This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Thank you for inviting me and I always love coming to It just feels so good, you know, to be out with the trees and took a walk and look at the flowers and the food growing out of the earth. It's just always a pleasure. And so my name is Zinju, which is my Dharma name that was given to me by Blanche, and it means complete tenderness. So that is my work, to become completely tender. And my name, Earthling, is a given name. A lot of people think I made it up, but I did not.

[01:00]

My mother gave it to me. And it doesn't have a meaning. And I know when I was a kid, a lot of kids used to tease me, Earthling, Earthling. And I would get really upset. I would cry and everything until I got about eight or nine. And I would go, well, aren't you an Earthling? Like, where are you from? I changed that up a little bit. And so it's a pleasure to be here. Like both names, some people still call me Earthland because that's how I came into Zen Center. That's Earthland. So I understand you've been focusing on skillful means. And of course, that's a very broad topic. And you can cover almost everything. that the teachings are about is moving us into skillful means and how do we want to live our lives and I feel since we are all here that we almost have an intention of living our lives well and being

[02:08]

people of this earth and this planet that help that wellness to go out into the world. And so I like being in front of these audiences that have that same intention and same goal in life. And so I thought I would start out. My topic is it's all poetry. Yeah, skillful means it's all poetry. And so I love poetry. So I want to start off with a poem. And so it's not my poem. It's a poem by Mark Nibo, N-E-P-O. And it's called The Necessary Art and the Nature of Poetry. It's in parentheses. So The Necessary Art and the Nature of Poetry. So if you hear better with your eyes closed, you can do that. You know, listen. Poetry is the unexpected utterance of the soul.

[03:13]

Poetry is the unexpected utterance of the soul. Much more than the manipulation of language, it is a necessary art by which we live and breathe. It is the art of embodied perception, a braiding of heart and mind. around experience. Consider how a simple fish inhales water and somehow mysteriously and miraculously extracts the oxygen from the water. In doing this, it turns that water into the air by which it breathes. This ongoing inner transformation, the turning of water into air By extracting what is essential is poetry. I'll repeat that. The turning of water into air by extracting what is essential is poetry.

[04:20]

A much deeper process than fooling with words. For us, the heart is our gill and we must move forward into life like simple fish or we will die. and the mysterious yet vital way we turn experience into air, the way we extract what keeps us alive, this is the poetry of life that transcends any earthly endeavor. All this while the universal ground of being we call spirit is working its unknowable physics on us, eroding us to know that we are each other. So I was very, the first sentence when I first read this alone to myself, poetry is the unexpected utterance of the soul. So often when we are working on ourselves, we don't allow the unexpected.

[05:31]

We don't allow that to have voice, that place inside us that we don't know that place inside are words that we've never spoken maybe to anyone. And so Mark Nepo is saying that the poetry of our lives is allowing that utterance, that unexpected utterance of the soul. If you don't want to use the word soul, that unexpected place in which we know there's this unnamed, presence inside us that doesn't always participate in all of our craziness. So we have this other place that participates in the craziness. This I, this I person, this I that's a priest, the I that's a student, the I that's a teacher, the I that's whatever you have. We have a zillion I's, right? A million of them. And that's why it's kind of irrelevant to focus on I.

[06:34]

Because there's so many of them. There's so many garments we put on. So many faces we walk with. But yet behind that, there is this, and he's calling it soul, is this place, this being, living substance of ourselves that watches all these eyes participate in life. That's participating right now. What eye is participating right now? You know? And is that eye a place in which, or an eye that will allow you to have something unexpected happen? Or is that eye very fixed and confined, has language, has a name, has a place, has a thought, has an ideology, has many, many things. So is that eye capable of opening you to that utterance of the soul.

[07:38]

And so for me, that's where skillful means comes about. A lot of times when we hear the word skillful means, it means we go out and get some skills and then we go about using them. That's a good definition. It's very simplified though. So it's understandable that that's how we move in the world. I mean, we're raised that way. We go to school, we learn to read, we learn to write. We learn that very early in life. And then we take those skills, and those skills will get us there. But how about another kind of skill? A skill that you maybe never heard of, or that's inside of you. that could move you to another place, but you haven't met it yet. It's not a technique, it's not an approach or a methodology. It's just something inside of you that moves and that has a place in your life, but yet there's so many I's that might keep it from coming forth.

