Before I start, is there something, a question that any one of you has? I was wondering about the breathing. Is there anything else that you know that you can tell from the other types of breathing that you know? Breathing, we don't have any special kind of breathing. This is not my kind of breathing. Long, slow, deep exhalation. We just accept whatever breath arises. If it's a short breath, we know we have a short breath. If we have a long breath, we know we have a long breath. We don't try to be anything like that. It's just natural that we both breathe.

[01:12]

I'm going to take a moment, not to announce anything. Here's a note. I'm just curious about what formality you're supposed to be in right now. Is it informal? Or what formality is ideal? Are you asking, how should you introduce yourself? From the time you entered. We thought we would set it up this way so that you might have a different experience of the morning talk from the afternoon talk. This is more formal, and it's maybe more uncomfortable. It's obviously going to be more uncomfortable for you sitting there. It's just something else to work with and to experience. But not that we want you to be uncomfortable. And I hope that you will feel free to move, just as you have just moved, into a posture that doesn't claim your entire attention while we're here together.

[02:19]

Because I've sat through two-hour lectures with my knees and legs screaming and probably irritated at the lecture. So that's not entirely the point of it. But it is to allow us to be present and to hear with our whole body. When we sit in this posture, our whole body is listening and receiving. I'll get to that. So that's the question of using this room and this situation for half of the talk. We enter the same way. We always enter the same way, the same way. The left leg, the left side, we bow. We always walk behind the altar. And when the Zabitons are arranged this way, you can just come directly to the Zabitons. I don't know how you ended up on that pond, but I guess it was pretty steep to go first and then the Zabitons.

[03:23]

So again, you come to your seat, whichever one you elect, or just point it out to you. And you put the cushions back for you to sit on. Then you bow. And turn clockwise, you bow away. And then you sit yourself, just as I did. Does that answer the question? You had a question. When we breathe, can we breathe like we're going to be aware of the breath in our nostrils? And we can pass it to say that we're going to be aware of the breath in our stomach or ear. We don't necessarily need to embrace it. Well, I think this is intelligent practice. And we do have certain suggestions that we make based on 2,500 years. They come down to us from Buddha, from Lui's time. But if it doesn't work for you, if the particular instruction seems not to work for you, and you've tried it, you've given it one try,

[04:27]

it's OK to shift from thyself. As long as the point is to have some focus of concentration, so that there's some real interest and energy in that point of awareness for yourself. And if the tip of the nostril isn't such a point for you, and further up in the nostrils is such a point, that's OK. It should be one point. It shouldn't change too much. But it's OK as your practice develops for it to change if, in fact, your awareness changes and your experience changes. Yes? Would you please go over the reason that one would want to be tricky at the beginning? OK. Could you ask me to do that again at the end? OK. I'd like to be standing up to do that. We do want you to mess up with these forms a little bit.

[05:32]

We do want you to work with them. This is a physical practice. It's not just something where you're feeding your mind. And when you start doing something, you don't know what to do with your hands, you don't know what to do with your feet, and your mind is doing something else. So that's the whole process, to get messed up in it and to see the way we mess ourselves up. So we're not throwing any special curses at you yet. And please don't feel intimidated by the particular form, even though people tell us that they've been coming to Tassajara for 18 years and they've got a very set foot in this room, because they were afraid once they got in they'd never be able to get out again, or something like that. We know that it is intimidating for people because it's so formal, and we don't have experience with such formality. It's pretty good to try something like this and find out what the problems are for us.

[06:39]

Some of us love it. Some of us love the form. Just give me a rule and I'll follow it, and I'll always know what to do, and I'll never make a mistake, and I'll always be safe. And other people feel completely constrained and inhibited by that. So whatever our nature is, the other side is always there. If we love rules, it's because there's something that doesn't want to be with us, wants to be free underneath, or some nature that wants to be with us. And if we can't abide rules, I think it's because the rules are already very strong within us. So whatever is within our consciousness and is manifesting, the other side is always there. If you ride it in slightly longer, doesn't that mean that the natural process goes on without being conscious of it? You know, when you start to do this, I find that I'm very conscious of my swallowing,

[07:49]

but I think that's the way I swallow anyway. The head, if the neck is extended, the head is extended, and I don't actually notice that it interferes with my swallowing any more than my particular posture already does. So you're saying you become aware of your swallowing? Yes. You become aware of everything? Your itches? Yes. Your boredom? Your restlessness? What am I doing here? I want to tell you how moved I was to hear the introduction last night.

