Good morning. I vow to refrain from intoxicants. Where nothing can be brought in, everything is inviolable. This is exactly the great brightness of being. So, in the last two days, I've talked about two of the antidotes to the three big poisons, three-day delusion. The first one, the antidote to greed, is the perfection of generosity, dana-paramita. And the antidote to hatred, to anger, is kshanti-paramita, the perfection of patience. So today I'm going to talk about how intoxication is the driving force behind delusion. And the antidote to delusion is the perfection of wisdom, prajnaparamita. And intoxication is one of the gateways we need to pass through in order to become wise.

[01:07]

Not intoxication. Refraining from intoxication. Delete. I'll tell you a story about it. So, where was I? As you remember, the hub of the wheel of the 12-fold chain, there are three animals. There's a rooster representing greed, there's a snake representing hatred, and then there's a pig that represents delusion. And in some of the depictions, the rooster and the snake are coming out of the mouth of the pig, meaning that these two come out of delusion. Greed and hatred are basically products of delusional thinking. So the reason I chose refraining from intoxication as the key ingredient among all the many antidotes to delusion is that when we're intoxicated, the primary elements of our life, the body, speech and mind, are terribly distorted.

[02:15]

You know, we're totally out of whack. So having myself been intoxicated and been around people who are intoxicated, it's pretty obvious that when we're in such a state that we can't be expected to engage in very reasonable behavior. And reason is one of the primary necessities for wisdom. So this word intoxicate means to poison. Toxic. And the word poison comes from a medieval Latin word for a magical potion. So I thought that's a very good way to try to understand what the Buddha means by intoxication. These magical potions, you know, spells. And so the ways that we humans use magical spells and potions are to either get ourselves into something or out of something that we think would be much better than this. So I'm pretty sure that most of you here know what it means to use alcohol or drugs as an intoxicant in order to change your state of mind.

[03:21]

But there are more subtle potions that we may not even count as intoxicants that we use every day. in various ways to try to get in or out of something. And although in a very different order of addiction than alcohol, nicotine, prescription drugs, or heroin, food is one of our favorite forms of intoxication. And I was thinking what my favorite potions might be, you know, and clearly sesame soybeans is first, cashews, peanut butter, fresh bread, candied ginger. What am I leaving out? Anything chocolate. So these are our potions. These are potions that we concoct to make ourselves happy for a while. So, oh, I know, I forgot egg's mantra this morning.

[04:26]

Yeah. But we can also intoxicate ourselves by things such as napping and reading, exercising, talking with other people, and of course, sitting zazen. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that many, if not all of us, who came to Zen Center in the 1960s came here because of the potential for altered states of consciousness. The sustained samadhis that are called the four jhanas. and the products of which are delight, joy, tranquility, equanimity, and oneness of mind. It says that right in the book. And not only that, but it says also that these higher states of sustained concentration for humans are among the greatest forms of pleasure, which some of you may have discovered at various times. And if it just weren't for the bell, you'd still be there, right? So aside from meditators, I think we all have friends who are addicted to other things like athletics or video games or internet surfing.

[05:39]

There's all kinds of ways that we basically distract ourselves from our pain. And we take magical potions. And I would say that the vast majority of people prefer to be distracted than to be clear-minded and to face the fact that really there's nothing else to be desired right now other than this. Rick calls this willingness to face our pain being upright, and he says it's our willingness to abide in the midst of restlessness, anxiety, and pain, which I think is safe to say not very many people have ever gotten intoxicated by that. Just being here, where you are. not wishing for anything other than this. Being upright also means to know what it means to be awake. What is it to be awake?

[06:41]

And what's the difference between being awake and being asleep? And this is actually the main point of the Buddha's teaching. And how would we know if we're awake? What's it like to be awake? And who's it Who's the one that's trying to figure that out? Is that the one who's awake? Is she awake? Is he awake? I've often wished the Buddha had been a little more explicit about what happened to him under the tree. And I've looked, you know. What happened? I saw the star and everything and everyone was enlightened. That's what he said. So whether we know it exactly, precisely, or whether we imagine it vaguely what it means to be awake, still we've all chosen to sit here in the posture of the Buddha. And when we do that, the negative forces of the universe, as they did to him, will arrive and try to get us to move, to get up, to leave.