[08:48]

So skillful means can also be something unknown. You know, that comes up out of that poetry of life, that poetry of living together, that poetry of transformation. So as he said, it's much more than the manipulation of language poetry. It is a necessary art by which we live and breathe. It is the art of embodied perception. So we're embodied and we perceive. So all of the eyes we have perceive. And so sometimes we need to know when we're trying to deal with the unskillful means, we need to know what is perceiving and who is perceiving what in order to move toward an utterance of the soul or a skillful mean.

[09:50]

So, often, like right now, what I is perceiving, what I'm saying. A scholar, a student, a sleepy person, a tired person, you know, a person who wants to go home, a person who wants to stay. What I is perceiving this talk, you know. So Learning to witness ourselves is part of the skillful means. It's kind of, to me, like the prelude to skillful means. The witnessing. You know, the watching ourselves in the water like the fish. You know, seeing how our gills work. How we take in the breath and what do we do with it? How do we use it? Why are you here? Why are you doing what you're doing?

[10:51]

Meditating. Why are you doing zazen? What I is doing zazen? What I is at Green Gulch? What I is at home? What I is on the telephone? Talking to people who don't live at Green Gulch. Those are the kinds of things you become aware of. You can become aware that you enter a skillful means. So it is the art of embodied perception, a braiding of heart and mind around experience. So he says, consider how simple fish inhales water and somehow mysteriously and miraculously extracts the oxygen from the water. In doing this, it turns the water into air by which it breathes. This ongoing inner transformation, the turning of water into air, by extracting what is essential is poetry.

[11:53]

So to me, that is a calling in this way in which I know why I came to this practice of Zazen was to extract the essential, to be in the water of practice and to create an inner transformation. just like the fish, so that I could have air to breathe, begin to breathe, begin to change the things that are in my life. And so that in itself is poetry. So often when we go into, maybe going into the meditation hall, to the zendo, maybe you could think of it as beginning your poetry or beginning a poem as you breathe. and what you breathe in and what you take out and what you extract and what becomes that place where you transform, where you change within yourself, not waiting for somebody to do it for you or something, not even Zazen, you know, but allowing like the fish just to be in the water and to allow the oxygen to come forth, you know, just to be there.

[13:11]

And that is also a skill for me to be able to just sit and do that. And allow that to happen. For us, the heart is our gill. And we must move forward into life. Like a simple fish. Or we will die. So the waters are alive. You know, right now it's your life. So you're moving forward. You might be here because you want to be. Or you might be here because you have to be. So now that I that want to be or the I that has to be. Can it transform yourself? your inner world? Can it be your gill? Can it help you open to the utterance of your soul? That's up to you. That's the practice. And it's the poetry of life. It is the poetry of life that transcends any earthly endeavor. I was thinking of a painting the other day of myself, a portrait.

[14:13]

And maybe I'll do it, because I really love to draw. I'm an artist. So in the portrait, I do many things in the world. So on one half of the body was my robes, my koromo and all that. On one half, part of my oquesa. And then on the other half was my Sundance dress. I'm a dancer in the Lakota Sundance ceremony. So on the other side, I have my dress and my shawl. and my feather and my moccasins. And then there's these other pieces of me. I could have my hat on as one who leads the sanghas at home or the one who does divining. I do divining for people. I have what's called the black angel cards that came to me in a dream. And a lot of people know them and some people haven't seen them. But they came to me in a dream and they actually came while I was practicing the Dharma.

[15:18]

So I just let them happen. And that was the utterance of my soul. That's what came out. And I was very frightened of it. But it's a part of me. So there's the diviner hat. It's a part of who I am. So one time I went to talk with somebody and said, you know, I need counsel. Which path is my path? You know, where am I? Am I a writer? Am I an author? Am I a priest? I'm, you know, what? I'm just like here and I'm there and I do it all very well. You know, very, you know, very deeply, very sincerely, you know, right there in there. No, you know, no have to think in any of it. You know, what, you know, what is, you know, what is this path? You know, what is this path? And You know, the person said, well, none of them are your path. None of those are your path. I was like, wow, I've been doing this all many years, you know. You know, kind of trying to, this has got to be my path. You know, something has got to be the path, you know.

