way of engaging it helps it to turn from another distraction another friction

[18:55]

Another thing that prompts our urgency, our drive to infections, the patience helps to turn it. When I was on that visit to India, you should know said, well, why don't, would you like to come and see some Sanskrit theater? I had no idea. I'd never heard of the word Sanskrit fear, or the two words, before then. But I thought, sure. So I went to a place where they were doing Sanskrit theater. It's a little bit like no drop in that. It lasts forever.

[20:01]

You know, when you go to Nodurama, you get to that. You take a walk, so I'm too... That's how long it lasts. It's an old day, but... And then you break it, and then you have lunch. Well, Sanskrit fear, it was like that, except there was no lunch. That went on for a week. And it was kind of like, during the day, they'd tell you what was going to happen, and he, and then what happened? It was from the Vakmiyana. But each, each hand movement was a movement. Each facial expression was a communication.

[21:03]

And they had little subtitles. I forgot Raya's wife. And it brings us things like this. Siddha. Siddha. The subtitle would say Rama meets Siddha. And then that would take 45 minutes to an hour. It would, in an abundance of ludra's eye expression, some racial terms. In old life, the only use of accompaniment is the drug. first 20 minutes it's riveting and fascinating and for the first hour and a half it's still stimulating and true and but the third hour you start to wonder

[22:30]

And then it ended at three and a half hours. The first night. And I thought, wow. Well, that was good. It went down a little while. And then each night it got progressively longer. And then, some of the lives. This is about surrender. This goes on for that. Yep. Just redeem it. Just soak up this injury, this amazing thing called Sanskrit theory, just so got this amazing thing called he, [...] the person you are.

[23:55]

With all its intrigues, the costumes were amazing. The youngest player, and actually he was playing And after about a four-and-a-half-hour session, after it all finished, we would all go in absolute need. And he had, in that evening, he had one solo piece that lasted almost two hours. But he was making the motorists, the facial gestures, various dance movements, all by himself, two hours. And then afterwards, I said to him, Are you tired? And he looked at me like, why would I be tired? Why'd you ask that? Never occurred that he'd be tired.

[25:01]

So we can cast the request of practice one way. enlighteningly demanding a difference and we can make kind of a shift shift in attitude shift in expectation shift in It just, you look it, you be it, you absorb it in it. In a moment, in a day, in a sheet,

[26:01]

a guaranteed strategy. It opens that part of us that says, okay. Between citta and vritta, vritta, And again, it has a nishijima. Different translations. Nishijima, he offers this. The second consciousness, dradaya, is called the mind consciousness.

[27:25]

of grass and trees. Another, let's discuss, which is translated as grass and trees consciousness. This one I did manage to verify This phrase, grass and trees, was coined, as appears in many of Dodo's hospitals, grass, trees, tiles, and pebbles. It was coined by a Japanese, a Chinese, to describe the energy of life, of being alive. Two days ago, at the end of dinner, I was walking over the bridge, and I noticed that plummetery, to my perception, had suddenly burst into full bloom.

[28:50]

And I thought of that wonderful phrase that was in that, the Paripadha Sutta. untimely blossoms and the solid streams burst forth with untimely blossoms and the plum tree burst forth with untimely blossoms because being particularly warmed the sun has risen higher That part of our east-west valley gets a lot of sun dripping down. It leaves the luxury rate in the warmth of our afternoon working.

[29:57]

and the red-headed woodpecker gets busy as he is right now packing on the trees and the flowers are blooming and the bugs on the trees are swelling and we're splitting green and each of us another organism of this life force is going through this process of being alive

[31:05]

going to get up inside of Chitta. Figuring out the things that delight us, the things that hurt us, the things that we resent, worry about. And as something in us turns, as something in us is seen for what it is and allowed to be held in patience, the willingness to turn towards, the willingness to be with,

[32:16]

willingness to give space and experience inviting both an acceptance of the karmic patterns of our own humanness And in inviting it to be, you know, yesterday I offered this image, the beautiful painting, the vodka, stimulating, a masterpiece created by an extraordinary human being. Being out of dependency, seemingly devoted this life to learning but as much as he could.

[33:18]

In his life, when he would become a tree by some aspect of mathematics, if he would search out someone who had mastered that, and he'd go study. Just by looking at a street, He deduced the laws of hydrodynamics, fluid mechanics. He deduced them 300 years before they became part of the knowledge of physics, despite of deserving. And it wasn't too bad it paid even. that each of us in our artistry, in our lightener of genius, creates a world.

[34:36]

It has a tendency to live inside of us. fool ourselves, that lacks the whole story. And maybe when we contrast it to the teaching of the five skandhas, it does seem like a more interesting story. It intrigues our own life. even the intrigues of our yearnings but to see it as in scheme Leonardo debates his magnificence represented on canvas to see ah well will you look carefully this is 450 year old

[35:49]

Oily things, they're drying and weaving little crackling fissures on the surface. And yes, what we create, singularly and collectively, is something to behold. that we are instinctively fragile, we are blood force. Every breath, every heartbeat, the blood coursing in our veins, the stomach digesting what we eat, the brain, It's amazing.

[36:54]

You would like to go across this. We are white folks. We're one that were easily captivated. And yet, it's just dangerous. There are hundreds of [...]

[37:58]

Creating what it does stirs us in a way. It stirs us and it nourishes vritta. It's a way of learning from experience. Communication between the two. It's Zazen. Experiencing the experience that's been experienced. Drawing it into words. And as these two dance together, held in this awareness.

[39:13]

Rather than a delusion of this is the full story. realization this is a wonderful version this is shakin when he called it up the flower this is not a passion of smiling this this illustration of existence except with eyes where it is and it's not a singularity it's an all-inclusive The separate self is just another of the concepts. In its own way, it's a useful tool. If it describes certain aspects of existence, each of us does have a subjective

[40:33]

experience moment by moment. That subjectivity, when seen for what it is, allows a realization into the uniqueness of what's called me, into a uniqueness of the human condition. the well of sheer existence that we share with all the other as Vrita And then on the roll of his sweep, that one said, she pulls out.

[41:39]

Just in case you thought this was finally making sense, let's throw in a little mystical, mysterious communication. doesn't seem to get tired of saying it as fascicants. And what the thinking mind can cognize is not it. It's not realization. Realization goes beyond the thinking mind. Maybe you need more books about the eye-blading adults. Or cats and dogs.

[42:47]

Or red-headed woodpeckers. That's what Jesus says. Intelligence of the lack of it. What you've figured out or what you haven't figured out or can't figure out, it's not. Maybe we're close to procurement. Maybe we've already paid the price of admission following the schedule so diligently. Period after period. How can we

[43:54]

that what we love is such a challenge. I couldn't be, but even though each of us has validated the deep veracity and appropriateness of practice, we still generate the thoughts and feelings And sometimes even behaviors it's stated have to be. And patiently we see it, we acknowledge it, we experience it. And allow, if it will, to bring forth the untimely blessings of itself. So let me end with Rooney again.

[45:06]

Keep walking. Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move with it. But don't look the way fear makes you move. Today, like every other day, We wake up empty and free. Don't open the door to busyness. And begin. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love do be. Let the beauty we love be what we do. I bring ways to knit and kiss me.

[46:06]

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