This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I had a vision when I was driving in here recently that there's a sign up at the top of the road that says something about a sanctuary. Has anybody saw that besides me? No, just me? I saw a sign up there that says, this is a sanctuary. Anyway, I aspire to work to make this valley a sanctuary. A sanctuary for something. A sanctuary for something that's really... sacred to us.

[01:01]

I'm going to move this thing to see if you can still hear me if I move it down here. Can you hear still? So I would like to have this be a sanctuary to free all beings from suffering so they may dwell in peace. That's what I would like this place to be. Which is a similar thing to say, I would like this place to be a sanctuary for Zen practice. Or anyway, take away the word Zen and just say, a place for practicing in a way that frees beings so they may dwell in peace. And one of the ways we speak of this process of freeing beings so they may dwell in peace is we speak of it as an intimate face-to-face meeting, a face-to-face meeting.

[02:17]

And in the meeting, there is an intimate transmission of the... unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect truth. And in this transmission, beings are released, are freed from their delusions, which are causing the misery and stress of their life. intimate face-to-face transmission. This transmission, which is not going just in one direction, it's going between the faces.

[03:25]

And it's not like one face has the Dharma and the other one doesn't. The Dharma is the communion, is the communication between the faces. And you can call that, you can call it, also you can call it the Buddha or Buddhas. Buddhas are this intimate communication. Buddhas are The freeing of all beings so they may dwell in peace. That's what Buddha is. It's not like Buddha is over here and the beings are over here getting freed. The beings are here, like here. The beings are here. And the way we are freed is Buddha. And we are freed in a place like here where we are intimately communicating.

[04:36]

with each other. The truth is that intimate communion and that intimate communion or intimate communication is the truth. The truth is a conversation. It's an activity. And we are in truth, we are in truth, in truth we are intimately communicating right now. It's not like later or before. Right now, we are intimately communicating, and yet that may be difficult to understand. So what I just said to you, you could say, is a theory. It's a theory of, you could say, the Zen school. What's the theory? The theory is, in truth, right now and always, we are intimately transmitting together.

[05:47]

That's our truth. That's always the case. That's a theory. And then we use that theory to practice. So, for example, This is a sanctuary for freeing beings. And it's also a quiet place and a place of stillness. And in stillness and silence, we remember the theory that we're intimately communicating and remembering... This theory is to put the theory into practice. So, again, we sit in meditation here. Many of you are sitting in meditation here right now. And you could be meditating on the theory, the teaching, the theoretical teaching that you are in intimate communication with all beings right now.

[06:56]

And that this intimate communication... is liberating beings. And this intimate communication is peace. And... there's various, I'll just say various ways to remember a teaching. One of the most important ways to remember a teaching is to remember it consciously. So like I, that word I that you just heard again, it seems to be

[08:00]

something coming out of this mouth, and this mouth is right here where I am. So I, like many people, maybe all, live in a consciousness. I'm partly living in a consciousness, and I'm in the consciousness. I'm here in this... awareness, and you're here, I see you here with me. And I don't know if you think you're here with me or not. But I think that you think that you're where you are. And that is your consciousness. And consciousness is, in some ways, consciousness is a very important place to remember the teaching of intimate face-to-face conversation.

[09:08]

Because where I am is where I am limited. The place where I'm here and you're there is a limited version of my life. It's a finite version of my life. It's a finite mind. which I would call consciousness. And I'm here in this consciousness. And in this consciousness, there's beginnings and ends to this finite life. There's birth and death. In this consciousness, I have ideas like that, and it seems to be that things go according to birth and death here. Where I live, in the consciousness where I'm living, there seems to be birth and death. Birth and death are the... Part of the structure of this limited consciousness is part of the structure of finite existence, birth and death.

[10:30]

beginning and end. So the theory says that this finite, limited awareness in which I live is in intimate communication with all other finite So there's a teaching which has come into my finite, limited mind, where I live, and the teaching says, this finite consciousness is intimately communicating with infinite other finite consciousnesses, some of whom have heard this teaching. you've heard it.

[11:36]

You've heard a teaching that your consciousness is intimately communicating with, for example, my consciousness and his consciousness and her consciousness. You're all communicating with everybody in the room intimately. And you can hear that teaching in words in your consciousness. And now we can talk about that. So, Buddha is this conversation about the conversation that we're already having. Buddha is about how all your consciousnesses are communicating with mine. Or another word for mine is the awareness where I am. Again, here's the theory again.

[12:40]

Theory is, the teaching is, all of your consciousnesses are intimately communicating with mine and everybody else's consciousness here is communicating with yours. Intimately. Everybody's consciousness is pervading mine right now. All your consciousnesses are pervading this one. And this one is pervading all of yours. That's the intimacy. And that intimacy is our liberation and our peace. That's the truth, which is our peace. And it's a teaching and it's a theory. And you can put it into practice. And one of the ways to put it in practice is to remember it. Well, first of all, listen to it. And then listen to it again. And listen to it again. I don't know how many times I've listened to this, but I've listened to it many times.

