So as those of you who've been coming regularly know, we've been going through Suzuki Roshi's books and My Beginner's Mind, and we are now in the third section, which are the wisdom teachings. So this particular talk this evening is called Readiness Mindfulness, about which Suzuki Roshi then says, it is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. It is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. So I think that this talk, in fact, a lot of his talks can seem quite radical for anyone who's new to Zen or to Buddhism, for that matter. So Roshi is reducing the idea of practice to extremely simple terms. You know, as in this above statement, that readiness of mind is wisdom. So I think most of us would imagine that wisdom is something that we have to develop over a long period of time, and it would include a great deal of study of teachings by wise people.

[01:20]

It sounds kind of like cheating to think that readiness of mind is wisdom, that that's all there is to it. So he then goes on and makes it a little more complicated as we go through this talk. So he brings up the core teaching of emptiness. So this is the word emptiness that often seems very startling or like a barrier for a lot of people to understand the Dharma. And emptiness really oftentimes is confused for nothing. We say a cup is empty, we mean there's nothing in the cup. But if we say the cup is empty, meaning it's empty in the Buddhist terms, it means it's empty of being separate from the rest of reality. That the cup, as with everything, including ourselves, is interdependent. It doesn't depend, or it doesn't exist independently. It exists dependently. There's a term called dependent core rising, that everything exists based on everything else that goes into creating this particular object that we're seeing right now.

[02:28]

Like me, or like the stack of books here, or like the lamp. There's so many steps and there's so many conditions that went into creating each and every object. And all of those conditions and steps are what we call the universe. And it takes the entire universe to make, as Carl Sagan said, an apple pie. You want an apple pie? First, you have to have a universe. So emptiness is basically about all of it. It's about everythingness. So he's talking about this word, emptiness. saying that before we understand the meaning of emptiness, we think that everything, including ourselves, is substantial, as in concrete. And then once we have a realization of emptiness, the world changes from substantial to what Roshi calls real. It goes from our fantasy of things being substantial and separate to being real. So that's also a bit surprising given how our so-called normal or conventional view of the world is what we have always considered to be real.

[03:35]

Well, this is real or let's get real and so on. We're very used to that word real as though what's happening around us, what we are, is real. I'm real, you know. But that's the conventional view. And in the conventional view of time and place and persons and... all these many objects to which we've given names, you know, like books and chairs and scissors, clocks and dogs, to name just a few, those are only conventionally real. Ultimately real means that none of that exists by itself. Everything that we can name is dependent on everything else, is interdependent and therefore empty of separate elements. So one way to help understand the word emptiness through the term is to always include this idea of empty of separate existence. Not just empty, but empty of separate existence. And kind of a common way of saying that in Buddhist terminology is empty of own being, of being its own thing.

[04:40]

Or alone, empty of being alone. There's nothing that's alone. Everything is included in this idea. emptiness so real in the world of emptiness is a world in which everything is tentative as in impermanent without any abiding substantial self so all of these things that we view as real conventionally are transient you know they're just passing through and they're taking shape when they appear like The pile of books, you know, somebody made those, and I bought them or got them somehow, and then I stacked them up. There's a bookshelf there, actually. It's just kind of an illusion that they're stacked on each other. And at some point, they will decay, and they will return to the blessed earth from which they arose, and so on. The same thing with everything around me. It's all just temporary, transient. Me too. You too. We're all just kind of passing through, taking shape, and then continuing on our way.

[05:44]

So this is kind of disappointing. When we hear about emptiness, it's often met, as Suzuki Rashi says, with some disappointment that we are no longer a substantial self. You know, we were so hoping that that new car would last or that new job, you know, would be the best ever. And our new spouse or our new wife or husband, you know, everything is going to last, as we say in our ceremonies, forever after. To say nothing of that secret wish we have for immortality, you know, for a life ever. everlasting, as I was told as a child in my Sunday school class. And I'm very disappointed to find that that may not be so. And yet, as Roshi says, that's because we're viewing the world from a deeply rooted and self-centered point of view. And yet, when we actually realize the truth about reality, you know, the real truth, our suffering vanishes.

