Sunday Lecture

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SF-01091
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it is
the morning
i'm surprised to see so many people come out on a wet day
must have been for this particular guest we have with us today
oh some of you have not been here before how many never been here before
not very many well this is the first sunday of the month mrs children's sunday so that's where this tithes and the first role
i heared to see a special yesterday
if you'll come out
slick mana
come on
come on sleep
it's okay
whoa whoa
gosh
not a kids here
my name is
slick
that's because i move kind of slow and
slick like
yeah
what's your name
benjamin hi
well
what should i tell you about me
well one thing i can tell you is
wherever i go
i take my hosts with me
can you do that
no i don't think so
but i go and take my house with be so wherever i am i am at
oh yeah
so okay it's okay
okay here so
there
well another thing about my kind of life is that i move
kind of slow
in fact even
i started to come here yesterday morning
by last night i was already halfway
that's pretty good
well hi there
oh benjamin
also
i move very very or read
mine fully

who
oh
why
what's your name
guy you're a guy
i think i'm a guy too
not sure
i guess it really doesn't matter too much for me
we sing a lot of songs for example
we were sailing along
by moonlight be pillow on
oh how about this one snows new the gang's all here
you're not laughing
so you guys are going to have a good morning right there we slow and
mine for
slow moving not test like this guy this good
he moves very very fast
too fast
yesterday he was only your age and today look at him
how did that happen
here
it ain't no joke on
well maybe it is
are you almost ready to go outside
you want to go out and play you might find my friends down in the garden
but but don't count the gardener
and as for the rest of you just don't say escargot
who
i live living
want to say hi to me

i'm anthony
my
anybody else going it will feel you
well maybe it's time to get on with a serious business of the rmr
the dharma
oh

okay have i said enough
i hope so because this guy's run out of words
i'm going to say goodbye now
bye bye bye but
to do to jupiter to to could we couldn't go to learn
to help me here look i am i am
dubai slick oh
oh god in his house
you take a long nap and tired
i'll put sleek here
book okay

by
hi guys
nice seeing you i'm very impressed how many people came this morning with all the rain
did you come by can do
kayak

yeah he's moving just like slick

today is also
actually this evening will be the beginning of what is called the early real hot soups a sheen
seven days of slow dying
and rebirth and dying again and being reborn again for seven days how many people in the bright despair to hear
hey all these folks are other hands up will be sitting with us all together in here for the next
seven days a week from today it'll be almost over but
now it hasn't even started
and
i say she no one of the translations for satiate means time together the mind
time to focus our attention
and do nothing but sit with ourselves from early morning till late at night
with each other none of course there's also dime the discussions is
the leader of the session will will be our abbess and with cuts
and there will be also have an opportunity for the people in the session do have a diamond discussion with some of the practice leaders and
but otherwise we will be sitting here in silence and to our meals and go to in our services and starting about five in the morning and going until nine at night
and the rojas is a sheen is
practice and all the zen monasteries around the world as a time of buddha's enlightenment
shakyamuni buddha so awakening to his truth which we try to practice here in other places
tasting the truth of the target as words tasting the truth of the together than just come one
i won't talk about that a little bit today
because we don't really know
mean the whole myth the whole story the legend and so a buddhist enlightenment we don't really know and that took place probably in the springtime
and his birth is also celebrated in the spring
well they probably has something to do with the calendar i think
you know the autumn
the vernal equinox when the light becomes in the northern hemisphere
overcomes the dark time of new growth and so on that's the resurrection and christianity and also buddha's birthday time
and the course of this time of year when the dark force becomes the strongest and then light begins to return enlightenment to begins to return the light begins to come back those seems in the northern hemisphere at least the feeding time to practice this question of waking up to the light
to teach the truth of our life
so
in view of this i i just want to
take the opportunity to go over her
repeat or talk about
i get these the to the story of shocking when you leaving
and the night of his enlightenment and how that is our story
i think most of you know the story but if you will indulge me i'll try to tell it again
somebody
in some ways all of us button least archetypical lee is born with a golden spoon in his mouth or her mouth all the advantages of life are presented to this person is to say everything that the world can offer
in terms of luxury in terms of laser in terms of education in terms of health all those things that we think are very precious to us and make life worth living
this is the story of somebody who has all of that given to him
and who even at an early age begins to find a certain dissatisfaction in it
