High in all sentient beings, until we achieve enlightenment, go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. By the virtues I possess, by giving in other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the benefit of all. Thank you so much. And if you'll just give me a couple of moments to just synchronize with you, then we'll start our talk. You know, the Buddha didn't really sign up for a program and give the title of a talk and prepare it and come and give it. It wasn't exactly like that. But what he did do when he was in assembly is would wrap mine with mine. And he would come to know in that way by creating that unification or allowing that unification of mine.

[01:04]

He'd come to know what were the intimacies of each one sitting there. And then he would begin to speak, and he would speak out of that... that knowledge out of that wisdom and the information that came forward would be with each person. There's no way you can be in a room like this with however many people this is, maybe, I don't know, maybe 50 or 60 people, and each one of them came, you know, like, what are you looking for and why are you here? And so there's no way that each one came looking for exactly the same thing. And so when a talk went forward, you know, I would read the Majima Nikaya. And to decide what I wanted to read, I would look at the title. And I said, oh, this is good. I want to know something about this. And once I got into the text, it didn't seem to talk about that at all. So whoever named that suitor, you know, there was a certain way that they approached the information and saw the information, not necessarily as it was, but as they were.

[02:10]

You know, and so it's like that. So I say to you, I have the title of a talk today. If I get to it or not, it remains to be seen. But I'm going to try to drop a few words in there that go with that title. I think it was called Zen in Motion. And, you know, I picked it out because I said, okay, I don't want to give a title because I'm not going to really know what should be talked about. until I'm present with them. And depending on who shows up, you know, then at that time I will know some things that we can talk about, you know. And it's, yeah, but, you know, like we're traditional Zen and we want this right. So I gave a title and I gave it by perusing your website. And I think I saw something there from one of my teachers, Bernie Glassman. And it said something about Zen in Motion. I said, OK, so I don't know these people intimately, but if I pick this, that'll be OK, because they've already had that and they were OK with it.

[03:19]

And so and so that's how the Zen in Motion title of my Dharma talk. came about. But that just goes to show you the titles mean absolutely nothing. You know, because it's not these things, these pointers, but it is actually the possession of the land, the possession of the Dharma land is what we're after, that being homeward bound for that, possessing the land and not the map of the territory. And we can be bogged down in the map our whole life, and we can never take the journey. It's just a journey in our mind. We think we're taking a journey, but there's the our part in our mind. And the Buddha says, like, exactly where would that be? And so until we get to the place that it is no longer our journey,

[04:23]

We haven't taken the real journey. We're still studying the math. So I like to think of Zen, you know, the way my teacher talked to me about it. And he would say, I think Zen is living. Living, it's just everything just as it is. It's there, and you're there, and that's Zen. And Zazen then would be sitting until your dumb mind could get that. Then you can get up off the pillow and then you can move in the world in a unified way that you become virtually invisible. There is not one that sees you, but when one sees you, he sees himself. And when you see one, then you also see yourself through that one. Even down to when you see the trees, and we talk about sentience and non-sentience, but who can divide and who can say, even if I look at this clock, and we might say that this clock is not sentient, but to me, it is the same as if it were sentient.

[05:47]

That is what allows the respect for the clock. and the right usage of it, and the appreciation of it. If I look at a piece of furniture, and I'll tell you the truth, especially if you've, you know, this is not the only world there is. And if you've got a glimpse into some, things that you think are inanimate here, you find an animation on certain levels, on certain planes, on certain dimensions. And I'm not going to talk about that because that's, you know, Buddha said, a lot of things I could talk to you about, but I'm just not going to bother. He said, some of it is like trying to explain blue to a blind man. There's no way to really do that. But when they have their own direct experience of it, then when you're discoursing with somebody, they understand because they also have traversed that territory. And sometimes when you're sharing something, somebody says, well, I don't believe that. And Buddha said, who cares? It's true anyway. And he'd go right on.