[06:45]

So this is the type of suffering he's talking about that arises from grasping and desiring things to be different than they are. We want them to be substantial. We want them to last. We want them to be ours and to never leave us and so on. So as we desire things that we love not to end, and we also desire things that we hate to never appear in the first place, right? So that's us. That's the human-centered view of reality. Roshi then cites the first lines of the Heart Sutra, which says that the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara, who we have a very nice, beautiful statue of in our Zendo here in Enso Village, the Bodhisattva of Compassion with her thousand hands and arms there in order to help beings in any way she can. When Avalokiteshvara was deeply practicing prajna paramita, meaning wisdom beyond wisdom, She clearly saw that all the elements of our existence, in Buddhism are called the five skandhas, all the elements of our existence are empty and thus relieved all suffering.

[07:56]

This very famous verse from a very famous text that for most of us on first reading is incomprehensible. It's just like, what? So what he's talking about is this kind of... part of the teaching that is very challenging for us. And so I appreciate your patience in working through these ideas. And then Roshi says that it wasn't after Avalokiteshvara had this realization about the truth of emptiness that his suffering ended, her suffering ended. It was that realization of emptiness itself that was the end of suffering. In other words, the truth itself relieves our suffering. And it's the truth that sets us free. He then goes on to say that the realization of this truth, the truth of emptiness, of non-substantial existence, is always right at hand. Each and every moment is the truth of our transient existence.

[08:59]

It's passing right along as I speak. It's passing right along as speech. You know, the first words I said this evening, I have no idea what they were, but they're long gone. Now I'm working on the next words that are going to be long gone in a few minutes. So each and every moment is the truth of our transient existence. And to realize the truth is to live here and now. You know, not later, after we have some realization about what the truth might be. There is no later. The truth is always happening right now. And this is called the ultimate fact of our life, of our whole life, that has everyone and everything included in it. Then in the next few paragraphs, he gives an example of how we usually view our spiritual practice, as though the practices of Zen and of awakening are two different things. Well, for Zen, we could say meditation or whatever practice you're doing that you hope will lead to some good outcome.

[10:01]

So we have this idea that there's this practice, and then there's this awakening that'll come after we do our practice. So first comes the meditation and our way of thinking, and then this other one happens, this awakening, which will eventually follow if we work hard enough and long enough, or if we are somehow lucky enough. So he uses the metaphor of glasses to represent our usual view of practice. Once we put the glasses on, we think we will be able to see enlightenment. And he says, this is the wrong understanding. The glasses themselves are enlightenment. And to put them on is also enlightenment. And here's the radical part. Whatever we do, or even though we don't do anything, enlightenment is there. It's always there. It's what we are. This is the hardest part for us to understand. In fact, it's the case that we can't practice true meditation as long as we think that we ourselves are doing the practice.

[11:10]

You know, as in, I practice meditation. I practice Zen. Or even sillier, I am enlightened, right? It's that word I. It's the I that creates a wall of separation between ourselves and the world. And what's even worse, from our own true nature, our own true awakened nature, our birthright. So once we create a substantial idea of ourself as separate, who is doing the practice, as Dogen says, we are lost in confusion. Dogen also says, this is from the Genjo Koan, an essay he wrote, a very famous essay that Dogen wrote. Dogen, for those of you who don't recognize that name, is the founder of Soto Zen. the style or form of Zen that we practice here, well, practice there at Zen Center and some of us here at Enso Village. And this essay is called the Genjo Kwan, means actualizing the fundamental point, actualizing the fundamental point.

[12:16]

So Dogen says, when you ride in a boat and watch the shore, so you imagine yourself in a boat watching the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and your nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So Suzuki Roshi next uses the metaphor of a frog to show us how we think of upright sitting as being these two things. You know, there's the frog, you know, like us, sitting upright. And then we think that that's zazen. And when the frog's hopping around or when we're moving around, that's an entirely different thing.

[13:17]

That's not zazen. That's not meditation. So he says this kind of misunderstanding will vanish once we realize that emptiness means everything is already here. Everything is already here. You know, the method and the goal are one. The path is enlightenment. Enlightenment is the path. So whether we, like the frog, are sitting or hopping around, it's already completely practiced. It's already completely awake. One whole being is not an accumulation of everything, you know, kind of like a giant junk shop. So if we think of one whole being as being all this stuff is stuffed into it, that's what makes it one whole being, all inclusive. That makes it kind of like this, you know, giant storage unit somehow. But he says it's not possible to divide one whole being into parts. It's always here and it's always working. You know, this is enlightenment.

