for taking care of this work period so well and I know there's lots and lots going on and it's long hot days so I appreciate you coming tonight hopefully this will be a restful event so the heart of Soto Zen Tonight's version I say is the non-duality of practice and realization. This is the essential teaching of Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen and our practice here. So many of you have heard such thing before and maybe people haven't heard that at all and have no idea what that means. this phrase practice and realization comes from this story of the sixth ancestor and Huay Neung, the sixth ancestor in China, sixth ancestor of Zen, and Nan Yue, a student of his.

[01:20]

So Nan Yue came to Huay Neung and said, well he came to Huay Neung and Huay Neung asked him where are you coming from? And Nanyue said, I'm coming from Mount Sung. And the six ancestors said, what is it that thus comes? And he contemplated this for a while, apparently, and at some point said, to say it's this misses the mark. Or to say it's just like this, you know, to say that. It's pretty good, right? I mean, what else can you say, really, right? But even to say this, it's this, misses the mark. And then, so the sixth ancestor asks him, well then, is there no practice in realization? That's the source of this phrase.

[02:22]

Is there no practice in realization? If you even say that, to say that this is it misses the mark, then how can we talk about anything? How can we have a practice and a realization? And Nanyue says, it's not that there's no practice and realization, it's just that they can't be defiled. And then the sixth ancestor says, this non-defilement of practice and realization is what all the Buddhas have maintained and transmitted. You are like this and I am like this. All the Buddhas and ancestors are like this. And that's the end of the story. So, tonight,

[03:26]

I would say that the non-defilement particularly in this case the non-defilement is the non-defilement or the defilement would be the defilement of the duality of practice and realization or the separation of practice and a future realization or a separate realization apart from practice that separation is the defilement So when Nanue says, it's not that there's no practice in realization, it's just that they can't be defiled. They can't be defiled by such a separation. And so Dogen's energy seemed to pick up on this story and appreciate it deeply. And then he used this phrase, practice realization,

[04:28]

two Chinese characters, Xu Shou, practice and realization we say, or sometimes we say practice enlightenment and the practice enlightenment of the Buddha way like with a dash in English and sometimes practice realization but both these translations are not so accurate really. Practice is pretty good for Xu, practice or conduct or cultivation spiritual practice it's often used for. But the show literally means something like verification or confirmation or authentication. Those are good translations. And often we don't really define what we say, practice and realization. We have some vague sense of what that means. But I thought it would be helpful to, since this is the heart of Soto Zen, to play with these terms some about what they mean.

[05:32]

I think one common misunderstanding about when we hear practice and realization are not too and even a kind of widespread Soto Zen interpretation is that practice means Soto Zen practice which means like in a monastery which means like when you hear the first roll down on the Han you go to the Zendo and you bow to the seat and you bow away and you sit down and you face the wall in a certain posture, and that's practice that's not separate from realization. And Dogen says elsewhere, and Suzuki Roshi also says, people have probably heard, just to take this posture is itself enlightenment. So again, how do we understand that? Do we say, okay, I'm sitting in the posture and I'm thinking I'm sitting here in the posture, this must be enlightenment, so yeah, this is it. Maybe in one sense we could say that that's so on a very deep level.

[06:37]

But we might not feel so benefited by such an understanding. We might just say so. It's a nice idea. So again, tonight, this is just, you know. me playing with these ideas and hopefully we can converse about this and you can throw out some ideas too about these terms but how about saying that practice is not a particular posture or a particular monastic form even though all these things are manifestations it could be manifestations of practice but the practice in a sense is a more universal activity or non-activity of letting go of fixed thought patterns, letting go of our beliefs in basically anything, letting go of

[07:56]

my identity as separate from this experience, letting go of non-wholehearted engagement, letting go of half-hearted engagement in any activity. dropping off body and mind, meaning our limited version of body and mind, our narrow, habitual, self-centered idea of body and mind, dropping that off and receiving the body and mind that is arriving each moment. So if this is practice, what's the verification then?