[06:48]

And he would tell... what he knows for himself to be true. And the wonderful thing about that is there are many things that I didn't believe at one time that I know to be true today. And if we get into that space, then we don't discount anything. Anything is possible. Anything could be true. And if we keep ourselves too narrowly confined to what we know... how we know it and the way that we do it, we will miss what can be known and what can be experienced. And so our trek towards awakening devolves into a lifetime practice. You know, there was an end result we're after with practice, you know. There was some... destination that we're trying to get to in practice.

[07:57]

So I don't think of it as a lifetime practice. I hope I have an arrival at some point. And to arrive at your destination, you have to know the markers along the way. And you have to have some idea of where you're going. If you don't, how will you know when you get there? And who can we rely on, you know, to guide us on this journey or along this track? And actually, who laid the track for us to ride our vehicle on? So all of these questions come up at some time in our life when we start deciding that there's more to understanding life than what we already know. So we ask these questions, who am I and why am I here? And Buddha said, don't go there. He said, don't even ask those questions.

[08:59]

Just stick right here with whatever's in front of you. And as the answers come, in time, you will have answers that you can recognize, you can understand that is an answer, it is an answer, and you can answer. You can enter into the freedom and into the liberty of it. When we're children, we want to know where babies came from. You know, we think we want to know where babies came from. But if we really knew where babies came from, we would say too much information, you know, because we're not ready to handle it on that level. There's not enough other things in place. The maturity is not there. You know, I mean, they just don't need to know. We may not have to say the store brought them. I don't know. But we know for sure that there is a way that we have to speak to the heart and the mind so that there is enough information and yet not too much information.

[10:05]

And so it's like that with the Dharma. That's why the Buddha said that he teaches a gradual Dharma. And he starts with certain things. He starts with generosity. And, you know, and there's four levels of generosity, four kinds of generosity. And we think that generosity may be the giving of Donna. And some of us may say we're very generous with that. And he said that's the least of it all. You know, and we're thinking like, wow, you know, because at this time, that is like my greatest giving. Because I may be giving and I myself am in need. So that's where our level of being able to receive certain information is right there. Then he just leaves you right there. And when that is no longer enough for you, then he can gently take you into a different level of giving. You know, until ultimately you give yourself.

[11:09]

And there we have Onita. We don't have to really struggle with the concept of Onita because we're not going to be able to even understand it in that way through an intellectual study. We're not going to be able to understand it. But we will understand it as we're walking that road from visibility to the invisible. We will understand the releasing of the personality and all that defines us as ourselves as we're walking. Now, that doesn't mean that when we're out talking, we say this person or that person or speaking the third person concerning ourselves, that person needs food. You know, we just say, I'm hungry. You know, I mean, so language has its place. You know, and we, you know, so sometimes we'll talk about my and we'll talk about our, and that's okay so that we can communicate.

[12:15]

But I understand that it is just sort of a, it is a communication tool. And it helps set up in our mind a concept that we can work around so that we can be in communion. So don't be afraid of words. Just understand that there's something behind and beyond the words that take us into reality, that take us into the Zen moment. It's times like these, except when I have my very traditional Zen sisters and brothers. and my very traditional Theravada sisters and brothers present with me that I worry a little bit. Not too much, but a little bit. Because, you know, this liberty that I've stepped into is very difficult to give up.

[13:23]

And I have this notion that chaos, and order are the same thing. My whole theme for this tour is riding the crest of the paradox because I think that's what the Buddha was teaching us is what hinders us. It's an intellectual people. We think we can carve things out and divide them up until they're black or white. You know, until something is in or it's out. It's up or it's down, you know. And he says, it's not really like that. He says, it's in and it's out. It's up and it's down. It's black and it's white. And when we make it one thing or the other, we've cut off half of our eyesight.

[14:26]

And we miss the full essence of the thing. And that covers every aspect of our life. It covers all of our relationships. It covers all of our aspirations. It covers our spiritual practice. And until we can get that, we become halting in our walk. We're so concerned about doing it exactly right. You know, I'm all for tradition, but I'm also for change. You know, there was a time the Sadducees and the Pharisees were talking to Jesus, and they said, Jesus, why do you transgress the traditions of the elders? He said, why do your traditions make the word of God of no effect in people's lives? And so I have a great and hearty respect. But I also know that I live in the now, and so sometimes I have to make some changes to be more productive in the now.