[07:46]

Just this, just this place. You can't stay here. You can't be where you are. That's Mara, the evil one, master of illusion. So the two ways that we respond to these forces of the universe, there's two basic things we do. One of them is to just forget about it, drop out. I'm not going to do this anymore. This is just not working. I'm going to go get a job, find a partner, live in a nice place. And that's that. So that's one strategy. It's just to give up. I was planning to raise baby goats. That was my plan. In Arizona. So the other strategy is to basically tighten down the hatches and to try and find something to hold on to. Some belief, some practice.

[08:50]

Like I mentioned to you the Egyptians who were shooting their souls up to the North Star. Something permanent. Or like Buddhists who hold on to the concept of nirvana. It's something permanent. Something you can get. You can be there and it won't change. This is really just another rarefied version of just get out of here. How to get out of here. Another escape plan. And yet there's this teaching about this particular view of something permanent or some way to get out of here, these strategies. And there was a monk called Seneca who said that there's a spiritual intelligence that never changes and is not affected by conditions. And this is called the Seneca heresy. a spiritual intelligence that never changes and is not affected by conditions. And what makes this heretical is it sounds very much like Atman, like a soul, eternal soul.

[09:59]

And the Buddha taught Atman, no soul, no permanent person or thing abiding through all time. So this idea has persisted throughout the history of Buddhism in very subtle ways, and particularly throughout the history of Mahayana Buddhism. And even some of our own teachers, myself included, taught this subtle heresy of a permanent Atman in the form of something we call Buddha nature. I can remember talking about Buddha nature, you know, and it was a very comforting, those were very comforting lectures I was giving. I found them comforting myself. And yet, this is apparently a mistake. And it implies some eternal, existent soul. The way we used it. The way we were all using it. You can kind of listen to that yourselves.

[11:01]

Because we were all a little bit shocked when we started to hear about this Seneca heresy. We were like, uh-oh, oops. And yet it's a very intoxicating idea that there's something to rely on. We kind of like that, and so we can see why we're drawn to it. It's a natural thing. So this concept of Buddha nature, as well as another concept called the Tathagatagarbha, are both terms or phrases that we need to be very cautious about when we hear them. Because they've both been used in a way to create this feeling of there being something permanent. something already existing that always exists. It's always there. You just have to find it. Your Buddha nature is there. You just open up to it. It's there already. Or there's the womb of the Tathagata, and your Buddha is going to be born from that womb. The womb is already there. So that's the heresy part, that something's there, abiding, eternal. So I think it's important for us to know that there are texts, including Apocryphal Sutras, that teach this,

[12:09]

Buddha nature. And most of these texts grew up in China as a result of the influence of Taoism. So the Taoists have a deep faith in that sort of eternal principle. So the Buddhists kind of merged with that a little bit. And yet the Buddha, along with Nagarjuna and Dogen and others, said there is no such thing as an abiding self. There's no abiding state, no abiding anything, anyone or anywhere. There is nothing to rely on except for that. So there's a book that I would like to recommend to you, along with the others that I've mentioned. It's called Pruning the Bodhi Tree, which was written by two Soto Zen priest-scholars at Komazawa University within the last 20 years. This is recent scholarship that was done. And they have some very powerful reasons for pointing this out to the Zen community.

[13:09]

having to do with social justice primarily because if everything is just the way it's supposed to be and there's this eternal abiding kind of outcome and everybody's already Buddha then you don't have to change social circumstances like it's okay that there's some people have more and some people have less there's some logic to that which they feel leads to a lot just don't even deal with what's going on on the ground anyway the book is really interesting and it's the one that we were reading together in a study group back at Ringwilch when we all sort of went, uh-oh, whoops. Atman. Atman lurking in our understanding. So these scholars' names are Hakamaya and Matsumoto, and they make this really impassioned case against using the concept of Buddha-nature to affirm some eternal, substantial underlying essence from which the phenomenal world arises and depends. You know, very much like a creator deity, or like the wizard behind a curtain.

[14:13]

And as I said, this teaching is very comforting, but it's not what the Buddha taught. And I think you may recall that when we looked at what the Buddha taught, the 12-fold chain of dependent core rising, there is no place on that chain for an eternal principle. There's nothing lurking behind the wheel. You know, holding the wheel is impermanence, Lord Yama. That's kind of the part that makes us nervous. That's what comes from me. And yet, even if there were such a thing as a Buddha nature, it too would be impermanent and empty of inherent existence. So this is one reason that bodhisattva nirvana is called the non-abiding nirvana. Bodhisattvas don't abide in samsara or nirvana. They're always moving, they're always going with the change that's happening. They are the change that's happening, and they're not resisting it, not trying to make it different than it is.

