So hello again. A nice rainy day here in Mill Valley. It's been a couple days of rain. It's really always such a treat, all that water coming down. Everything's green and blooming. So I just wanted to start by making an announcement. Next month, well actually this month, March 24th at 3 p.m., we're going to have our third precept ceremony at Green Gulch. This one hopefully will be in the Zendo. And both Guy Spina and Elisa Carroll from our Sangha will be receiving the precepts on that day. Guy's family is going to be flying in from Florida, I think. They're somewhat far away from us. And Elisa will be driving over from Mill Valley. So I'm really looking forward to the celebration with both of them. And I hope that some of you might be able to come and join us if you're local.

[01:16]

And if not, we'll show photographs. I'm hoping Dean will be there again. Happily, that would be wonderful. And two thumbs up, great. So we'll be able to look at the photographs from our most recent precept ceremony. So because the ceremony for Green Gulch's needs is going to be somewhat late in the afternoon on Sunday, And there's probably a reception following the ceremony. Ceremony takes about an hour. I don't think I'll be able to come online that Sunday, which is the 24th. But I think you all can come on if you like. I think I'll check that out and just talk to each other. You might continue with some of those introductions or whatever you'd like to do, a little anarchical time together. And I'd love to hear what you come up with if you do. So this evening, coming back into the present, I'm going to be talking some more about the lectures in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind.

[02:18]

This one is called Mind Waves. And I think it's an incredibly good lecture. I, of course, read it over many years and read it again years later. And I think most of us who have been exposed to Zen Mind Beginner's Mind have read these lectures many times. And yet each time I read one of them, I'm like, wow. You know, he really had a wonderful skill in being able to convey his really complicated teachings, philosophical teachings, Zen teachings, in such an accessible way. So Mindwaves is one of those, and I thought it would be one of those stories that actually is a koan in and of itself. There isn't a reference to a particular koan in this lecture, but there is this idea of the waves in the water and that the mind is like the ocean and the waves in the water are like the various objects of our awareness that just arise out of the ocean and then they go back down again. So this is a really famous metaphor for the nature of mind and the nature of mind objects, those things that we call objects, which are also, as I'm going to be talking about, waves in the ocean of consciousness.

[03:32]

So this is a very important teaching, philosophical teaching. So the talk begins, Roshi says, because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind, we do not care for any excessive joy. So we have an imperturbable composure. Because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind, we do not care for any excessive joy. And so we have imperturbable composure. That's kind of the goal. Maybe the goal, I could say, that's one of the goals and kind of contentment that we all at various times imagine would be so pleasant, you know, just to be content, utterly content. So this teaching in this chapter, in this lecture, reminds me of the six destinations or the six realms, which are particular to the...

[04:34]

teaching that the Buddha gave very, very early in his career of dependent core rising. So you've heard this term many times. I'm going to do a little review right now. And dependent core rising has been illustrated in the Buddhist tradition primarily by the Tibetans who are really, really good at illustrating. They're very much into the drawing, these teachings, partly because As was true in Europe and most of the world up until maybe quite recently, most of the people in Tibet couldn't read. But they could see the pictures. I remember going to a Chekhov play in New York. Someone took me to a play and they said, this is all enacted because the Russian people in the countryside, they couldn't read. So the plays were done as a way of expressing really complex political issues of the day by narrating them and by making them, you know, enacting them. So the 12-fold chain of De Pinnacle Rising is an enactment of the human mind and how it works and something we're so familiar with that it's really hard for us to actually...

[05:44]

look at it, you know, just sort of like trying to look at your eyeball with your eyeball. You know, you're basically looking at the world with this complex system of perception and impulses and feelings. And it's sort of like what you are aware of is the world or what you think of is the world rather than the mechanism. a perception itself, the mind itself. So this teaching is all about helping us, inviting us to once again come back into observing our own consciousness, our own mind. And so I thought I would just... as I said, just bring up the 12-fold chain of dependent core rising and these six realms, which are really significant for us because they're so familiar. And we kind of wonder, like, why am I feeling so down today? Or why am I in such a, you know, why am I so oppressed by life? Or why am I always wishing for something I don't have? Or, you know, why am I jealous of those people who are getting something that I really want?

[06:44]

And so on and so forth. Well, The Buddha had those same tendencies as most humans were born with a full set of human parts. You know, we have those tendencies and they're named. These six tendencies are named and they're called realms because it's as though you live there. You know, so here's the... So these are actually, these realms are this unfolding of what Suzuki Roshi is calling big mind. It's just enfoldment. They're waves in the water. They're the way the waves take shape, how they appear, and then how they disappear again. But we don't usually think of them. We don't think of our perceptions or our notions or our thoughts as being waves of the ocean. We think of them as separate events. of in time and in space and among different people or different objects. So this is a teaching to help break down that idea that your perceptions are actually accurate, you know, or mine, any of ours are accurate, which they certainly are, according to the Buddha, are not.

[07:49]

So I wanted to bring up, let me just share, screen share, this wonderful drawing. Okay. So there it is. We've seen this before. And if you ever have an opportunity to just make a copy of the 12-fold chain for yourself, it's a wonderful reference. It's sort of like a, you know, it's one of those things that I oftentimes have posted on my wall in my study. I have a very nice one that's framed of this image. So this is basically... an elaboration of the Buddhist teaching of the first and second noble truth. First noble truth, there is suffering. And as you see in this depiction, suffering is the big champion or big cause of suffering is this monster holding the wheel called Yama, the lord of death, or impermanence.

[08:50]

So impermanence has got us, you know, and we don't like it. We're afraid of it, and it's disturbing our minds. And so we spin around, you know, and many efforts to try and escape from things we don't like, you know, what I call the facts of life. Impermanence, suffering, and no self. Those are the three big facts of life as the Buddha taught them. So in this drawing, what we have here, this is Yama, Lord of Death, who's, you know, got his claws and his fangs in the wheel. He's got a title, but... He's behind the wheel. This is one of those things that we can't see this thing we fear, but we just feel it like at our back, you know, kind of walking through the woods in the night. You kind of feel something's behind you there. Something's coming up on behind. Well, that's Lord Yama sneaking around. And then there's the 12-fold chain, which I'm not going to go through now. But again, if you review that, I think it's really helpful because that explains suffering.

