This morning is a morning to honor mothers and motherhood. In this life, I am given some attention to watching mothers with their children and children with their mothers. And I see that the process of motherhood, I see that the process of motherhood, is that okay? The process of motherhood, the life of motherhood, It seems to involve various kinds of pain and various kinds of pleasure and various kinds of joy in service of life.

[01:35]

During the pregnancy, as you know, many, many mothers are sick almost the whole time. Some are not. And the ones who are really sick and in lots of pain are challenged to be compassionate towards the difficulty. And childbirth, actually delivering the baby from the body, is also usually, it seems, very intense pain. But also a time when many mothers say that in the middle of the pain or along with the pain was perhaps the greatest joy of their life.

[02:44]

A time that was so intense that they stopped resisting anything. And in that complete openness Not only did the baby freely come into the world, but the mother perhaps more than any other time sensed the meaning of life. And then the mothers often spend many years, many Hours, many weeks, many months, many seconds, nurturing the children. And loving the children.

[03:53]

Just nurturing isn't enough. Children also need love. They need someone to look into their face, think and feel that this is the most beautiful being in the world. Even though they may look in the faces of other children and think and feel the same thing. For this child, the mother looks and says, in her eyes, in her eyes the baby can see this beautiful most profound appreciation which is coming from not just the mother's thoughts but the mother's body baby can see right into the eyes into the brain of the mother and see that the mother is totally adoring and some people say the mother is saying you are the very best in the world and you're just like me

[05:12]

And when the mother looks at the baby this way, the baby looks back at the mother. And the baby looks back at the mother at something like, you are also the best thing, the most wonderful thing. And then even though the mother thought a moment before that this was the most wonderful thing, now it's even more wonderful. And when the baby sees that, the baby looks back even more intensely and with more joy, and they go like this until the baby can't stand it anymore. The healthy baby can't stand it anymore and turns her face away from the mother for a little break from this most intense mutual appreciation, mutual joy. And this kind of face-to-face transmission of profound psychophysical joy is necessary for human beings to develop neurologically in certain ways.

[06:35]

And this kind of thing not only nurtures the neurological development of the baby, but also... essential for the formation of the self, a sense of self, an ego. So the mother supports the body, the mind, and also supports the formation of the self, which the child needs to function in human society. And then lots of problems come with the self. And these problems are very difficult for the mother. The assertion and the will associated with this sense of self are constantly testing the mother's love.

[07:41]

And then the mother can move into another phase... All these other things continue to go on, but another service that the mother can offer is the mother can also teach the baby and allow the baby to let go, to not cling too much. So the mother provides a service so the baby can learn to cling to form a strong bond And once the bond's formed and the self is formed, then the mother can also teach the baby that the baby can let go. In that first interaction, or the intense face-to-face transmission of appreciation between mother and child, that mutual situation, part of the way the mother teaches the baby that they can let go is to let the baby look away. If the mother follows the baby's face and moves her face around to where the baby turns away from, so that the baby can't get away from it, that seems to be too much.

[08:59]

But sometimes mothers, some mothers have not learned from their mothers how to let go, so they have trouble teaching their baby how to go, how to let go, how to not cling too much. So that's another... great opportunity that mothers have to teach their children to let go of their mother and for the mother to show the child that although they're totally devoted to them, will give them everything, appreciate them completely. They also will let them go. They can send that message. They can say it and they can act it out. I'm here for you. As long as you want me to be. And when you want to go, you can go. You can go be a mother and teach your babies what I taught you. Namely, total devotion while not suffocating or overly clinging.

[10:07]

In this way, a human mother, for example, can prepare, can ready her child for the meeting with another mother, a mother of the Buddhas. There's no sharp line between the human mother, the human being, who provides these gifts and services for the child. There's no sharp end point where the child moves from relating to a human mother to relating to the mother of the Buddhas. The human mother can actually kind of ceremonially stand in for the mother of the Buddhas. The historical Buddha had a mother who provided the things I just talked about.