[13:45]

And generally, the more I listen to it, the more I practice it. And the more I practice it, the teaching and my practical activity become more and more the same thing. So another characteristic of this school is to practice in a way that you're... all your daily activities become the teaching. So when you're talking to somebody or looking at somebody, your talk is an application of intimate communication. And your gestures with your flippers is gestures of intimate communication. And it isn't just that I'm gesturing to you, but that this gesture is permeated by you.

[14:49]

You, I wouldn't be able to make these gestures without your support. You are making me make these gestures, according to this teaching. I do not do them by myself. The teaching is I'm not doing this by myself. I'm doing it with you. And what I'm thinking is the same. All my thoughts, gestures, and speech are displaying this intimate transmission. And my gestures are finite. The ones I can see in my consciousness are finite. I don't know how they're happening, but I can kind of see that they're there. I don't know how I can do this with my hand, but it's happening.

[15:53]

My speech and so on, these are finite things. But the way you're all helping me and the way my finite activity is communicating with you, that... is not finite. That is infinite. It occurs to me that one of the reasons why I sometimes feel anxiety is because I sometimes feel I'm limited and I don't understand also that I'm not limited. I am limited, yes, but I'm also not limited. You are finite and you are infinite. And this communication with each and every being, each and all beings, is a practice to realize that you are finite,

[17:05]

and you are infinite. The communication, the face-to-face transmission is to open our finite mind to something which it cannot contain, but it opens to it anyway. through the conversation. It's like now I've opened the topic of infinity here to each of our finite consciousnesses. And although my consciousness cannot contain the infinity, I can still communicate with it and learn from it. I can learn from I can learn from the way all of you are permeating me.

[18:10]

I can learn from a teaching which says that's so, and then I can open to the way it's so also. And I can learn from it. And when I learn from it, there is the liberation of all beings. and dwelling in peace or realizing peace. Again, I've heard and I uphold the teaching that we have a finite life. But I've heard and uphold another teaching. We have an infinite life. We have infinite life. Our life is provisionally finite. And it's provisionally finite each moment.

[19:16]

And each moment is finite. And there's a teaching which that our life is really infinite. We have birth and death. Yes, that's the finite dimension. of my life which I can see in consciousness. In the place where I'm living and I'm aware of you, I can see my birth and my death. And I put a lot of attention into my death and also even what will be done after I'm dead. I put energy into that. I'm working on ceremonies that I would like people to learn to perform after I'm dead in relationship to my death. This is a way I fairly energetically entertain and practice with and am good friends with my finitude.

[20:17]

By loving my finitude wholeheartedly, I realize my infinitude. And I can learn things from finitude if I'm kind to it. And I can learn things from infinity if I open to it. And also part of opening to it is to be kind to it. One of the, I would say, highly adored and worshipped Buddhas in the Buddhist tradition is called in Sanskrit Amitabha Tathagata. Tathagata is an epithet for a Buddha and it means Tathagata could either mean thus gone or it also could mean thus come.

[21:30]

So It's hard to tell because the word tata, if you put it together with gata, you get tathagata, which means tata, which means thus, and gata, which means gone. And you put them together and you get tathagata. But also you could take tata, which means thus, and put it together with agata, which means come. Gata means gone. Agata means not gone, come back. And you put agata together with tagata and you get tagata, tagata. So you can't tell whether it means gone to the way things are or come from the way things are. So this Buddha is one who has gone to the way things are. And what are the way things are? an intimate transmission.

[22:35]

Some beings have left the realm where some... Like, ordinary consciousness is like, I'm intimately communicating with some people. Like, I'm intimately communicating with you and you, but at a certain point, I can't keep track of all the people I'm communicating with. But I am. The Buddhas go to the suchness, the thusness, which is this inconceivable, infinite mutual transmission. They go there, and they realize it, and then they come back. So those who have realized this intimate communication are here with us, talking to us, in the realm where we have a partial awareness or a partial acceptance of this intimate communication. And one of them is called Amitabha, which means infinite light.

[23:42]

And another name for that Buddha is Amitayas, which means infinite light. And I might have switched those. But one name for this Buddha is infinite light. And another name for this Buddha is infinite life. When we go to the way things are, we go to the realm of infinite life. And then we come back from the realm of intimate life to continue the communication with those who don't yet understand this infinite life. And we get to the realm of infinite life by taking wholehearted care of finite life. By taking care of birth and death thoroughly, we open to no birth, no death. We realize that. And then we naturally continue the communication so that realization comes back to others who are still learning to take

[24:58]

intimate care of birth, intimate care of death, intimate care of anxiety, intimate care of trouble, intimate care of messes, intimate care of everything that's appearing in this limited realm. To the extent that I... do take care of it, I'm freed of it. But my freedom is not like after I'm taking care of it. My taking care of it completely is my complete freedom. My taking care of it partially is my partial freedom. So this teaching is, in one part, is saying the way things really are is this intimate communion in this teaching is also saying, with anything that's not an intimate communion with all beings, take care of that too.

