remember an that
and today see through the to panic as words
good evening
so the team we've been pursuing in this practice period
buddhists pursue things is entering the boot away
the last time i turn and a lifetime blind talk we talked about
frankly allowing what we are
and then
i think we were both inspired by thoughts of category roshi category russia
said that westerners should do repentance everyday
and he did in his group every day they started the day with that
tickets kind of interesting the way we did we do a one day sitting and then right at the end we just tag on
just sort of comes packaged deal
sen sore knees repentance
it is carried
hmm
put his style of our temple is a and maybe it's part of this time and doesn't practice
and
it's it's almost like you assimilate the practice through your body directly through your experience and mad so much through
the thought processes the opinions that you go through in getting to it mean obviously they play a bite
i've noticed for myself
countless was described is like a feeling i have for things like the feeling and i have for service just said of
develops as i keep sitting i never think about it when i said i an irregularly think that and well i sometimes i think about service but to a large extent i don't the feeling does not seem to be a consequence of what i've sat time thought about it
so
this is a part of our way part of our way is to
enter
not knowing how we enter
we just sit all day and then at the end
we take refuge in buddha dharma sangha and we allow our karma
and
strangely enough
the more you do that in my experience without even thinking about it it sort of ties together it makes sense
am
i don't know if category roshi spelled out in green dpr if into his group why he side and western are needed to take
repentance on a on a daily basis maybe cakes not the verb and
and then before taking refuge
so what i was x planning on talking about this evening was taking refuge
there's an english teacher sangha acheter and he said that in one of these books that
he thought every everything in buddhist practice was simply taking refuge that's what it was
and then he went on to divided up into three levels
his words in the first level was where you
you have some understanding of what buddhism is proposing
and it makes sense to you it makes more sense to you than any other proposition of reality and you think okay well
i'll go for that that makes sense makes more sense than anything else
it's not but doesn't look particularly easy or maybe it does look easy with anyway for that level that level of
maybe would say allegiance to the proposition
and in the second level being willing to take it on
okay and we all know what a big step at is from agreeing in principle to allowing it into our lives and if you think about it that's why this who are you you know the this coming establishing some familiarity some acceptance of your life is so huge
as for i mean how can it into your life if you don't know why your life is
this is or the this is the usefulness of a rowing of a investigating and accepting who you are because it creates a grind in which to practice
and then
in the midst of this we have a love hate relationship with it when i quite sure whether
we'd like practice or we hate practice
once many years ago there was am a teacher at a japanese roshi at tassajara
that's a me roshi and at the end of shushing you know he walked out the window and roared at the top of his voice i hate desires it

so you know i was one of those love hate days
but maybe years
so
we we want what it offers and we don't want to lose but it seems to be taking away
in all sorts of different ways
and then in right to the scheme of have three levels the third one is and
when deeper sense of acceptance were
the love and the hate
i when worked back and forth
do they litter list
we start to realize the two sides of the same coin
and we know that it's just one thing and then
that's when it starts
we can embrace them both
well with joy and the difficulty
and then that's
part of what reminded me of a car and i'd like to quote you which is about young men
young men is a little bit like the the only leonardo da vinci of coins in like ronaldo to the renaissance was just sort of so masterful
i plan to young man was too
yeoman said i don't ask you about for the fifteenth day
try to say something
about after the fifteenth day
and then of course everyone's don't find it so he answers himself and he says every day's a good day
and of course with his
yeah
he first grade it you think well that's a sort of simple simplistic notion and that's confounded by reality
what would really it's talking about this sense of and
where i love and hate of practice come together
and as suzuki roshi counted some sense of constancy
suzuki roshi described by saying and

when events or embraced in emptiness he will then it can be a sense of constancy in our practice
so what about when they're not embraced and emptiness what about that
and
about a year sober i was at tassajara and i will i went to visit someone who is in their room and outside the room they were all these pairs of shoes
and and it was great i do with a pair of shoes for and per facilities for summer where the words apparent clogs wooden clogs for winter wear when it rains feeling they raise you up a little bit and your feet don't get wet
then there was a pair of running shoes this person like to go running then the rise a pair of birkenstocks birkenstock three your good everyday wear sensible when it would a sensible person would wear
and then there was zendo a car
and then i think there was rubber boots for went to work
and i was thinking and
about that recently i was thinking about the world in which we live and the how it affects us and the expectations we could it creates for us and
you know someone was saying to me well
things aren't going right
and i'm thinking about times when i've thought that myself you know things are not going right
in
i'm wondering why i would buy the me so much did i expect them to go right know
and thinking about and why the image of all these shoes came up for me i was thinking is very interesting and
at a certain point we just went barefoot
and when the ground was stony you know you felt it was dusty you felt it or whatever was calling you felt it was right you felt it and
i don't know maybe it was all a problem maybe we all went around with the feeling they things we just not going right
i maybe i maybe we just found like this is how it is
we're not separate we're not in control we not
capable of taking control of the world and bending it to i will
so recently i was thinking i wonder how much that sneaks in for us i wonder how much does it is the third sneak in the but somehow if we do it right
it'll have
a high degree of comfort or
in work according to my strategy
and
of course you can look at our endeavors are scientific endeavors and other endeavors and and see that passion within us
and n
we don't have a different heritage you know as category roshi pointed out know m
maybe it is more difficult for us when things go wrong
when we don't get the raise we expected
when we get mugged in the street or whatever a relationship breaks up
maybe it simply hurts us more