[15:20]

And at the same time, they're very happy to visit people in their homes along the way, but they are perpetual home leaders. As Ditsan and Fayyong said, you know, where are you going? I'm going around on pilgrimage. What's the purpose of pilgrimage? I don't know. And... Di San says, well, not knowing is nearest. Not knowing is nearest. Just going around on pilgrimage. Bodhisattvas take refuge in the sounds of the valley stream and the monkeys chattering on the peaks. Sound of the Dharma expounding the sound of the Dharma. Nothing to add... Or to take away. And he also says that no one can avoid the horse of night and daytime. No one can avoid the horse of night and daytime. Which means that no one can avoid reality just the way it is. There's no other reality than the way it is. The horse of night and daytime.

[16:25]

Which is ever changing. But he also says realization is rare. Understanding this is rare. And so the question is, well, why? Why is it rare? If that's all we are, and that's all that's happening, why is it that we don't realize it? What's causing us to not see the way things are? Well, that's because we're very fond of our imaginary worlds. We're very fond of our travels to the distant shores of other lands, into our dreams. And it's very hard to be here. No. It's very hard for me to be here right now. Not wishing I was, you know, a much better teacher who could just basically bring all of you to enlightenment with a little flip of my whisk. Like those old guys in the legends. You all get it. And I think it must be hard for you all to sit here trying so hard all week long.

[17:27]

You know, trying to be good students and wishing for a better teacher to appear to help you. Find your way behind the waterfall through the promised land. So we all have the same problem. Wishing. Somehow. Just a little better than this. So, I think you may have heard this saying, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And I used to think that meant that when I was ready, my teacher would come and teach me. But I think what it means is that when you're ready, You will be the teachers. And that's the surprise. That's who you're going to be. And it's not there already. You're going to have to work for it. This is something you have to actually make an effort to discover what's true. That just this is it. Just you are it. You are the teacher that will arrive when the student is ready. Nothing outside of yourself will ever come.

[18:32]

To save you. And when that happens, I hope you also will not forget the saying that there are no teachers of Chan in all of China, nor in California either. But fortunately, there is the Buddhist teaching. And that's what teachers offer. Not themselves. They offer the teaching. But still, I think it's going to be a while before we stop gazing into the mirror of our longing. We really can't help ourselves. We would like it to be just a little bit different than it is. And yet if we really want to understand and live the Bodhisattva precepts, we're going to need to stop underestimating this power we have to manipulate reality in any way we can. which is pretty much what we're doing all day long.

[19:35]

We're futzing. We futz with the lights and with the ingredients in the soup. We futz with the schedule. We futz with the shingy, with our timing, getting where we're supposed to be. We're all futzing around all the time. Innocence is to not mess with things at all. Not to touch anything. Not to even think that there's a better place or time than this one. So I'm somewhat sorry to say that the antidote to intoxication, to poisoning ourselves, is sobriety. Which for those of you who are working very diligently on sobriety, you understand this very well. I think a lot of us haven't done that work. We don't understand that we too are intoxicated. Sopriety comes from an old English word, which I thought was just amazing, referring to religious rites which are to be celebrated at a fixed time or date.

[20:41]

I mean, that's practice period. Religious rites which are to be celebrated at a fixed time or date. I mean, we've often said that the real teacher of Zen is the schedule. Sopriety. And that, you know, those of us who were holding the schedule for you, we're like the hosts. And you know is the maitre d' and all of you are here as celebrants at this festival of sobriety, which you volunteered to come to. You actually applied. I want to go to that party. I'm going to go to that one. And it reminded me of some years ago, maybe you've heard, it was really famous for a long time, and maybe it's passed into history, but years ago, Rep canceled the schedule at Paso Hara. Gregory remembers. Yeah, well, it was pretty cool. He said, you don't have to come to anything.

[21:45]

You're all free. Do what you want. And so for a while, the Zendo was empty. Nobody came. For what? And little by little, people started coming back to their seats. Because they realized that they wanted to. They actually were here because they wanted to be here. They wanted to be in the Zendo. They wanted to follow this schedule. Not because anyone was making them or the Tenkin was looking for them. I think we've retired the highway of control attitude about all of this. You're not under arrest. You're supported to do the practice. That's what we hope for you. We wish for you. Just help you do what you came here to do. So from that time on, for a while anyway, he was calling our community the, I want to do this Zen Center. And I used to say that to people.