[08:51]

I appreciate the candor with which you introduced yourself, with which you brought yourself into this situation. And we are here with somewhat different histories and different possibilities for this week for us. What I want to talk about today is how to arrive at where we already are. We began to arrive last night by introducing ourselves very clearly. And some of us won't get here for a few days.

[09:58]

Some of us may not arrive in the sense of actually coming past our expectations, our attitudes, our understandings, our goals, et cetera. And my hope is that we won't get anything out of this week, and that at some point you'll give up trying to get something you can take back with you. Because I have nothing to give you. That's mine. My understanding and my words have been taught to me. They've come from my teachers. They've come from the sutras. They've come from 2,500 years of tradition.

[11:01]

And you have it all inside of you, very clear. You have it all inside of you. And anything I say or Linda or Leslie resonates with you, because you already know that. And in a way, that's the journey for you. My teacher Suzuki Roshi said, Buddhism is to show us how we as Buddha lose ourselves, and how we as Buddha regain ourselves, so that we don't believe we're Buddha. We think Buddha is outside of us. Some teacher or some special person, somebody who's brought it deeper.

[12:06]

My own experience and the experience of most of us who've been practicing, is that we have to struggle with our own tendencies and inclinations and attitudes to allow ourselves to arrive, to be open to our experience and to our life as it happens. I'd like to start with where we are right now. Just taking a moment to feel your body on the cushion. Feel your buttocks. Pressing down on the zabu. Feel the pressure of the cushion up against your body. Feel the knees. And the zabu down.

[13:11]

Just feel the sensation, the sensations of your body. Can you feel your breath in your abdomen? Or passing through the nostril? Take a moment to arrive at the breath passing through your body. Can you feel what's happening with your arms and hands? And your hands. Feeling at the air in the room. The air on the cheeks.

[14:22]

And the awareness of the sound of the birds. The voices in the courtyard. Feeling of being in this room together. Breathing. Individual bodies and minds. Just one collective body and mind. Just one body and mind. Katagiri Roshi calls it the imitations of consciousness.

[15:41]

He says before, before we have an image of our body and mind, the real body and mind is already there. Before we have some idea of who we are, the real knees, the real thighs, the real stomach, the real diaphragm, the real lungs and heart are already there. A number of you said last night, you've been thinking about Zen Buddhism, you've been reading about it for a number of years, and now it was time to try it. Trying it.

[16:50]

Jumping in. Sitting in the zen-do. Opening yourself, opening your body in this posture. Please open your body to yourself. Opening the body and mind to yourself. Buddhism is that most special way. Buddhism is each person finding her own way, his own way. When we talked about how to, how three of us might present the retreat, we decided to select one fascicle of the writing of Dogen Sanji, who was the Japanese monk who brought this tradition from China to Japan in the 1200s. One of his fascicles, at the point of departure,

[17:53]

and his deep teaching throughout about 100 fascicles, 96. The teaching of non-duality. It almost doesn't matter which one we select to talk about. No separation. Body and mind one. Practice and enlightenment are not two things. You don't practice, you don't do this posture, you just practice to get anything outside of the actual doing of it. The enlightenment experience is the actual doing of it. This period of dancing is the actual sitting. Whatever discomfort you're sitting in, unease or pleasure, and knowing that. Knowing what your experience is,

[18:57]

is the awakened one. The title, Dendo-wa, which is the fascicle we chose, means to practice, or to make effort, or to negotiate the way. But it doesn't mean that to practice, or to make effort, or to negotiate the way, in order to get something, realize something, arrive at something, outside of just negotiating the way. So Dendo-wa, in Dogen Zenji's teaching and understanding, is to completely accomplish the way in each moment. Each moment we completely realize the practice.