[11:25]

And that mother, or those mothers, prepared the historical Buddha, the historical Bodhisattva, to meet the mother of all Buddhas. So in front of me there's a Buddha... And behind me there's a Buddha, there's a female Buddha sitting behind me. And these Buddhas and also these bodhisattvas before me and behind me, these bodhisattvas and these Buddhas are the children of what we call Prajnaparamita. The perfection of wisdom is the mother of the Buddhas. A human female or a human male can ritually stand in or sit in for this perfect wisdom.

[12:33]

Can encourage total attention, total devotion without abiding in the devotion. Total giving without dwelling in the giving. Total giving without dwelling in the gift. Total giving without dwelling in the receiver or the giver. Without dwelling in the process or the elements of the process because the giving is so total. In this way, one opens to the perfect wisdom of in which the Buddhas are born. The whole process is a mothering process. And part of serving our role in the mothering process is to be aware of what part are we performing.

[13:44]

So, Once again, the mother of the Buddha is to practice non-abiding, non-attachment to what we are totally devoted to. Non-abiding to beings. non-abiding devotion to beings and to forms. Forms are beings too, but sometimes we don't think of them as beings. But just when I say beings, I would also say forms. So beings are like human beings, to be totally devoted to them. To have a loving relationship with a being, that is mutual. Mutual loving.

[14:58]

When there's mutual loving, that's the real non-abiding. So it's not one person's love towards the other and the other person's love towards them. although that's involved, it's in the mutuality that the non-abiding lives. Because from one side, if you express appreciation and devotion, there's a kind of I'm devoted to you sticking point, or the other side too. But in the relationship, in there, there's no abiding, and that's where the wisdom comes. and the Buddhas are born. But I also mention forms, a kind of being which we sometimes call forms. For example, in this hall we practice the form of sitting.

[16:08]

We spend quite a bit of time sitting. And we sit in a form. We kind of We make an attempt, we commit to sitting upright. That's the form. It's called upright sitting. Now, sometimes the way we're practicing upright sitting might not look so upright, but we understand that that's the form that we kind of are willing to give ourselves to. And loving that form, giving ourselves to the form more and more completely, Understanding when we sit, we're loving the sitting. We're loving the body sitting. We're loving the form of sitting. We're devoted to it. We're devoted to the form. And in the total devotion to the form, it's mutual.

[17:18]

The form is devoted to you. The form nurtures you and supports you. in the total devotion to the form of upright sitting, in that relationship between the person and the practice, in its fullness, there's no dwelling in the practice, there's no clinging to the practice. So I use the word love or devotion, but also I like to use the word discipline. That we discipline we practice disciplining, we practice discipline with the form of sitting. Discipline has one meaning of discipline is to punish, but the other meaning of discipline is a form of training conducive to learning. So we discipline the form. And the way we discipline the form is we learn to do it with no resistance. learning to do it with no resistance for most people involves many many hours of doing it with resistance for example one kind of resistance is a feeling of I don't want to do this anymore I wish this period would end I'm getting uncomfortable I do not want to

[18:51]

I do not feel loving towards this discomfort or this restlessness. Restlessness could be in many forms. For example, I'd rather do something else than be here. I'm not getting anything out of this, and so on. There's many forms of restlessness. Another one would be, I'd like to go to some other Zen center that has better Zen students in it. These people here are not really worthy of my presence. This is a kind of resistance to loving being in the form that we're in. And there's a kind of discipline in this love of learning to do it, a way of doing it where you learn what the resistances are and learn how to, again, then be loving to the resistance. in such a way that you completely love the resistance, not like the resistance, not even like the upright sitting.

[20:04]

That's okay to like the upright sitting, but that's not the love. The love is either liking the form of sitting nor disliking it. Although you may like or dislike it, that's not the love. The love is to give yourself completely to the form so completely there's no dwelling in it. If resistance comes up, in other words, I don't want to give myself completely, for example, then to be kind to the resistance is the process. And to realize the resistance is being kind to you. The resistance is showing you the incompletion, the lack of completeness in your devotion to the form. the same with a person the relationship is loving is devoted and heading in the direction of so complete a devotion to a person to a human person or a canine person or a feline person whatever kind of person so devoted that there's no dwelling in the relationship the relationship in a relationship there's no dwelling

[21:24]

The relationship is constantly changing and constantly non-dwelling. The relationship is actually not dwelling in itself. If we find ourselves dwelling, it's a gift to show us that our love is not complete. So we love more of it. This is a discipline. This is a love. And also mothers... in their discipline in love with children, teach them to brush their teeth, to go use the toilet, to get their pajamas on, and so on. They teach them, they discipline them, they give them lots of opportunities to realize, and the mothers give themselves lots of opportunities to realize, not dwelling in the form of the baby brushing its teeth or using the toilet or going to bed or getting the pajamas on.