[16:21]

And I said, so what was all that? What is all that? It still is. It's not no was. What is all of that? And he said, it's your healing. Those are your temples of healing. You went through them to heal. That is not your path. And so he began to tell me about pretty much about saying what Mark Nepo is saying. There's this other self, there's not really a word for it, but there's this other it, if you want to call it too, that witnesses all of it, that has witnessed me. all of those places that witnesses all those eyes. And that it or self or substance is, that's me, that's the original me without all of the construction, without all of the becoming, without all of the earthly endeavors.

[17:28]

So the poetry of life transcends any earthly endeavor So there's no poetry if you're on this kind of journey towards something. It doesn't allow for the utterance of a soul. So in all of the becoming, it's okay that it happened. It's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that those are bad things. He actually said it was healing for me to do all of these things. And it continues to be. It continues to be for me. But at the same time, there's this still place that is witnessing me and witnessing myself, even right now in this moment, witnessing my hand up, witnessing you, that it has no name. It doesn't really participate. It's just witness. It just sees. And it doesn't have a true identity at all.

[18:30]

And so it is that place, I feel, where the utterance of the soul, or it is the soul maybe, that comes forth. And that is where the skillful means comes forth as well, because it's not coming from a constructed, conditioned Zenju earthquake manual strategy of life. It's coming from that substance I was born with, that true nature I was born with. has no name, does not participate in the things I'm seeing. This witness, witnessing the life, and in that witnessing, I often find, I see the skillful means, the way to maneuver, the way to navigate my life is through that still place, not the I place. If I try to do skillful means through, I'm a teacher, I'm a student, I'm a dancer, I'm a writer, I'm a drummer, I'm a... You heard the list, they were reading it before author.

[19:42]

If I moved through all of those to find skillful means, I will get confused. And I'm more likely to end up suffering as I'm going along. Because, well... Maybe perhaps somebody doesn't think I'm that great of an author or a teacher or whatever, you know, and then I'll just get caught up in that. Or I'll get caught up and I'm not dancing well enough out here, you know, in the prayer, in the ceremony, you know, because I'm thinking of that I. So there's not going to be any skillful means in that I, that I place. But in the witness place, I can see that place myself. And so I wanted to share a story, actually, that happened to me. And I want to make sure we have time for questions, too. A story that happened. And I did speak of this story in the book that I wrote. And I was in the Zendo at City Center, and it was Orioki time.

[20:44]

And it's always a little bit nerve-wracking for me, you know, still, even though I haven't done it a zillion times. And one, I think he was new, he came in front of me with the nuts. And I was sitting by myself, kind of like I am now, on the row by myself. And everybody else in the Zendo was kind of paired up except for me. And so I already felt in the I alone. I am alone. So I already was not going to have any skillful means happening there. Soon as he came by to me, he got nervous and he dropped all the nuts. Yeah, right in front of me. And so I said, oh, my God, you know, why did he do that? I mean, a whole bowl of cashews. And I could see him going, oh, my God, too. So, like, in the moment, we were both having this, is this happening, you know? You know? And I, being sitting alone, and this kind of being one of my, you know, earlier times in city center, I hadn't been there that long.

[21:55]

felt he was scared of me because I was black. That's what I thought in my mind. Because remember, I'm already in the eye that is not going to bring about any kind of utterance of the soul here at all. It's going to be all about what's happening right now. And so I was like... Oh, I'm going to leave. That's what the voice said. I'm getting up. I'm running out of here. Forget it. I really don't like oreo key anyway. You know, this is not feeling good. He's like really can't get the nuts up off the floor fast. And I feel for him. He's like scrambling, scrambling, scrambling. And it's just like they're looking over to Soku's like, oh my God, what's going on? Because it's taking really a long time. Like long. And so... You know, then there, I just heard this, finally, I said, just breathe, just breathe, you know, because neither one of you are breathing right now. And I just started breathing, and I just heard poetry, poetry, you know, and I said, what if it's because you're just awesome, and he dropped a nut?