[14:19]

Perceiving that is a realization of the enlightenment that's already there. It's already happening. Can't make it happen. It's already happening. He then concludes that there is no particular practice. There's no particular practice. I think this is pretty radical, too. The most important thing for our understanding is to have a smooth, free-thinking way of observing our life and the world that seems to surround us. just a smooth and free way of thinking about our life, you know. This is back to this idea of a very quiet and flexible mind. He says we should accept things without difficulty with a mind that is soft and open to understanding things as they are. We should accept things without difficulty with a mind that's soft and open to understand things as they are. When our thinking is soft, It is imperturbable. It's a kind of thinking that's always stable and undivided.

[15:23]

This is also called mindfulness. Mindfulness is thinking with your whole mind, not partial thinking. You know, it's mindfulness, a full mind. If we're prepared to think in that way, there is no need to make any special effort to think. Everything you think will be complete. will be full, have your full attention, your full effort, your full presence. Mindfulness, he says, is at the same time wisdom, to which he adds, by wisdom we do not mean some particular faculty or some philosophy. It is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. It's back to the first thing that he said right after the title of this talk. It's the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. And so we should not be attached to some particular wisdom, even that taught by the Buddha. Even that taught by the Buddha, Suzuki Roshi saying, we shouldn't be attached to that or any other kind of wisdom.

[16:31]

Wisdom is not something to learn. Wisdom is something that comes out of our mindfulness. And then he ends, so that... That point is to be ready for observing things and to be ready for thinking. This is called emptiness of your mind. Emptiness is nothing but the practice of meditation, the practice of zaza. So I find this teaching, you know, I've read so many of these many times over the years, but, you know, I think these... These instructions are very hard for us to hold, even though it kind of makes sense. You can understand the words. I think it takes some repetition over time for us to be able to actually practice seeing the world in this way, understanding our mind in this way, and knowing how do you soften your mind? What would it be like to soften my mind or to open my mind? You know, those are words, but how do we have that experience of an open mind?

[17:33]

You know, our deeply ingrained way of thinking about the world and ourselves has a very strong hold on us as a species. You know, very quick to create separations out of the oneness that we truly are. And as we're facing the holidays right now, we're noticing that kind of arising of differences. You know, it's like, well, we don't do it that way or you don't do it that way or is it okay for us all to do it? You know, somehow, how are we going to do this? How are we going to celebrate in a way that doesn't feel? and somehow exclusive of anyone else. So this is a challenge for us. And this is something I think we should be very grateful to have challenges like that. Because out of that, we can find out how to open our minds, how to open our hearts, and how to take care of each other in the best way we can. Because above all else, what we don't want to do is cause harm. You know, the primary precept is cause no harm to anyone else. That's what I wanted to say this evening.

[18:37]

And I would very much like to hear from any and all of you who would like to bring something up around this teaching or anything else that's on your minds. Well, let me just greet. Let me see. I just want to say everyone's name. I hope you don't mind. Welcome you. So hello, Kathy. Hello, Griffin. And Corey. And Helene. Echo. Honor, Kate, Linda, Dean, Carmina and Marianne. Hi, Jerry, Stephen, Meredith. Welcome. Paul and Kate. Shozan, Musho, Michael, Cynthia, Jacquin. Welcome, Jacquin. Tom, Lisa, Kosan, Hope, Millicent, Abby. Senko, welcome Senko, Genshin, Michelle, Carol, and Charles Lee.

[19:40]

Very nice to have all of you here this evening. So, Cynthia, please. Okay, so, hello, Fu and Sangha. I have a question. Mm-hmm. This is so... You explained it in a way that feels very easy to grasp. And so often what I hear in these teachings makes sense. And I think, ah, I'm transformed in some way. My mind is now soft and that makes tremendous sense. But then I'll get to work. And there's something about the... way in which you have to be... It feels like you have to... It's so easy to become a different person when you need to produce and you need to interact and you need to get something done.

[20:43]

You become very efficient. And I wonder how you can be all of this stuff here while you're also... Getting your job done. Does that make sense? Sure. I think that's your co-on, Cynthia. I mean, that's the one you bring up each time we speak, because I think that's your challenge. And it is a challenge. I'm sure everyone in this room knows that challenge very well. And I know it. You know, I get busy, very busy. And you should know there's one who's not busy. There's a story about that. The monk sweeping. And the other monk, he's sweeping. He's in the monastery. He's a monk. And he's sweeping the pathway. And this fellow monk comes up. It's a friend. And he says, too busy. You're too busy. And, I mean, don't we all wish that was our job, just sweeping the pathway.