[09:03]

And I think verification or confirmation in this sense is referring to confirmation of enlightenment or Buddhahood or awakening. But it's a nice term because those terms are kind of abstract actually. Enlightenment is kind of a weird abstract word, actually, I think. But confirmation or authentication, I think in that way, realization could work as the actualization, that kind of realization, not necessarily like a realizing something that could have that meaning too. But this confirmation or verification, we could say is, in a very straightforward way, I think in a kind of common to all paths of Dharma, we could say what we're affirming or confirming or verifying in practice is peace and freedom and wholeness and

[10:23]

ease and joy and being fully alive and selfless compassion and taking care of whatever comes and all these wonderful fruits of practice that we've heard about or experienced to some degree at some times. You could say maybe that's Dogen maybe wouldn't say it that way because it's too straightforward. But what if verification is these wonderful gifts that we probably mostly came to a place like this with such fruits in mind. And so here's two definitions thrown out of practice. The practice of just releasing, letting go.

[11:29]

As a body-mind experience, releasing whatever I'm internally grasping, which is often something. And in that moment of release, the verification is... right there. If practice and verification are not to, then it's not like we release and keep releasing and releasing and letting go and then at some point there'll be this verification maybe years later, maybe after we've stopped releasing and go back to grasping again, maybe the fruit will come later or something like that. But it seems that actually a moment of a little bit of Letting go is a moment of a little bit of verification of contentment and freedom. Like we all know this, but we might not appreciate it fully because we think there's maybe a big one coming in the future.

[12:34]

And, you know, if there's a big one coming, it must come now. When it comes, it will always be now. And if it's a big one, it's just... If it's a big verification, it's just because there's big letting go. If there's complete letting go, then there's complete verification of such peace. It's the non-duality of practice and realization or verification. very very simple in a way and very straightforward and it's very moment to moment kind of thing which is often different than even if we've heard this before we might not fully accept such a thing because we might say well sounds good but I have to practice a lot more before I really like take that up or you know

[13:36]

This is just the beginning of, if you're coming for the summer, this is just the beginning of the summer. Maybe by the end of the summer, I'll be able to verify such letting go. But I think such thoughts are actually ways of the fixed belief protecting itself that has to be later. then it has to be later. And this letting go can be small increments. It doesn't have to be like, I just completely let go of my identity and I don't even know who I am anymore or something like that. It might just be, I mean, every day we have the opportunity. Zazen is, we could say, particularly designed for this dropping off body and mind in a moment-to-moment way, letting go of discursive, conceptual thinking, moment by moment, nothing else to do but that.

[14:45]

Just presence with what's happening and adding nothing extra. But all through the day, so work practice, right? Every moment's an opportunity. so many little graspings, little attachments and aversions to how things are being done and the people that we're working with and all this stuff. I think if we're really attentive it's almost continuous on some low level and then there's big peaks in it when it seems like okay I'm really holding on now. And often I say we notice it, but ironically, those times when we could most notice it like that are often the times that then we blame somebody else for something. So this is another form of letting go of the fixed view of me is no blame.

[15:58]

Never blame. No blame at all. It's radical teaching, right? Can you imagine? No blame. That nobody else ever, ever has created a problem for me. It's never happened and it can't ever happen. What's that? Ah, yes, exactly. Self-blame is another one. Same exact thing, but more subtle. And in this case, as I think I said, there's one thing to let go of is the separation between me and my experience. So it's like a kind of internal separation. We think of separation between me and others, but we do this internally with ourself. We have arguments with ourself in our mind, right?

[16:58]

Quite frequently. We have this like divided mind that's like arguing with itself. It might even be like a really spiritual kind of argument. Like if I could just, we're sitting in Zazen and there's two minds inside talking, right? Like if I could just let go and just, you know, I'm like so resisting this, the heat or the cold or the pain or the coughing or the thinking. If I could just let go, that's the internal divided mind. And kind of blaming. One part of the mind blaming the other part for not letting go. It's quite common, right? You make it sound like despair. Despair? Despairing over how it is in your head. Yeah, often it does seem like despair. Yeah, exactly. And it's a completely internally created thing. In a way, it's like maybe it's a step closer to finding some space or freedom in there when it's an internal argument as opposed to like internally we're blaming somebody else.

[18:13]

We're sitting in Zazen and we're thinking like, I can't believe that person did that to me. It's like, meanwhile that person is just like happily sitting somewhere else and they're over the thing, you know, and maybe, you know, but we're still like, holding a grudge or something. These things are so natural. It's like, you know, it's so universal. And yet we have that opportunity to see what's going on and see, like, this makes no sense. This can't be how it really is. This is this, I've made this story of these two knees arguing with each other. And also I think a good way to do it interpersonally, like in work things, It's like letting go of the ideas of how we think things should be done. And part of how a place like Tassajara or a Zen monastery is set up is that there's all these positions, right?