[22:46]

I was talking to a green vulture. People would be doing whatever they do, and I'd ask them about it. I said, gee, I noticed you're not going to the Zen Dome anymore. Yeah. Are you okay? And they say, well, you know, I'm okay. I say, well, do you want to do this? And sometimes they say, I'm not sure. And I say, well, you kind of want to do this because it's hard. And if you don't want to do it, you can't make yourself. So you need to find out what you really want to do. Where's your passion? If it's not this, you're going to hurt yourself staying here. Because we're just going to be one asking you over and over again, what are you doing? Why aren't you? Don't you want? So, you know, again, best precept of all is honesty. Tell the truth. No, I don't want to. Great. Great. Great. The next trip out is in 25 minutes, you know. And it's... It's no problem.

[23:46]

We're not judging you for that. It's like, good, please find what you want. Send us an email. Let us know you're okay and that you're in the happy place. So that next year after this had a big lesson we all taught, I was visiting with my therapist and I told him I had to give a lecture at Green Gulch and I was very anxious. About that. Because as I think you may know. Public speaking is one of the five great fears. Along with. Death. Illness. Madness. And the loss of livelihood. Public speaking is number five. You know. I keep thinking. Why do I get so nervous? That's why. Because. It's right after death and madness. So. Oh, yeah, and then I was looking up the five fears, because I always forget them, except for this one.

[24:49]

And I saw that the Dalai Lama's two greatest fears are fear of flying and being eaten by sharks. And I thought, in Tibet? Where did he get that? But then, you know, I read on it and he kind of put them together. He's afraid of flying because the plane's going to crash in the ocean. He doesn't know how to swim, and the sharks are going to eat him. So that's... So anyway, back to me. So I was telling my therapist about giving this lecture, and he said, I said, I have to give the lecture. And he said, do you want to give the lecture? And I kind of, you know, I don't know. And then I thought for a while, and I thought, yeah, I do. I do want to give the lecture. But I'm scared. I'm afraid. So, I think oftentimes it's fear that's causing us to do these things, these kind of hateful, greedy, and delusional things that we do, including, most of all, intoxication.

[26:06]

Because we're really scared. And what we're really scared of is that thing that's holding the wheel, you know, our impermanence, the lord of death. We're afraid. And so we're kind of running ahead of the wheel as if we could actually escape from reality, from impermanence, especially our own. So we get intoxicated. I have another drink, another lover, another piece of pumpkin pie. Maybe that'll make me forget. I'm afraid. So, you know, I think it's, you know, this Lord Yama holding the wheel makes it look a little bit like a roulette wheel, you know, just a game of chance. And in fact, that's what it is. We've got no guarantees at all about anything. Not tomorrow, not later today, not anything, right? We're just guessing.

[27:09]

The ground will hold when we step forward. Mrs. Nakamura used to say to us, Nakamura, the tea teacher at Greenville, take every step in the tea room as if it's your last. It's a way to practice. This is my last step. My last bowl of tea. My last time seeing all of you. How precious if this were the last time. But then we want to hold on to it. So we're not in charge. We don't know how we got on the wheel, and we don't know when we're going to get off, if ever. And we don't know if we're lovable or not, if we're good enough or not, if we're smart enough or not, or brave enough or not. We don't know. And as my therapist also said, what's a girl to do? What's the boy to do? Well, I think we have to choose what we're going to do.

[28:13]

You have to make a choice. And I've chosen to practice Buddha's teaching, to be willing to face all of the things in my life that I really don't want to look at. My actions, my missing parts, whatever it is that I would like to avoid. And I would like to take seriously the Bodhisattva vow. And there's a particularly lovely version that the Dalai Lama recites as part of his daily prayer. So long as space abides and suffering of sentient beings is there, I will remain to serve. So long as space abides and suffering of beings is there, I will remain to serve. So when Dogen talks about the great brightness of being, which I read in the opening verse of this talk, where nothing can be brought in, everything is inviolable. This is the exact great brightness of being.