[21:47]

And he said, and then the monk who's sweeping says, you should know there's one who's not busy. And I was like, are the two of you? Is there one of you who's just always present and always stable and clear, and there's another one who's running around taking care of all these jobs and things you have to get done? Does that mean there's two of me? So the guy who's holding the broom says, you know, does that mean there are two moons? Is there two moons or two of me? No, the one who's asking says, does that mean there's two moons? And then the one holding the broom says, which moon is this? Which moon is this? You could hold up a pencil and say, which moon is this? Is this a busy moon? Or is this the quiet moon? You can't really tell. You can't tell the difference. You know, they're laminated. Everything's laminated to the point where there's just one Cynthia. There's one Cynthia, and she has the opportunity to question herself.

[22:48]

You can say to yourself, is there one who's not busy right now? As soon as you turn the light back onto your own self with a question like that, you may find there's a quietness there too. There's an opportunity in self-reflection to notice that there's a quietness there too. Always there. The quietness of your awareness, which doesn't move. The light of awareness is silent. It's just the objects running around in the light. So you turn back to the light. And then you turn to the objects. But you can see that both sides are the same. It's you. It's your mind turning toward the quietness or turning toward the busyness. But it's really important that you allow yourself to explore when you're busy. When you're quiet, it's like when you're happy. I don't have to be worried about anything when I'm happy. I don't explore my happiness.

[23:49]

I explore my unhappiness. So I would say the same thing about busyness. You know, you just want to explore it. Spend time with it. Set your timer for every now and then. Have it go off and take, you know, 15 breaths. Like in Tassajar when you're cutting. Yes. Yeah, tell them that. Tell them what we do at Tassajar. Well, you're working in the kitchen and you're chopping vegetables and... They'll come in and they'll ring the bell and then everybody is supposed to... You stop and remind yourself what it is you're doing. You put your knife down and you stand there for two minutes. Very long two minutes. For the one who's busy. Oh my God, look at that pile of onions. But it's really startling because we do forget. And so I think it's, you could give yourself a little practice like that, Cynthia, and let me know how that goes.

[24:56]

There was a monk, the one who wrote boot camp, the boot, he would say, mind the bell or you will die a horrible, a tortured death. Oh, that's sweet. And I don't know what I think about it. You know, it's like, it's just like mind the bell because we want to give ourselves that, that reconnection to what's happening right now in our present moment. And when we're not, it does feel kind of like it's a bit of a torture. What? No, I went muted for a moment. I'm back. I was listening to you, though. Oh, okay. Okay. I just saw your mouth moving. I didn't hear you. So I thought I missed something. Oh, I was calling Karina to please turn the heat off because I'm dying at the moment. Please don't do that. Anyway, just you get out of the car, you walk into whatever you are and it's just like, okay, I'm on autopilot and my autopilot doesn't like this is this and autopilot is just other thing.

[26:07]

And that's why. That's right. That's why we have to break the spell. Yeah. You have to do practices are things you practice. And if you don't practice them, you never develop any skills. So you want to practice breaking the spell of autopilot. Take it off autopilot and put it on conscious driving. You know? Okay. I'm going to think of the autopilot thing. Thank you for taking my question. You're welcome, Cynthia. The same one every time. That's good. We've been practicing your question. Good evening. I'm not sure I can, I feel such a deep falseness in my thinking that I'm not sure I can sort of bring what I'm seeing. This particular essay, I think I highlighted every single line in it because it was like my way-seeking mind talk.

[27:12]

Excuse my voice. At least half of it. I am convinced of the truth that my thinking is 99% self-centered. The focus of the Gurdjieff work as I knew it was to investigate the imaginary eye, including my best efforts and my practice and seeing how they had been consumed and sort of stolen by that same self-centered attainment. And sometimes seeing that, the truth of that fact, because it's true, brings me joy because I love the Dharma.

[28:16]

But mostly, I see how it interferes with my wanting to be of service, my wanting to love and be loved, be patient, be generous. And sort of, I think I create a duality then of aspiring for something beyond that self-centered. Something, you know, that I know is grounded in emptiness and connectedness. But I'm seeing that sort of as a preference. You know, I prefer the river over the drops of water.