[19:14]

Sometimes we don't like the positions that we get or that other people get or any of that. It looks like there's a hierarchy and stuff like that. Luckily, the whole thing keeps changing all the time. So people who really do like it eventually get torn away from their position too. But it's a great thing to practice with because it's just something we make up and it has the advantage of each position gets to fully accept their position and let go of their thoughts of wishing they had a different one. And this could be like every day. It could be like a position job for the whole summer or it could just be like... You know, can you cut this bowl of carrots now? That's kind of a position that you might say, well, couldn't I be, like, cutting cucumbers or something? They're not as hard as the carrots. There's just little thoughts like that, you know, and it's just like, and somebody, and why are they, who are they to tell me to cut the carrots, you know?

[20:19]

And of course, we have all kinds of opinions on how they should be cut and all that. So these are all great opportunities for this, practice of the realization of the non-duality of practice and verification. Can you see how? I'd rather cut the cucumbers. So the practice is like, I will just release that wish. It so doesn't matter, right? In the long run, it really doesn't matter. even like an hour from now it's not gonna matter so just can I just let it go now maybe the bigger ones are harder but same practice always right and then there's the verification instant instant verification not even like a second later it's like they're non-dual right they're completely non-separate the verification of a little bit of how nice to release that and just cut the carrots and actually

[21:25]

Either way, I'd end up cutting the carrots and I could be resisting it or not. So it's just been a verification of a little freedom from the way I thought things should be. All this probably sounds very obvious to people, but this is the heart of our practice. This is it, right? It's a moment-to-moment thing all summer, all winter, all life. Yes. Well, because they're non-dual. If we understand how they're non-dual, that just let go for the sake of letting go, the verification is there. That's kind of part of the trick to it, too. It has to be for the sake of the practice itself. Because as soon as we set up the verification separate from it, which is the duality of practice and verification, then it's never going to work.

[22:32]

And because we're looking for the verification, which means that there's something that we're not letting go of at that time. Does that make sense? So you could say it's kind of subtle, but it's also really simple. And yeah, the slightest wish for the verification is kind of like not trusting that the verification is completely not separate from the practice. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And you could say, well, maybe you let go of one, or you're starting to let go of something, but you've grabbed onto something else when you're looking for the verification. So it's like really, yeah, no hope of reward. But Dogen did put forth this teaching, and I'm bringing up this teaching as a kind of truth that we can trust.

[23:42]

And if we kind of understand how it works and trust that more and more, then we don't need to do that extra step of thinking about the verification. And as soon as we make it future, it's completely abstract. There's no such thing as the future, right? There's no such thing as the future. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's I think part of the design of a place like this is just for this very test, for this very challenge.

[25:00]

And so we could say there's two different kinds of situations. There's infinite kinds, but I could say two. One is that there's people who just come and they don't know all these like ways of doing things and forms. And even people maybe been around for a little while, but they've just forgotten or they just temporarily forgotten or just don't know. And then as we can easily see, it makes no sense to blame. It makes no sense to blame because it's just like, of course, Howard, you should have known that from the day you were born. So then we don't get worked up, but maybe then we can offer them afterwards or something. or ask the e-note to offer them the form. And then the person's job, another part of the design of such a thing, is then the person receiving the information on this new form receives it in the spirit of letting go, like, oh, thank you for that, instead of like, I feel blamed, or like, I'm always doing it wrong.

[26:16]

That's a kind of self-blame thing and all that. I think it's really important, especially for newer people coming to really understand that there's no inherent right or wrong to these kind of forms and ways of doing things. They're not like moral imperatives or something. They're just traditions that we set up to play with in this way. And we play with in a pretty serious way. Yeah. Yeah. Play wholeheartedly. How about we play wholeheartedly with the forms. And then the second situation is for people who do know and don't want to or something. Or are just kind of like, we can tell that they kind of know but they're kind of resisting. And then, yeah, then what's the practice? It's hard to know.

[27:18]

Part of it is this whole role thing, too. It's like, what role are you speaking from, and so on. And we create these roles that are instructing other roles, and so on. And it kind of works pretty well for the most part. And part of the traditional Zen thing is all this seniority thing. So a person, like in Japan, it might be like a person who's been one day longer in a monastery is correcting everybody who gets there the next day. And it's just completely set up that way. So we can play with things like that. But it's challenging. But mainly I think the work is mostly internal. All practice, in a way, you could say, is on a certain level, it's like there isn't anybody out there, actually. This is my mind is creating this whole thing. this room of people and so on, and like, and if I start, if I'm getting worked up over them, um, the first step anyway, the practice thing is like, to turn back, turn the light around, right, and like, what's, how, you know, what am I creating here?