[26:13]

If you feel like you're not communicating with someone, you're not having a wholehearted conversation, then apply wholehearted conversation with not having a wholehearted conversation. I want to explore my limited consciousness. I want to explore my limited life. and I want to explore it carefully, step by step, gesture by gesture, word by word, thought by thought. These gestures, these words, and these thoughts that are living in my limited, self-centered consciousness, I want to take care of each one generously, carefully,

[27:28]

patiently, diligently, and calmly. And then I can open to the infinity of each and every thing. And again, I can learn a lot from taking care of my limited life. And I can learn then another range of teachings by opening to my unlimited life. So there's training and learning even before we're really open to our infinite life. Our infinite life is always with us, but we're more or less closed off from it. We're confined by our self-centered perspective, more or less. It's there to be.

[28:31]

welcomed and learned from, but we sometimes say, maybe later. So the more wholehearted we are with our limited mind, the more ready we are to open to our unlimited, infinite life. And we take care of both. But we start with taking care of our limited life. I would recommend you start by taking care of your daily life. And remember these teachings and see that your daily life applies to them or apply the teachings to your daily life. Can I remember this teaching while I'm having a conversation with each person I meet?

[29:37]

Can you hear me in the back? Sometimes I can remember, yes. And that is then teaching me how to practice with my finite life. And I'm accepting that teaching and trying to apply it. And if I do this, I notice that I do sometimes forget the teaching. And then when I notice that, then I can remember it and go back to practicing it. Exploring my finite life, exploring my limited consciousness, seems to be one thing.

[30:50]

Like, you know, right now I'm exploring my limited consciousness with you. And you're in my limited consciousness, by the way. But still limited, even though you're all in it. And there's more in it than you. But still limited. Exploring this is one thing, and then there's exploring my infinite life, which is kind of hard for me to say anything about. Another teaching is that exploring your finite life is exactly the same as exploring your infinite life. Learning about your consciousness transforms your consciousness. And you learning about your consciousness and transforming it towards peace by that learning is the same as other people learning about their consciousness and becoming free.

[31:53]

Which again is the practice of freeing all beings. And I free all beings by freeing this being freeing this being by studying this being in this limited setup frees other beings in their limited setup. And I wish to make a sanctuary for the practice of freeing this being, which is the same as freeing everybody else. And, you know, that's it. That's it. And this work of freeing this being is finite and infinite. It's self and it's everybody else. So there is the assertion.

[34:11]

That's one way to say it. There is the assertion. And the other way to say it is, I assert. Which means in consciousness there's an assertion. And I'm there too, so I assert it. But I can leave out I and just say, there's an assertion. And here's the assertion. I am included. in all of you. And all of you are included in me. And I can notice or there can be an awareness of whether I accept that or not. Some people might feel like I do not include that person. That person is not included in me. In other words, I disagree with this teaching in this case.

[35:16]

In that case, over there. That's not me. It's not included in me. If I feel that way, I feel like, okay, I'm arguing. I'm doubting this teaching. I'm not mean to myself when I notice that I'm excluding somebody. from me. I accept that I feel that way, and I remember the teaching that that's not true, even though it looks like that, that I don't include, no. Anyway, I don't know if it looks like I don't include him, but I don't want to include him. I don't want to include him, actually. And I wouldn't mention it, except it maybe kind of looks like I do, so I have to say I don't. I won't let myself include that person. Or vice versa, I won't let myself be included in that person. But the teaching is, I am included in all of you, and all of you are included in me.

[36:23]

And the teaching is also that there may be some doubt about that. There may be some resistance to that. That's part of the teaching. And then another part of teaching is what happens when you resist. And what happens when we resist this teaching is affliction arises. The summary of it is greed or greed arises and hatred arises and confusion arises. When we don't accept that we include the whole universe, we become confused. We get knocked off our center. because our center is that we're including everybody. But we can't see how that is. It's invisible. It's infinite. But we can resist it, and we can notice it, and then we can admit that we're resisting, and we can notice that there's greed, or hatred, or delusion, or confusion.

[37:31]

And we say, oh yeah, just like that, right, that's what the teaching said. It said, if I don't accept this teaching, I'll be confused, and deluded, I mean, and greedy, or hatred. And not just a little bit of I want more, but an obsessive greed and an obsessive aversion. One that's really bugging me, that's twisting me, because I refuse to accept the teaching of intimate mutual transmission. Again, it's not the end of the world. You can notice it and reveal it to all beings and open to the teaching again and apply the teaching again. So the kitchen is leaving now to go make lunch.

[38:39]

And that means it's about 11 o'clock. So maybe we could end now. Is that okay? I mean, I could stop talking to me. And you can continue. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:29]

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