[09:51]

You know, suffering is caused, has two causes. The two causes are ignorance of non-duality, of non-separation, our big topic for today as well. The universe is not made up of parts. It's all of one. It's all inclusive. The parts are just elements. They're just waves in the water. They're just appearances. It's kind of a trick of the mind that there are parts and that we're a part. We use that word apart from the trick when actually we're the magicians. We're doing the trick. Each of us is doing this trick. So because of our ignorance of non-duality, we're born ignorant. That's the first link, the blind person trying to navigate across a chasm on a log. That's kind of a dangerous situation. Because of ignorance, we do all these things, you know, and the sequence of events has to do with us developing sense organs and perceptual organs and basically all of the mechanism of splitting. Everything, if we fall for ignorance in the first step, we fall deeply for it by the time we get all the way down here to feelings.

[11:00]

So now we've got a body, we've got sensory organs, we have everything you need to go out into the world with a full set of feelings. And when we do that, one of the things that is the most likely to... create a feeling in us is contact with another entity, another human. There's the big feelings. All alone in my house, not too bad. Another human comes in the door, there's a lot of feelings, a lot of negotiation going on there. So the step down here that is called contact is when one sentient being, one human being, contacts another one. There's feelings. And there's three flavors of feelings. You might recall. There's a positive feeling. Oh, I like that contact. There's a negative feeling. I do not like that contact. And then there's a neutral. Like, I'm not sure yet if I like this thing or not. And I'm kind of working it out. We're dating.

[12:02]

We don't really know if we want to take another step here. So feelings are sort of a really significant location for us as practitioners. And you've heard me say it before. I'll say it again. If you learn and train yourself to stop at your feelings, meaning to stop generating ideas about what you're going to do about them or strategizing how you're going to take care of them or get away from them or anything else, but you just sit with them. You just welcome them and notice where they are in your body and what is the feeling. Try to identify the feeling. I'm feeling afraid or I'm feeling angry. There's not an unlimited set of feelings that we have and we all have pretty much the same. Same kind of set of things that we feel. So if you just sit with your feelings, like I've used the image of stopping your car at a stop sign and just, you know, you just stay in the car with the feelings and you let them be known, you know. And then when the light turns green and you're feeling the waves have stopped bubbling up, there may be a little bit of calmness there, then you can proceed.

[13:12]

You can go forward and make some decisions decisions about what you're going to do about your feelings what kind of actions you might take and of course the Buddha recommends you take wholesome actions you don't do things that are going to be harmful or destructive or unkind so you know we're training while we're at the stop sign we're reviewing the precepts and we're reviewing our commitment to kindness and to generosity and so on and ethics and patience and so on right so That's the main mechanism of this diagram is this is how your pain comes into being. It comes into being because instead of stopping at feelings, you act on your feelings impulsively. You either yell at somebody to get away or you try to grab a hold of somebody that you want to possess. And then all the trouble comes because of impermanence. So whatever you've got. doesn't last, you know? You can't get rid of what you don't like permanently. You can't keep what you do like permanently. Whatever it is, has a time stamp.

[14:15]

It's gonna expire, right? And then something else will come, and something else will come, as it has our entire lives. Something comes, something comes, something comes, something goes, and makes room for what's coming. This is a flow, like, kind of like... I mean, in a stream, I talk about consciousness as a stream or a river. It just kind of flows, just keeps flowing. Okay, so in the middle of all of that, so that's the workings, that's the clockwork of what causes us to behave the way we do. The result of how we behave the way we do, so we've got two choices here, and the two choices are in the center, right around the three primary... ways that we react to our feelings and that's the rooster the snake and the pig greed hate and delusion greed hate and delusion those are the big three i like it i don't like it i'm not sure yet if i like it or not and based on those three either we do something positive you know maybe we sit zazen or we

[15:21]

you know, take a workshop, or we do take an art class, or we go dancing, or, you know, whatever it is, we do something positive about our feelings. And that moves us as these little figures, you can't quite see them, I think, but they're moving up into the realm. So these are the six realms, the six states of mind, the six consciousnesses or psychological states that we humans are born with. So the top three are better than the bottom three, by far, so that we do want to go up into these top three realms. And if we behave, what we, I mean, badly means karmically consequential in a negative way. If we do things that are karmically consequential to us and bring us down, you know, then we go into one of these three lower realms. So these are the six realms. And these are basically what Suzuki Roshi's talking about. These are the mind waves. This is what things look like. They aren't really like that. You know, once you settle the mind,

[16:22]

You know, you can't even find. What was I upset about, you know, three days ago? What was I had to have last time I went into the Whole Foods? What did I just have to have? You know, I don't remember. It's gone away. It's all gone away. So remembering that is very helpful. Transiency, impermanence, this is our pal. This guy, as scary as he is, is actually of great help to us. You know, it's constantly cleaning away. the debris of our past actions, our past thoughts. It's always being cleaned away, leaving space for the next thing that we might be into. So good actions, good result. Bad actions, bad results. That's the law. That's the law of karma. So at the very top of the wheel, I'll just go through them again, these six rounds. The top is heaven. You see all the... Rainbow clouds, obviously, heaven up there. And there's a little palace, and they're floating on the water, and they're having a party. And everything's great, right?

[17:23]

It's a luxury cruise. And to the left of heaven, over here, there's jealous gods. Or the fighting demons. And these are the ones who are ambitious. They want to live up here. They'd like the better house. They'd like the better car. And unfortunately, something's stopping them. They don't know what it is, but they're angry. And they're fighting. And so there's a picture you can't really see here. But the tree that fruits in heaven grows in the realm of the fighting gods. They're called the fighting gods. And so down here at the base of the tree, one of the fighting gods is cutting down the tree. If we can't have it, you can't have it. So there's this little revolution going on. Most of the time throughout the world, somebody's revolting against the people that have the stuff. They're going to try and get the stuff by whatever means. They have a very strong relationship, these two, the fighting gods and the gods. They're constantly switching places.

[18:24]

And then over here, we have the human realm. Which, as I've said before, looks a lot like Green Gulch. There's a little farm. There's a little Zendo. There's some small housing all about the same size. Everybody's working today and they have a couple days off. So this is somewhat like our ordinary life. You know, the way we live our lives when we're not trying to, you know, take over the store or not trying to take away our neighbors, whatever it is. But we're really in this realm where contentment is possible. So those are the three upper realms. The three lower realms are the ones that are not desirable. Of course, the worst of them all is hell. Right below heaven, there's a kind of a fire pole to hell. Because when heaven ends, when the stock market crashes, and when your house burns to the ground, and when you get old, and all those things happen, which are because of impermanence, because nothing is permanent, Oftentimes, unless we've been practicing over here in this Zendo quite a lot and realize these are just feelings and these are just material things that we never owned them in the first place.