[29:23]

It just feels like I get glimpses of Buddha nature as being inclusive of all that. And that's what brought me to Zen. Yet it is so deeply ingrained in me that there is this self-centered nature and there is one free from that. And I'm not really connecting living the two simultaneously. Yeah, I think one of the nice things about this particular talk, I like this talk too. He's talking about softening the mind. There's nothing you have to do or learn. It's not about going to the Zendo or reading texts or anything else. It's about softening. So when you were speaking, I was remembering this. Do you remember those woven puzzles we had as kids? They're woven finger puzzles.

[30:32]

You put your fingers in and then you pull, try to get out. And the more you pull, the tighter the puzzle gets. So this is like... Opposite world. There's a Zen thing about put your snake in a bamboo tube. So you put that wiggly thing, the busy one, into a bamboo tube, and it just stuck in there because it keeps moving like that. But if it relaxes, if the snake relaxes, and you turn the tube this way, it just slips right out. Just like your fingers, you relax, and the puzzle comes right off. So this is ironic that it's the opposite of effort. That's not that kind of effort. It's the effort of stop. Don't. Let it go. Relax. Take it easy. Don't try to do. You said the word desire many times or I want. I want. I want to be this. I want to be that. It's like the wanting is the source of our suffering. It's not being kind is not the source of your suffering or being helpful.

[31:36]

Wanting to be helpful. Wanting to be. Well, you said loved. Wanting to be. It's the wanting because you assume you're not. There's an assumption in wanting something of a goal so it's somewhere else. So part of it is languaging. How we language ourselves is really our biggest trap. You know, we have to remember the horse we're riding, which is language. And when we remember language, almost everything becomes really clear. If you remember, you're just talking. And then stop talking for a little bit. And just feel your breath. Feel your warmth. Feel your compassion. It's there. Your awareness is there. This teaching is that you're awake. We're all awake. That's hard for us. What do you mean I'm awake? But I'm this and I'm that. And I don't do this and I don't that. Yeah, you're awake to that. You're awake to all those thoughts you have about what a crummy person you are.

[32:39]

That's good. We should be awake to everything that we think and then get it that they're just thoughts. They're just little blubs going through, you know. But it is our job. Griffin, I think you've taken on a great job for a lifetime. I think we all have. This is my job. I don't have another job. I'm not retired, really. You're not retired. Here we are, you know, doing our work. So I think we're all on the right track here. Just by showing up, I feel great gratitude that we can show up for these teachings. So thank you for sharing. I see, Amr, are you next? You might be. Why not? Why not? Okay. Question, academic question. I appreciated your... explanation of emptiness?

[33:40]

What does it really mean? Because, you know, I know that can be confusing to people like me and others. And my question is, because I know there can be so, you know, there's so much going on with Buddhist literature in terms of translation, right? So we're taking the English and we're going back to classical Japanese. And then what do they mean going back to know sanskrit and so my question is like i mean are there other translations of that are also bandied about for for emptiness or the words in the other languages i'm assuming emptiness is the best we can come up with but I'm just feeling like there must be other nuance there that we're obviously not capturing with that English word. Yeah, I've read about a bunch of that over the years.

[34:45]

I don't remember any of it. But I do remember there. Shunyata is one word. I think it's a Sanskrit word. Maybe one that some of you might know a little bit more about that. I think emptiness is the chosen. I forget who it was that chose something else like... I forget, it was Thich Nhat Hanh or someone chose another term. But really, it's just kind of fooling around with a challenging term. Whatever words you find to try and help you, you're still going to be stuck with trying to understand what that term is referring to in terms of your experiential life. What does that mean to say that realization of emptiness is awakening? It's kind of the big banana, right? So they keep pointing at it because it's important, but also because it's so difficult for us who are really conventional thinkers. We think empty. We think nothing. I don't know how many times I've heard the word emptiness, but my mind goes, nothing.

[35:48]

And I have to go, no, no, it doesn't mean nothing. It means everything. And then how does it mean everything? Well, I've studied that in order to talk about it. And one of the nice things about trying to teach these things is that it makes you study, and it makes you go into the text. So I would suggest, you are a scholar, you're a student, I know you are, you can look that word up. You can start with Wikipedia. Okay. And see what it says. And, you know... That's really going back to the primary source. There you go. That's exactly right. And then there are books. There's books called The Emptiness of Emptiness, and there are Tibetan tomes on emptiness. I mean, you can spend the rest of your days looking into that word, and you might have a lovely time doing that. You know? As my teacher said to me, I said, you know, after all these years, what is this good for, all this sitting and stuff? And he said, well, it kept you out of trouble. That I need.