[19:58]

We completely use ourselves up. We don't set aside some parts that we're going to take care of later. We completely exert ourselves, or exhaust ourselves, or meet ourselves, in each moment. Each effort is the only moment. We completely bring ourselves, as much as we can, to following the breath, having a conversation, doing the reading, taking a walk, eating a meal, without looking for some meaning outside the activity. As soon as we... I think we've all had the experience of maybe suddenly something in your body becomes very alive and aware for you. When you do the walking meditation,

[20:59]

you may suddenly feel the aliveness, the complete fascination of the foot on the ground, the foot on the floor. When that... as soon as that happens, your mind goes, I've had an experience. The teaching of Buddhism that when the mind goes, I've had an experience, that's already non-living. I just had the experience. Something in you knew it, but the mind was commenting on it. And whatever appears in the mind is not the deepest truth. The mind can't reach it. It's beyond the mind. The mind can separate us from it. The mind creates discrimination, and separates us from our experience. So we have attitudes, like it's uncomfortable to sit here, or it's too hot, or it's too cold,

[22:01]

or it's too hot, or it's too cold. And those prevent us from just feeling whatever is uncomfortable, whatever the discomfort is, whatever the satisfaction is. The way... Joshu asked his teacher, what is the way? And his teacher answered, ordinary mind is the way. Joshu asked, shall I direct myself toward it or not? And Yonsei, his teacher said, as soon as you direct yourself toward it, you've already lost it. As soon as an intention arises, a goal, something outside where you already are, you've already lost the way. When Rick and I were talking about

[23:01]

how many years we've been practicing last week, how hard it was at the beginning to just believe this simple, straightforward intention. Just follow your breath. Just let your thoughts come and go. Don't get attached to them. Don't get attached to them. Don't become one with your activity. Just enter your activity, completely lose yourself in it. And the part it was to believe actually in that detail, in the wish of that kind of particularity, was what was meant. And it's 20 years later, and I'm here to testify it's that kind of particularity that's meant. But it does take us a little while to collect our awareness. Our reservations are very distant to get our energy back here. So,

[24:22]

in this, I did type up, this Gospel is quite beautiful in some places and quite incomprehensible in others. He plays with the language in ways which are astonishing. He uses the language in unexpected ways. He reaches for untraditional meanings. And he bends the language in ways that make our mind bend and creep and fold over and go help. And then he says, push, push around, push back. Interact. To see, the whole idea is to see the limits of the mind. And when he rephrases traditional foreign relations, we have that whole new window of reality for us here. And one example of this is when Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened

[25:25]

under the Bodhi tree, what he said was, I now see that I and all sentient beings together have the Buddha nature. And for years, that formulation came down. We all have, all sentient beings have Buddha nature. Dōgen Zenji reformulated that and all sentient beings are the Buddha nature. That's a radically non-dualistic statement. If we say all sentient beings have the Buddha nature, then that's like a potentiality in us, a seed to sprout of something that will eventually awaken. It's like there's us and then there's this thing. When we say all sentient beings are the Buddha nature, that's like saying just the way we are

[26:27]

is it. Another way of saying all sentient beings is the totality of existence, everything, sentient and insentient alike. There's nothing in the universe outside of Buddha nature. Even if something we, Buddha, hadn't had this enlightening experience and taught us this, Buddha nature would already be. Another way of describing Buddha nature is saying process. Buddha nature is not when we're mindful and wise and generous and kind. It's when we're stubborn and stupid and mean and thoughtless, envious,

[27:28]

competitive, and envious as well. All of it is our Buddha nature. All of it is the way we are. And paying attention to our thoughts and feelings is allowing ourselves to see the fullness of our being and the totality of our being for that which we couldn't fully exist. And Suzuki Roshi said the practice is to help us become complete. By practicing not to become wise or enlightened but to become the completeness that we already are but maybe have an attitude that we're not. And so we're sitting to let that completeness shine forth by by knowing it.