[19:28]

I didn't own my house. It's not my house. You know, it's just this big thing that I live in. And so down here in hell, there's all kinds of torture. There's cold torture and hot torture and there's just, it's very bad. And on either side of hell, There's also not good consequences. On one side are the animals who basically have no conscience. That's how they're depicted. As I've said, that's not very kind to animals. I don't think that's true. But basically, we imagine animals are just doing their thing. They're eating. If they're hungry, they're having sex. They're hiding. They're doing whatever they need to do to survive. So that's a state that humans can fall into, too. I'm just going to survive. I'm a survivalist. I'll do whatever I need to survive. That's kind of the animal idea. And hell is I just can't do anything for myself. I'm under a rock, and I'm being pressed down. The only virtue in hell is that people will come to help you because we do that. We're like porpoise, you know. We go, are you okay? Can I get that log off of you? Can I help you with that rock? Can I help you with, you know, people keep offering to help me with packing and all that sort of thing?

[20:32]

I wish they could. But anyway, there are all these ways that people want to try to help us. And I think that's the virtue of hell is that people will come and will offer support. And then the other side of hell is the hungry ghosts. And that's the times in our lives when we just can't get enough of whatever it is. Not enough love, not enough money, not enough affirmation. You know, whatever it is, there's a tiny little neck. The hungry ghosts have little tiny necks and huge abdomens that they can't fill because their tiny little throats are so small. They can't take in enough nourishment. Okay, so those are the six realms. And let me see if I stopped sharing that. So, as I said, these six realms or six destinations are states of mind. Each one of those are familiar, I would guess, to all of us, certainly to me, and they're states of mind or states of consciousness.

[21:34]

And how we work with those and how we manage them is entirely how our lives are determined over the course of our lives. You know, when we're jealous, when we're feeling jealous, well, that we've fallen into the realm of the fighting gods. If we're filled with longing, we're a hungry ghost. And when we're on top of the world, we're a god. And when we're indifferent to the feelings of others, then we're animals. And when life is good enough, then we're humans. And then when we're tortured by guilt or grief, we are in hell. Okay? very common. They haven't added any more realms. Those seem to be the six that we are confronted with throughout our lives. So what Suzuki Roshi is suggesting is that by our practice of meditation and mindfulness and of kind speech and of generosity, we can begin to see how each of these destinations is merely an unfolding of big mind. And it's included in what it means to be human. It's not like there's something wrong with this

[22:37]

We have a feeling. It's just that we try to we object. It's not wanting what we're experiencing, you know, embracing or accepting or welcoming and trying to understand what it is we're feeling is the path to understanding and the path of understanding is the pathway to freedom. So, you know, I think we can imagine that without our jealousy or anger or fear, without our lust. or contentment or even without our indifference, taking those away would be somewhat unimaginable. Like, how would we know? How would we watch a play or a movie or read a book if we didn't know about those feelings and how they motivate our fellow humans, how they motivate us? And yet, coming to see how these emotions trigger unwholesome behaviors in us is the most important part of our practice. I mean, when we sit, we're witnessing these actions of the mind.

[23:40]

We're witnessing the 12-fold chain. It's very fast. It takes, you know, it's good to sit for a while. You get a chance to see how these things connect. And also we see how these different feelings come up just out of nowhere. But all of a sudden, I'll be like having remorse about something that happened 10 years ago. or feeling some jealousy about this new young student who arrived and is so good at Orioki, and I've forgotten, eight steps. So all of these things are the things that arise in us. We watch them, we watch ourselves, we watch our minds, and we learn how naturally we regain our equilibrium if we just let them go, just allow them to come, allow them to go. Like mind waves. Again, this is the metaphor. Just like waves on the ocean. They come up. If you don't get too excited, they just go back down again. Come up and go back down. And that's soothing. Actually watching these mind waves rise and subside is actually like watching your breathing.

[24:44]

Come up and go down. Go up and go down. It's very soothing. And at some point we can become more like a quieted body of water. You know, very still. I don't know if you've ever been on the ocean out here, the Pacific Ocean, when it's calm. But I had one occasion, you know, I don't know how many years ago, a long time ago, when the organization I worked for took us all on a whale-watching trip out to the Farallones. And we left really early in the morning. It was still dark. And the water, it was like a bathtub. It was flat. all the way to the farewells. Absolutely amazing. Other times I've been out there where it's not like that at all. It's just these huge rollers. But that time, it was like, where are we? How is this possible? How is it possible that we can have that calm, that kind of composure? This is what Suzuki Roshi calls an imperturbable composure.

[25:45]

I think the temptation is to think about imperturbability as being where nothing's moving or there's no activity. I prefer, because of my own very active mind, and I prefer to imagine it more like a, you know, the concentration practice of, or the experience of concentration, like perhaps like a wet seal on a giant rubber ball. You know, imperturbable. You're just constantly working with balancing, you know. You're so focused on balancing that the mind is not disturbed. It's very calm, you know. Maybe you've noticed that when you're driving your car, if you're going a little fast, you know. Very focused, very careful, just moving in and out of traffic with a lot of care and skill. That's a very kind of exciting feeling, and you have to be careful. Or another image I like is of a sailboat, which is sailing toward the harbor, but the imperturbability is that you're focused on getting to the harbor, even though the wind's blowing and the sail's moving and you're doing things, but still you're focused, you're concentrated.

[26:49]

You're there. You're present. You're not being distracted. You're not kind of dreaming about the past or wondering about what you're going to do when you get to heart, when you get on land again. You don't have any time to do that. You're really in the event itself. So the beginning portion of this lecture is all about this quality of our minds, you know, like waves on the water, and that they have to settle down all on their own, you know, if we aren't bothered by them. I think this is a really useful talk, as I said, to read over and over again. You know, because it summarizes some of the primary teachings that we've been looking at together over a number of years now. You know, namely, one of the main ones being the relationship between the ultimate truth and the relative truth. You know, the waves, relative truth, and the water, the ultimate truth, or ultimate nature of reality. Which is... But this is from the point of view of our own lived experience as human beings. So that's the whole thing about this practice of ours.

[27:49]

We hear these theoretical things. I'm talking about them every week and I think about them and I read about them and so on. But really the only thing that really seems relevant ultimately is how I experience these teachings in my own daily life. What happens when I get frustrated? What happens when I'm frustrated? angry? What happens when I'm bored? You know, what's going on there? Where's the practice? Here's the conditions of the ocean. What's the practice with these conditions? So that was a practice that was offered to me and to a number of us who work with Tenshin Roshi. He said, well, so we tell him all about something that was going on, you know, oftentimes with each other out there at Green Gulch. And he'd say, okay, those are the conditions. What's the practice with those conditions? Like, oh, hmm. So, you know, we tend to focus on the conditions, like how upsetting it is or how right we are or whatever that is.