[22:29]

To do all these things and to look for the place where the devotion doesn't cling. To show the incompletion and to ready the mother and the child for perfect wisdom. This devotion which realizes the mother of Buddhas is sometimes presented in six parts. The first part is called giving. It's in some sense, it's the first, it's the basic. It runs through the whole process of devotion without attachments.

[23:33]

So you give yourself, but you don't give yourself and expect something. You don't give a gift. You don't give your love and expect something. You give with no expectation. Something will happen, but you don't expect. It's really a gift. That's the first step in transmitting the love. which readies us to meet the Buddhas. Another word which I've been using lately for this first step is welcoming. So, again, the practice of giving would be to learn to practice the giving all the time. To vow, to learn, to make every action a gift. To allow everything you say, everything you think, every posture you make, to make all your actions of body, speech, and mind to make them, to let them be gifts.

[24:45]

They are gifts, let them be gifts. Dedicate them to giving. Join the process of giving. Enter the path of the children of the Buddhas becoming the Buddhas. Someone said to me recently, how could I welcome my daughter dying a tragic death? Of course, we're not talking about wanting anyone to die a tragic death. But how, if it's happening, or if it's happened, how could you welcome it? And I said, if you knew, if you had confidence that not welcoming it would be a disservice to your daughter, that would help you welcome it.

[25:59]

If you felt that welcoming it would assist her in welcoming it herself, so that she, or he, she in this case, so that she could practice what would get her ready to meet the mother of buddhas. If you felt that, then you would do this for her. Or you could do this for her. If she hasn't died yet but she's dying, then in this life she could meet the mother of Buddhas. As long as we're alive, we can meet the perfection of wisdom. We can meet the relationship in which Buddha is born. If we're dying, which...

[27:00]

Some people would say we're all dying right now. If in this dying process that we're in right now, we can learn to welcome everything that comes, everything we feel, all our resistances, all our pettiness, all our selfishness. If we can welcome all of our unskillfulness and all of other people's unskillfulness, if we can welcome... the worst and the best. If we can welcome everything, this is the first step in the ongoing practice of meeting the mother of the Buddhas. And before some people can welcome anything, they need lunch. So it'd be nice if somebody would give them a little lunch, because if their blood sugar level's too low, they maybe can't even receive the teaching of welcoming what's going on.

[28:14]

But after they had lunch, after someone has nurtured them, then they can receive the teaching of, we all love you, you're the greatest, and now... Can you welcome anything? Again, welcoming doesn't mean I want you to come to visit. In a way, welcoming doesn't apply to things that haven't happened yet. It's more welcoming what's being given. And welcoming isn't holding on to what's given. And of course, it's not pushing away. It's really welcoming. And when the thing or the being is ready to move on, you welcome them to go.

[29:16]

And in this relationship, this relationship, perfect wisdom is practiced. The next Number two is ethical mindfulness. Because even though you may feel that you're really welcoming everything or that you're really giving yourself to everything, still there could be some kind of like subtle... Even in the face of this great practice of giving, there could be some subtle ethical... faultiness or inattentions. So then to study ethical teachings may help us find that, oh, oh yeah, I see. Actually, I was practicing giving, but I actually was taking the opportunity of giving before I sensed that it was giving.