[36:50]

There you go. See? Well, I'll get back to you on that. Let me know how it goes. You get back to me on that, please. Absolutely. Helene, good to see you. Hey, hi. I really loved what you said about empty of separate existence and the empty of being alone, which really... Sounds like good news to me. And I am still taken by the concept of the softer, flexible mind. And I was listening to a Dharma talk, and I believe that she mentioned that and emptiness. ask the question, do you love your life? And that really stopped me because I would have to say, basically, I'm a little at war with my life.

[38:03]

And it seems to me that if I relax my mind, that I am less at war with things and that that fits in with the idea of having a soft and flexible mind instead of, well, maybe instead of an expert's mind. Well, that's recommended. You know, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind is exactly about that. Experts have very little room for ideas because they're all full of expertise. But beginners are like, oh, teach me, show me, tell me. I want to learn. Learner. We should be learners. You know, ones who don't know but want to.

[39:10]

And I think there's great joy in that and being a learner. Yes. It's just that you really have to relax your mind to learn. Yeah. I remember being in a ballet class once, and all my teachers said to me was, relax your mind. And it was, it spoke. You know, like if your mind is tight, you can't. let anything in exactly exactly we try so hard we try so hard and it's really it's painful watching people try so hard you know and it doesn't add up to me loving my life yeah so I'm just wondering about that idea of being a Zen student

[40:19]

And loving my life. It seems like. The more I'm. A Zen student. The more things there are to let go of. That I'm. Divesting myself. Of a lot of what. I might think of. As life. Is that a good thing? Yeah. Good. Okay. Keep going. Get rid of it all. Okay. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to everyone. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, when I first came to Zen Center, it was... Some of you know the name Paul Disco. He's the carpenter who built the beautiful buildings at Zen Center and many other places in the world. He's a Japanese joinery carpenter who Suzuki Orishi had sent to Japan to learn Japanese joinery. And he learned and he came back with it.

[41:22]

And anyway, he was at the dining room table sitting there. We were all these young, new students. And he said, you know, it's not what you're going to get here. It's what you're going to lose. And that kind of gave me a chill. What's he talking about? I think no now, but I certainly have lost a lot. Now I'm losing my memory, which is very helpful too. It's a great blessing. No, that sense of loss is very interesting. I was talking to a friend. This is kind of a side, but it really helped me a lot. One of our dear friends here is an Alzheimer's. diagnosis. And he's doing well. He was a wonderful teacher and he has his doctorate or something, but all of that is slipping away. And he's kind of a simple, sweet person who starts a sentence and can't remember what he was going to say.

[42:22]

And so I asked him, is it painful forgetting? He said, no, it doesn't hurt at all. I just wish I didn't forget, you know, but it doesn't hurt. And then I asked him how it was you know, how's your singing, your hearing, and your taste? He said, oh, they're fine. I love going in nature. I just have no problem when I'm out of nature because everything's just, all my senses are really fine. And I asked him if he minded if I offer him words, if he can't finish his sentence. Do you mind if I help you? He said, no, I'm fine with that. So I just thought, oh, it was so good to know. Because I was worried about him. And another friend I have, too, that has Alzheimer's. And I thought, well, maybe this is good news that we should all know. You know? It's okay. It's okay. And I think he has a very relaxed mind. He's not afraid. And he's not angry. He's very sweet. So, anyway, I wanted to let you all know not to worry.

[43:23]

No matter how this goes, it's just going to be fine. Mucho. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Fu, for a very sweet and easy to follow description of emptiness. I have, over the years, tried to give a couple of Dharma talks about emptiness and thought of different ways of describing it. But I think one of the problems that really always comes up for the students and myself is that it's for something. Like, you're going to get enlightened. And it's different from the way you are right now. And I think that's really the hard part to break from because the way I thought of it or the way I sometimes want to explain it is everything that you are is included in our enlightenment right now. That's fine, except the problem is that would also include anxiety and confusion and bad judgment and stupid things you did and like,

[44:29]

All that would be included. But it's really hard for people and myself to accept that because we want to be better people somehow. So do you think that anxiety and bad decisions are part of enlightenment? Totally. It's all inclusive. It's all inclusive. You can't leave anything out. I mean, you know that because it keeps coming back. Exactly. My irritation keeps... Coming back, I can't say, oh, no more irritation from you. That doesn't work. I'm not the boss. There's no boss. Right. Our experiences, and then we can meet them with awareness, and then we can make decisions about our behavior. Right. I mean, I guess that's where the softness comes in. Yeah. You're going to be mad at yourself. That's fine, I suppose. But when you loosen up and realize that you're mad at yourself, it changes it. That's right. And also knowing that the three levels of karmic consequences have to do with what you think is not much of a problem for anybody except you.