[28:50]

But this question is more like, okay, those are conditions. Those are waves. What's the practice with the waves, with the waves of the ocean? It's pretty much the same thing over and over. Calm down. Calm the mind and discern. The real. Calm your mind, shamatha, and discern the real, vipassana. This is a two-step teaching that's all through the Buddha Dharma. Calm the mind and discern the real. You can't really see what's happening when your mind is riding the waves, when you're frightened, you know, when you're really disturbed and worried and, you know, I just want to get out of here. I just want this to be over. But when the mind is calm, then you can basically orient. You can do your wayfaring. Find your way. So there is a trickster that's at work at the center of our lived experience that tells us that the world is outside of ourselves and that we need to take shelter from a very big storm that's raging almost all the time.

[29:53]

The storm of these three things, of impermanence, the storm of there's no self at the center of that, there's no agent of control, and the storm of suffering. So I know, again, this is a review. I know I've said these things before, but there's a very simple statement that was made by the Buddha that I really appreciated reading that the Buddha said, I teach only two things. I teach suffering and I teach the cessation of suffering. He was a doctor. He was a physician. So he understood the nature of suffering by his own experience as a human being. for many, many years and many great efforts to end his own suffering. He found this pathway to the cessation of suffering. And so that's what he taught. He said, I found something. I found an ancient pathway, an ancient trail that goes through the forest of suffering. And I would like to share that with you. And so he did. And this is what we're hoping to learn and to experience for ourselves.

[30:57]

So even though I personally really enjoy reflecting on all these philosophical systems that have arisen in the Buddhist tradition, it really is the application of those systems into our practice that makes them come to life. Just reading about them abstractly is okay if you like reading about philosophical systems. But if you can bring that medicine of that way of thinking into your own life, then that's where they matter. That's why they matter at all. the application. So as you may recall, the two main philosophical systems that underlie the Zen school are the middle way teachings. The middle way, Buddha said, the middle way, I teach the middle way, between the extremes. And the middle way teaching, the school that's been given that name, is the emptiness teaching. And Nagarjuna is the great... like the second Buddha who really elaborated on the emptiness teachings.

[31:59]

And his teachings, which are from the second century, have carried through till now. I mean, that's still Nagarjuna. You still read Nagarjuna if you want to delve into the emptiness teachings. But you also are familiar with the Heart Sutra. So that's a sutra that Nagarjuna had. and was aware of, and that he's basically commenting on this emptiness teachings that appear in sutras like the Heart Sutra, like the Diamond Sutra, and so on. So those are, if you're reading along or you check back in with the Diamond Sutra, which is not so long, you can read that in fairly short order, or the Heart Sutra, which is just a page, those are the emptiness teachings. That's the one major school. and it's the one that's probably more obvious in the Zen tradition. A lot of the koans and a lot of the liturgy at Zen Center is basically from the emptiness teachings, from what's called in Sanskrit majamaka, or middle way. It means middle way, majamaka.

[32:59]

So a very familiar line, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness is form. So then the other major school, is called the mind-only teachings. And this talk that Suzuki Roshi is giving, called Mind Waves, really is based in the foundational teachings from the mind-only school. Mind Waves. He's talking about the nature of mind, how the mind works. He's not emphasizing the emptiness of the waves or the ocean. More like the ultimate teaching is they're all empty of inherent existence. Anything you think of, anything you see, anything you do is empty of inherent existence. So you're free. It's kind of like the quick way. But most of us go like, wait a minute. That's not quite how it's going for me. So we have the mind-only teachings, which are really geared toward humanity and the way we think and the way we see. And you might go over some of your mind-only notes if you took any, or you might read 30 verses, Vasubandha's 30 verses again, if you haven't before.

[34:07]

It's excellent. And the emphasis in the mind-only teachings is on the world as we see it through the lens of our own personal human awareness, right? So you have your own personal human awareness. I have mine. You have yours. We each have our own. And the whole world is seen through our personal lens. So I say it's this way. You say it's that way. How is that possible? Because we each have our own personal view. And there's no other view than the one I have, right? I can't have your view and you can't have mine. We can chat about it, you know, like squirrels do and birds do. But basically, I can't access yours and you can't access mine. You know, so mind only, my mind only, your mind only, or their mind only, in a multi-centered universe of mind-boggling dimensions, like that picture I showed you last week of the Indra's net. You know, with all the jewels reflecting all the other jewels.

[35:07]

That's mind only. The mind only is kind of like this. It's very busy, very busy. And it's also, it's in the imagery of the Indra's net, and it's also in the language and the teachings of the Avatamsaka Sutra, or the Flower Ornament Sutra, which is getting a lot of press these days because... Rev. Anderson has been teaching that now for quite a while, and he's inviting a lot of people to read that sutra along with him. It's pretty daunting. It's about that thick and challenging. It's very challenging to read, although I determined to get back at it. I've got about four chapters read, which is quite something, and there's a lot more to go. This mind-boggling universe of the Avatamsaka Sutra is basically what the mind-only teachings are trying to help us to comprehend, to be in awe of. Actually, it might be more like it. So there are a lot of Sanskrit names for the mind-only school, including Vizhnya.

[36:10]

Vizhnya means consciousness. Vizhnyavada, or the doctrine of consciousness. That's one name. Mind-only, the doctrine of consciousness. Another name is Vizhnaptivada, the doctrine of ideas. Vizhnapti are ideas. So you have consciousness, Vizhnya. You have ideas, Vishnapti. So another name for the same school, the doctrine of ideas. Then there's another name called Vishnapti Matrata, Vada, the doctrine of mere perception or mere representation. So what they're saying is that what you're perceiving, what I'm perceiving right now, all the time, is just a representation of what is out there. What's out there, we don't know. We can't know. It's beyond our comprehension. A tree is beyond my comprehension. A forest, a galaxy, a person, a toad. There is everything that I can name and I can think about with my limited vocabulary.

[37:13]

Those objects of my representation, my verbal and conceptual representation, are beyond my comprehension. As am I. I cannot really know what I am. Words can't reach it. Words, that's, you know, you've heard that before. Words can't reach it. It being the vastness of reality itself. And words are part of that. But we get confused and think the words are reality itself. We forget about they're just referencing. They're just representations. So the mind-only teachings are really inviting us again and again to remember that words are really just that. They're not it. Just this is it. Just this experience you're having right now is the vastness of the universe. And it can't be said. I mean, I can say just this is it, but that's just like a license plate. It doesn't really tell you what kind of car you're in or what freeway you're on or anything else.