[15:41]

That can be a difficult thing to figure out. You know, we can't, like, just shoot from the hip and go do something, you know, because it affects a lot of people. And a lot can be lost. I've seen new traditions emerging. And 30 or 40 years down the road, they realized they have lost something. So they thought in dropping off the tradition, they were able to fully move into the now. But there was something embedded in that tradition that needed to be carried forward. And when we dropped off the container, we also lost what was in the vessel. And so all these things are tricky like that. It takes a lot of and a lot of trust in those that we have confidence in to point the way. And yet we know that the map is not the territory.

[16:44]

Nobody crosses the land with me. I walk it alone. That's why the Buddha said, dwell alone. You are the light itself. Rely on yourself. Do not rely on others. And then he said the Dharma is the light. Rely on the Dharma. Do not rely on anything other than Dharma. And he just said for me to rely on myself. Now he says rely on the Dharma. Okay, so which one is it? But suppose it didn't have to be either or. You know, one time he said to them, you know, like, when you see me, you see the Dharma. When you see dependent origination, you see the Dharma. When you see all these things, you see me. He didn't make a separation or distinction between himself and the Dharma, between himself and the light.

[17:46]

And so he says to us, when we start breaking down, that distinction, that separation, then we enter into the reality of it. You know, how wonderful this is. You know, when I thought I knew myself, it was all. So much more than that. So much other than what you think. And so I start to strip away. That's part of this renunciation bit. I start stripping away what I thought I was, who I thought I was. I start stripping away and being willing to be in that unstable place of not knowing. You know, I feel like the more we know, the more we realize we don't know. You take somebody who thinks they know everything, you know about how much they know. You know, but the more we're willing to relax, just learn something, get something.

[18:53]

But then he said, don't hold, don't cleave to it. So there is a getting. Some of us think that there is nothing to get nowhere to go and nothing to do. There is somewhere to go. There is something to do. But you have to see the paradox of that. And then each time you take a step towards that somewhere to go and something to do, once you arrive at that destination, then you see that there was nowhere to go and there was nothing to do. But you had to get to that destination before you could really see that. And so he says our whole life is this way, you know. So if we're relying on the suitors to take us into liberty, You know, when I first saw the Majima Nakaya, I was a Tibetan practitioner at that time. And I tell you, it was really, really good for me. because I had come from a Christian background, and I started as Southern Baptist, and then I went on to Methodist, and then I became a Lutheran, then I became a Presbyterian, and then I became a Pentecostal, and then I was really getting there.

[20:10]

And each time I made a change, it's not because I just wanted to be something else, but because something else opened up in front of me. And I walked in. And walking in, when I asked my counselors and advisors, my pastors and my teachers, what this large room was set before me, they said there was no room. And I'm like, well, then you can't see it, you can't help me. So I walked through another door alone, and I got, and I dialogued with who... showed up in that room. So that's how the transformation took place. So when I'm six, and I'm in a Baptist church, and I'm speaking in tongues, and they tell me, that passed away with the disciples. Okay, so you don't know. And I needed to find somebody who knew. You know? And so I'm with them. And for years, and it's so wonderful. I'm all full of the spirit.

[21:10]

You'll knock over chairs every Sunday. But if I stepped outside of that hall and you got me wrong, you would come up against one tough cookie. You're going to get a good beat down. And so I kept understanding what is this? You know, how could, you know, it's the good that I would do, I don't do, and what I don't want to do, that I do. And I would spend my time on my knees at the altar, you know, praying for more goodness. I already knew I was in right standing with God. I had a T-shirt that told me, I'm not, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just forgiven. You know, so I knew me and God, we were tight. You know, but how is it then that my love for him did not always make me treat you right? So I knew that it was going to take something more than that, at least for me, to come up into the fullness of what I wanted to come up into.