[23:11]

You know, I said, oh, awesome, dropped a nut, you know, started... And it was just like, and I was like, oh. This is like, okay, this is this I thing. Remember, this identification is really in the way here. And so finally, you know, I go, oh, and I relax. I begin to... you know, feel sorry for him, you know, because he's really not getting these nuts up at all. You know, it's getting worse. They're starting to spread, and then somebody's coming over to help them. That's how bad it's getting. And finally, you know, I relax, and then I heard another poetry, another utterance, because I'm witnessing. I'm having it, but the witness is working. It's seeing me going through my changes. It's seeing him going through his changes, right? So the still place is seeing all this and not participating, even my mind, not participating in my mind saying all these things about black or awesome.

[24:12]

So finally, after I got to awesome, of course, I was feeling pretty good with that one. And the next voice was, but it doesn't matter. Whether it's, you know, because you're black or because you're awesome. Because none of it really matters. That was the next utterance of the soul. And in that, I was like, that almost brought tears in the moment for me because it took me so far away from that I that was participating with the nuts in the guy. You know, it took me to that witnessing and that place that's very still. And like I said, has no name. You know, has isn't my true nature. It's not. It's just pure. And it doesn't matter what he was afraid of or if he was afraid at all or if he just was sweating and dropped the knots or this is what he does everywhere in his life.

[25:16]

Laughter Who knows? I didn't know them. I never had seen them before. So for me, I walked out of that oryoki. Oryoki's poetry. I walked out of that oryoki session eating and filled with a whole new inner transformation. So my gills opened up in that water. I breathed it in. And I transformed that water into oxygen that I could live by instead of sitting up there dying or running for my life, you know, running out the Zendo, running for my life. And then what I was going to do when I get out there because I got to come back to the Zendo a couple hours later anyway, you know, or I'll be back at Oriyuki the next day, next morning or that night, whatever it was, you know. So that is the lesson in the... when you can transcend the earthly endeavor.

[26:20]

Also, I was wanting to, he probably was too, want to appear as good Zen students doing all of this very well. And it wasn't happening well. It's becoming more of a calamity the more we tried. More of the calamity trying to be some earthly endeavor. And the poetry of life just disappeared for a moment. You know, I don't know if he witnessed himself, but I certainly witnessed myself and him in that process. So all this, while the universal ground of being we call spirit, or, you know, this is what he calls spirit, is working its unknowable physics on us. And so there is something working us right now in the room. You know, maybe we think, well, we're all interested in Buddhism. Well, is that true? Or is that coming from some I, you? Or maybe we're all interested in Zen or Green Gulch or vegetables and flowers like we saw.

[27:24]

What, you know, we don't know. We don't know. And so this unknowable physics that has brought us together also erodes us to know. It's an eroding us to know, eroding us to know that we are each other. So, oh, we're each other. Wow, that really doesn't fit the I system. You know, we are each other, you know, and you look in another space and say, that's you. You know, it's a practice. I did it for a week, so I went about and said, oh, there's me. Look what I'm doing. Somebody I didn't even know. You know, just people in the streets, just practicing. And when I did that, I realized they were. There was some aspect of them that was me. There is just no way out of it. There's no way out of it, unless you're, I don't know, maybe if you're another species, okay, not an earthling, you know, maybe, I don't know.

[28:27]

But, you know, there is that way in which the skillful means is remembering that, that we are each other. That's the basis for skillful means. And in having that and holding that, having the witness and holding that we are each other in some way, some aspect, someone has some aspect of who you are doing what you do, even though you may never tell that person. You might have stood in front of people and said, you have done this, this, this, knowing that, well, you've done the same thing at some other time in your life or thought it. which is pretty much in action as well. So how do we recognize these eyes, recognize the thoughts, how you're thinking, and recognizing how you self-define, so self-definition, thought, self-definition, and then recognizing your images.

