And if you're ready to meet me at birth, then it would become our mother. And if you're ready to meet me at my house, I said it. You give me the amount of very thousand million dollars. At the beginning, it's to see me and listen to me. To hear the word, remember, and listen to us. I want to thank you by all of us. That is still true, though I don't know if the time comes out of us as works. Good evening. I'm going to mention someone this evening. And I asked their permission to mention them. And they said yes. So I will. And I will also mention the person's daughter.

[01:18]

I thought I was getting permission for both mother and daughter when I asked. So I'm going to act on it. For those of you who don't live in the building, every morning we have a work meeting at 9 a.m. and we offer floor pedals. Someone there's no one designated to pick up the flower petals and offer them to the work leader. So many people just do it. And so yesterday and this morning, Cora did it, Vanessa's daughter. And both times, By coincidence, I was quite close to her.

[02:27]

So I was watching her face as she did it. And to my eye, of course this is subjective, she was both in a state of wonder, in a state of delight, and in a state of disbelief. But both mornings, she held out the flower petals, and indeed, the work leader did take some of them and put them in the water. And then when she finished, both mornings, when she finished She bolted over to her mother and they embraced. And I was thinking, is that it?

[03:41]

We just want someone standing over us and then after we venture right into the world, they embrace us and give us a loving reassurance. Is that how we humans work? And it set me thinking about, you know, early Buddhism, it seems to me, everything was given a name. Every attribute of emotion was given a name. And so you have Karuna, Mudita, Metta, Anukampa, and yet none of them, well...

[04:47]

None of them could accurately be called love. And I was thinking. Then that set me thinking. And I was thinking also about when we have way-seeking mind talks. Without us ever planning it or thinking it was part of the forms or part of the schedule, Most times when the person who's given the way-seeking mind is standing out in the lobby, a line appears in front of them. People wanting to give them a verbal reassurance. Thanks. That was wonderful. Whatever. Sometimes I think that there's ways, there's significant ways in which we don't know what we're doing.

[06:01]

Like the metta sutta. As far as I know, we never had a meeting and decided at that meeting that we were going to chant the metasutta. It just happened. Norman Fisher said, well, there's this sutta, and we could chant it at Green Gulch. And then we were having a meeting out there, and he shared what he was doing. And I think at the time he was tantum. at Greenwich. And he shared what he was doing. And those of us who came from the city said, that's terrific. We're going to do it. Surely, to add a new sutra to our liturgy,

[07:15]

Surely we should have had extensive meetings and published it on our website. Given the way we are caught up in our details, why didn't the kanto make a pronouncement as to whether or not lining up to congratulate the person was part of the schedule or appropriate or not. For me, it brings up the notion that when we do something wholeheartedly, it has an appropriateness to it. It's not at all something we've figured out.

[08:18]

It's not at all something we've obliged ourselves to do. It's more that something within us moves us. And like a child, we think, can I pick up the flower petals and offer them? It's a little scary. It's a little exciting. And it's kind of amazing. There's a saying in Buddhism, face to face. What it means is we meet the person, we meet the moment, we meet the activity, and we engage it.

[09:29]

And there's something when we do that, something kind of magical happens. You know, when we chant the refuges, we chant, I take refuge in Buddha. And then we say, as we bow, immersing body and mind deeply in the way, awakening true consciousness. We say mind, but really what it's saying is consciousness. Immersing body and mind. deeply in the way I remember when I lived at Tassajara and my daughter was just approaching her second birthday and it was early morning

[10:46]

And she just in the process of being able to walk with not falling down. And she headed out the door of the cabin. It was cabin two just over the bridge. She was headed out the door and walking towards the bridge and then over the bridge and beyond. And she paused. And she looked back at me as if to say, you have my back? And I said, yeah, I have your back. And she took off. And then over the years, when she would wander around Asia or South America, I would think, yep,

[11:48]

You're still heading on into the world. But aren't we all? Aren't we all in the midst of a process of heading into our life, into the world? once my daughter came home and she said, well, I'm going to Peru. I'm going to Peru and I'm going to live in an orphanage. And she did. How do we get in touch with this

[12:49]

aspect of our being. This factual description of living a human life. Immersing body and mind deeply in the way. That's what it looked like Cora was doing. She was, despite what nervousness, despite what challenge was being presented, she picked up her life and she offered it. As I thought about this, I was thinking of the Bodhisattva way and the way of earlier Buddhism.