[22:19]

So then I switched denominations and I looked for something else, you know, how we do, you know. And then I'd find some other missing ingredient, you know. And then I just got to the place that, you know, you didn't have to give a sermon. I could just... I could just breathe in the love. I could breathe in the compassion. And that was all that was needed. You know, it was like that energy satisfied my deepest longing. And then I hear this voice speaking in my ear. You don't have to believe that. Speaking in my ear that says, okay... My name was Diane then. Okay, Diane, now you're worshiping the worship. I said, okay, that's it. There's nothing left here for me, you know? Now where do I go? What do I do? So I had this dream. We have them in the daytime.

[23:21]

They're called visions, but it's something like a dream that you have at night, except you're not asleep. And here was this funnel. And I had been dropped into the funnel. And it's swirling around, and it's tossing me. And I get all the way up to the edge of the funnel, and I'm grabbing hold, and I'm holding to the funnel, holding the funnel. And I'm crying out. I'm about to be spun out. I'm about to be spun out. And this voice says, that's what I'm trying to do, spin you out, let go. And so I let go. And in letting go, I found myself completely spun out of Christianity. I'm like, whoa. Well, what do I do now? So then I started looking for something really close, though. You know, I try you, you. And they were talking about something about a science of mine. And I'm OK. I like the way they're talking about it. And I got there with it. You know, but this time it didn't take me 35 years.

[24:24]

This time it was less than a year. And I was like right there again. There is something more. Now, the Buddha kept saying that. He said, I just felt that there was something more. When he studied with his teachers, and they were the most renowned in the land, and he said, I think there's something more. They said, no, it's not. He said, I think there is something more. And so I had to move on. And there was UU now. UU was getting mighty iffy because they weren't like all... They didn't all have a Christian background. It was like, this is getting out there towards those heathen-like people. And I was very careful in my walk. And one week we'd have a Christian sermon, and the next week we'd have a Hindu sermon, and the next week we'd have a Buddhist sermon. Then somebody gave me a Buddhist book, and it had all of these evil-looking things on the front of it.

[25:28]

And I said it was the will of life, and it had teeth. And I said, oh, I don't have anything to do with those heathen people. And I stepped away from that, and it didn't come around for me again for almost 15 years. Fifteen years I wasted by being narrow, constricted. in my thinking, searching and seeking for liberty, yet selective about what comes my way. And so in time, I went to Taoism and became a Taoist priest. And I tell you, that was about as good as it gets. I mean, I just loved Taoism. I mean, there were some bad dudes, you know. Just their talk is so lofty. It's so deep, you know. The sage does without doing, yet nothing goes undone.

[26:30]

Yeah. You know, like, how do I get into this? You know, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, how are you going to answer somebody who comes at you like that? I mean, that's a period goes at the end of that statement. There's nothing else to say. There's nothing else to do. You know, but one day, my master looked at me and he said, you need Buddhism. Because I just couldn't get it. I mean, it was a lofty saying. I believed it with all my heart. But Lord, I had another name. I have about eight or ten names. That's the thing about masters. Every time you get with one, they have to name you. You get a new name. And so I forget some of the names that I have now. I only remember the names given to me by the masters that were the hardest on me. And so... So there it was. I couldn't grasp something. It was a lofty concept. It was in my view. Definitely.

[27:31]

But yet I couldn't apprehend. You know, I didn't know whether it was behind door number one, door number two, or door number three. I didn't... It was almost like it's a glass door because I can see on the other side, but I can't find the knob. I can't figure out. how to cross over into that space. And so coming back, here I am back at the Buddha Dharma. Oh, it was so wonderful. Here was someone who had a Dharma that would take me back to kindergarten, and I could go up through each grade, each grade, and I could find out what I missed along the way. You know, I skipped a grade in school, and I lost something in that skipping. I mean, there's no way you can go a whole year and not learn anything. If so, we don't need that grade, you know.

