My usual venue has usually just a few people in it, so it's kind of glorious to see all these practitioners gathered together. Yeah, we don't need a microphone in my place. Somebody once said, You should go beyond Buddha. And then somebody else said, no, no, no, you have to meet Buddha, then you go beyond Buddha. And the first person said, no, no, that's not going beyond Buddha. And the other person said, well, that's too bad. First you have to meet Buddha and then go beyond Buddha. And this has been going on for, you know, a couple of thousand years.

[01:10]

So I don't know if we'll settle it this morning. Both in a kind of literal way and a kind of figurative way, I don't know who you folks are. Apart from the fact that you're all mysterious. I only know a few of you individually, personally. So I was reading that Master, Great Master Bai Zhang Huaihai from the early Tang Dynasty recommended that if you're talking about Dharma with what he called heedless worldlings, then there's certain stuff that you just shouldn't talk about.

[02:19]

Shouldn't talk about that. Shouldn't talk about, yes. Could we boost the volume here? So I thought, well, what if I come to give a talk someplace and it's all a bunch of heedless worldlings? What am I supposed to do? Bai Zhang said, well, then you have to talk to them about, you know, the three principles of Buddhist practice and training are sila, samadhi, and prajna. Sila is wholesome conduct. Samadhi is meditative cultivation. And prajna is wisdom. So he said, don't talk to them about prajna. Tell them, look, you heedless worldlings, you have to establish pure conduct and then practice meditative cultivation.

[03:24]

And then maybe there'll be some other possibilities. In other words, you should try to meet Buddha first and then kind of slip around him or her. So I thought, well, Bajang is pretty famous, so maybe that's good advice. But as far as I know, we don't have a mechanism in place for figuring out who's a heedless worldling and who isn't. We don't check your ID at the door or ask everyone who comes into the Zendo a Dharma question before they're allowed to sit down. We could do that. No, we haven't done that. Okay. Then the other part of that, though, is that this is the Zen branch of the family, which is notorious for kind of jumping turnstiles and ducking under velvet ropes and basically getting in there where they want to get

[04:44]

and ignoring all of the rigmarole that you're supposed to deal with before you get to go into where the action is. So the Zen people are like the ragtag band of Buddhist reprobates who crash the sanctum sanctorum without, you know, elaborate preparation. So in Zen, there's this, we kind of have this, this is kind of a tent of meeting. You know that expression? It's very familiar from Judaism.

[05:47]

The notion of a tent of meeting. The tent of meeting is where you encounter the unimaginably intimate other. So you might wonder, well, how can something be unimaginably intimate and other? Personally, I don't know, but that's how it is. And you enter the tent of meeting in order to participate in that presence. So I thought, well, rather than try to figure out who's a heedless worldling, anybody a heedless worldling in here? You see some hands.

[06:49]

Oh, good. Yeah, okay. All right. That's good. So like, wait, am I? Well, maybe. I might be too. Sometimes it's better if someone else tells you, you know, I'm sorry, you're a heedless worldling. But I thought, well, you know, we are what we are. So maybe what we should do is have everyone come into the tent of meeting. regardless of credentials, and sort of do this Zen thing that we do, where we say, no preliminaries. Now, we say that, you could say, well, there will be preliminaries. That is, each of us brings his or her own kind of preliminaries, but we don't worry about that. We say, turn the volume all the way up, right away, on the Buddha word, and just listen.

[07:57]

And don't worry about whether you've done enough, I don't know, preparatory exercise. But since we don't disparage the... the teachings of the ancients. And since, as we say, the teaching is not beyond words, really. It's just that it's not hidden in the words. But since that's so, what about Master Baijong, who told us, you know, heedless worldlings, give them upright conduct, and meditative cultivation first. So I thought, okay, well, why don't we do that this morning? So if you want, you can settle yourselves comfortably.

[09:15]

In case you haven't guessed, we're going to be jumping the turnstiles now. Invite forward the whole vitality of the body-mind. Let that express itself in your physicality. Now just let the body's profound, the body mind's profound stillness come forward. Do not try to bring it in from outside. Don't worry.

[10:32]

Do not be concerned about anything. When concerns present themselves, very kindly invite them to depart. the living tide of the breath wash in and out. And let the flow of the blood touch the most distant shores

[11:33]

Unknown birds are flying high up, calling softly. All the great waters are stilled. And you don't have to do any of this. It's simply done. Now you see, all are in the tent of meeting. None are outside. In fact, the tent is so big that you can't

[12:49]

find its roof or its walls. I know that Not everybody cares for this sort of thing. Sometimes we feel our credulity stretched to the breaking point by hearing stuff like this. And yet, I say, you have prepared the seat

[13:52]

prana wisdom are preparing it and as a national teacher Nanyang Weichalong said, after people hear this stuff, they're not sentient beings anymore. And no more heedless worldlings. The tent of Buddhist teaching now covers everyone. This is the Mahayana heart that can't really be confined.

[14:57]

This is the place of practice of the Buddhas and ancestors. Master Baijong says, from here, you cannot be pulled into heaven or hell. You're like an elephant crossing a powerful stream. rushing water may be up to her ears, but she makes no missteps. You may notice that nothing has actually been brought in to you

[16:27]

but your own nature comes forward. Somebody asked Master Bhajan, how do we attain freedom? He said, if you attain it in the instant, it is attained. You separate from the five desires, from greed and covetousness, from anger and aversion, from purity and impurity. in the instant.

[17:32]

You're like the sun or moon hanging in the sky. The tent of meeting is such a place. The Master reminds us, it is in the instant that this happens. You can't even get ready to leave. this bladder is kind of, we try to make a neat little package out of it and call it Zazen or Practicing Buddha's Way.

[18:59]

Having met Buddha, I suppose you can go beyond Buddha now. Or you don't have to look at it that way. Going beyond Buddha is endlessly entering life. And that includes so-called death. So, as I said, at first it's glorious to be practicing this way with all of you. I sometimes forget how large the tent of meeting actually is.

[20:43]

Not to beat a dead horse, but... Just so you know, just to remind you, separating ourselves from the five desires, for instance, which by the way, just the activities of the, particularly the five senses, also happens in the instant. You don't figure out how to do that over years and years and years, and then do it. It means arrive where you are now. You needn't be led astray by any of the five or six thieves, so-called. In the next instant, if we may speak of such a thing, you have another opportunity.

[22:15]

You kind of see how this works? So as soon as you leave, if you want, you can go back to being heedless worldlings. For now, it's great to be in the company of the great assembly, you guys. I don't have much more to say. Giving talks like this requires some effort. But what I love about it is it reminds me of the way. So I'm grateful to all of you.

[23:21]

Usually, my inclination is to ask for questions, but I understand here, some of you want to get out and get out the muffins, so later we'll come have questions. You're all welcome to come back. And maybe you have some perplexity about what I've been talking about. If so, please feel free to share that with us. Thanks very much.

[23:56]

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