and
used to be someone will who lived here her name was haven't dunham and i had a good fortune to know helen for many years from when she starts first started to practice and
if she was
quite a character it great
spirit and
did you call breast cancer and this was her first brush with death and he didn't like it in fact and as she said it was petrifying traumatic
terrorizing and
and she survived it
it turned out to be not as an
intrusive as it could have been
and she lived for many years afterwards nine pic
a tissue seventy nine somewhere in that range
anyway the years went by and she had another brush with death and i remember an by
three months before she died maybe three to six months when preferred and she survived the second obviously to get to the third and her third one was coming along and we were having practice discussion and she was saying in a funny thing you'd think twice i thought
my number's up
and it just it just knocked me for a loop each time it is terrorize me traumatized me
and here i am third time around
i'm traumatized and terrorized again
when you think something would be easier or something
and
i noticed
she said this and sitting cross legged sitting up straight sitting still clear eyed
and i thought i don't know if this is traumatized and terrorized
facing death and settle for this and then
in february
i felt very settled to be with her
it with her
repower the straightforwardness overstatement
no peters said it that's how it was that which she felt she put it out there
so it is
and very peaceful to be with
like very real sense of relief okay
every day's a good day
am
it's not easy
it's not an
there's no pair of shoes that we can put on the protect us from it
am no matter how many we have
it it brings up a weather condition
that's going to
penetrators thoroughly
so this is part of am taking refuge in buddha dharma sangha
it is am from the basis of the human condition
from the basis of who you are
who you were being the parts of yourself you will prove on the party disapproval of
i am
your great joys and your great fears and your great difficulties all of this and
is included in our vow
and
in some ways whether we like it or not
it it your life becomes you practice whether you like it or night
took trump crumble used to say and for those of you when he was giving talks you take for those of you who haven't started to practice
kick my advice don't want to start
and
unfortunately the alternative of ignoring your life doesn't seem to work too well either
so
so young men's every day's a good day it has this almost
indescribable
admonition
i am
i ticked on how takes it in any as wonderful simple way turns it into a very simple expression he says
mindfulness understanding compassion
and this is a
it seems to be be appealing doorway that we most of us into through
you know we we we come to practice and we think practices about meditation awareness the new fuel is common practice thinking practices about and
making making homage and offerings to the celestial buddha
well for most westerners that that would be the exceptional person that would come through that door
and
so we come through awareness we come through the practice of awareness
and
our our understanding
when we sit
i have comes along
sometimes suzuki roshi in only knew if you read carefully enzyme mind beginner's mind and
when he talks about constantly he says
you can waste your time
you know if if somehow practice becomes the part of an equation where
and it's the celestial fix you know it's it's the new pair of shoes that can hold off any whether that can meet any condition that that somehow everyday it's a good day really means that some day every day will be a good day and you'll have a smiley face
so
if that's your aspiration and to practice kin
based on mad aspiration
can make your life difficult
because everyday won't be a good day
and then what you do rebuke yourself for not having practice properly
or think someday someday everyday will be a good day
when i practice longer when i practice better when i become more skilled at it and
to this is not an
this is not the point
hmm
the point of taking refuge
is

the word they just came to mind is to not stay separate
hmm
our society is a coin we have lots of shoes we have lied subways lots of tools
to comfort ourselves
am
to use a buddhist term this is our karma
so
should we all go and blue
in the jungle in thailand
i don't think is enough room for us all
and then
maybe we'd miss the point there too so
so we take refuge where we are
not to say that it's passive
the the results so an admonition to work with your body work with your mind work with your the the situation you find yourself in to be proactive well due to look at
our society and say that's not okay
so i don't support that i actively act against that or to say my help was needed i'm actually going to make an effort to be of assistance
so this is encompassed in taking refuge to to be proactive to add pig
action
to the best of our ability
what was the certain kind of spirit
can understand that
the consequence of impermanence
is is that there cannot be created
safe everlasting place
not for anything
that everything is subject to arising in decay
and then require the question becomes more pragmatic the question becomes more
have i work with what is hard i worked with this body and mind how do i work with these conditions
in a way that supports me and others to embrace life to awaken
the to be willing to engage in the dynamic interplay that surrounds me
and couldn't say that may be in doing this bringing up that question we're shifting it was shifting from and taking refuge to the body fat for ideal
person i don't see them so different
i think
they sought to come together
here you are you're in a society
you've gotta respond
even trying not to respond is a response even non activity is an activity
it's inevitable
so this is
for me how these two intertwined
this this willingness to embrace the condition of what is
and and also defined
a response to our world
one of your names or their statements was when he was asked what is what is the result of a lifetime's for practice and he should approve an appropriate response

so as we search for are appropriate response
we find our inappropriateness
and then one way to describe by practices how do we create the container then allows allows our practice to contain or appropriateness in our inappropriateness and allows them both to be the a can
o'kane within taking refuge

so this is every day's a good day
how will it be for us and how many of us will be blessed with them
three strikes and you're right many is will get three or brushes with death
and be able to have
seven or nine years a buddhist practice
to allow us to question it to explore it

how many of us will have
helen's courage
her tenacity
in her mid seventies with not very good eyesight
yeah she got up at four o'clock every morning and drove over from army street to said five o'clock sizing
she didn't know better as seventy something year old woman was too old able to do that
so
to some way mm
we take refuge by not knowing it's impossible
i not know how much your as service and and
and we don't do it helen dunham's way each one of a desert our way
he and

and we explore it
through awareness
and and we find out how to be
our way you know the buddha's way that we enter is our own way it can't be any one else is way
i am so spontaneously as we find a way and we find out that we're buddha that's how we enter the way
and
it's very interesting proposition that am
as we sit cross legged up straight and say i'm still petrified
let the person with this might feel a deep sense of calm
thank you
the
intention negro the panic a