[28:36]

And so I aced the test, but I was incomplete skipping over in some of my development. And so it's like that for us. You know, I mean, we arrived here due to causes and conditions. But the journey to this place with this egg and sperm and gondola, this consciousness, what's coming out of this storehouse? I don't know how it arrived at this point. I for sure have some gaps and holes. That's why I'm at this point. And so I don't know what I've missed. So how wonderful to have a teacher that starts right there at the beginning and says,

[29:37]

And he can lay it out for you in such a way. You can say, oh, I missed that. I was talking to somebody when that was being shared. And I can take that and I can fill all of these missing spaces so that I come up complete, not full of air bubbles that go pop and mess everything up for me. And this is how our training is, this gradual training. And where I come in, you know, you didn't skip the third grade, so you got that little bit. But I'm at the ninth grade, but I'm missing something that's needed in the third grade, you know. And so I get a chance to go back and slot that in. Now, when you slot that in, it has its own space. That means all of this has to readjust, recalibrate. But sometimes we don't want to recalibrate. I know what I know, you know, and we take this little piece in. but it requires a recalibration of everything.

[30:38]

So yes, I might know something, but I know it in a different way. You know? It is the same elephant, but I touched his trunk last time, and I'm touching his toe now. It's like that. So we have a more expansive view and a better way of understanding how everything works. comes together, we see it more truthfully. We see the truth of it. And so I see Zen practice like this. I see Zen practice as the actual fervent walking out of the Dharma that I am. That's the real one here. Not Paniwati, as you suppose.

[31:42]

You know, I had a, well, he wasn't my Dharma teacher, but he was an acupuncturist. He was out here in California, and he was the only one who had been able to, there's a point in the back of your neck, and if you don't get that one exactly right, you know, the person dies. And he was the one who had been able to do it 99 times without somebody dying. And he told me that when he looked at people, you know, he no longer saw them. We were sitting at the table eating, and he started talking to the person next. And what he was talking about was how the nourishment was moving through their body. You know, because his vision was there and he didn't see them in his body. Somebody was saying, oh, he's just fooling y'all. But, you know, I remember reading in the Dharma, I think it was in the Majima Nikaya, well, it was in one of the books, but I believe it was Majima Nikaya, how some people were in the forest and they were tracking down somebody.

[32:52]

And this person went right by one of the Buddha's disciples. And he came by and said, did you see so-and-so? He said, well, you know, something like I saw some bones going by or something like that. You know, I mean, he just wasn't fixated on what we see. You know, a different vision, a different view. And so it is like that. Has our view changed since we started practicing? What is it that I see when I look out? What is it that I connect with? And where do I end? And where do they or does that begin? This kind of Zen takes us beyond religion. It takes us beyond a practice.

[33:55]

It takes us beyond a formality. It takes us beyond our traditions. It takes us beyond even our newfangled stuff, our in-the-moment reality. It takes us beyond our sciences. Science. So many times, you know, every day somebody's bringing me in my saga, somebody's bringing me another scientific article and saying, read this, read this. You know? He said, see this? This proves what the Buddha said. Oh, you see this? This proves the Dharma. I'm like, no. The Dharma proves that. Okay? You know, we can't make the science our standard. I mean, our science did say the earth was flat at one time. You know? Our science said there's particle and wave. That's it. And never the twain shall meet. Now we find that's not true. And so it's okay.

[34:59]

It's wonderful when through our intellect and our experimentation, our understanding of things and the development of our instruments, we find ways to validate or verify. But these are the things that we create. Could be garbage in, garbage out, and just... Occasionally it happens to coincide by accident. We don't really know. Because that's all out here. But there is a place. Now we talk about in and out, you know, inner and outer. It's difficult to talk about. But just start with an idea or understanding of, you know, I'm looking at this clock, and I really see this time, but it doesn't really make any sense to me. So if you could, like, give me a sign, then that'll help me.