[30:24]

Or I was thinking, I'm a little better at giving than this person next to me. or maybe even I'm quite a bit better at giving than they are. They're kind of stingy, and I'm really not, and I'm... Yeah. Now, it is possible that someone is really stingy and you're really being generous. That is possible. But can you see that without thinking you're better than them? It's possible. Especially with children, you can see the mother is totally... pretty much totally generous to the child and the child is like totally selfish and the child is not at all ready or willing or interested in practicing giving towards the mother on some occasions and certainly not towards certain other people the child does not want to be generous to anybody at a given moment and somebody's being really generous to that selfish child and that person could think I'm better than this kid

[31:27]

Or they could just think, this child is manifesting and enacting complete selfishness, and I'm not a slightly better than them, even though I've been practicing giving towards them, and right now I'm doing it too, and I love to practice giving, and I wish to continue to welcome them being totally selfish. And I don't... I'm looking and I actually... I'm looking to see if I think I'm better than them and I don't really think I am. Oh, now I do. I see it. Now I see it. So you keep watching because things change and then the next moment you can slip back into thinking you're better than someone who's really a beginner at a practice that you've been doing a long time. But in the transmission of this readiness to meet perfect wisdom, part of what's being transmitted is I'm not better than you.

[32:32]

You're not better than me. You're great. But even you are not better than me. And then, of course, the other ethical thing is being possessive of the excellent student in the practices of giving. Oh, my God, the little selfish person is actually did something generous. I was watching some grandchildren who someone might say are my grandchildren. I was watching the boy and the girl. And we were in the swings. This is in Minnesota a few days ago. And in the sand in the swings was a quarter. And the little girl... The five-year-old girl found the quarter, and I said, I think it's okay for you to have it. You can ask around if anybody lost it, but anyway, you can have it, I think. So she had the quarter, and then... I don't remember exactly what happened, but her brother came over a little while later and said, could I have a quarter?

[33:45]

And I said, I don't have any quarters. I actually have some... I think I have some dollars, but I don't have any quarters. A quarter for a gumball machine in the parkhouse. And then his little sister came. P7, little sister comes with a gumball bulging in her cheek. And... He wants the gumball. I said, well, we can walk back home and get the quarter if you want to. But then I see them talking, the two of them. And then he's got the gumball in his cheek. And then the gumball's back in her cheek. And then they're talking some more.

[34:48]

Big brother talking to little sister. And then the gum ball goes back to his cheek and kind of stays there. And I think what he arranged with her was that later he would get her another quarter. And then, in fact, that's what happened. But when she did that, I praised her generosity. I didn't praise his negotiation skills. But I said, that was really kind of you to give him your gum ball. even for a taste. And she appreciated that appreciation. And then later, when we went back home, her dad took her back to the park, which is not too far away, and she got her gumball. And I really, I wasn't just saying it to try to get her to be generous. I thought it was really lovely the way she... Listened to her brother and shared her gumbo.

[35:51]

I really did. It was easy to... It was easy to appreciate her. Her effort. And then it was a little harder for me to appreciate his. But he wasn't too cruel to her. He was kind of overbearing a little bit. He was kind of talking to her kind of seriously. But he wasn't like being real mean. really mean. So I could appreciate him too. And that was my performance of the duties of welcoming them at the playground. But again, after the welcoming then, look to see if there's any kind of like sneakiness around the welcoming. If there's any sneakiness in your giving. Again, when I was a little boy around their age, I was downtown during Christmas shopping with my mother, and there was these Santa Clauses ringing the bell. And I had a quarter then, too, which was a bigger quarter than now.

[36:56]

But anyway, I had a quarter, or more than one quarter, and I gave the quarter to the Santa Claus. But I was watching to see if my mother noticed. And even at eight, I could tell that there was a difference between giving the quarter and giving the quarter to please my mother. could see that i could notice it so now i can tell you that even in an eight-year-old there's awareness of i'd like to give the quarter but i'd also like to give the quarter to impress my mother and encourage her to do the same with me in a bigger way we're christmas shopping right so maybe she could spend 250 on me or even more to this excellent little boy So even an eight-year-old can tell when they're practicing giving to kind of like actually sneakily get something back without even admitting, I'm practicing giving to give something back.