[29:35]

You might wanna draw them out. You know, when I drew mine, it was kind of funny in my mind, you know, the images that I've created, you know, what they look like. So... I'd like to open it up for some questions, actually, you know, right now. If you have any, or join me in a dialogue. Yeah. I was wondering how the... Is your sun dancing... helps your Zen practice and how the Zen practice helps us on dancing? This past summer was my first year dancing, and part of that is fasting. You fast for four days and don't drink water for four days. You just dance in armor and you pray. So one thing I saw that, and I've been a part of this ceremony, though, for 10 years. I used to have the drumming and singing. And I moved to the dancing.

[30:37]

So one thing that I noticed, I could get up at 3.30 and be ready to do the sweat lodge without any problems like that. So I'm very well trained in that way. But I also found myself using the breath. You know, a lot. And just breathing, because that's all you have. You don't have food or water. You have breath. And you have body, your body. So I get to just be just with that and that alone. So having the practice of breathing, I think, really helped me dance, you know, do my dance, be a sun dancer in the sun. Now, in Zazen, I particularly remember when I did Tongario, first time at Tassajara.

[31:42]

And the first couple of days was like, oh, my God, you know, it's just intense. And the bugs were in our ears and the flies. And it was just very intense. And we were sweating. It was hot. And just when I couldn't bear it, all of a sudden, all the Sundance songs came through. and they were just, they're all prayer songs, and they were just floating through my mind, and they just got me completely through those five days, just singing. So they're both that same place in which I witness, I'm witnessing, and when I'm dancing, I'm witnessing myself dance. I'm actually doing this dance, and I have arthritis from head to toe. And so, when I didn't have any pain out there. So, you know, I'm witnessing this, body that suddenly, because I haven't said it so, that it's having arthritis dances. You know, same as in Zazen, I witness this body sitting that says, you know, it's sitting, but this body embodies it.

[32:45]

I have problems, you know. So they both feed each other. One's a movement, meditation and movement, and one's a sitting meditation. They're the same to me, you know. actually the same. Yeah? My question is sort of related to that because I'm wondering like when you're doing a thing like when you're drawing you sort of have a goal you have like an idea of what you want to achieve but how do you do that and just witness? Like how do this How can you have an awareness of the witness, of the non-being, the non-self, and do something specific? You know? Yeah, I hear you.

[33:47]

So, you know, how do you have, you know, an awareness and how do you keep the witness, but actually you're taking action as an artist? You know, you're taking some kind of action. So for me, this is where sitting comes in to me, sitting zazen, where you're aware of your sensations of your body. In the beginning, when you're practicing, they ask you to be aware of your sensations. So when I am definitely moving from some eye, some place, I will draw one kind of picture. When I just draw and allow it to come forth, I'm pretty surprised. I'm pretty surprised at what comes forth. And it's not something that I would have thought of. So oftentimes, like the divining, I created a deck and it has artwork in it and I've never done artwork before.

[34:50]

And it got published and everything. Every time I look at those cards, I go, what happened here? I still say, what happened here? Because the eye that says, I'm not an artist, didn't get to participate in that. It didn't, because it wouldn't be out, because I'm very, very self-conscious about what I do, what it looks like, and remember, perfect. And it wasn't to me, but it was to other people. They were touched by it. I was shot. What are they being touched by? I still don't know what they're being touched by. because it's an utterance of the soul. I don't know. So, yeah. Do you think that, like, in the previous time, in your life leading a plan, there was an acquisition of skill, like physical skill or something? I know there wasn't. Yeah, actually, in terms of art, in terms of art, I was told I was not an artist, and I believed it.

[35:53]

And yeah, I loved art, but no, I was not, I never was taught anything. And same with my writing, I never was taught to write as well. And so I have the same thing when I'm getting ready to write something. And when I have a sensation, I can tell when I'm getting really tight and my head gets tight and my stomach gets tight, I am not getting ready to write from the soul. I'm not. I know. And then it comes out really good, though. You know, whatever. I can write really well there, too. Really well. In that tight place, I write very well. But when I loosen up and just write, just let it flow, like you let poetry flow or music flow through you or something, energy flow. And it's a whole other writing, and it's really quite fascinating. I get so excited. It's really fascinating, and it's something I, you know, I did it today, and so I'm kind of still a little bit in that, you know, where it's just like, wow, I never would have thought to write that that way. You know, but the tight place, I'm really good.

