Good morning. Good morning. That was really good chanting. By the way, I didn't know that I was going to be giving this talk until a couple days ago. My name is Tia, for those of you who don't know, and I'm going to be talking with you today. Because I didn't know that I was going to be giving the talk, I had planned already things to do today at 9, 15, and now at 10 and at 11. So I won't be able to be available for questions and answers. So I thought, after I talked for a little bit, saying, I'm not sure what, we can have questions and answers here for a little bit. And then from 11... To 12, those of you who all of a sudden now have nothing to do, you could kind of mingle and mix and meet each other a little bit or enjoy the, we have a little bit of respite from the rain.

[01:18]

You can get the air very fresh, wonderful air. So if you want to, you can be outside a little bit. Or if you'd like to, you can enjoy the courtyard and then join us for lunch. business part of my talk. You know what else I thought I would do? I did plan to say something, and I do have stuff to share with you, but how many people are new to Zen today? You can lift your hands higher so I can see. Okay, and how many people have sat only for a few months? Mostly new. You know, I was thinking of doing one thing to do. Maybe I'll say something about practice a little bit.

[02:20]

And then those of you who have practiced longer, maybe during our questions and answers, I might ask you also to share your understanding of some response to whatever the question is. Is that different? That sounds like cutting chainsaw? Trees? The tree in the upper patio? Oh. It reminds me of I thought, we've been having noise all week, not all week, all month at Sand Center because they're rebuilding the wall across the street. So usually on the weekend, it's quiet.

[03:22]

Reminds me, just the other day, I saw the movie Lord of the Rings. Has anyone seen it already? Okay. I have a foster son, Juan Carlos, and he wanted to see it right away. So we tried to get tickets over the Internet, and on Wednesday, everything was sold out. So I saw it Thursday, and it reminds me, there is a part in The Lord of the Rings where the trees come alive, and I was rooting for the trees. And I still root for the trees. And in a way, I'm thinking, I mean, I hope that actually this doesn't come to pass, but that the earth kind of gives a big heave and shakes and helps human beings to remember who actually is in charge here.

[04:30]

And maybe we can have a little bit more humility to how we relate with each other and our behavior. Because it's the way that we relate with each other as other that is a cause for the trees to be so upset. And I'm sure they're upset. During session, did I talk about fear at all? Did I read from Sharon Salzberg's book, Faith? I did? I didn't bring it with me. But, you know, myself, personally, what I'm feeling, and I've never, ever felt this before in my whole entire life, I grew up in a very protected sort of environment.

[05:34]

And I never, even when I was traveling around the world by myself, I never really thought that I was at risk. You know, I was careful up to a point, but I never really felt at risk. And now I feel more at risk than I ever have because of our political situation. And what I feel like is that if I don't pay attention to that fear, then I will not be able to respond in the best possible way to address what I feel is an ignoring of our connectedness

[06:35]

from our leaders. So anyway, what I wanted to talk about today is just basic fundamental practice. It's not so really difficult to understand what's being asked of us. It's pretty straightforward actually and simple. In the beginning, for those of you who are just starting to meditate and new to the practice, all that you're asked to do really is initially, in the beginning, is just be able to patiently, without too much judgment, continually try to stay present. That's what's being asked. Just try to develop a habit mind, a mind that habituates to being present. And in the beginning, as you know, it's really difficult.

[07:38]

Some of us have a lot of trouble convincing ourselves that what we really want to do is be present. Is everyone here? Oh, Richard's out there, okay. So initially, sometimes some of us have to make a great effort to keep the mind present in the body over and over and over and over again. So the first thing you have to do is decide that that's actually the commitment that you want to make. For some of us, it isn't. Some of us think we kind of want to be present, but actually on second thought, we don't. And we make all kinds of reasons for ourselves why it's too painful, oftentimes just simply too painful. Sometimes we just don't...we're kind of so...our mind is so fuzzy and stuff like that that rationally we just stay up in our heads all the time and are afraid to just drop that, just let go of all the reasons, even though they're good, why we have to think about such and such a thought or why not being present is appropriate for now.