[29:16]

He's referring to ultimate reality in which no independent self can get a hold of anything. There is no place where an independent self can abide. There's nothing to get a hold of at all except the truth of our completeness, of our wholeness. And when Dharma fills our body and mind, we experience that, as something missing. This is the irony of our practice. Something is missing. So then we try to create things to fill the gap. These wonderful objects of our affection which then we crave and set up a whole cycle of longing to have those things which we've made that now we don't think we have. Just endless, endless, circling around. So, As long as the magician is in love with his creations, we're going to be stuck on the wheel. We love our magical potions and we continue to follow after, chase after that which actually doesn't even exist.

[30:23]

The twigs and sticks creating elephants and giraffes. So sitting upright in the midst of the flames of our longing and our pain, we then discover that there's another ring around that one. There's the ring of fire, which is pain, longing, distress. And around that ring, there's another ring that's made up of anger and hate and rage and aggression and disgust and nausea and rejection and ill will, violence, drunkenness and self-pity. It's the menu. You can pick off the menu which strategy you're going to use to deal with your pain. So these are the options that are being offered to us to take control of ourselves, take control of our lives. But if we practice patience as we're sitting there, but unmoving as the Buddha did, then we can acknowledge

[31:26]

and honor these forces that are arising in reaction to our pain, and we can allow them to return from where they came. Just pain. Just sitting. No options. So this is the bodhisattva vow on high alert. When we listen really deeply to the suffering of suffering, not sure if it's our own or if it's others or if it's everyone's, just sitting there, still, patient, sober. So if we practice in this way, we won't forget and abandon beings because we'll never separate from them. We won't separate from the pain of living. No, we won't forget what it is to be human. So we'll always be ready to respond, and then to us, seeing how completely our lives are intertwined with one another's.

[32:34]

And on the other hand, if we choose not to face our pain and our anguish, and we select these options which are being offered to us for taking control, then our vital energy goes away from compassion, away from helping others, and toward ourselves and the world. of illusion, of deluded activity. Another drink, another lover, another piece of pie. And Mara, the evil one, who is the master of illusion, will win the day again. So I think for all of us who've chosen to spend these 90 days in sobriety, patiently observing our pain and our anguish, and seeing how these impulses toward intoxication arise along with them. We may also see that if we continue to practice in this sobering way, that those same forces can be transformed into compassion and patience and wisdom, virtues.

[33:40]

They come from the same energy. There's a transformation of that energy. There's a poem by Shui Do from the book, from Reb's book, Being Upright. In twenty years of bitter struggles, how many times have I gone down into the green dragon's cave for you? This distress defies description. Clear-eyed, patch-robed monks don't make light of it. And then the teacher says, In the heat and love and passion of this dance with the dragon, great winds and rain arise, forming oceans of magnificent, luminous clouds. These clouds rain down pure Dharma bliss on all beings. And the green grass grows all around. Do you have any comments or questions you would like to make? Take my glass.

[34:44]

What it sounds like is that neither of those concepts really apply because basically some are inherently. Now, I also thought when you first heard talking about that, that there's this aspect that they're throwing that idea, is there anything in No, the way they've been used is heretical. When it's used as a permanent substrate, your Buddha nature is always there, just you have to uncover it. When it's talked about in that way, that's what's called the heretical understanding. It's also, if he reads Suzuki Roshi, he uses Buddha nature a lot. But then he says, which is the emptiness of all things. So it depends on where you spin it and how you spin it.

[35:56]

So we can't get rid of it because it's all over the place. It's on the billboards throughout the Mahayana teachings. So it's not going to go away. What's important for us to do is understand how these various terms have either been used in a way that's consistent with the Buddhist teaching of anatman, or leading one to actually fall into a belief that there is a permanent abiding self. So I think that's the argument they're making, the scholars are making, is it's leaning too far. Particularly in China, it went too far in the direction of an Atman, creating a kind of Atman. In fact, Okamura Roshi said that Dogen was not Zen for that reason. He said he was Indian Buddhist. I thought, whoa, I wrote that down. But then he said, oh, not really. You know, he kind of took it away afterward. But because of this point, because Dogen was not actually supporting the idea of there being a permanent substrata.

[36:59]

So most of the ways that I've received that teaching is in the sense that there is not, that there is a permanent. Yeah. Also, could you give us the teaching of... about Buddha nature? Can you talk a little bit more about a Buddha nature that is not an impermanent version of that? An impermanent version of that. So it's defining terms. How you define your terms is how you're going to get the meaning of that term. Buddha nature doesn't mean anything until I start telling you something about it. If I start telling you it's, you know, it's that part of you that never goes away, that will always be there, if you just find it, you'll be enlightened. If I start talking to you like that, you might start feeling like there's some kind of substantial self.