[37:59]

No, it's like, hey. So we can convey these subtleties to the students of giving. And it helps to notice in ourselves so that when we see their selfishness, we're not totally shocked. we're very familiar with subtle imperfections in our giving by meditating on ethics while we're practicing this wonderful practice of welcoming everybody and everything. And the next practice is patience. The next dimension of being ready for perfect wisdom is patience. And patience is very, giving is very similar perfect wisdom and patience is too patience is not liking discomfort it's not tensing up and gritting our teeth through discomfort it's just trying it's just being really close to it and not trying to get rid of it not trying to hold on to it but really being intimate with it in the very very very smallest flash of the present

[39:15]

learn to do that if we can be there we can if we can learn to be there with our pain in that way to get that kind of intense mindfulness to it we'll be able to be in pain without deviating from wisdom so and patience with our imperfect practice patience with our discomforts patience with other people's imperfect practice all these things which are which are more or less uncomfortable and then comes diligence again to to really give ourselves to the previously mentioned practices and future practices really loving to give ourselves to these wholesome practices and then comes calm focus concentration

[40:17]

So with all these things that come to us, all the things that arise in us, as an act of love, be calm with them. Things can be very active, like active children, active emotion, active resistance, intense resistance to what's going on can be going on. But we're practicing welcoming the resistance, being patient with it, being ethical with it, and now be calm and relaxed with it. And with these five practices, now we're ready to enter into the completion of non-abiding in all these gifts that come. And when we actually can non-abide in what we're practicing these gifts, practicing these dimensions of compassion towards, then perfect wisdom is being practiced in full. And then Buddhas can be born to serve the world.

[41:24]

And mothers, all mothers, and mothers can be male or female in this, partly in this, men can do part of this. And they may not be the literal mother, but they can support the literal mothers. So I've often mentioned that in the building next to this house here, with the slanted roof, I saw baby born who calls me daddy I saw her come out of her mother and I saw this wonderfully devoted mother delivering this baby into the world and I saw this little Buddha face come out when the baby's head was crowning I didn't exactly understand what crowning was But crowning is when the head's coming through the cervix and it's kind of bulging out through the cervix.

[42:37]

It has a little kind of dome shape. But it's not the shape of the actual head. It's more like a bump on top of the head, which also Buddhas have a little bump on the top of the head, which I think is called a ushnisha. A little bump. There's one on top of the Buddha there. You see? Got a little bump on top of the head. Well, she had a little bump on top of her head, but I thought that was the contour of her head. So then when the whole head came out, it was about 10 times as big as I was expecting. I was expecting a head about the size of my fist, a little bit bigger than my fist. But a much bigger head came out. So I was really surprised. And it was calm. And I laughed when I saw the face. It was huge, calm. little Buddha face. And then 22 years later, I saw her give birth.

[43:50]

I saw my daughter give birth. I became the father of a mother. Which is, oh well, I can't be a mother the way Mothers can be mothers. I can be the father of a mother. So I was very happy to see my little girl be such an excellent mother and give birth to her little boy. And on that occasion, I cried instead of laughed to see the beauty of her effort, of her giving, of her patience. And the story goes on. now I can be devoted to the grandchildren as a way, partly as a way to show the daughters or the mothers and to show the mothers of the daughters that although I wasn't such a good father

[45:03]

on many occasions I wasn't really giving myself fully I'm still trying to learn how to do that with the grandchildren and so they can see me trying to give myself in a way that I didn't know how to give myself to them this is part of my confession and repentance which is also part of getting ready to meet the Buddha, confession and repentance of our past and present shortcomings in practicing compassion and clinging to our children and clinging to our other things which hinder us from being totally devoted to our children. But those things that we're clinging to, we should... we should be devoted to them, too, in the same way, so we won't cling to them, so that we can give ourselves to our children, to our students, to our parents, to our spouses, to everything.

[46:16]

So I think that's kind of simple. Right? Very simple. Just give yourself completely to everything. That's all. Including Give yourself completely to any resistance in yourself and others to giving yourself completely. That's it. That's how to get ready to meet the Buddhas. Get ready for the birth of Buddhas. And there's nothing harder, of course. But it's very simple. It's total. And also in the total of it, once again, in the total giving of ourselves to others, we realize others are giving themselves totally to us. Until it's mutual, it's not complete. If I think or you think that you're giving yourself completely to somebody and they're not giving it to you back, you have not yet given yourself completely.

[47:21]

Even if they think, I don't want to give myself to you, they're still giving themselves to you completely. And when Buddha is born, there's an understanding of that and wishing to help them understand that they're really not being stingy. They just don't know how to practice giving yet. Happy Mother's Day.

[47:58]

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