[08:54]

We just have to cut through all of that and just develop the muscle. Darlene talks about the being present muscle. Develop the being present muscle and let go of all the rest of it and just be in our body. Be in the body. So the first big job is to really sit down with yourself and think about it. do I really want to make this commitment? 100%. Whatever's happening, no past, no future, just be present in the body. Certainly that's true for when we met a day. It's also true, really, the rest of the day. Ultimately, our job is to have this continuity of presence. And I'm distinguishing here between what I call consciousness, which is dualistic, and the wider awareness that's non-dualistic, that is our birthright, that is what we take refuge in.

[10:08]

We can say it's a Buddha mind, a Buddha. We take refuge in that, because everything else changes we can't take refuge in feeling good because we can't sustain that we can't take refuge even in feeling bad about ourselves because sometimes if you admit it you feel actually happy you know a lot of people go right over that They pass right over. Every time they're happy, they just pass right over it, and they go right back to whatever the dark side is. No, but sometimes we're actually happy, and we have to know it when that happens. We can't take refuge in mind states, in positive thinking, it doesn't work, and even pleasant sensations. We also have aches and pains.

[11:11]

There isn't anything in our body sensation, in our emotional energetic world — energy is up, sometimes energy is down — in our mind. Nothing in our body, in our emotional life, in our thought process is countable on. Certainly countable on in a pleasant way, but none of it's countable on. It all changes. The only thing that actually, can I say doesn't, I can't say doesn't change, the only thing is this kind of magical awareness that is our true nature, that is the nature of our mind, is simply this ability to be awake. That's our birthright. It's who we are. All we have to do is unpeel it.

[12:13]

So anyway, in the beginning, even in the midst of our delusions, even in the midst of dualistic thinking, even in the midst of happiness, even in the midst of sadness, even in the midst of pleasant body sensations, even in the midst of unpleasant bodily sensations, it doesn't matter. Always we're aware. Always there's awareness there. That's what we take refuge in. So anyway, the first thing that we have to do in practice is decide whether or not we really want to be present. Then when we decide yes, and if you decide no, that's perfectly okay, not a problem, you're a Buddha anyway. If we decide yes, then we have to actually put the effort out. It takes a tremendous amount of effort. You have to make the effort. Every time you find yourself slipping away, you just have to notice that, oh, at some point you wake up, oh, I'm not here. Okay, fine. Back again. Doesn't need to be judgment.

[13:15]

Doesn't need to be any, I can't do this practice. Doesn't need to be impatient. Doesn't need to be goal-oriented. As a matter of fact, shouldn't be goal-oriented. And you understand why this is almost redundant, but I'll say it anyway. not goal-oriented, because as soon as you're goal-oriented, it's dualistic. It's me over here trying to get whatever it is, get being present. So as a matter of fact, one of the things I brought is this wonderful... Bernie Glassman book called The Infinite Circles, a great book, and in the end of it he says exactly what I'm saying about taking refuge. And the way he and Maezumi translated taking refuge in Buddha is just being Buddha, being Dharma, being Sangha, which is actually our truth.

[14:15]

We either in the beginning don't know it or we do. And the only difference is, if we don't know that, we're miserable. And if we know it, it doesn't mean that we're not miserable. It just means that we know it when we're not. Really, I tell you, it's the only difference. The last session that I sat was really an amazingly... I don't even know what to call it. I think I told some people. It was amazing. I was just completely... present every period. I didn't care if the bell rang. I didn't care if it didn't ring. I wasn't in some kind of concentrated state. I wasn't absorbed in anything. I was just breathing, present, open, relaxed the whole entire time. And at the end of it, I wasn't any more happy at all.

[15:20]

I didn't even feel more connected, nothing. And I thought to myself, you know, what a disappointment. And then I remembered. So what? So disappointment comes through and not disappointment comes through. It's just life. Sometimes it's wonderful. Like right now, I'm looking out the window and there it runs. Can you see this? There's a diamond hanging off this bush. It's just basically water. You know how water... What do you call it when it... Yeah, when it makes little circles. What are they? Bubbles? Not bubbles. Yeah, and before it gets refracted, it has to be a little bubble. It has to be, makes a little bubble. Drops. Yeah, it forms drops.

[16:21]

There are drops all over that thing, and then it's refracted. It just then refracts. refracted, the light refracts, and they become diamonds. So there's diamonds on that bush right outside. And that's it. Because someday I'm going to be dead, and I won't get to see that. I was riding on a bus yesterday. And I love riding in buses because you get to overhear people's conversation that you wouldn't never hear. And the bus driver and this guy were having this conversation, and the guy said, you know, the game is half over. Isn't that great? I thought that was a great way of putting it. In our lives, if you're 40, you're lucky if it's half over, right?