[36:57]

I can, I'm very intellectual, so I can write there. It's very tight for me, though. It's a very tight place. Our scholarly, it's very tight. I can do very well, though, there. But it's not the utterance of the song. It's not the poetry I need to keep alive. It's not the water. It's not the oxygen I need. The gills are looking for the breath. And I can tell that through my body sensations. So literally when I do anything, I feel like I'm doing zazen. you know, walking zones, you know, just what I do in the world. I use it all the time. All the time. How would you say that you have, or do you feel like you have, kind of like actively cultivated being able to listen and witness, or is that something that just kind of comes when you exhaust all these other

[38:08]

patterns and fronts and all that, or is this something that you think can be cultivated? The witness is already there. You don't have to cultivate it. It's already there, so I just begin to recognize her, or it. I don't even know what it is. Um, that's the practice that's coming to recognize it and, um, allow it to, to help you in, in that, in that the other eye forms is kind of, we're going to be in the eye, you know, so help us look at it and walk with it. So I, I don't think there's a cultivation of it other than, um, you know, I, I do believe that meditation helps sitting, you know, Zazen helps for me help, um, me to see it, that it was already there, you know, that there is this still, like, no name, doesn't participate, you know, watches and observes, watching me now, observing, listens, you know, and it's a very relaxed place, you know, that helps me from being exhausted.

[39:24]

You know, I know I do. I don't know about you, but I really can exhaust myself with the brain, wearing myself out. I got that the first time I started to exhaust it. I'm really good. I'm only tired because of myself, my mind. I wear myself out. Yeah. So that's the best way I can answer that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. When you said... Someone told you that I should speak up since this is a big question. When you said someone told you that all your threads were about healing and that really struck something inside me. I guess I feel like I'm both that person that wants to be at Greenbelt and doesn't simultaneously. And there have been a lot of thoughts in my head of, what is this just? You know, like, is there, and I try not to attach to the outcome, but then I hear this thought of, like, about healing.

[40:31]

How do you work with not being attached to the outcome? But, I mean, I feel like if I'm not, if I don't have any plan in mind, then I'm just wandering aimlessly. Do you hear what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. And I'll try to answer that. You know, I don't have all the answers, but... I feel that I always tell people, oh yeah, I'm attached. You know, it's just I don't stay there. You know, I recognize it. You know, I recognize the attachment. And I recognize the spinning and confusion that I cause myself. And so... I feel that you can't, you know, we work really hard at trying to be all that the Buddha says, you know, all the teachings. And all of these teachings take a lifetime, as you know, and you've heard, you know, and the attachment piece is a human, to me, a very organic human way of being.

[41:41]

But we're in this practice to recognize it, to recognize it as a place of suffering and a confusion. So when you don't want to be where you are, and I'm really a good one for that one. I do that a lot. That's one of my favorite ones, attachments. So when you don't want to be where you are, then you are definitely out of that witness stage and you are suffering. You begin to suffer. You know, because you're identifying yourself as being trapped or being, you know, lost or being something other than what you are right now. And what you are right now, if you leave out the present and the future, I mean, you know, future and the past, rather, if you leave those two places out, which is very hard to do, but you can have a moment of it just so you can experience. If you could just be here right now, right now, right now, and just, um, feel that calm and joy of just this moment, you know, and try to stay a little while before you go, oh, God, I got to get up early in the morning, you know.

[42:56]

It's going to happen. But, you know, and those things, they start to stretch. Those times start to, they stretch out over time, you know, just allowing yourself to Go on and be attached and not beat yourself up for being attached because that's part of our lives. Everything is, it's all poetry in that way. You know, everything is, you know, everything in our lives is our material. You know, I always tell people, I said, my book, my material book, my workbook for this path is about this thick. It's real thick. A lot of material. You know, so, you know, just use it, you know, and not judge it. You know, and you can be, you can want to not be here and then be here, that's okay. That's just, that's just the mind thing going. And then the body may follow eventually and do something else.