[38:15]

It's just a pointer, a reference. So the most familiar Sanskrit name for the mind-only school is Yogachara. Maybe you've heard that. Yogacara. The way of yoga or the doctrine of yoga. And that refers to these practices of meditation and of yoga that are used as a means of training both the mind and the body. So the mind-only teachings are training tools. You know, the emptiness teachings, you kind of just have to get it. You just have Manjushri as a sword that cuts off thoughts. Cuts off concepts. It's like it's very active, like negation, like no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue. We've heard that one. We've got that one. That's the quick route. But it's very steep in the blue cliff. It's very hard to penetrate that approach to letting go. It cut off an arm, another one just goes right back. But the Mind Only School considers itself a training program.

[39:20]

And, you know, what we do in the Zen school is that training. We train our body and mind through the practice of upright sitting, of zazen. So we're training the body to sit quietly, stop at the stop sign, take your foot off the brake, I mean, keep your foot on the brake, take it off the gas, and wait patiently, alert, you're awake, you're not sleeping in the car, you're ready, you're alert. You know, you know, if you hear a sound or you see something shift, you're there. And you're basically watching the operations of your mind in relation to the objects that appear in your mind. Like what happens when you hear the honking of a car behind you, you know, or an ambulance sound or the light turns green. You know, we're always like that seal on the ball. We're always reacting to the environment and we're responding. So I wouldn't say that the mind only school is emphasizing the relative truth. as the way that the middle way school is emphasizing the ultimate truth.

[40:25]

But it does invite us to take a really close look at what we experience as ourselves and as the world through these ideas that we have about them. And as I said, which is most easily done by simply sitting quietly upright for a time. 20 minutes is good. And so village folks who are already settling in up there... They sit every morning for half an hour. And people are saying that it's really nice. You know, they just have this. And a lot of the retirees are showing up in the very lovely Zendo up there and sitting together for half an hour. So, you know, if you're up at 730 and you want to join us, I will be joining them next month. That would be nice, you know, to know that we're all sitting together. Pacific Standard Time. So... So while we are there in the zendo, engaging in upright sitting, the mind-only teachings are asking us to look at the workings of our mind.

[41:26]

And in particular, the relationship between the images that appear in our mind, you know, like an ice cream cone or a toad, right, that's what's showing up for me right now, so I'm naming them, you know, a bed, weird stuff. The relationship of the images in my mind and the mind itself. you know, or as the metaphor in this lecture, Suzuki Rishi lecture, looking at how the waves are arising from the water. You know, how this is happening. And to just keep looking until you see how the waves are not separate from the water. They are water. They are water. They're made of water. And they arise and they vanish without leaving a trace or even a splash. They just come quietly and they go quietly. If we don't move. If we sit and watch. We just... Just sit there with our lens of awareness, our singular lens of awareness. So in this talk, I would suggest that the koan of waves and waters is from the mind-only teaching, which itself is based on a response that the Buddha gave in a famous Yogacara, or mind-only sutra, called the Samdhi Nirmojana Sutra, which is also a wonderful thing to try to read, and it's good to have some help if you do try to read it, because it's got...

[42:43]

some complicated sections. But the main message is pretty much about how the mind and the waves are not separate, non-dual. It's, again, at the core of both the middle way and the Yogacara teachings are this teaching of non-duality, of not being ignorant, of not setting the wheel in motion in the first place. That little blind person with a staff trying to cross the chasm, you know, with a stick... That's ignorance. So both of these teachings are trying to help us awaken from our ignorance, to open our eyes and see where we are. So in this text, the Sandhya Narottana Sutra, the Buddha has asked whether the images, which are the objects of our meditation or of our awareness, so again, think of an image, just stick with ice cream cone, that's pretty good. So if that image, which is the object of my... awareness is different or separate from the mind or not? Are they the same?

[43:44]

Is the image actually outside or is it inside of the mind? So I think our intuition is that it's outside. That ice cream is outside of my mind. But what about the image? What about the fantasy or the thought, the anticipation? Where is that? So the Buddha says they are not different. Because these images are Vishnaptimatra, meaning they are mind only or consciousness only. Whatever image you have is merely consciousness. And there's another location in the sutras where the Buddha also is said to have commented on this very thing. He said that this triple world, the world of past, present, and future, is nothing but mind or thought. Why? Because however I imagine things, that is how they appear. That's a pretty good one.

[44:45]

However I imagine things, that is how they appear. I believe that what I'm seeing, you know, what you see is what you get, or seeing is believing. We have that sense that what I'm seeing is what's there. Buddha is saying, however I imagine things to be there is how they appear. They don't appear a different way than how I imagine them, which is what makes it so odd when we're together and we see things differently. Oh, what a beautiful day. And someone says, oh, it's too hot for me. I mean, there's just, how can that be, how can we not agree if the things are actually there? How is it we don't agree? Because, however, I imagine things, that is how they appear. It's my world, my universe, which I can talk to you about. You've got your own. to work with. So although it can be argued that this way of thinking about the world as mind only leaves a trace of something called mind, right, or consciousness, as though the mind were a substance.

[45:50]

Oh, okay, now I know what's at the base of all of my thinking and my experience is this thing called the mind. Well, that's a big mistake. That's where the emptiness teachings come charging and say, no, that's not right. There is no thing. There is no thing called the mind that is eternal. There are some traditions where that's just what it is. It's eternal. There's heaven. Your mind is going to go to heaven forever. But the emptiness teachings don't leave us with a thing. They don't leave us with anything at all. There's this verse that I learned many years ago about this confusion between the approach that these two schools take to this issue of whether there is something or no thing at the core of the Buddha's awakened insight. Did he see something when he woke up? What did he see? Or did he see no thing? Nothing. Something or nothing.

[46:52]

That's around the table there. So the saying goes, when the babies are crying, and the babies are crying, that's us, when we're in the lower realms, we're feeling terrible, then we say to them, this very mind is Buddha. It's a mind wave. This very mind is Buddha. So that's the mind only teaching. They're somewhat comforting for human beings. They sound like human beings talking to other human beings. When babies are crying, this very mind is Buddha. This very mind is Buddha, don't worry. That's Buddha's mind. And then when the babies stop crying, you say, no mind, no Buddha. So that's the emptiness teaching. That's the middle way teaching. This very mind is Buddha, mind only. No mind, no Buddha. Emptiness, middle way. So those are the two main traditions that we keep hearing pop up in Zen. In one way or another, it's either talking to the crying babies and telling them they're Buddha, they've got Buddha nature and you can feel great because you're already Buddha and you're already enlightened.