[17:27]

Probably more than half over. So notice why we have it, because it's a miracle gift. Okay, so anyway, so you have to decide if you want to be present, then you have to actually make the effort to be present, and then the next thing is what you're present for. What we're present for are all of the habit patterns, the conditioned karmic events, the... reactive tendencies of our conditioning, psychological conditioning. It's all mostly at that point psychological. Our defenses, whatever, our fears, our desire grabbings, and so on. The next thing that happens is we're face to face with this psychological event that we have become, that we've become. So then, and then we're kind of embarrassed at it, actually.

[18:32]

First thing is that we're embarrassed at what we've become. Mostly with reason, because we're really selfish. We're selfish, we're greedy, you know, we're hateful. We are. That's what we are. isn't it it's true right that's what we are so we we gulp you know and we then sort of you know stand up again and then we have to walk through all we have to learn about it thoroughly totally where am i caught How do I hate? Where do I hurt? What do I grab after? Where does it come from? All the patterns, all the psychological stuff, we have to get in there and really not judge it, not even get rid of it, just see it really clearly. How does what we think of our self work? How does it work?

[19:32]

So for a long time, Buddhism looks like a psychological event, and it is. It's a psychological event for a while. We have to really understand who we are in a deluded way. We already know who we are. in an awakened way, somewhere inside, we know. It's still in there. It never goes away. It's always available to us. Somewhere in us, we know exactly, ultimately, who we are. We have the total heart of compassion, and we are totally awake. It's there all the time. But in the meantime, we have to learn all about the deluded one, And eventually, knowing it really well, knowing it's suffering, if we're brave enough to get in there with it, we actually end up developing a real love for that one.

[20:36]

We really do. Because the one who's looking at that one, this plain non-dual awareness, is not making a lot of judgments about it. It's just seeing how it suffers so. from simply not getting what we want and having what we don't want. We suffer so much. So you end up loving this one, this one that suffers so much, knowing it really well. And then, just like Dogen says, am I doing it? And then, just as Dogen says, when we know it really well, we can just forget about it. Whatever you need. And whenever it comes up with its little whatever it is, we can either pay attention to it, act that way, or not. We have a choice. We're not just reactive anymore. We don't just run after some kind of, oh, I was going to say sexual thing, but, you know, that's very hard.

[21:45]

The sexual one is really difficult. But anyway, we have a choice, we begin to have a choice. And what we do more and more is we rest in this non-identified, we don't identify with consciousness, we don't identify with emotion, thought, we don't identify with our body, we are just a weight as our life comes to be. So how it's not psychological is ultimately there's not a self there that we identify with anymore. Oh, and I wanted to say one other thing.

[23:13]

Um... So far in my experience, I still think it's true. I don't know, maybe people in other traditions will tell me, really, that I don't understand. But I just was reading a book by Acharn Amaro, and he was talking about a retreat that he was giving with Sokne Rinpoche. Is that how I say the name? Sokne Rinpoche? S... No. S-N-O-K-Y-I... Nothing about that guy? I think it's, you know, I'm not sure, but he's a Dzogchen master, and they were giving a retreat together, Vipassana and Dzogchen. And Ajahn Amaro was saying how in his own teaching, listening to his teachers, Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Chah, that what their teaching is ultimately is, when we meditate...

[24:23]

And the point is not just in meditation, but to develop the continuity of this awareness, allowing this awareness to be there all the time, that the direction is to basically don't do anything and just let this non-dual awareness be there. And in Buddhism, in Dzogchen, they call this Rigpa, non-dual awareness, Rigpa. And he said, Ajahn Amaru said that in Vipassana, they don't really... He didn't anyway at that time in this talk that I was reading. He didn't name it. They just call it the unconditioned. But, you know, in Zen, this is our... This is our way, especially in Soto Zen. We... sit in Shikantaza, just being, not trying to be something, but just surrendering to what actually is there, letting the awareness simply manifest as us, because it's there anyway, just being life.