does the story that we read in some of the legends are some of the writings about shakyamuni buddha of is sitting under the rose apple tree as a boy at the time when the harvest is about to
begin it was a big festival a celebration in the india in which the king of the shakya clan his particular clan his father along with
probably as minister chamberlain somebody wrong does the first for long and of of bar
plowing and first the role of plowing and so it's a big time and a lot of a celebration is going on a lot of dancing and music and
the kind of things we associate with festivals and according to the story is hot
people are sweating and under the sun and this colorful and shocking one is with his cousins enjoying it but at some point he goes off by himself to get away from the the den of the celebrants and sits down under this tree
and his father begins to with push the plough turn up the earth
according to story the boy does boy notices this watch is very carefully as the earth gets rent by the plow and worms and other creatures snails maybe are turned up under the plow and cut the pieces birds fly down from the sky and
grab parts of the struggling life forms that are being turned up by the plough in the earth and not only that but a hawk are some bird of prey comes down and grab this in it's talons one of the younger birds flies off with it
and this is very disturbing to the young boy
it comes a point i think in all of our lives and we will begin to witness that live feeds on life
we might have seen that movies if we haven't witnessed it in our own life but at some point some something kind of disturbing about that realization is what eight years old maybe
she sits in a kind of absorption the seen under this tree and at the same time it fuels a kind of relief release from all the noise about him the scene about him
and then the and then his his mother comes his stepmother khatami
and she he says to her mother
you see the priest has the priests of the dharma the brahmin priests of course of the ones who recited in the vedas calling upon propitiate in the forces of nature and so on the bring good harvest and cetera but he says to his mother look even the
the vedas the scriptures did not save those creatures
what is the use of all of that so nobody the seas of dissatisfaction with his life
are manifested
it's probably that point in our own life when we want to run away from everything from school from home from
be by ourselves at any rate
early on of course as we know from the legend there had been a prophecy that he would grow up to be there a great king or a great teacher and his father wants to keep him in seclusion
so that he can grow up and become a great king and his father's footsteps in other words be involved in politics in the running of the state of shock your claim
and so of course he has to participate in debates in philosophy and learning and accordion the story is best in everything he's the champ
he gets straight a's
he hits a perfect batting average
he can't do anything wrong but he's dissatisfied so they finally decided well maybe he's getting his post is no maybes after twelve years old and twenty years beginning do you know having some problems that we call those that arise with us during puberty glandular things
sex maybe should time for him to get married you're settled down and so of course he has an arranged marriage and
it's a very beautiful young woman and so on and there's a long story about how they made it very charming stories about all of this
make a long story short he marries this young woman who is very much aware of the suffering in the world and and treats the sick and homeless the maimed and the house and
meditate herself and they have a rather a very compatible arrangement and she
your shot her eyes or name she had understands years husband's longing to understand the truth which he cannot find with a brahman teachers
and so at some point going to the teachings the
young men realizes by seeing a dead body
by seeing someone leprous
oh and by seeing a monk walking amidst the
peoples of the town
images that also began to disturb him
no matter how much we can enjoy our life sickness old age and death or down the road there's no escape for any being whatsoever
and i can't find any satisfaction to the question of how to deal with that in my life he thinks right
so well one night is a great party in this is one of the stories anyway
and during the great party his wife sets out on a chair she knows that this is the night he was slip away he's now in his twenties
oh and they've had a son rahul are beautiful boy a child
what's interesting about this stories that she knows he's going to leave and she lays out all of this traveling clothes for him and slips away into chambers and acts as if she's asleep
and she even cause upon his personal servant what was his name may remember
china are china
she says get his horse ready i think tonight he's going to leave but don't let anybody else know about this
who's interesting part of the story with for me because usually we want the daddies is to stay home home leaving is an interesting question let's stop right here look at this for a moment
if if one is obligated to raise a family if one gets married if one joins the forces of life in the world than one is bound to worry and have cares
i mean who wouldn't be fearful for their their possessions for the home for their families
in times of unrest and distress which was the course the case in india then as it is now in the world
attachment to
and protection for those things that we hold dear to us
so there's already a course in place a tradition of people called home leavers those who chose a life