[28:33]

Now, there's dangers of going too far that way, and, and, um, that's why I say it's, that's one version of it. It's not like there's nothing in a nihilistic sense happening, but, um, The external world is a mind thing. One more thing in the zendo is during zazen, I don't want to skip over this step because we have not so much zazen during the work period and we're not talking about it so much, but to just really encourage us to, because of that, because we don't have so much and we're not talking about it so much, are thinking about it so much and we're focused more on the work practice to just remember that during Zazen time to really, that because it's designed for this very practice, it's the easiest way, right, to verify, to practice and verify the non-duality of practice and verification, that to really give oneself to that.

[29:41]

It's easier to start planning work during Zazen already. There's nothing to do but let go. Yes? Are you saying that part of the formalities is the task? Yeah. In fact, we could say that everything is a test. Like our whole life, everything that happens to us is constantly a test to see if we can let go of our whatever we're holding, whatever fixed view or whatever it is. And just life itself is giving us its own versions of this all the time. But the formalities and ceremonies and forms are like we kind of, we sort of design that partly as this kind of test.

[30:43]

And there's other functions too. We could say a lot of it is a form for expressing devotion. Because expressing devotion is actually another way to say letting go. Sounds kind of different, but I think to really wholeheartedly especially expressing devotion through a form that I didn't make up is a really great way to let go because it's kind of like, it's just like, here we are, it's like time to bow, we're all going to bow now. It's not like, yeah, I'm like, isn't it cool that I'm bowing? Well, no, everybody's bowing. And none of us here thought of it. It came from way, way long ago. And so we can just throw the limited self into this bow that includes everything. Yeah. Could you just speak more about how a container of forms and schedules actually sort of are conducive to seeing how we identify?

[31:54]

You know, how we're identifying with externally and internally and how it helps to reveal, you know, duality, non-duality of this guy. I think the basic the basic there's basically there's two forms of non letting go one is like attachment and grasping and holding and kind of getting and like the kind of this you know pulling towards and holding and then there's the other form is like pushing away, aversion, resistance. We could also call it greed and hate. And the only thing that's not at all grasping or averting is letting go, presence, what's happening.

[32:55]

So the forms, those that we can watch if we're doing one of these two things around the forms, Usually I think it's the resistance one. It's the aversion, like the wake-up bell rings and it's like, I'd really rather not get up now. Thank you. Thank you very much for ringing. I think it's more subtle, but I think you could in the sense that like, I hesitate to say because it's kind of like, If you're used to the other way, the grasping ways are kind of, maybe, kind of viable to play with a little bit. Like, it might be, like, the first little, like, sign of the bell. You leap out of bed. And it's, I am, like, the supreme Zen student. And you, you know. And I guess that's the grasping part, is that I'm the supreme Zen student.

[33:56]

Because you could just leap up with no sense of, like... I can't believe I've never done that before. It's so great. Isn't that the ideal? Suzuki Roshi talked about that. So that's the kind of grasping. Maybe we can identify if we lean towards one or the other, and we go back and forth all the time, but if we're an aversion person, maybe you can kind of head towards the grasping a little bit, and you'll end up in the middle. And if you're a grasping person, like, maybe like perfectionist or something, then, you know, just a little bit the other way, just a little, towards, I don't need to do that way exactly, like that, something. or being in accord with these delusions.

[35:09]

Is that the same as letting go? Completely in accord? What does in accord mean? It means you don't resist resistance. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Yeah, and I think this is like a subtle thing, but maybe during Zazen, possible when you... Yeah, I think like Like you're resisting knee pain or something, and you're just, okay, I'm not going to try to stop resisting. I'm just going to experience the whole thing. And that's when this is this point about not separating oneself from one's experience. So if one's experience is grasping or resistance, the separation would be like, I must stop grasping or resisting. It's like another kind. And then we add another layer on that, a layer on that. So to cut through all the layers might be like, the deepest we can go might be like, okay, I'm just completely resisting.