[25:43]

So to me, anyway, I may be wrong, but all of these traditions, all of the you know, practice meditation traditions that have come to the West basically are saying in their essence the same thing. So I was going to read something. From the intrinsic standpoint, the appropriate translation would be being Buddha. That is, from the beginning, we're nothing but the enlightened one. We have to discover and experience this, but whether we do or not, essentially, it's always the case. From this perspective, you can't not be Buddha.

[26:48]

Be Buddha reflects the experiential standpoint. We have to realize that we are Buddha. Being Buddha, we have to be Buddha. We have to deepen our realization until we no longer have any notion of being the enlightened one. Once we experience that state, then being Buddha and be Buddha come together. For instance, the flower falling from the tree in Los Angeles means we are falling with it and as it. From the perspective of one body, three treasures, Buddha is the world of emptiness. This is not some sort of void, but rather the whole universe, or in mathematical terms, the universal set that contains or is everything. If this universal set is full to overflowing with everything without exception, in what sense is it empty?

[27:54]

In the sense that it contains everything before we name things this or that, completely independent of all labels, concepts, or categories. That's what we were studying with Vasubandha, remember? Without notions, there is no way to exclude anything. To exclude something requires the notion, the knowing of something being this or that. Being this universal set without separation is not knowing. And the way Trungpa put it one time, I like this phrase. You probably remember it. It's been said a lot. He said, good, bad, happy, sad vanish like the imprint of a bird in the sky. Isn't that great? Anyway, so... That's our practice, and so does in from the beginning.

[28:59]

Beginning and end is the same. And a little bit different. So I hope that... I hope that we continue practicing and doing our best to try to be this person we are really inside. We just do our best, and we fail all the time. But that's OK. As long as we are awake, it's OK to make mistakes one after the next. Somebody here wanted to be called when they were ordained. They wanted their name to be Falls Down, Gets Up. So we have just a couple of minutes for questions and answers.

[30:03]

That's a good question. Mm-hmm. When you're talking on two different levels, we have to understand that there's conventional level and ultimate level. Ultimately, greed, hate, and delusion are not innate. I would not say they're innate. When we are truly who we are, we are good, totally good, and completely forgiven everything. Because it's all the penalty car isn't. In that way, we're totally forgiven. Absolutely. And I can say to you, inside, you're good. And no one should ever tell you anything else, ever. And, you know, in the conventional world, we do things based on greed, hate, and delusion.

[31:39]

And when we do those things, they often are harmful. So we don't even have to say good, bad. We can just say when we do something that we feel in ourself is harmful to ourself or to anyone else, that next time we'll try to do not harmful, non-harming. And that's our effort over and over and over and over again. We don't have to have any judgments about it. We can just stand up in our vow to not harm ourselves. What? Oh, what if greed, hate, and delusion is Buddha itself?

[32:41]

Buddha nature? That's not Buddha. I've never heard that be Buddha nature. No. But greed, hate, and delusion are there. Definitely. That's definitely how we often respond to the world when we live in delusions. But as soon as delusion drops away, when we really understand that we are not separate from anything else ever, and that what we do actually matters, then we vow to live to awaken ourselves and everybody else. Greed, hate, and delusion is not your fundamental nature. No. No. And in fact, from the point of view of just simply awake, there's no certain... I shouldn't be saying this, it's too much. The ultimate... I'm not going to say it then.

[33:43]

It'll be too confusing. Never mind. Anybody else have a comment? I have a question. Yeah. Other than dogma, what's your experience of... How to craft a sane, authentic life? Well, the first thing that comes to mind, pops right up into mind, is don't know. Just really be present and meet your life as it comes to be in this present moment. As awake as you possibly can. And really... You know, be awake to how you feel and to whatever is as clear as you can with everything that's happening. And then respond the best you can. Appropriate response. I don't know another way of doing it. I keep really in touch with it.

[34:51]

I'm really right now aware of it. And I am trying to, with it, do activity toward what might prevent a real risk from actually happening. But I don't ignore my feeling. I take my feeling, I tuck it under my arm, and I go forward. It's the same thing with... That's what we have to do with fear. The definition of fearless is not not having fear. It's being afraid and going forward with the fear. Thank you. ... at the same time, at that time, that didn't necessarily make me feel connected. I'm wondering, because the association occurs that we are in the present.