aside and away from the cares of the world to leave behind all of that
protection
in order to fathom the greater questions and truth of life to face the unknown
the wandering monk the forest
hermit
there's a whole tradition for this in which at some point all people could do this after there was social responsibilities were finished and the fact that his father had said to him
someday siddhartha you know when not your family's grown and new help fulfill your duties as minister of state and so on you can go on them the robe of wandering monk set it can go off into the world or as others do but he started by that time i'm going to be too old and weak
and this is gonna take all my energy
hmm anyway he lives right mouse his horse and off he goes
and of course visits lamentation and despair
unhappiness when the king finds out about this
in first team just wanders about it doesn't quite know how to handle his life cuts off his hair gives up his sword changes is
raymond for a bigger as close as he meets in
and visually bumps into somebody who says there's a superior these teachers who will teach you to concentration practices to overcome the mind to overcome the world
so it goes after meet these teachers for teachers he meets will teach him concentration practices that first teachers color lara kalama kalama he's an old guy who has been around a long time he has a five hundred or six hundred followers and
he says i can teach you concentration practices in which the mind and the objects of mine become one the objects suppressed affect perception and the subject of perception become one
i can teach you these things and to find the truth you will find relief from suffering you will find rapture you'll find bliss you will find happiness the happiness you crave
and because he's our hero he's able to accomplish system of rather short time
few months all the practices that have taken the others years to accomplish he does rather quickly
but no matter what state of mind that is to say how deep is absorption into what is called somatic concentration is he is still not satisfied because eventually has to come back into this dimension which we call the world and function
so he goes to as tissue and it tells us teacher although i appreciate very much what you have taught me is absorption practices the somatic practices these genres
i'm still not satisfied and he leaves
what the teacher's permission fact the teacher wanted him to stay and run the song go with him
why you're so good that you can be my right hand person effect when i die i just transmit my leadership to the siddharth assist know
he goes on to another teacher who says who claims were maputo's his name
love that name
another his name rama kuta boudicca rama kuta
de la adama obama put the answers tells him what he has learned and roma put it in essence tells them well you know that you can observe yourself into different samadhi states but i'm going to teach you the fact that all perception is nothing but your own mind there is no world but your own mind
i'm going to teach you that and that would be called all me
perception the overcoming of perception and non perception the non duality of those two things at all phenomenon is nothing but the object of mind and he accomplishes this in a couple of months
you still not satisfied
still doesn't work for him there still dissatisfaction
how this scourging people were going to a week and
to these absorption practices
but there's something little different you see there are many teachers in the world indian to even today who teach the rapture in bliss of the total absorption of non-duality in fact is called cedar yoga you walk into a room with that kind of teacher in know the indian finding today and is getting turn on with about one hundred thousand g
oh so some kind of juice zoom
and you can light up
and you feel the oneness of god
bhakti devotion to god devotion to the girl but eventually you're not going to be with the goo and eventually you're going to come down from all of that
this is all still impermanent so he decides that he'll go off by himself and teach himself now and course this is the period where he decides i think i will give up i what will i will really do is start of the body since all all of this all of this comes back to the central aspects of being sight sound smell taste touch and so on
what will i will do is deny the world in those terms and so of course he does the ascetic practice starving himself his hair grows long and mad and he never washes eats dung or one see today
he's he's a mess if you saw him on the street you would uproot around him probably holding your nose and of course he meets four or five other aesthetics who are all practice in the same thing with them feeling that by denying themselves by the denying their countries of the world but totally deny in the world even to the point of death
it was already a tradition for this to that he will finally reached the truth but guess what you know
at some point he finally according to one of the traditions walks into the water river and fuels the wonderful warmth and power of the water
well as it tries to climb out is too weak and he falls down and that that moment the bodhisattva appears at that moment the saviour appears i should a woman a young woman
oh god her karina some good smell i think it is some millet or something like that in a bowl sees him and feeds him
in other words something always comes along at the right moment if we practice in feeds us he has a little strange and crawls out and understands that asceticism this kind of extreme asceticism is not the answer either