[36:10]

And I think the experience of that, particularly if we're like really focused on the whole thing, really attentive like in Zazen, it kind of like changes into something other than resistance or grasping. It's not like it's suddenly like, It might just suddenly go away, but it's more like there might be a lot of energy there, but it's no longer the kind that we would call grasping or resistance. It might just be like energy, just flowing energy. But there's freedom. There's freedom there. It seems like when I hear let go, often I think I should get rid of it. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. I guess that's why I brought that up. Yeah. Yeah, letting go can start to fall into a subtle kind of aversion. Just let go, let go, come on, let go. But yeah, so letting go.

[37:10]

And again, zazen's a great time to really work with the nuances of the experience of letting go. And it's really like, another thing is it's a body-mind thing. So it's like, if it gets... If it gets too much like a mental sort of fighting, then there's the bodily experience of just like relaxing, releasing, relaxing while sitting upright. Sometimes if it's a strong aversion or resistance, it's usually we're physically holding it too in the body. So relax the body and then it might be like the resistance, the mental resistance changes or shifts into something else. Yes, Catherine. I was thinking about people don't realize that the Greek person is so-and-so. So I was hoping you might ask if you might illuminate that in terms of kind of the same issue.

[38:14]

It seems like we're just constantly going towards this middle place. It might be what? Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, statements like this are a wonderful gift of the Zen school. And they're dangerous teachings too, right? Yes, they are. It's a very tricky point. Yeah. But I think it, and it's something to, I think they're only dangerous when we make them into a kind of conceptual idea of them in order to justify some kind of our behavior or some kind of grasping or aversion. Like, I'm grasping aversion, and I'm like, I don't really want to let go, so, like, let's just say the Bodhi. And yet, that's a kind of conceptual thing. But the experiential, we can experience it in a moment-to-moment, simple kind of way at any time by just, just like we were talking about, of, like, there's, yeah, I really, I, um...

[39:25]

Now I decided I accepted the job of cutting the cucumbers. But as I'm cutting them, I keep thinking about how I'd rather be cutting the carrots or the other way around or whatever. And then to realize that there's just a thought that's arising and there's some freedom. in it. We don't have to necessarily just stop thinking it. We're like, okay, it's arising, it's arising, it's arising on its own. And on a deep level, I'm not really creating it, that thought. And it's a gift from all things, that thought. So therefore it's the verification of peace and freedom, that very thought of wishing to be doing something else. This is something we have to actually taste or experience. And it's not so far away.

[40:27]

I think we can in little ways. It's in moment-to-moment kind of way. And this is part of the beauty of Zen. It's hard to talk about in a way that doesn't get stuck. But it reminds me also of, so Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, uses this phrase, practice and verification, all over the place in his main writings. Like this morning we chanted, um, um, so the way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization in this limited way? And maybe tomorrow we chant, um, um, practice and realization is naturally undefiled. It's naturally undefiled It's naturally not separated. It's naturally non-dual. Going forward is a matter of everydayness.

[41:30]

So this is not, it can sound like an exalted Zen teaching, but going forward in this practice of the natural undefilement of practice and verification is a matter of everydayness. which you will not find in the dictionary, don't worry. And luckily we have every day to practice everydayness. And the Genjo Koan, Dogen's other, another one of his main teachings, one of the most beautiful expressions of this point. And it gets missed in our translation because they don't, it doesn't get said quite this way. To parry the self forward and experience myriad things, so to carry the separate me forward and experience these things outside myself, to carry the self forward and experience the self-critic mind, that's a myriad thing, is delusion.

[42:44]

to carry the self forward and practice and verify the myriad things is delusion. So it's the same term, Xu Shou. To carry the self forward and practice and experience. We might say realize sometimes. To carry the self forward and do this practice realization thing is delusion. But that the myriad things come forth and practice and verify the self is realization or enlightenment. Do you follow that? So to carry this limited self forward, coming from the point of view of me, to carry this self forward and practice and verify the myriad things is delusion.

[44:06]

So it sounds kind of funny to say the self... is going to practice the myriad things but this is the way Dogen talks and it's probably maybe make it simpler by saying experience but we could in the way we're talking tonight say to carry the self forward and carry out my idea of practice and realization and the separated practice and verification That's delusion. But that myriad things, everything in the world and the universe coming forth, not from here, but everything coming forward and practicing the self and verifying the self and confirming the self. Everything is confirming the self. And this is not like the small self. This is so that we could say there's two different selves in this two sentences of Dogen.

[45:09]

The first is to carry the small self forward and experience and practice and verify myriad things as delusion. But myriad things come forth and practice and verify and confirm this unlimited, ungraspable self. That's awakening. So it's like the self that's actually arising is the one that's created by the myriad things. Yeah, it could be.