[35:58]

Right. I think what I was feeling was a difference between love and compassion, you know? When you're in love, I'm just going to define it this way. It's like you have an object. So you have these feelings. I wasn't feeling feelings. I was just, so maybe it's not like I wasn't connected. It's just that there weren't like, I wasn't like loving everybody or anything like that. I was just there. So maybe not connected is not quite the right thing, but just there with this and then this and then this, but not, you know, there wasn't a whole bunch of, you know, feelings happening. That's what it's like. Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude. Well, you know, sexual energy is just very powerful, you know, and we all have done, I'm sure, stupid things, you know, directly because we... You know, actually, sexual feeling is actually uncomfortable.

[37:21]

And so you want it to be resolved. It's like in music. One of the things about music that makes it so much of what it is, is that we are trained to hear in a certain way in the West. We're trained to hear a chord and then a dissonant that is resolved back to this home chord. It's like home. So a lot of the music, especially music that's, well, anyway, it puts you in this place of dissonance, and you're waiting and waiting. It's like Tristan and Isolde. I don't know if you know opera, but Tristan and Isolde leaves you in this dissonant place for really a long time until you're just screaming for it to be resolved.

[38:29]

Well, sexuality is just like that. Right? So it's so, when it's not resolved, we have this tremendous wanting to just basically get it resolved. So it's very difficult to sit still with that energy and really let it be there and just be able to not move with it and then make a decision based on consequences. You know, have you ever talked with people? People who we love are very interesting. They're totally irrational. Totally irrational. A person who is in love will tell you hundreds of reasons why they should actually go forward with this, what you know to be a disastrous event. But they will tell you reason after reason after reason why that's exactly the right thing to do. ... I was just saying that it's very strong.

[39:49]

It's something that I think everybody, at some point, you really have to work with. You really have to be able to be with sexual, especially people if they think they're going to be a teacher. Otherwise, it's really a mistake. It's really a mistake because you really hurt people. You have to be really careful. Oh, wait, yeah. I had that experience last night. It was all about hope. The irrationality of a relationship. And I said, I thought I was rational. Yeah, real hope. I think you just once maybe tell them how you feel and then love them. Unless a person is really open to listen, they're not going to hear.

[41:06]

Right? You just love them. Our job is to love each other, basically. Our job is to try the best we can to accept ourselves and each other as we are. That's it. It is. As we are. And if you see the person... You know, I'll tell you, this totally changed my relationship with my brother. It was amazing. You know, when you grow up as a sibling... Maybe we'll stop after this because it's late. When you grow up with a sibling, when you don't have a lot of... If your parents are not kind of trying to... helping you to learn how to grow up... And this is what my brother and I did. We tried to help each other. So we'd say, well, he'd tell me, well, maybe you shouldn't act this way. I'd tell him, well, maybe this way would be a better way of doing it, and back and forth and back and forth. And then when you become adults, if you keep doing that with each other, at some point you really have to stop because that person really has become who they are, and you've become who you are.

[42:12]

You've made your choices, and you just have to... If you keep doing that, anyway, my brother heard it as judgmental rather than helpful. It became judgmental rather than helpful. So for a long time we were kind of estranged because we couldn't, you know, it was hard to talk to each other, especially because my brother thought right away he'd be hurt by me. It was terrible. And he was being hurt by me, you know, because I was saying, don't drink, for one thing. And anyway... At some point about seven years ago, not so long ago, I just simply decided I was just going to stop and what I was going to do was, no matter what, I was just going to accept him. Totally, unconditionally, that was it. Period. And I did. And for a while I would talk to him and, you know, he wouldn't...first of all, he didn't believe it for a while, for a couple of years.

[43:12]

I was extremely careful, very gentle with what I said, never disagreed with him, just totally supported whatever it was over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And finally, he really began to see that I was not going to hurt him. And it was a miracle. And now we can actually, we may be really friends and be able to talk. We talk now quite a bit on the phone. I tell him pretty much everything. And he tells me his feelings now, which is a miracle. So I think if we can do that for each other, that's really... It doesn't mean that we don't do things that need feedback and limits. I'm not saying that. It's kind of hard to always talk from two sides at the same time.

[44:15]

All right. So no more questions and answers. And enjoy the day and have a happy holiday season and pray that we don't have too much destruction. Our intention equally.

[44:38]

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