[45:38]

What you say is creating karma for others. And what you do if you enact those angry moments... is the most consequential. So just being quiet. I think one reason monks spend so much time in silence is because they're working with the fact that they've got all that stuff in their minds, that they're really coming to know their own minds really well. And, you know, that's our job for a very long time before we start trying to explain or apologize or whatever it is. It's just like, just be careful. You know, take care of how you speak. And certainly how you behave. And that will be a great gift to others. Right away, you're being generous. Because that will be kind of the outcome of our practice. To decide, am I going to slam the door and break the glass? And accepting that that's a choice.

[46:40]

You're making that choice. There's this interesting... I did some work at San Quentin at one point. And one of the ways they teach this, they were all men who had killed somebody. Everyone I was sitting with had killed somebody when they were young. Almost all of them had been teenagers. And now they're in their 50s and 60s and they were living their lives in prison. Right. They were very polite. And it was actually really nice company. They were very, very sweet people. And, you know, and they couldn't go back. and undo that slamming door or that broken glass or whatever, or that gun, whatever silly, stupid thing they did when they were young. And it's sort of like, how do we bring that wisdom to the young ones? How do we help them understand that that impulsive action is going to impact the rest of your life forever? So the one thing they could offer was to the young prisoners who were arriving,

[47:44]

they could help mentor them and preparing them for a life of incarceration. So they saw that as their, they were Buddhist practitioners, as their bodhisattva work. And I was very inspired by, you know, there's a limited situation. What are you going to do? You're living in prison, you know. Well, you do what you can. And, you know, in some way or another, we're all in prison, are we? So how do we deal with that? and do what we can. Right. But I think I always say to my little sangha here in Catskill and to all of you, we are doing this work. This is what we're doing. And it's beautiful. And it does cut down on the suffering of the world, even though you might be worried about how horrible it is at your job. I mean, you're doing the work. And that's really so important. It is.

[48:44]

It is. I'm so glad you're telling them. Thank you. Thank you. Senko. Hi. So, yeah, I have a question here. A challenge about the soft, flexible mind. Let's see if I see someone else, like my high school kid. She's trying so hard in her schoolwork. she's sitting there hours and hours and trying to improve on her project. I feel like I really want to ask her to be more flexible. Maybe she doesn't need to go on that direction for too long or making so much effort, but I don't know how to do it. It feels like it's a virtue on one hand for her to be so devoted to her work. But then I feel it's because she really want to get a higher grade. So I don't know, I'm feeling very frustrated.

[49:45]

Yeah, well, it's the system, isn't it? Yeah. We all grew up in that system. We all know it. We were all told that the job was to be the best and to compete. And very few of you will be the best. Only one or two are going to be acknowledged. And the rest of you, I'm not sure what we're supposed to think of ourselves. You know, so if you weren't valedictorian, I'm very sorry to hear that. Yeah. Most of us, we're not. So, you know, what is it we are actually here? We've been trained badly. I don't feel like I had a good education. I learned a lot of stuff, but I didn't learn how to learn. I didn't learn how to take care of myself. You know, I didn't learn how to balance my checkbook. There are all kinds of very practical things, you know, change the oil in my car. I mean, there are so many things that I could have learned that were not mentioned. So I mean, it's sad. And I, you know, we can't really change the system. We can talk about it. We can do what we can as teachers and so on.

[50:48]

Cynthia is a teacher. She teaches in high school. I know she does a lot of things. They're off the charts. So I think what we can do where we are. to encourage and how you can encourage your daughter to take breaks. Honey, let's go for a walk. Let's take a half-hour walk, you know, and then we'll come back and you'll have a fresh, right? Take her a cup of... chocolate or whatever. But just to let her know that you really care about her and the priority is not this drive that she's assuming, at least in your mind, in your eyes, that you love her no matter what she's doing. And I think she knows that. But, you know, how to help her to have the conversation. She's still a little young and she's still in the institution. And I'm sure she's going to do well. You know, she'd like her mom. So she's probably going to do very well. But you're also a good example of someone who went through it and saw something else.