[48:00]

We say that all the time. And, you know, once you get kind of settled into how great it all is, you can sort of stand hearing that there's no thing. There's no thing to hold on to. Nothing to hold on to. You can let go. You can stop holding. You can let it go. You're fine. You can't. There's no place to fall. You know, you can just fall. You won't hit anything. You just drop. You know, like Dogen says, drop body and mind. Drop body and mind. Body and mind drop. So that's, you know, Dogen had the this remind is Buddha part down pretty well. And then he got the no mind, no Buddha part when he went to China. So some scholars argued that the ultimate understanding of both the mind only school and the middle way school is the same. You know, namely that ultimate reality is simply the emptiness of any distinction between the subject, the mind, and the object, the waves.

[49:01]

And in other words, that the ultimate reality is all-inclusive and it's made up of an immeasurably number of parts that are inseparable from the whole. You know, the water and the waves. Just one functioning universe. All together now. That kind of feeling. You know, that we want to encourage ourselves to remember that. It's so easy to forget and to turn back towards separate parts. Separate self. All alone. It's very easy for humans. That's part of our sadness. We so easily fall into separating. Ignorance. So the Buddhist project is to recognize and to relax the tendencies we have to form notions about our only mental creations. These are our mental creations, and we form notions about them that lead us to either try to protect them, like my, mine, that's mine, you know, or to reject them. one or the other. Not mine. That's not mine. That's mine. So that's kind of a very busy thing that we do.

[50:03]

Despite the fact that neither of those gestures is even possible, rejecting or possessing. And why? Because we are nothing but them, waves in the water. They are already ours. Everything we perceive is already perceived. It's creating us moment by moment. So, again, this is just to keep reminding us to look again, look again, look deeper, look more through the lens of the Buddha's teaching rather than through the lens of your habits, which you already think to be so. So, and again, as Suzuki Roshi says in response to what we can do about that tendency we have toward greed, hate, and delusion, he says, let the thoughts and the images stop by themselves. They won't stay long. If you try to stop your thinking, that means you're bothered by it. So don't be bothered by anything. No thing comes from outside your mind. If you leave the mind the way it is, that's called big mind, the mind that includes everything.

[51:08]

If your mind is related to something outside of itself, that's called small mind. Big mind experiences everything within itself. And even though big mind and small mind are the same, just like the waves are water and the water is waves, our understanding is different and how we behave based on our understanding can be quite different. So when we understand the waves are the practice of water and thoughts are the practice of mind, we no longer expect anything from outside of the mind because the mind is always filled. A mind with waves in it, he says, is not a disturbed mind, but an amplified one, an amplified mind. And whatever we experience is the activity and the expression of big mind. So whether unskillful or skillful, whether clever or not clever, whether happy or unhappy, all of those very human psychological transformations are aspects of the one true reality.

[52:16]

They are all what in the Buddhist teaching is called thus or just this, right? Just this. So that's what I had gotten out of this wonderful chapter. And as I said, I hope you will take time to read it over a few times. I think it's a really, really helpful, rich reminder of the primary teachings and the primary insight that the Buddha had, you know, his awakening. is to this, the waves and the mind not being separate. So please welcome you to offer whatever you like of comments or questions and mind waves, any mind waves you have waving around. If you'd like to share, you'd love to hear. Remembering through conversations. It's Ellen. Hi, Ellen. Hi. Remembering those conversations when Ron was sick and dying and I was suffering, and you kept saying this to me.

[53:18]

I'm still learning, but it's really lovely to hear you remind me one more time. Ellen, it's so good to see you. That's nice. I didn't know you were doing this. I just found it by magic, and so I'm thrilled. Lovely to see you. Really lovely to see you. Hello, Tim. Hi, Faru. I'm coming in from left field again with another thing. I have a post-it on my computer screen that may be of interest to you. This is a... I can't find any other reference to this, but this was a conversation between a student and Bhikkhu Tamasaro. He's a Theravadan forest tradition. He has a monastery in San Diego, and he's... a big translator of Pali texts, and the discussion was that the name of Buddha, his non-Buddha name when he was a prince, was actually Angirasa, A-N-G-I-I-R-A-S-A.

[54:35]

I thought I'd toss that out for you. What does that mean, do you know? I have no idea. that would be kind of fun ask him uh ton of sorrow let you know i will i i'm gonna i'm gonna email him it just it's been on my mind i just thought i was very curious where where that came from in ancient texts and uh it just shows again i really don't know what's going on Or the Buddha by any other name. Yeah, a Buddha by any other name. It's still a Buddha. Yeah, it's very interesting. You may have heard he goes, people call him Achan Jeff. That's cute. Yeah, yeah. I have not met him, but I'll ask him. Thank you. Yeah, they did that to us here at Zen Center. They're naming the abbots. They're going like... Some people call me Abbas, or did, call me Abbas Fu, and I said, oh, please don't call me Abbas Fu.

[55:41]

I sort of like Bob or something. I just would rather not have this kind of, it doesn't go together that well. No. It's okay. It's kind of fun. It's fun, but. But maybe this Fu is fine. It has connotations that you may not want to bring to the party. Yeah. It's hard to explain. I've noticed it's really a conversation. stopper when people ask me what I do. Oh, okay. Goodbye. See you. All right. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, Tim. Hello, Lisa. Yep. You got it. Am I there? Still there. Hey, you're there. You're there. If so, it seems. Something's here. Just another wave. A few waves, yeah. Yeah. So speaking of old teachings and names and whatnot, so I take issue with the three upper realms.

[56:51]

Oh, good. Whoever thought that the jealous gods should be one of the upper realms? Would I? Well, I think it's because they're doing pretty well. Successful stockbrokers, successful attorneys. But they're ambitious. It's the ambition. They're not in poverty. They're not suffering the kind of suffering of the lower realms. They have some success, but they don't have this positive regard for – I mean they're caught. They're delusional. Delusion is still working away on it and what the gods do. The gods don't want to lose their – kingdom. Okay. I've seen a lot of that stuff going on, right? I have never seen it. So those are just tendencies, human psychology, possessiveness. Yeah. I mean, that interpretation makes sense. It also starts to make more sense when you say that even the God realm has its downsides.

[58:00]

Oh, yeah. Well, we've been sold a bill of goods that the God realm is the one you want. Yeah. Okay. That's the big bill of goods for materialism. Right. And that you can buy it. You can own it. And it looks like this. So, you know, we have – humans do fall for that. The God realm is the one we want, not the human realm. Yeah. We've got to go to work every day. So go to heaven and – So where does contentment exist? Yeah, that's the big question. Where does that come from? It's not under your control, but it does arise. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And when it does, we're like, oh, yeah, you know. When that warm water first hits me, when I'm in a shower and that warm water really starts to get on my skin, And I start to warm up and I'm like, oh, but then guess what?