[36:03]

Yes, yeah. And I need you to give me a sign. It takes me 10 minutes to wrap up. So if you can... So sometimes it can get like that, that... And that's really true. I'm looking at the clock, but it's not computing to me because right now I'm doing something else, not telling time. But now when I'm telling time, I'm focused on the clock, and I'm not focused on the Dharma. But, you know, the Dharma is timeless, and it gets difficult to roll down. to roll it in sometimes. And so as we're walking through this life, now I'm talking about thinking of ourselves as human beings.

[37:05]

Now the Buddha starts telling us what we're not. He starts telling us what things are not. We always can come up with something through the proliferation of thoughts and concepts and ideas. We can name everything. We can say this is this and this is this and this is this and they are that and they... You know, we're like a ticket machine. We can punch and send them out. We can always label something. We can name something. We can apply characteristics to something. But the Buddha just says... It's not this. It's not this. It's not this. It's not that. It's not this. And that's how we walk this path, determining and realizing what everything is not, even ourselves, until there comes a point, a place where truly

[38:17]

One does without doing. Yet there is no doer. There is only the doing. And one apprehends the reality of anita, of not-self. Not through trying to understand the concept, you know. Somebody said, I think, therefore I am. There's no way to dismantle that, not intellectually. But there is the dismantling with ease, just walking the path. What path? The path towards the paradox. So he says that as we start walking up the mountain, we encounter winds, worldly winds. this dispensation wins of praise and blame and loss and gain and pleasure and pain and fame and shame.

[39:28]

And they're what constantly cause us to roll back down the mountain. And he says that when one becomes the other, then that's when you traverse the terrain. and you'll make it to the peak. When we talk about the middle way, he was saying if you walk on a tight rope, he says, pay attention next time you see one. They're never walking straight on the rope. There's a little leaning this way, and then there's a little leaning that way. There's a little leaning this way, and there's a little leaning that way. And that's how they cross that tight rope. Now go to a circus, watch one. He says, and this is how it has to be. And then after a while, it gets to the place that one is the other or there's no distinction. So it doesn't matter whether you're praised or whether you're blamed.

[40:35]

You just walk in the truth of who you are and what you're doing. Whatever that is, that's what it is. No need to try to explain it, defend it, fight against it. You're just walking. Now, how are you going to get to the place that you master this? If you're in a place where all you get is praise, no way to master. You know, can't just like read about blame on paper. It has to really hit you frontally. You have to experience it to overcome it. Not like, oh, I understand. No, you don't. It takes passing through it. coming out the other ear. We used to sing a song, tell me, how'd you feel when you came out the wilderness? You know, and that's when, you know, you could tell when somebody gone through a real trial because they come to church and they start singing that song and then they started shouting.

[41:41]

You know, they say, I felt like shouting when I came out the wilderness. Because they experienced what, they had been through it. You know, they didn't read about it. their trials and tribulations. They walked through them, and they came out the other side. You know, when you come out the other side, you come out so tempered. You come out so perfected that you say, oh, I could have gone through that easily. You know, because you come out. It's like I live in a segregated town. It's about 1940 where I lived. They don't have a clock. And it was difficult. It's been a difficult six... It's been a difficult six... Gee, only six years. It's been a difficult six years.

[42:43]

But I know now... Not that I was sent there for a reason. I don't believe in that. But I got there... through certain causes and conditions. And I know now that I can leave because I can leave free. It wasn't time to leave before because I'd not perfected something. I didn't know I would be working on that, though. That wasn't my intention in going there. I went for lofty, noble reasons, so I thought. But I had an aspiration. And my aspiration took me where my mind didn't. My aspiration allowed me the privilege of being in that space.

[43:51]

My aspiration. My desire for perfection. What? We must have started late. So my aspiration took me there, not somebody else's. Well, I'm saying it was their fault. They did this, you know. But he said, no. Just turn it all right back here. And then, though, there's no point in even blaming yourself because you don't even understand how you got here. You know? And so he helps us to digress bit by bit. And where does that digression occur? It occurs in our zazen. But then when we get up from there, we see it everywhere, all around us.