[28:30]

And we develop faith in the practice by developing this intimate intimate acquaintance and knowledge with all parts of ourselves. The generous impulse the kind helpful loving outreach and the self-centered self-protective irritated uncomfortable life that wants to be enforced. It's all that's all the fullness of Buddha the fullness of each of us. The practice is to open ourselves our hearts our minds to everything that's inside. And to find compassion acceptance for ourselves as we are through which compassion for ourselves we find compassion for each other.

[29:31]

So go with it. So in this classical Dogen is saying that one moment of Zazen is equally wholeness of practice wholeness of realization. One moment of Zazen is equally wholeness of practice wholeness of realization. There is no realization that dies that moment. Wholeness of practice That moment of sitting following the breath getting lost forgetting getting tired and coming back to the breath that realization that's our realization knowing that process knowing that practice. What we're discovering is the texture of our bodies and minds, and we all know we have

[30:52]

some texture that's soft and yielding, and open and flexible, and texture that's hard and resistant and closed, and we watch the softness, the interaction, the flexibility, the willingness to go with things, the willingness to go with the sensation of the thighs, the sensation of the knees, the willingness to stay with that, to breathe into it, to know it, not to be afraid of it, to know it, to feel it, to touch it, to be touched by it. And we know the other side of that, the times when we back off from that, when it's not what we want to do, when we're afraid of the pain, when we close off, when we're afraid

[31:56]

of new experiences, when we're afraid of this person, we're afraid of the cold, we're afraid of the heat, and we allow ourselves to experience both the yielding, giving, opening quality of this mind and body, and the closing, holding, withdrawing the pain that we have. That's who we are, and we're not trying to change any of that. We're trying to be in touch with it. It's hard for most of us who have made a life commitment to sitting with God's end, to not have some expectation that this will help our lives.

[32:56]

Maybe I'll get to be calmer, or wiser, or a better person. And when we sit seven days Sashnim, there is this little hope that arises at the beginning. Maybe this time, this seven days, I'll be able, I'll get it. The teaching will penetrate, it will be inside of me, not just something I'm hearing about. And we renew our vows and our commitments and come to the Sashnim, and somewhere along the fourth day, when we're just in great pain or despair or frustration, energy just goes whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. I can't get it. I don't get it. Not this time. I'm tired of it. Or whatever comes up. There's some letting go. There's some dropping away of intention, of reaching, of hoping.

[34:00]

So when that happens, when that letting go arises, that we're really in our Sashnim, we have no idea other than just this feeling. Be willing to be with these tired muscles, these aching bones, some ease and some joy and some settling that arises from just this. I can't get out of it. I'm not going to get out of it. I'm not going to get anything out of it. We just know this. Know this moment in this body with this breath. And my experience with yoga is that when I gave up trying to get something out of the posture, to get a little more stretch, a little more opening, or a little more strength, and just was with that posture, not going anyplace, just knowing that posture,

[35:03]

whatever limitations my muscles had were gone. That was when I could know my life. That's the kind of knowing our life that we're talking about. Settling into just what's happening, not wanting it to be any better. The stretches of time, deeper or longer. This is as in breath isn't any calmer or more subtle or deeper than it is. Being willing to know this body and mind. Being willing to accept this body and mind. And it's okay with me to have this body that has this kind of sciatic problem or this kind of filiosis or whatever. That's our liberation. That's our freedom. That's what everybody here is trying to get to.

[36:12]

To get to the place where they're not trying to get anything. The quality of that kind of life is a different kind of life. And our special powers, we say, are the willingness to be in whatever arises, in whatever condition there is. The special powers of this practice. And it seems to come from a combination of effort. We can't stop making this effort. Even though you're hearing these words, half of you may be excluding yourself from them all, as I did. For all the years I've heard the teachings. Not me. That's not my way. I don't believe it. So we exclude ourselves and we make whatever effort, our own karma, our own body and mind energy and habit energy bring forth. We're all making our own, doing our own habit energy, doing our own things.