[44:00]

So I think my becoming, you know, I was trying to come to that place, like I was saying, to Lauren that's already there. You know, it was already there, so I didn't, you know. But I had to come through these paths to get here, and many of us do. Some people, I do believe some people just get born and they're there. And I don't know anybody personally that way, but I've seen some pretty close. I think children are pretty close to it sometimes. I've seen kids be very close to that. They're there already. They come in, you know, with it. They know it. It's something we don't know. So anyway, that's the best I can say. Help that helps. Yes.

[45:02]

Thank you. I enjoyed it. So I have a question about you're saying like there's this intrinsic awareness. That steps back from the eye, all these lines. The last line of the poem is like, but I see that they are me. It says, eroding us to know that we are each other. So there's like, if you think of that, our substance, we are that substance, you know, all of us. There's hardly a word for it. This witness, you know, I just call it the witness, you know, but so that we are each other, you know, that's what it says. And so I kind of sometimes don't believe that because my I is very, I am, I am and you're not, you know, that's what the embodied self fools us into, you know, that I am and you're not.

[46:06]

I'm here, you're there. But it's not real. So in a place of intrinsic awareness, you see that everything is you. Is that correct? You see an aspect of yourself in there. You can see your whole self. that witness part, not the I part, the I part will go, no, you're a man, I'm a woman. No. It will say that. And that's fine, the witness will look at that. So the witness, I know, okay, so we, I know many of you may have studied the two truths, right? The relative and the absolute. I don't want to get close all into that, but You know, I can almost say that the witness is sort of that absolute way of being, nature of being, origin, and the eye is the relative.

[47:15]

That's the way I see it. You know, that relative state. So they're there, they're truths. But the eye and the identities are, you know, the places where our skillful means get washed to unskillful. More times than others, you find yourself in an unskillful place. Check to see what I is working. What I is working. What identity is working. That's making you angry. That's making you uneasy. Whatever. Making you say things you never would say to anybody. And suddenly you find yourself saying some things. Find out what I is working. A friend of mine, I always say I'm going to get off of Facebook, but anyway, she was on Facebook, and she had this post, and she was talking about this teacher that she loved, and I know this woman, and she knows me, and she was going on and on about this person and how she had this place in the... They don't call them...

[48:33]

I don't know, it's a center anyway. She has a center, and she's an ordained woman. I was reading it, and I go, my God, she's never said anything about me, right? How nice and great I am. So I was really reading, and I was like, God, I just had to stand up and feel like, why can't she have that person as her teacher? Why did that have to be you? You know, why does she have to come to your group or anything like that? And so that's that I, you know, I, Miss Teacher Sinju, she should be liking me, you know, and not this other person, cause me suffering. Because the other person's just fine. I know her, the other teacher. She's wonderful. I mean, you know, so it's... it was interesting and I had to catch myself and I noted it, you know, because I definitely would not want to have a song on which I thought I possessed the people in it, you know, or I possessed what they did and where they went, you know, because that would not be skillful at all.

[49:52]

You know, they would not learn, you know, so I knew that somewhere I was possessing the people who were in my sangha, even though this other woman isn't. She's not, but she should come over so I can possess her too. You need to be possessed by me. You need to get over here. So it really helped me looking at that witnessing, just witnessing because that other place, because it did not participate. helped me to see that I was definitely causing my suffering. Of course, none of the people knew about what I was feeling because it was all just me reading Facebook. It all just happened inside me, alone by myself. But if I had seen her,

[50:53]

Later, you know, it might come out, you know, how I act toward her. I might be like, you know, struck my shoulder at her and not say hello or something if I hadn't really, you know, became aware of that, you know, eye that I, oh, you've got a big eye around teacher. Work with that. Work with that. Because I had a big eye around student too, so it doesn't matter if I'm a teacher or a student. You know, I have a big eye, you know. So, yeah, I'm the best student. So I've got to be the best teacher. Yeah, very funny. Anybody else? I'm watching the time. Okay, we'll hold the request.

[52:01]

Let's see. Any other questions? Yes. Yes. And I also feel like, oh, I found lots of paths. Where did that go for you? You didn't say, oh, I found a path or anything. Yeah, I was very big on finding the path. And then I went to evolve to, I'm on one path with many temples. And... And now I feel I came to that the path is life and the purpose is to live it. There's a lot of people go around looking for my purpose in life. And it's like, live it, just live life. So the path is life.