he had heard somewhere in fact in the vedas they say it that if you want to play the instrument perfectly you don't tune the strings too tight or too loose
just so
miss perfect sound attunement in other words how do a tune with the world and now becomes his practice how to a tune with world and he decides you go off and sit under that tree over there until he understands and saw this of course becomes the bodhi tree or the tree under which the enlightenment or curse now
it's interesting isn't a tree always takes there's always a symbol of a tree and these stories triggers a creek grows out of the roots of the earth and reaches toward heaven the sheltering tree the shouldering palms
the tree of life so is a symbol
ah
of earthiness and nothing it's and its arms toward heaven but also of course the trees by vegetation that gives off oxygen for us and now helps sustain life anyway
he sits under this tree for seven days and seven nights
least for a long time
and on the last night he sits there of course it goes to all these trance states again and comes back down from them and so on but a number of things occurred in one is that all things no matter what he looks for there's no permanence in anything no permanence in a mind state no permanence and anything in the material world that can be
it can be held onto none whatsoever furthermore he can't find what we call the self anywhere this was a departure from the indian tradition in which the utm on was an ongoing
ontological are being presence of the eternal brahmin and he couldn't find that pressure all he could find was that there was something called form
and a reaction to form which is feelings
have some sort
thought processes around those feelings are like it i don't like it all off i like it or not
and then the stories that we make up around those
and consciousness i consciousness knows conscious your consciousness the stories we make up around that but the stories themselves have no substance they're just stories
so the last night he's sitting under the tree according to this and in the first watch of the night he goes into deep absorption and he understands something that i call i've always been here
that i've always been here is something that you can a little test that you can do with yourself ask yourself the question can you remember a time this is this two part of this question one can you remember a time when you were not here
whether you are two years older one hundred and two years old can you ever remember a time that you are not here of course you can look around and see that everything is changing but that's an object of your consciousness and the point of view of consciousness itself even if you go back through the womb as he did even if you go back and back and back as he did through a lifetime
i'm after a lifetime after lifetime there was all with somebody here experiencing something called here i am always here but second part of it i can't find the i and i cannot find the here
yet
here i am here it is
that is the top that just come one the thus come thing this just now this
but i can't find a self that yet
like you and me when i was five when i was three when i was twenty three when i was sixty at this moment that separate self sense that separate that feeling of what should i say or particularity that uniqueness
doesn't seem to be different
everything else around it seems to be different but that ever witnessing consciousness does not seem to have changed

so he goes back to lifetime after lifetime and sees that
he's been reborn again and again when he cause he your eyes been reborn again and again and of course when he was born according to the legend he came out inaccurately
perfect we could already walk when you barn and took seven steps remember that part takes seven steps points to the heaven and points the earth says below the heavens and above the earth i alone in the world honored one
no i used to think that was a pretty a pretty egotistical thing to say i just me and the world but that's not what it meant
i alone each of us is a law even though everything is interdependent feeding everything else
everything bound every other thing in the universe yet it is experienced as unique and separate
i alone you alone are the world honored one another with looking at that in words is that the whole universe what we call the whole universe who knows what the whole universe is malicious for the sake of argument say we do
comes forward to experience itself as you and me is our conscious as this consciousness here
seems simple enough to understand you alone in the world on when they'll never be another nick
another arlene another food and other me another you just as were at this moment nobody can experience exactly
what you are experiencing or know what you're experiencing exactly
and not as interesting as the particularity of it
so there's two things where we're looking at here in in enlightenment so called enlightenment one is that all things are universal they have no self that we can get hold of and yet at the same time there is the world honored one which is always this
this and this
and he begins to celebrate dad and the second part of the night he understands that there's a chain of causation
the because we feel that we are separate from everything else we have the illusion that we can take that there's something called an ego that exist separately and can control things over and apart from everything else i know this is old hat for you i'm saying this for me i need to tell this story for me so i can begin to practice it maybe this week a little bit