[38:06]

if I say, yeah, well, you're not going to find anything, there's just the wheel of impermanence spinning around, one link depends on another, if this is present, then that happens, if this isn't present, then that doesn't happen, which is what the Buddha taught primarily, you might go, oh, how disappointing. So if you feel disappointed, that's probably anatman. Because this other thing is the sort of thing that's comforting, which is one reason it keeps coming up. It's one reason I used to talk about it. It was like comforting. And a lot of our Zen Center teachers, this is kind of a new thing. This pruning the Bodhi tree only came out, what, 10 years ago or something? Not that long ago. And before that, we were all throwing Buddha nature around all the time in exactly that way. There's some kind of permanent, existent thing. So, you know, I'm not kidding. We all kind of went, oops. we didn't really have a good understanding of this point that they were making, which is for you to decide yourself, that's why I say to you guys, read the book and see what you think.

[39:14]

Because truly, this teaching doesn't mean anything until you have taken it into yourself. How do you understand? So I'm doing the best I can to try and understand these subtle points. So each of you has to do that same work until you get inside yourself. Oh, oh, I see. That's what I'm going to say when I... Sit up here. What do you make of... I mean, there are other sutras, like the Mahapari and Devara Sutra, Srimadha Devi, Srimadha Naga Sutra, which originated in India, and they describe the Buddha nature as something permanent, and they explicitly say it's permanent. Yeah. What do you make? Yeah, I don't know what to make of that. I don't... I chose not to talk like that. I pick my poisons, right?

[40:15]

I pick what I want to talk about that's more consistent with what feels right to me, within my limits of my understanding, which are extremely limited. So I'm only going along, you know, picking up scenes as I go and offering them. But I try to cite... I'm trying to make things up too much. Mostly these are citations from people who I respect or who I think are respected in the current scholarship. There's a lot of current scholarship that's commenting on the old sutras and saying, you know, oh, is that apocryphal? Is that an actual sutra? A lot of Mahayana sutras, as we know, were written a long time, as were the polygammon after the Buddha. Buddha was, you know, 500 years before the polygammon was written. So that's a lot of time. So who was it that was formulating these different ideas based on what primary understanding? So I kind of like it that the philosophers are arguing about all this now. The guys at UC Berkeley and Stanford right now are having these discussions.

[41:21]

And we can listen in and try to catch up with what it is that they've discovered. Because they're all very well versed in all of the texts. They leave them in the original. It's great for us to have the scholars to help us understand. So that's what I would recommend. Jiriu has a lot of citations because he went to Cal and worked with some really wonderful people who are now helping us, coming to teach us too. So I think we just assume we don't know so much and keep trying to learn what we can. Yeah, hi. Can you speak to boredom, feeling bored in the maintenance and upkeep of sobriety?

[42:24]

It is a feeling that is different than anxiety, although related, and is a little bit different from just aversion to anxiety. aversion to presence it seems to me what experience do you have with feeling like you've done it a thousand times and there's nothing left to mind here yeah that sounds like a little bit more than boredom but on me you know sort of a life life where it is yeah or or Well, I do a lot of things. I don't like to be bored. So I have many things I do.

[43:28]

Right. No, I've studied calligraphy. I like to go for walks with the dog. I like to call up friends and go out to dinner. as much as possible, wholesome things that are not going to keep you isolated. You know, being accompanied by the business is really good. And also, you know, boredom was one of the figures, one of the female figures that were sent to tempt the Buddha to get up. It was lust and boredom. It's one of the girl's names. So it's a very tempting, you know, seductive quality. We would like to get out of that. Boredom is, you know, and I one time just occurred to me that boredom is the next step before enlightenment. You can stand it, hang in there, because it's a tough one. It sounds like it'd be very boring. So we're practicing boredom here.