[53:03]

The path is me, me, do it. Do this work, continue the healing. That is the path, there is the path. Life and the purpose is to live it. And that's what I've come to thus far. Yeah. And it does help for me to keep going, you know. I haven't chosen any other new things yet. Yet. To do any other temples. I haven't entered any new temples. That you know about. Yeah, that I know about. Thank you, Carol. That I know about. so any other questions before let's see i don't know what song i would sing yes i have something coming up i'm not sure if it will be actual question but something um i tend to have like thoughts about wanting to be good at things and it's like this sort of uh i just i feel there's some sense of like i'll be complete if i'm good at something and like

[54:13]

Things I'm not even that interested in. Like writing or something. Like, oh, if I wrote a book, then I'd have a successful life. Yeah, right. Talk to me after. I'll write a book. Yeah, I think we live in a society in which... You know, you must do particular things to be, you know, acknowledged, become visible. And so we yearn for that visibility. You know, we're not comfortable with being in that among the masses of people. You know, we live in, whereas there's other cultures in which that would be considered very, you know, rude or... not appropriate to stand out, you know, to just be a part of everyone, you know.

[55:17]

And so it's good that you're noticing it and so that you can become aware of how it gets you into places and has you doing things you don't want to do. And a lot of people do this, you know, and they end up, you know, I've heard people say, my mother wanted me to be a doctor and I hate it. but it sounds good, they did it, they were good at it, and they hate it. So it really takes you away from what could come for you, what could come down your path. So you really have to be open when you're already aware that this is something that's not your water, that's gonna help you live, your oxygen. then you have to bind your oxygen. You have to get in that water. You will die. So it doesn't matter if anybody sees you.

[56:18]

But more than likely when you're in your water, someone sees you. You must first see yourself. I know somebody told me once, I want to write like you and touch people's hearts. And I said, well, I had no goal of touching anybody's heart. I just touch my own. And when I touch my own, if I do it well, I touch others. That's all. That's it. There's no other task or goal in anything that I do. And sometimes they become things. You know, I didn't want to write that book that I wrote, so how interesting that it came out. You know, but I got it as I wrote, was writing it. You know, for me, what I needed to get in touch with, to touch my own heart, to understand something of myself.

[57:19]

So, yeah. You mentioned using Facebook only. I'd be interested to know how you think technology has affected our ability to be mindful towards ourselves and towards each other. Has it affected it? How has it affected it? I actually had great hopes for Facebook when it came out to actually... Maybe people could develop relationships from afar, you know, all around the world. You know, but now I think it's kind of losing ground in that. I think if you're just on Facebook, which is a lot of people are just on Facebook, they have no friends, all their friends are on Facebook, you know, then I think that there's a problem there. Because there's not a real true connection, you know, and you lose...

[58:23]

You lose that human sociability. Is that a word? I don't know. You don't know how to socialize with people. So I think it can get to be too much. I think it could serve great purposes. I find out a lot of things about things in the world that I would not know. And I have a lot of friends on Facebook. I don't know a lot of the people, but they are of like mind, which is interesting. Although I have a whole pack of Mormon cousins that are talking about Mitt Romney right now. And so it's very interesting for me to hear their point of view, Mitt Romney. So I wouldn't hear that if I didn't see it on Facebook. They're cousins of mine. So I think it has its pluses and minus like everything else in the world, and it can be an addiction like everything else in the world.

[59:30]

Even this could be an addiction. If it becomes a crutch, holding you and keeping you from doing something else. that you should be doing. Okay, any other questions? I see that there's a glare on the clock. I remember this last time that I went over. Okay, so. We have time for a song. Yeah, we got time for a song. I don't know what to sing. Any suggestions? Oh, yeah. That'll blur right out the room. Probably not going to bed. No, they're going to be all like all night in their bed. Do you have a lullaby?

[60:39]

Yeah, something a little softer. Let's see. Hey-ya, hey-ya, [...] hey-ya. Hey-ya, hey-ya, hey-ya, hey-ya. . [...]

[61:52]

Hey, yo. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[62:55]

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