so
he sees that there's a chain of causation in brief it goes something like this
is that
yes i am
i think there's a separate self is separate self has since oregon's i can feel a sense of touch contact with the world through my senses through that contact i grasp at some aspects of it and they push other aspects away thinking there's an i doing this and i begin to build up a story around the things i like the things i dislike what is right what is wrong and
the worse i split the world on the middle
i believe in the language and new culture ration
i'm an american i'm a male i'm an aquarian i'm a schizophrenia on this some of that i'm a buddhist and i began to take real fighters and take those is something real
nice as well them as the grasping aspect of it isn't it not only do a grasp onto certain aspects of it i've been begin to cling to certain things and make up stories around that even unconsciously
an out-of-date is what's called becoming born again
i go through a series of changes i suddenly let everything go something comes along and grabs me again whom i'm born birth and death from moment to moment
but because this happens rapidly and fast we have a sense of continuities continual being as me separate entity
story that has some substance to it
and that the language in which i am putting this into has some kind of substance to it rather than just something that we have invented
over time you fall
now
during the night there's this big storm i like this this parliament we had a big storm last night that's what made me think of this study
during the night we had this dies out to last night but this midnight what the delaware and talk about tomorrow and then there was a star and there was a storm and the buddha's enlightenment you
during the storm of course everything is the wind blows and lightning when house and the lightning flashes and he doesn't move since separate i'm moving in the midst of all of this metaphor for sitting upright in the midst of all of this swarm of quantum swarm around us in our life
doesn't move and watches all of this happening coming
see that everything is dependent on everything else understands the uniqueness of everything at the same time storm goes away that cause break apart and he looks up and what does he say
he sees the morning star i love that venus right the morningstar you know in the old traditions venus beautiful is the harbinger bringing the lantern announcing the coming day
that beautiful so sees that that is the such know that is that the target of doesn't come one right there he awakens just this moment the particularity of this moment that will never be the same again is the awakening mind totally open
it's totally open to all of that
as the first part of it first part is he sees the emptiness what we called the emptiness of all things you can't get hold of anything then he sees the such this the particularity of everything in the third part of this is i'm going to tell somebody about it
does the philosophical psychological aspect of it there is the effective were feeling aspect of it and then there's the need to come back into the world itself the way things are
and share this understanding with the rest of the world but at first he so kind of on what should i say
happy and everything's is so
everything is so
free everything's who are unobstructed
everything is so joyous everything is still shining
and he feels there's no way i can tell there's no way i can describe this to anybody so for about a week he just wanders about or sits under the street just kind of savoring all of this before he started teaching now then this is when we come to them
about our lives it's easy to understand the core arising as easy to understand impermanence as mindsets and so on was hard to understand is that this moment
i think what 's ended and what zen does and it's particularly
pointed out in poetry sin poetry the chinese mind and japanese mine grasping
grabbing hold of a moment getting it down so that we can see that the universal under particular come together who in this moment back by shop basho famous japanese haiku writer writes
this road
down it no one comes this autumn night this road ashley cole media
just this road whom exclamation yeah
no one comes to sovereign leave
now a lot of people who can feel it philosophize about well that's he's talking about the annoying he's all alone as a port in the world and the students are following this one but no no the xin aspect of that the awakening aspect is that moment of looking out haven't you had this moment your life you seen as such this is something you've opened the blind a drop or
rainfalls boop bop right in front of you
just that robbery just that road at this moment
no one comes he feels the particularity the the loneliness
you know zen buddhism the list is not about being always happy and or and only it's also filling the other side the loneliness of our separate feeling of separate existence and appreciating that just such than photographer is just comes that way
now this now this storm and all these columns now these arid days now this terror
now this freedom now this boredom
but usually and objects themselves with close observation and this takes some practice
not so long ago i came out of an operation from heart surgery i had to stay a lot of down i had to walk a little bit but i sat most of the day in my house looking through an open window and watching the light changed on a hillside where the wonderful things about recovering as you have the leisure there's just sit and you don't have to sit in particular way