[51:51]

Right? And you tell her that. And it's a wonderful gift for her. Don't overlook that. Yeah. I just find it's really hard, as you said. As you know, it's getting into their mind, right? Actually, deeper part. like philosophical part. But, you know, maybe I am just trying too hard myself. I feel like I'm not flexible myself. I really want to change her somehow, shake her out of it. Yeah. That might not be the best way. As you said, maybe ask her to do something fun with me. And she will say, no, I know if she has something to do, she'll say, no, I don't have time for this. No, I have to be very strong. No, you have to do this. Sometimes we have this like fight about you need to stop and exercise. You guys have a ping pong table? I think I'm going to try your way a little bit more because I was just trying to preach and talk about why this wouldn't matter in a long way of life.

[52:53]

All those big concepts. It doesn't go in her mind, but maybe just at breaks, right? As you said, more playfully. Playful. Yeah, I forgot about that. I wasn't grateful when I was trying to force her to not make that effort. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's very good. You're catching it. You're catching yourself. So that's perfect. I'm very frustrated with myself. Yeah, well, notice that and let it go. Notice that and let it go. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Miss Hope. Hello, Fu. Hello, Sangha. I'm in the car. No outside. I'm parked outside of 7-Eleven. I actually, I just left Green Gulch. Just finished Rohatsu Sashin. Happy Rohatsu, everybody.

[53:57]

Thank you. And I just want to... how grateful I am for all of you and to be a part of this sangha and to be in this boat together and I'm so inspired by all of your practice and I love seeing you every week the weeks that I show up and I love all of you. That's all. You know, if you all said Sashim, you're going to be thinking just like she's thinking right now. It's just, it's talking about the great softening. Don't you think? Did it soften you up a little bit? Yeah. This pouring. Yeah.

[54:57]

Yeah. Congratulations. You know, Rasa Sashin is the special sashin that is in honor of the Buddha's awakening. So it's a seven-day sashin, which marks the seven days, this is kind of legendary, that the Buddha sat under the tree, working through his mind, you know, watching his mind create demons and monsters, and Mara the evil one showed up and threatened to kill him. And the Buddha's facing all of these mental... mental apparitions that are appearing. An army comes to kill him, and then these dancing boys and girls come to seduce him, and he just sits there watching his mind. These are all his mind, just like in Sashin, right? Weren't you facing a wall? Yeah. Did you see some stuff on the wall? Everything. Everything. Something was around there on the wall. Well, we know it's not the wall. So you begin to get it that the stuff coming out there is coming from you, from your imagination.

[56:01]

So, you know, in the story, when the Buddha finally meets Mara, the last day of his sashing, Mara says, well, I tried everything else. I'm going to kill you now. And Buddha says, no, you're not, because I know who you are. And Mara says, you don't know who I am. Buddha says, I do. You are myself. And with that, Mara vanishes. And then there he is, sitting under a tree where he's been the whole week. So this is our story. And then we celebrate that moment when the Buddha saw the star and realized he wasn't separate, that he was empty of inherent existence, of separate existence. And he was happy. And he shared that. And we got to hear it. We're the grateful, fortunate recipients of that understanding. So thank you, Hope.

[57:01]

Thank you for sitting. Thank you for your name. Thank you for being you. Very grateful. Okay. Oh, um... Carmina or Marianne maybe, which one of you said that Takna Han uses the word interbeing or emptiness. Interbeing, that was it. So this interconnection. Dependical arising or interbeing is what's meant by emptiness. It means it's all together. It's all connected. There's no isolated anything. No person is isolated. No thing is isolated. It's all connected. It's empty of separate existence. So just keep drilling yourself about that. When you see the word emptiness, don't fall for nothing. It doesn't mean nothing. Okay, wonderful to be with you as always. I hope your holy days are going well and you're meeting with your families and doing whatever else you're doing.

[58:04]

Maybe there's snow where some of you are. It looks like Echo's got a lot of snow there. And may you all have a very good week and I'll see you on Sunday. Thank you so much for your kind attention. Thank you, Fu. Thank you, Sangha. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Good to see you. Good night. Good morning. Good night. Good care.

[58:35]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.98