[37:13]

Until one day we run out and we go, I'm not going to get out of it. I'm not going to get it. And something about that, opening up and letting go, can be enormously freeing and liberating. So, one way to describe that is don't know mind. Would you be willing to have a go at your mind first? How about that? Are you all with me? Are you away? Is somebody here? Anybody here? You're not sure. Or are you? You're not trying. Oh, good.

[38:16]

Oh, great. Good. Let's see. I'll skip to the last page. I want to present a koan that's really been... What are we at? 11.30? 11.30 I think we said. So we'd go home and sit in the bathroom and brush our teeth. There's a little story. Look, everybody wants to move. Is anybody sitting there more or less able to stay for a little longer? If you're okay. If you're okay. We used to try not moving. It was low class to move. We ended up being so outrageously angry at the speaker or being in such excruciating pain that I never quite got deep teaching in that. So, let me encourage you to move

[39:18]

so that the rest of this, which I think is interesting, I'd like to share my enthusiasm for this with you so that if you don't get much of anything else, you'll get my enthusiasm. The reason I have to write everything down. I don't know if Linda or Leslie got this. I have to write things down because I think when I write, I start out thinking I was a writer. So when I come up here, I don't generate creative ideas. When I see all of you, I think, ooh. And then I try not to depend on it. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. See, the problem is that I have this text that I've thought through, that I've organized, that's got something to say. And I keep thinking, what am I doing? So that's an example of what not to do. Because it's like there's something outside. What's happening here that ought to be happening. It's something, some deep message I have to give you. We need something to engage our thought processes

[40:23]

because we are continuously thinking. So we need to work with that part of ourselves to kind of blast through it. And these koans and these stories and these verbal teachings help us blast through the conditioning, the set, the mindsets of the mind. So, here goes. A monk asked the great teacher, What are you thinking of in the steady, immobile state of sitting? The teacher replied, I think of not thinking. The monk asked, How do you think of not thinking? The master replied, By non-thinking. So here's the story. The monk comes up to the teacher and says, What are you thinking of as you're doing this steady, immobile sitting?

[41:28]

And the teacher replied, I think of not thinking. And the monk asked, How can one think of not thinking? The teacher replies, By non-thinking. Okay, so the reason this is interesting to me, and I hope to you, is that we have some idea that really advanced Zazen is mindless, where there's no thought. We've read stories about states of concentration and bliss and other states of mind, that if you're really doing it deeply and well, and in a deep yogic state, that's the real, that's it. That's the real stuff. And if you're sitting here with a thinking mind, with thoughts arising, with discomfort and complaining mind,

[42:33]

or blissed out, happy, splendid, joyful mind, you think that maybe that isn't it. You don't know what it is. But 20 years later, that mind is still going. Mind is still going. So the teaching in this koan is, What are you thinking of in Zazen? The question isn't, What are you doing? It's, What are you thinking of? So this koan acknowledges that thinking is what's going on in Zazen. Thinking is what's going on in Zazen. But the answer is, I think of not thinking. I think of the unthinking, or I think of that which doesn't think. So that's the same instruction as saying,

[43:38]

Let the thoughts come and go. Don't get caught in them. Don't identify with them. Don't get attached to them. Let the thoughts come and go. They're not you. That irritated mind isn't you. Let it go. What arises in consciousness isn't you. It may be your habit energy, your conditioning, it's your response, but it's not the deeper you. It's not the big mind, not your Buddha nature. How can one...

[44:39]

Well, it is your Buddha nature and it's not. It's your Buddha nature looked at from one side. It's your process. It's your Buddha nature looked at from the side of form. It's not the Buddha nature looked at from the side of emptiness. So we have these two sides. Like prisons are something that you look at reality from both sides, and you see it a little differently. So what we're talking about is seeing a little differently, changing our perspective. How can one think of not thinking? By non-thinking. And later he says, not thinking is house thinking. Does everybody tell the conclusion? Good. So for me, what this means is that

[45:42]

thinking is simultaneously not thinking. Thoughts are simultaneously no thoughts, and they are simultaneously what we say non-thoughts or non-thinking, which is the relationship between thinking and that which doesn't think, between thinking and not thinking. Thinking and the unthinking. Between form and emptiness. Particularity and the absolute. That's the dilemma of this human existence, that we exist in both ways.