yeah nobody's watching you're not sitting in zazen necessarily but it is as if you're sitting there i was sitting there looking out the window watching the like change on the hillside
a bird woodland just that bird doing just this thing with that grass my mind that bird disgrace that moment total appreciation not only that but i was happy to be alive
the rest of the world haven't impinged yeah
i'm getting back into the swirl i could enjoy that moment in its totality i can understand what they're talking about
the freedom of that
isa famous japanese says so it is the world who do do d w it is a world of do
meaning it's impermanent when many ads in the sentence and yet and yet
oh those all impermanent when you lose somebody you love even shed tears
although there's nothing to cling to you're going to feel
the world and all of its impermanence profoundly deeply and the more we practice with emptiness if we want to call it that her forum as emptiness and emptiness is form the more we deeply feel are
gain and loss in appreciate it and let it go
let it be
does the takata that thus com one
when finally they did i get a little note here there's a monk i like this one
comes in says to his teacher the body of color parishes
what is the fix body of the dharma
the body of color parishes what is the fixed body of the dharma
per teacher says the mountain flowers bloom like brocade
the river between the hills as blue as and ago
of that moment when you're a kid and you looked outside the came on the school building or something springtime something no one talks to her i had this experience in the wintertime new folks that mellitus are appreciate this
it's four o'clock in the morning we get up there you know and you're sitting about six hours in the darkness or more around ten o'clock in the morning find the sun begins to pick of treason east the reason the sun would come down and land just outside the door on what we call the angle our the deck right outside the door and symbol and as i came out from sitting on
all those hours and listening to a talk
probably as long as this one
i put my foot stepped down reached and and felt the warm where the sun had fallen on the cold of boards the warmth of that at that moment my foot oh how good they found just a foot landing coming down on then
board at that moment i was that the cabinet how our such appreciation such joy just happiness and then of course the next step is gone
now if we could live our life and that kind of continuing just now this now this this and begin to without getting stuck here c zinc kind of skids oil the skids as it were greases the skids so we can slide along from momentum
brocade
you know how the flowers look like brocade on israel's pretty so
jumping clear of the mini and the ones still gun
but you know although we all experiences we haven't we had a ceremonial and night here our finish soon now be patient with me
it's called shows are chosen a teacher in this kitten and a ruth cuts sat there in a chair and all the monks up all of this line of are both size and we come forward with our hands like this and bow and ask a question
someone said happiness has no history so it's very happy doesn't come forward and say yea or just this or i'm happy most of us come forward and say well you know i'm bored or i can't find myself or suffering anyway
the litanies of suffering that we all experience when we express ourselves the dissatisfaction that we feel in our life for a moment to moment that were in touch with
nothing wrong with this
but mostly were in touch with the small mind the small dissatisfied
we're not at ease we want to leave home and get free but we're not there yet to express their to the teacher and teacher says something good go back and sit with that maybe
to know we come to the session this week and we have a great opportunity the whole world takes care of us we just sit here somebody's going to fetus the worry about making money
well we have to do is sit with ourselves and in the whole universe with stuff thoughts for the moment this
you know what it hurts
it hurts to do nothing
to be everything to be with everything the particularity the form and the emptiness to move between those realms without sticking his reduce stick
it will begin to count the days to california for more days it would be done
no the mind jumps forward or remember last year how what a great sixteen i had i thought i was liberated now i hate it
we really good in touch he was finally sit down and can really get in touch with how things were changing
and yet you can't that change can isn't separate from this unique particularity called me
i think we're learning how to have fallen in love with ourselves in the world
and lastly there is a wonderful poem by
i think it sir
ah roomy but maybe not roomy anyway somebody came out of afghanistan
a yogi of the mystical tradition of the surface he he said a cook a p tries to jump out of the pot
cook knocks it back with the later book
asked the teachers don't you try to jump up teacher says cook says don't you try to jump on you think i'm torturing you
but i am
just giving you flavor so you mix with the races in space and be the lovely vitality of a human being
remember when you drink rain in the garden that was for this
we're new drank rain in the garden that was for this moment
grace first sexual pleasure than a burning new life begins and a friend has something good to eat
road in that pot and we're all feeding each other have something good to eat to feed with were all feeling each there's something good to eat
you know if we don't like the taste of it

okay slick
meditating

a