[59:01]

About five minutes, 10 minutes later. Okay, that's enough. That's enough warm water. I'm out of here. So the nirvana of utter contentment won't last. No, I'm afraid not. It's called non-abiding nirvana. The nirvana of no abode. You don't live there. You just ride it. I like the seal on the ball. I think that's much more like my experience of practice is like you're always working with the elements and they're changing all the time. And so you're basically working that change. You're meeting it and finding a way to balance, to keep balancing. And you fall off every now and then. You get back up again. My one view of the seals, they're always sort of sliding down onto the wet cement with a splat. Yeah.

[60:02]

I think that's my experience of the balance. So we've taken on a really strange assignment of human being. But here we are. So we're going to make the best of it. Right? So far, so good. I hope. Maybe so. Speaking of hope, she just said, I hope, and look who shows up. Hope. Hello. I mean, SpongeBob. He's my fave. So I noticed something very interesting when you described the Buddha saying mind only. That everything that we're perceiving is like very much our own fantasy or perception and it's not real and it's not like anybody else's.

[61:07]

And I felt very lonely when you said that, like, oh, it felt very separate or very isolating. And so my question is, where are all other beings? In the sea, where are they? Well, they're mind only. Are we all alone? No, we're all together, but we're all perceiving with our own minds. So someone might see you, imagine they see you, knowing that you know you don't know what you are, right? Are you something more than what you think you are or what I think you are? Hard to prove. Anyway, something's going on over there. There's some perception. We don't know what it is. I think the main thing is not that there's nothing. It's that we don't know what it is. We can't get at it with words. I can't get at a tree with words. I don't care if I'm an arborist or whatever.

[62:08]

I can't get at it. You can just add more words, but you'll never get to what a tree is. But I can see it. I can kiss it. I can hold it. I can hug it. I can have experiences of my perceptions of the world, of other people. But when I start thinking I know what they are or who I am, that's where all our trouble is, right? Oh, I know you. I know what you think. I know who you are. He's like, I don't know. Bodhidharma, the emperor says, who are you? He said, don't know. So I think the safety and the vastness is our company. You're in the company of vastness, and there's no other possibility, and that doesn't ever go away. We've always been in the company of vastness. We are the product of vastness. So to really meet your true parents, as they say, or to know the parent before your own were born, to actually know that greatness, that vastness, that doesn't lend itself easily to human language.

[63:16]

Or even at all. Maybe frogs are doing better than we are. I kind of think so. At least they croak together. But we sing together. We chant together. We dance together. We shop together. We like to be together. That seems to be the best we can do is to kind of get close to each other. Not too close. Just keep your shopping cart over to the right and let me get by and that'll be nice. And then we can be together because we figured out the rules. How to play nice. Do you believe that there is a way to like really, really be together? Because it feels like I will always have this idea. that I like know something about someone or like, can that ever really fully dissolve?

[64:18]

And like, like, can we really directly experience each other? Cause that feels like the only form of like real intimacy. As long as I have a perception of who someone is, I can't really see them. And that makes me feel alone. Yeah. Right. So when you slow that down, you let the wave subside. The crystal mind, the clarity of mind, which is really just presence. You know, being present with someone is incredible. You know, I don't think there's anything I like better than being present with someone. And we're not talking. We can, but it's not the main point. The main point is facing each other. There's a very powerful scene in this film. It's one of the Academy Award. What's the film called? Karina, did we watch last night? Past Lives. It's a Korean film. And there's one scene that's just so powerful because, you know, they're... I won't tell you the whole thing.

[65:22]

It's a wonderful film, but... toward the end of this, when they are, they're kind of childhood sweethearts, which have been separated for a very long time, and now they've come back together, but all those feelings of intimacy, and I know you, and I grew up with you, and you're mine, that kind of mind, instead of doing something corny like hugging and whatever, as they're about to separate, probably forever, they just turn and face each other, and silence. I thought, it takes a Buddhist culture to come up with that. That was so powerful. I was just like, yeah. They just stood there, aware and present. You didn't have to say anything. Anything they would have said would have been wrong. See you later. I love you. I love you. This is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I think there is that presence. I think that happens all the time.

[66:23]

We're shy. We're shy of it. It's a little bit awkward. We kind of tend to do this, you know, hi, instead of really being willing and practiced at facing each other quietly, you know, allowing the silence to do its work. Hello. Hello, Paul. Hello. I was wondering how many people watched Timo's Dharma Talk at Green Gulch today, which did you? I missed it. I wish I had. Tell us about it. Oh, well, you may need to watch the recording. I think it was miraculous. He's amazing. Yes, he is.

[67:25]

So I don't know. Maybe Kate will have a better way of summarizing it. But it started with the Harry Potter story. And it's Dharma from his kids. So he gets these inspirations from them asking questions. And then he brings it into his Dharma talk. And so the piece that he was... focusing on was this early on scene where Harry Potter is trying to figure out how to get onto the Hogwarts train at the station. And there's no, it's a brick solid wall. There's no track. There's no train. He's in the right place. And then he's noticing other people who seem to be dressed like him. They walk up to the wall and they go right through it onto the platform to get onto the train. takes to Hogwarts. And so he started, the whole theme was about kind of passing through walls or the wall is what we think it is.

[68:30]

If we think it's solid or we think it's impassable or impenetrable, then we're stuck there. And if we just kind of embrace it, I guess, it lets us through. So this is a theme of teaching. I started wondering about Harry Potter as a Zen practice, as a myth. Maybe you remember Joseph Campbell back some years ago did these PBS specials about modern myths and kind of focused on the Star Wars theme. stories as being a way of transmitting spiritual teaching via a story that is sort of entertaining and that we don't actually recognize we're being taught because it's just going in as a story.