[13:59]

In the Bodhisattva way, we're all connected. So the notion, well, I'm just going to practice for me, it doesn't make any sense. Well, if we're connected, then I'm practicing for everybody and everybody's practicing for me. I'm always immersed in the way. And this humanness is pouring out of me, whether it's love or hate or enthusiasm or lethargy or even doubt.

[15:07]

In the five hindrances in teaching of early Buddhism, these qualities that I just listed sensual desire, aversion, lethargy, restlessness and anxiety and doubt. They're considered to be the primary dispositions of our way of navigating our life. Sometimes we can ask ourselves. Sometimes it's helpful to ask ourselves. Given this intense emotion I'm having right now, how does it serve me?

[16:11]

Does my assertiveness serve my... lack of appreciation and reassurance in my being. You know, Dogen Zenji said, turn the light around and shine it inwards to discover And what makes me tick? What's going on that I'm having this strong movement, emotion, attitude? And can I meet it?

[17:15]

Can I meet it face to face? This is... the way of Zen. And I would say this is the way of following the path of practice of all forms of Buddhism. And at this inquiry, you know, there's a way in which when we don't make sense to ourselves of ourselves, we get disheartened. We get hesitant. We get confused. What if I don't pick up the flower petals in the right way?

[18:18]

What if I spill them? while I'm moving them from here to here? What if people start to say, I'm too young to be doing something so important? Do we have an option about living our life? No. Do we have an option about being now and moving appropriately? Have we ever fully been in control of the shared life we're living? And yet, when we come together,

[19:22]

this together. Without even having a meeting, we start to chant the loving kindness meditation. As a mother watches over and protects her only child. What if we started to relate to each other with that demeanor? Is that the bodhisattva vow? this part of not making sense of ourselves.

[20:32]

You know, in early Buddhism, they kept developing more and more complex descriptions of the human consciousness. First of all, it was about being in the moment, and then someone said, well, we're always in the moment. We don't exist anywhere else. And then some smart aleck said, but wait a minute. Moment by moment, wouldn't we be a completely different person? I see myself having habitual responses, habitual thinking, and habitual emoting. And so this developed complex descriptions of the human condition.

[21:48]

In one system, there's 52, what's called 52 attributes The consciousness of consciousness. Chaita-sikhas. And then 11 of them are always present. And then the other 41 are sometimes present and sometimes not. There's another system that says the discerning consciousness is noticing what comes in the sense doors. And then another part of consciousness translates it and shifts it over to the storehouse consciousness.

[22:52]

But this part of consciousness that's in the middle, it starts to think that I'm the whole deal. I am the person making everything happen. And of course, that's not true. So in that system, the intention is to kind of look so carefully and watch yourself and draw conclusions. Well, if I'm able to be Jiko for the morning service, surely I could also be Fukutan, maybe even Tenzo. or maybe director.

[23:57]

So I'm waiting to see what Cora does next. So there was a Robert Bly who was a poet and a kind of philosopher. And he said, be a lover in both worlds. Be a lover in this unknown way in which we move singularly and collectively. And then Be a lover in what's evident to us. When we look at ourselves, when we look at each other, it's like, oh, okay.

[25:08]

Be a lover in both worlds. All those words I mentioned earlier mudditta, metta, anukampa, none of them really cover the territory of love. In early Buddhism, karuna, which sometimes gets taught, it gets described as compassion. The notion was to help someone alleviate their distress so they could practice thoroughly.

[26:16]

And so when the monks would go to visit someone who was dying, this is what they would endeavor to do. And then mudditta, sympathetic joy. And metta. And the metta sutta says, Here's things not to do. And when you pick up these things as part of your practice, then you will be able to give your energy towards this being a lover. Being a lover in two worlds. And then there's a marvelous teaching on how to engage the hindrances.