[44:55]

The Dharma is everywhere. And that makes the training so wonderful. We think our teacher trains us, but it's the 10,000 things, that Dharma, that trains us. And so we find ourselves immersed in this sea of motion, this sea of the 10,000 things. And we learn one thing of looking, observing, that if you look long enough, you will see it as it is. So when we sit, we sit with this idea of

[46:00]

not knowing. We sit with this idea of just bearing witness with the vastness of the emptiness beyond our eyelids. We sit with this notion of not of our limited handicapped not of our narrow width band of hearing, not of our narrow bandwidth of seeing. You know, I have a bakery for, we have a ministry to homeless youth, and we just, you know, where I live, they think jails are for them. You know, they don't want to spend any money helping to develop the youth. and give them a chance at life. They just want to be safe. And so the hotel of choice is jail.

[47:05]

And they built them all around. So I couldn't get a lot of support for the bakery. But I went forward with it. And because of that inward vision, it concretized. in spite of the opposition to helping youth in this way, so that I could pay for the programs that they needed, the doctors that they needed, the therapists that they needed, you know, to have housing for them. And last week before I left to come here, we had just gotten a seven-bedroom house with four apartments so that they could start to transition into independent living. Really, truly independent living and not coming back around to the shelter every season, you know. And it was difficult to do that.

[48:10]

My Zen master, Bernie, said, Paniwati, that's the only way you're going to make it. I said, yeah, but I get letters. I get letters from my non-sister saying, if you're going to do those worldly household things, you ought to disrobe. He said, well, what you would they be referring to? I said, oh, they were talking about Paniwati and she's gone. And so they made it okay. You know, and so as we started working with those kids, I could see the difference when we forget about ourselves and we join with emotion. of the universe. And each one that we come up against, that one is all of our self that there is. Seeing each one as oneself, we know we've dipped our toe into and waded out into the waters of the true zen.

[49:23]

So all the other things we do, sitting, preliminary practices, you know? At some point, we want to move on to the fullness of the measure of the stature of a Buddha. In the Vajagata Sutta, someone asked the Buddha, are there any that get enlightened besides you? He said, oh, yeah. He said, I have many monks. He said, oh, yeah, I have many female monks, by the way. I have many lay males and female lay practitioners who got enlightened. And God said... because if you were the only one I wouldn't be interested so I say to you I'll be interested in anybody besides the Buddha attaining I left a very deep and abiding faith because I believed that there must be more not that I found any fault with it but for myself

[50:52]

I believe there must be more. That I needed to do more than grovel at the altar for someone's blessings and that they would find joy in that. I have children myself, and I sure don't want them pulling on my coattail forever for something. I want them to... come up to the fullness of the measure of my stature and even go beyond. And once I had this understanding, then I needed a different discipline, a different training to bring me into that. And as I got that, then I had to take The other training that I had, you know, he said, you can say this is true. He said, but don't say this only is true.

[51:55]

So then I had to take what I had that I'd laid aside. God knew that. But I had to go into this full frontal, giving it my full, going in not knowing, not carrying my whole bag of other stuff so that I can investigate it as it is. Now I can reach back and I can pull that which I also knew. And I mix it in and I recalibrate everything. And I come away more than I was before. This is the joy of this practice. Not just showing up at the Zendo. You know, doing our sitting. Not just going down to the shelter and feeding. the hungry, and saying that's our merit-making. It's not any of these things as long as we recognize one who is doing them.

[52:59]

If we're moving towards the Bodhi mind, there is no one home. There is no I doing it. So if you want to know where you are on the journey, that's the question. How much of me do I know? And when it starts to get fuzzy on you, even though some people may think you look crazy, when it starts to get fuzzy on you, you know that you're on a roll. And then you go on and you let that have its perfect work. This is the... hunger's joy. And this is the path laid out before us and available to us. And we walk it out in this world until there is no one walking.

[54:04]

And we do, and yet nothing goes undone.

[54:12]

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