[46:46]

We know ourselves as particularity, as particular beings, but we know ourselves more deeply also. In a way we can't identify with words, but we sense something that cannot be expressed, that we speak of as our true nature, our deeper nature, which is our nature, that part of us that's connected with everything, that's not holding out to be Catherine, identified as Catherine, but that interacts with and flows with everything, knows herself only as part of everything else. So when I look at myself as this particular individual with this set of thoughts and this particular limited body and this limited mind

[47:47]

that needs to write everything down, as soon as I start to examine and study that, I see that I'm a part of, without the air, I can't breathe in here, without the soil, the earth, the microorganisms in the soil, I can't be fed and nourished. Without the water and all the organisms that are in the water, without the sun, without the plant life, the trees, the rocks, without our whole complicated society and culture, without all the structures we have that have made this moment possible, our educational structure, our social structure, the institutions of marriage and school

[48:48]

and business, industry, technology, everything that's created, made possible, the social and physical world we live in, I don't exist. So when we say empty, we mean empty of separate existence, that each one of us, and as I'm speaking and seeing your attitudes and your place and your body and expressions, I feel it and change and interact with it, and we do that all the time, we interact continuously and help each other become, and become turned about and turn each other. So when we say we're empty, we mean we don't exist separate from everything, the entire universe. We have no inherent separate existence.

[49:49]

So that's the side of us that we call the empty side or the absolute side, true nature. We also exist as a particular limited body and mind, but as soon as you study that particular limited body and mind, you slide through that door and you're into this entire universe. As soon as I study this particular thought or attitude, I go into all the reading I've done, all the teachers I've heard, all the conversations I've had, all the feelings I've questioned, the search for my own experience, and I'm back into everything. So when we know ourselves in that deeper sense, when we see through our particular experience into its universal nature, non-particular aspect,

[50:53]

not identified with any particular thought, any particular feeling, this teaching has been passed on to me and out of my deep gratitude and humility, I hope, I want to pass it on so the next generation can have it. This is all. When my teacher felt that way, when his teacher felt that way, and this is just hand to hand going down through the generations. So maybe we can talk a little bit more about that karma. Have some time to talk about that. The basic teaching is that there's no secret teaching. There's no secrets. The secret is in each one of you. And I hope together this week, I have no hopes, right? But maybe this week we can find that secret teaching in us.

[51:58]

Now there should be time for some questions. I'm sorry that there's no time. Does somebody have some observations? Okay. I'll take your name again. Pat. Pat. Sometimes when I sit, I go off and have almost this whole auto-reflexive performance, this dream of something I'm going to do later or a discussion I might have with someone about something that happened in the past. And I wake up from that as often as I can. Can we play this again? I don't know, I'm on 34. I started this morning and I was supposed to start at 10. And I don't even know that I'm counting anymore.

[53:04]

And all of a sudden, through the effort of waking up, I don't know who wakes me up. Sometimes it seems like there's a million. It's an amazing question. Who wakes you up? I don't know. What were you asking? I don't know. It's... I don't... You're sitting. I've just gotten very confused about this. Who is it that wakes me up? And who is it that goes away? And... Just keep that question. We say... Can I give her the answer, right? We say something like, it's our vow. It's our intention. But we don't mean small-minded intention. I've got to get better. I've got to remember to wake up.

[54:05]

It's some deeper intention in the body than just a vow. And I'll tell you, that was a real breakthrough for me when I realized something in me wanted to do this, regardless of how stupid I thought I was. Something in me kept coming back, kept coming back. Something in me wanted to wake up. I have a question about relationships with thoughts. I'm not sure how exactly to focus it. But there seems to be some thoughts that have values. Thoughts that... When I check into Tassajara, I don't find the thoughts that want to be included. I guess the question is distinguishing between