[27:34]

But it's a delicate proposition. The hindrances have a lot of capacity confuse us. The more literal translation is covering. They cover up so it's not obvious what's going on for ourselves or what's going on for others either. In that lack of clarity, there is a kind of confusion. There's a kind of lack of reassurance.

[28:41]

Like when we know something, oh, I get angry when the coffee's cold. Why couldn't someone put the pot back Okay, you know why you're getting angry. On a certain level, that's what's going on for you. But often, on a deeper level, there is a kind of mystery. Why do I care that much? about getting hot coffee? Why do I care that much about all sorts of things? Am I looking for love?

[29:47]

Am I looking for reassurance? How do we invoke a kind of benevolence towards ourselves and towards each other as we engage in inquiry? What am I noticing about myself? Sometimes it's just helpful to pause and think, what's going on for me? What am I thinking about now? How much gravitas does it have? Is this way of thinking about something, does it have

[30:57]

a kind of strong and deep significance? Or is it whimsical? Are there emotions coming with it? Across the Buddhist spectrum of traditions, this inquiry is there. And in the Zen tradition, We sit to explore the seminal attributes of inquiring into what's going on for us. That's what we do. We sit, and for almost everyone, when you start to sit, there are moments

[32:00]

when you're in a dream. And the challenge is to learn how to relax, to learn how to be a body, and not go into a dream. And then we need to discover what kind of involvement does that take to not go into a dream, to start to wake up, to start to see the details, to start to see the emotions of how we're behaving. Notice and acknowledge.

[33:09]

It helps lift consciousness. This is a way in which we can make an ally of our discerning consciousness. When we notice and acknowledge. Oh, right now I'm thinking about this. And this is the accompanying emotion. And as we draw it, as we name it like that, we're drawing it up out of a dream. Not that it's an absolute truth, but it just helps us have some clarity around our karmic being. So do we engage in this way? And then as that develops, you know, we can explore, well, how do I take it off the cushion?

[34:15]

How do I take it out of Zazen and then have it be a practice that I can meet at different times in the day? And usually for almost all of us, we need the reassurance of being able to contact the moment. You know, one of the great challenges of schizophrenia is that, as far as I know, you don't know what reality is.

[35:19]

You just hear voices and make images and it's very unsettling. the capacity to settle mind, to see clearly the linkage between certain ways of behaving and certain thoughts and emotions. This is difficult for us. But even in our difficulties, we can bring a kind of benevolence, towards our practice. We can relate to it in a benevolent manner. And also we can relate to each other in a benevolent manner.

[36:23]

Over the years, I've come to think that the line that follows the way Seeking Mind talks and then people line up to talk to, to congratulate or commiserate or just thank, I think most of it is just thanking the person for having made the talk. I have the notion that the line is longer the more difficulties the person had in their life. Often difficulties oblige us to be face to face with them. And if you don't think, if you look around your life and think, I just don't have any difficulties, well, you can remind yourself, everything's impermanent.

[37:51]

And when you really think about that, you'll realize that that's a great existential challenge. Yes. Also, in the moments our benevolence flies out the window, and once the Dalai Lama was in Northern Ireland, and I had a good friend who was his assistant while he was there, and after a while he thought, this is a great chance to ask the Dalai Lama a question. And here's the question he asked, what to do with anger? And the Dalai Lama says, very easy, very, very easy, apologize. And apologizing and forgiving.

[39:04]

these can be the expressions of our compassion. We're quite capable of it. Except when we're not. So let me return the original thought you know that we we practice and we don't know all the influences that has upon us but when we bring our heart into it.

[40:08]

Somehow, in a mysterious way, it guides us towards appropriate response. It's what prompts Cora to lift up the flower petals. And it prompts her, I would say, when all that's done, to rush back to her mother's embrace. Thank you. so that every being has a place, where the children of God may have been allowed to live in this way, believing in the Son of God and not the rest.

[41:21]

I have been able to escape them. The illusion is all under me susceptible, . [...]

[41:54]

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