[46:19]

Yeah, that's the advantage of a group. But there's all kinds of, even if it's not Zen groups, we're always in some group. Like our culture or whatever and our subculture and our friends and our family, those are all groups and those are all great places to practice. because they're groups, because other people have different ideas than us. Luckily, we have those. We don't call them Zen monasteries, but they're people who have different ideas than us, which offer us that practice of how could they think such a way? How can I think such a way about them? You can find practitioners near where you are too, but also, in a way, you could say, somewhat you set it up on your own, but if you follow, like, for example, Dogen's Zazen instructions, even on your own, in a way, then, too, you're not making it up on your own.

[47:33]

The more we make up on our own, the more dangerous it is, and yet... course we want to be totally creative and the beauty of creativity and we don't want to be just like lemmings right just like just I'll do whatever they say I mean there is a time for that maybe most of the time but it doesn't exclude creativity at all it's like in fact the way that we let go is totally unique and creative and different for each person. The way we respond to each situation is going to be different for each person.

[48:38]

And the small self is also illuminating in a way that you can get to see. If you're not moving, if you're not bringing yourself forward, you're identifying your identity at the small head of forward and saying, oh yeah, look, you're all this. So you're identifying with it, but when the community needs to come forward, and isn't there still like a small self that arises in this possible condition that are coming forth to illuminate big self, well, a small self as far as, oh, I get to see you. well there's not there's not a small self out in the sense of like a independent self created by the myriad things but there is a sense of one there is a belief in one most of the time a false belief and that one yeah is given that one is that belief is given to us by the myriad things and so again to see to really understand that point deeply is goes back to this point about the that the three poisons are Bodhi because that the third poison is the delusion the basic delusion that that I am an independent self so to see that that delusion

[50:06]

is given by the myriad things. There's not really an independent self, but the strong belief and feeling and deep conviction that, like, I am here and, like, I will always be here and, um, that false delusion, um, being given by the myriad things, if we understand that that's all it is, then that's freedom from it without the sense disappearing. Yeah, without feeling like, oh, now I don't even know who I am anymore. Now I still feel like there's me here, but I really don't believe it. Yeah. I'm asking particularly about if one of the ways that you practice is Either that you recognize a pattern in your discursive mind and go, oh, I have to call myself down off that.

[51:07]

I tend to leap there too easily. Or instead you recognize an englomeration of feelings that go with your icky thoughts and you go, oh, I have to back out of my icky feelings. I must be thinking well. So you recognize a pattern in your discursive mind that you get away from or icky feelings that you get away from that let you know that you're going into your less desirable I think recognizing... Yeah. Yeah, what did you do first? Well, maybe some of each. Some of each. I think it's basically recognizing our moment-to-moment experience, which includes feelings and thoughts. But I would... Yeah. Sometimes we even catch it, and I think that this is a lot of what practice is about, is learning to catch that more and more quickly. And I would say that... Feelings is a good way to identify it because they're often stronger and more easily recognized than the thoughts. Yeah, the icky cluster. But then there's, I would say there's usually a thought pattern behind the feeling.

[52:11]

And actually, I would say that the thought is the real culprit. I mean, the feelings are like a manifestation of it. So if we're feeling resentful, yeah, that there's actually a... belief of a conceptual belief behind that and sometimes we have to like really look carefully to find it it's not so obvious but it's there and I would say it always involves this basic belief that there's an independent me that's being been offended exactly usually been offended yeah well a good way a good way is to like stop first of all stop whatever we're doing if we can and tasar is a good place for this because even if you're chopping cucumbers you can actually okay wait wait a second like this is like I gotta really look at this for a minute I'm just gonna like stop and like and we can do that and zazen of course we're already stopped so even easier but um but I think that's one that's one of the good tool

[53:22]

is to study these things is to simplify the situation. For example, if we're in argument and it's happening, you might say, okay, hold it, I've got to study the self. Can you hold the argument a minute? I'll be back in a minute. Yeah, I'm serious. Yeah. And we can do that. We usually don't want to, right? Because we're in the argument first and then go... Anyway, it's getting time to stop. It's hot in here, huh? So, thanks again for being here and practicing and verifying the non-duality of practice and verification in a moment-to-moment way, even if you don't realize that you're doing it. May our intention equally extend to every being and place.

[54:27]

With a true merit on Bada's way. To join this, I vow to save them. Illusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become.

[55:04]

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