[55:10]

valuable thoughts and non-valuable thoughts. Can you elaborate on that? Just keep track. Valuable and non-valuable. What's a non-valuable thought? Non-valuable thoughts are the thoughts that I want to make at the beach instead of being here. Or more destructive things. So you've noticed that the thoughts that got you here seem to be more valuable than the thoughts that made... the thoughts that someday take you to the beach? You know, all thoughts are there. We're not going to change those thoughts of wanting to have a glass of beer or wanting to be in a movie

[56:12]

or wanting to make love while we're seeing Zazen. That stuff just keeps coming up. That's all. Certain ones you want to act on all the time. Because they are coming from some deeper place. The mind... Somebody said the mind is a gland that just secretes thoughts. So that's just what's going to happen. Everything's going to come up. Because we're connected to the universe. Our deepest unconscious, we call it in Buddhism alaya-vijnana, is everything. All the structures, intellectual structures of our concepts and foundations of our culture. So some people tend to have really far-out things going on in themselves. So that stuff's just going to come up. So I'm not sure I understand the question. The point is not to judge it.

[57:13]

If you are violent toward yourself by trying to keep something out that has its own repercussion. But being soft and generous and letting it come through no repercussion, it'll just pass. Because you know yourself what you're going to do. Your deeper intention. And if you happen to go to the beach and get drunk for a day or two you needed to do that to find out that that maybe wasn't what you wanted to keep doing. So it's not like we prohibit certain kinds of activity in this tradition. The path... Don't strike me. I have lots of questions about the relationship with the intellect. Then you can talk again. That's a good one, the relationship with the intellect. Yes.

[58:19]

If everybody's always thinking and we're always not thinking be unthinking. Then what's the big deal? That's it? I mean, if we're always thinking and we're always not thinking... To realize it. To realize it with each thought. With each feeling. With each feeling and thought is the practice. But you said, you know, I think that's your relationship with God, right? Yeah, that's... We have to use... We use our mind and body to understand that whatever arises has no inherent nature. And sometimes we use our mind by studying a particular thought. By repeating that thought,

[59:36]

obsessing with that thought, penetrating, being occupied by that thought in the whole body and mind. Living that thought until somewhere in it something drops through. And we see that that thought isn't real, isn't the way the universe is. That just was one thought that arose. And the universe in reality is free of that, the limitation of that thought from that point of view, that perspective. That's what I was talking about. But we use our thinking mind and our thoughts to do that work of getting, of seeing the emptiness and the shortcomings of the mind. We use the mind, that's a tool we have, to penetrate our thoughts. We can't set them aside. That's work we do with our thinking mind. If that's the work of that moment,

[60:45]

if we simultaneously realize that that activity is empty, all that work is empty, but to realize that, to hold it and let it go simultaneously, seems paradoxical or contradictory. And we struggle with both sides of this until we're willing to hold the paradox and enter it anyway. It is this thinking, if it's also not thinking, if it's also emptiness, if it's also everything, this particular thought doesn't limit me, doesn't capture me, doesn't prevent me from the next event that arises. But sometimes we do think. Sometimes we do think. We have to, like he was saying, push thoughts to their logical conclusion to see that that's not it. And sometimes thinking is very useful for us. So we don't rule out,

[61:52]

if we have a problem, we can solve it. If you're going to pay the rent, you have to figure out how much you have to work in order to meet the bills and then to buy your food and to buy the clothing and to get the money to come on a vacation. But to hold in mind that all of this is at a certain level of activity, and simultaneously, it doesn't mean there's no activity. It just means the activity is an absolute reality. To say I'm empty is to say that I'm full of everything. Fullness is another way of talking about it. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just another way of seeing if it doesn't bind us and limit us and trap us so that I don't, Katherine doesn't get stuck in thinking. She's a separate entity. And we see our connection, our interrelationship with everything. We're open.

[62:57]

We're compassionate. We're present. There's a relationship and interpenetration or interdependency is what's really happening. We're not self-directed, self-motivated activities. These are more words. Let's... We can talk some more about that if you'd like. Maybe we can ask to follow up again on the question. I think maybe we should stop now and people have to take a five-minute or ten-minute break and read again the other side of this end and then we'll do walk-through meditation. But in the meantime, excuse me, Eleanor, [...]

[63:47]

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