[69:35]

And that may be also characteristic of movies and other things where we're receiving it, but we're not thinking about and processing it sometimes. into concepts and we're just receiving the teaching so i was intrigued by his whole premise and i i'm hoping once it's posted maybe you would like to watch it because it's really an intriguing insight into his interpretation he because he keeps bringing back you know one of the things that we talk about in zen teaching all the time is about walls and sitting at walls and facing walls and so it was the theme the the fact that the story was this walls while dissolving temporarily for the people who thought they could walk through it and i was i don't know this is completely out of the realm of things but i was realizing that i was

[70:39]

In dealing with some of our challenges at moving into Enzo and getting things done, I found walls all the time. I found a problem. I don't know who to talk to. I leave messages, and nobody returns my messages or calls or anything, so I'm stuck. And I discovered that the way to get something to happen was to walk down to the lobby and wait. Now, without... anybody in mind and without any idea of how it could possibly be solved by doing that, almost every time the person that I needed appeared and I could ask them, who do I talk to to get this fixed? And they say, oh yeah, you should call so-and-so and let me call them right now for you. So it was almost magical like the Harry Potter story. Yes. relaxing around walls and obstacles and not rather than um conceptualizing this is impossible and i don't know what to do and i'm angry and i'm going to yell at people and somebody needs to listen to me and right

[71:54]

Right. Totally. I think, Paul, you're right on track. Speaking of Harry Potter, you're right on track. This is the way to Hogwarts. I mean, exactly that understanding is what this is all about. The mind-only teachings. I can't wait to hear Timo. I am a great admirer of Timo. I feel like... Yeah, he just really brings things into this. I don't know. I can kind of... Like clay. You know, it's wet and I can feel him molding it. And... Anyway, when Harry Potter came out, I remember getting the first copies of it, and we were all vying for an opportunity to give a lecture on it. This is it. This is Hogwarts. That's Green Gulch. That's Zen Center. We're the magician's training school. We're trying to train magicians into realizing just what you're talking about. There are no walls. It's just your mind, you know. You've got yourself. It's open in the back. You just have to turn around and go down to the lobby and just wait. It's like there is magic.

[72:56]

There is magic. And it's like that. We're so used to it in a funny way. But in another way, it's surprising. You know, it's like, wow, how's that happening? That's the surprising part, yes. That something happens from doing something that makes so little sense. Logically, it's like, how's that going to help? Just going down and standing around? Well, I think it kind of tweaks the magic. When you do that, you take a leap of faith. That happens with Gringold. I know people probably think this is, I don't know, for you who are a little skeptical, but that happens all the time. In my time at Zen Center, we would talk about somebody we hadn't seen in five years, and they would walk by. And we go like, wait a minute. How did that happen? Nobody knows how it happens. But we know what happens. So did we proceed it with some kind of mind thing that we knew they were in town and, you know, we all kind of picked up on that?

[73:56]

Maybe. But basically, it just looks like magic. And to the point where we kind of go, oh, yeah, of course. Of course they showed up. What else is going to happen? So I've expected that, oh, yeah, that person's going to call me and come down and fix this. But it's not on the punch list. It's not a punch list process, right? It's the opposite. It's not a logical process that I would use to try to solve a problem. No, but yours are good, too. I mean, we need both kinds because you don't want the plumber to just kind of guess. You know, we want them to have some skills. But we also do know that somehow this human thing, the way we find each other, really does seem to be beyond. Mathical. Yeah. The other one we all were vying to give a lecture on was Groundhog Day. Yes. Same thing. Like every day you do the same thing, same habit, same habit. Meanwhile, you're learning something.

[74:57]

You keep waking up as the same day, but you've mastered some skills along the way. until finally you're free you're out of the trap and uh life life opens like a flower just sort of there's a blooming that happens there that hopefully has a big influence on how you go forward from this day on you know huh it was and Part of it, too, was the questions that followed were amazing. I had real realizations from his story of the wall and embracing and not trying to push it away or it's blocking me, but welcoming the wall as just it's there. And people were saying, well, that changed everything for me just now. Great. In the talk, I was just... I don't know what the word is, in amazement, in awe. I haven't heard that so often happen in Dharma talks where people have realizations, more than one.

[76:05]

That's wonderful. But I'd share that. Thank you. Thank you for that. I will definitely look for his talk. I was sorry to miss it because I always try to get to his for sure. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I was having a lot of mind waves when Paul was talking about the wall. Because then I was thinking, wow, my typical approach when I see a difficult situation is to try to push through, right? Like try to find a solution. So then I'm asking myself, do I think there's a wall or not? Then I thought maybe I still think there's a wall because... With my kids, especially when they're having problems, I always try to solve it. The way I solve it, maybe sometimes it's a little bit trying to push through. If I don't think there's a wall, if I relax, maybe there's not such a big obstacle.

[77:10]

My approach might be different. Because sometimes I find it magical if I just relax and kind of give up. It's like, okay, maybe my way is not working. I'll just see. I'm just going to sit back. It just magically sometimes resolved. Well, you may be creating walls for them. Yeah. Like you're a wall. Here comes mom. Yeah. So somehow by you not momming them, by not being mom, not all the time. Of course, there's times when you're mom and sometimes you can just sort of let go of that. Somehow when you find your own solution, like, you know what, somehow just to know you're there. I remember telling Reb a long, long time ago because I wasn't quite sure I wanted a teacher or could handle a teacher. I didn't know what that meant to have a teacher. I said, well, I want you to watch me. Like if I were going to be shooting an arrow, if I were going to be an archer, I would like you to help give me some correction, you know, make some comments.

[78:12]

But stay behind me. I don't want to see you. And don't touch me. So I needed that independence. I needed to teach myself because him teaching me, I could watch how he did it and I could say, well, that was pretty good. Take that, hold that rock and then hold that rock and put your foot up there. But if he tried to pull me up or if he tried to, I would get scared and the fear of falling off or like I'd get discouraged somehow if I'm trying to do his walk. So there's some dynamic there that's really subtle and really precious and it's a great training. It's a great practice arena for us as parents. Yes. Yeah, it's so helpful. You know, as you're discussing this issue with Paul, it's like, oh, I never thought about that way. I'm making a wall. And I'm solving it myself. And taking them with me. They'll help you. They're going to help you. They already are. They're just so there for you. Your whole family.

[79:13]

Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, dear ones. So good to see you all. And we'll be back again. I think the next one is Mind Weeds. That might be fun. Let's see what's going on there. Is it Mind Weeds? Yeah. Okay. So next week we'll do some Mind Weeds. And wonderful to see all of you, all your names. And welcome to those of you who are new. Ellen, welcome, welcome, welcome. Wonderful. All righty. Jeffrey. Helene. Joseph, Tim, Lisa, Kate and Paul, Mary Jo, lovely Leah, Genshin, Tom, Carolyn. Please take good care. Look forward to seeing you again. Oh, Guy sends his love to the Sangha. He couldn't make it. He's out on a date with his wife. So he said, please tell everyone that I'll be back. Yeah, I know.

[80:14]

All is forgiven. Okay. Take good care. Thank you too. Bye everyone.

[80:26]

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