[44:30]

And so what do we do? How do we engage, fully engage body of mind? I really like that admonition you read of gathering the body and mind in one suchness. Is that right? Exactly the right? Gathering the body and mind in one suchness. I think that was a really good instruction, which I've heard many times and never really heard before. There's a practice. Gather your body and mind in one suchness. It's not boring. Because it's really hard to do. It's like her getting cats. So you find ways to be creative with your thinking if you can. And you have a lot of time, hopefully, in this life to be creative and find ways to be creative. It's a challenge. And then also people who are doing sobriety work I think are the experts. And I would really recommend if there's any issues around sobriety that you talk to them because they really have this language down and I think they're invaluable as resources. So anybody who's dealing with, you know,

[45:36]

Well, I'm bored. I want to go toward intoxicants. I think those are the folks that are really doing well for lots of people. You were talking about Buddha nature, and for me, I was resonating with the way I use the word God, which is, as they talk about the recovery, God, as you understand him. And when I talk to people who believe in God, I'm very comfortable talking about God. It's not a word I tend to use. Well, I just use it sometimes, but it's like, so I wonder about the conditions that those sutras were given and what the understanding was and was it a skillful means? And did the person writing it or speaking it have that kind of dualistic understanding or not? But I'm also interested in how is it being heard?

[46:37]

How is it being received if we're talking about it in this thingness way? Maybe it's easy to talk about that and connect, but if we're thinking it's a thing that we can find and that we can hold on to, then we're just setting ourselves up for suffering. So there's only one person who can say it. How are you holding it? How are you treating it? Are you turning it into a thing? Is it something outside of yourself? Is it something up in heaven? I mean, you know, one of the things that always intrigued me is like, you know, some of our Christian friends, when they pray, you know, they go like this. It's like, where are you going? There's a feeling, an energetic feeling of transcendence. And if you talk to your Christian friends, which I do, and I love them, they talk about that. There's a transcendent glory. It's a glorious feeling to know that you're going to heaven. And look at us, man, it's like, nailed to the ground.

[47:39]

And maybe I was lucky because our Christian Lutheran pastor talked about heaven being life on earth and hell being life on earth. It's like, it's this moment. So I don't think limited... to Christians or Buddhists or whatever. I mean, I think Buddhists can get involved in terrible thinking. Of course, of course. That's what I'm talking about. I don't know, terrible thinking, but it's not Buddhist teaching. It wasn't what the Buddha taught. I think we should keep touching back to what was the primary teaching? On that one? On that one? That was one of the big three. Impermanent, no-self, suffering. Connecting that to compassion. Oh yeah, it is. So do we give them candy? Gold paper? When the babies are crying, this very mind is Buddha. When they stop crying, no mind, no Buddha.

[48:40]

Benson? So in the beginning of the talk, you're just saying, you're teaching this, it's very comforting. Then you read something and you said, oh, oops. You start teaching this, because this is actually what the Buddha taught. If you like study with the old wisdom school, you hear this all the time, like this is very comforting, but actually this is what the Buddha taught. And so this is, a little unsettling to me because it raises the question. Should we be teaching and holding beliefs based on what is comforting? Or should we be teaching and holding beliefs based on what it taught? Or should we be teaching based on what is actually the case? I heard that enlightened people

[49:51]

Yeah, well, it is unsettling, I think, the whole thing, you know, the whole deal of coming into life. And I think we keep trying to strategize some way to feel settled, to get it to quiet down, that unsettled feeling. Constant change. And, you know, my understanding is constant change is the way to settle down, is to not fight it. Not fight or rebel against the fact that nothing lasts. You know? It's like, if you can, like what Dogen says something like, you know, life is like the drop of water from a waterfowl's beak. is headed for the ground it's just this brief moment but then the image is so beautiful so that's the beauty is in the transience and we're kind of addicted to things not changing we don't take a picture of that right frame it look at that drop never hits the ground flowers in heaven don't fall so we have to decide for ourselves each of us

[51:19]

Do we want to be unsettled or do we want to settle? What are we doing to settle ourselves? Are we intoxicating ourselves? Are we willing to deal with the truth of impermanence? Or we don't want to do that because it's not... So each person has to come to some when they're ready. I don't think you have to do anything you're not ready to do. We all get to pick what we want to read or feed ourselves or nourish ourselves with. There's a lot of generosity in this practice, I think, for people to find their own way. I think anyone's gonna make you pick up a text or a teaching that you don't feel ready to deal with or that you don't like, ever. Wash your ears in the creek if you hear something that is unsettling. That really is a sincere offering. Don't worry about it. Don't be bothered by anything anybody says. Huh?

[52:38]

If there are no concepts? It's just an illusion of coming and going. It's an illusion. There's no movement. There's no nothing. There's no problem. So what's your problem? See? You're fine. I knew you were. Okay. Thank you all very much.

[53:07]

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