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in danger
community
he

this is my first like shaping arch
can die
i think i'm a nervous can you tell
this lectern his parents are
i think i'll just move it to the sky

i've been asked to speak a green gulch over the years but i've always felt that
ah
i wanted to be on her more before i spoke on here and now that i'm living here ah i feel fast time
this is a very large ah assembly
and it reminds me on fire
a story about cary grant was one of my favorite actors
and after his acting career was over he gave ah
evening talks in people asked questions and and lots of people came it was a big be crowded one woman i was nervous and she wanted to ask a question and she said
ah
she said i want you to know you're a big fan of mine
his in cary grant said yes i am
and best high school biology

ah so this is my debut and i just want to read something that emily post says advice to the debutante
the emily post
it's a very compassionate person feel every week i am a post as yes wonderful things to say this what she says to the
the debutante the secret of popularity
is unconsciousness of self
enthusiastic interest in almost anything that turns up
and inward generosity of thought and impulse outwardly expressed in good manners
emily post's title shot
for how many of you is this your first time at green gulch
and how many people just like your second enter
i often wonder about how people are doing who first this is their first experience
whether it all seems very strange or extraordinary
extraordinary and i had a an experience of
the same thing the other day when i went to
ah find out about
a group
that my son was very interested in joining called the cub scouts
and we went to a meeting
and i it it was very unusual for me if we started out with the pledge of allegiance which i hadn't done a long time and my kids hand and ever because of the schools they've gone to in are they don't leave if we say that and but everyone else seemed very much at ease
is and i realized this is just ordinary this is just regular old stuff but it seems unusual to me and what we're doing now seems like regular old stuff to me but it may seem very unusual
too many of you so what's extraordinary and what's ordinary you can't really say what is and what isn't
anything that will stick at is
so i'm i'm very very happy to have moved with my family to green gulch we moved at the end of july and
i've been very happy to be out here in this extraordinary place called green gulch which is
nothing special actually
but very unusual at the same time so it's been kind of these months are it's been like a honeymoon a little bit because i've been so happy to be here are coming from having lived in the city for quite a long time
so this honeymoon hasn't really ended the honeymoon
one thing about green gulch is speaking of moons
is that you can actually see the moon when you're out here because there's a young
there's darkness when when night comes it it gets pretty dark green gulch this just little lights that like the footpath
and there's a time when lights are supposed to be out people go to bed early and just like a tassajara also there's ah
you get to see the night sky in the city with all the lights of the city you
you can go for quite a long time without seeing stars and if your house is and angled quite right you may not see the moon for
you know
years
and many actually many children in the inner city have never seen the night sky
many people
so a green gulch we have the
it's funny to call the luxury but we have the ability to see the moon and and the stars
and in autumn the moon
the harvest moon is particularly acclaimed i've been trying to study why that is why the autumn moon sometimes i'm not sure if it's the angle or weapon it comes up looking very big
shine on china and harvest moon is lots of poems about the autumn moon
so all this is very ordinary and an extraordinary the same time
there's a poem that dogan century road and he actually wrote a number of posts about the moon and
this one is called
unusual expression
here it is
flowers in spring cuckoos in summer
moon in autumn snow in winter serene and cool
so is are those things unusual expressions ah what are those things
and are our zen practices appreciating just those things that are part of our life
how how is it that we can appreciate the moon and autumn

the on the moon figured in one of the first stories that i heard about zen practice that really caught me maybe some of you have heard it also it had to do it
the moon is in the sky and
this is a finger pointing at the moon and don't look at the finger don't get caught looking at the finger but look at the moon and it shines down on the water this is kind of the parts mr shines down on the water and when the water's very very calm the moon shines exactly you know is fully reflected perfect
early on the water so i understood my task as calming the waters
so that the moon would reflect itself perfectly
that was a very young
and not to get caught with the finger which is
you know the stories in the admonitions at all the young
for maladies not to let that get in the way so i think this is a very helpful story for me to work on what i understood as calming the waters
we have some have you heard that story

there's a book called moon in a dewdrop this his writings of dogan moon in it to drop
which sham
in that story of the boon shining down in the water i always thought of it as a big giant ocean with the moon on it but also the moon shines in a little tiny dewdrop all the same and is reflected perfectly in the dewdrop
i guess a dewdrop doesn't really get to turbulent does it
anyway so it can be a vast ocean reflecting or a teeny dewdrop
what is this goon what are we talking about

the moon ah
is an expression of the fully realized
fully real fully full realization
now in in olden times in ancient times the moon was the first way by which are for mothers and forefathers reckoned time that they looked to the moon the most ancient calendars are lunar calendars and there's an old ancient
carving
it's called venus of ah
lasell and maybe some of you are familiar with it it's a a bar relief in a cave paleolithic and it was carved around between twenty thousand bc and eighteen thousand b c and it's so goddess figure and she's carrying at sea
in her right hand a bull's horn which is shaped like the crescent moon and her other hand is pointing are pointing or on her belly and on the bull's horn or thirteen notches for the thirteen lunar moons the thirteen moon
and so the here lunar calendar and she's connecting her own ah creative force and fertility with the moon and its phases so
it's a very powerful
i'll figure and it's so old it's i can't it's hard to imagine
twenty thousand years b c
ha
but the the root of the word moon has to do with all sorts of measurement they actually the word measurement moon and month
ah metric semester many paws monarchy all those words come from the same route which comes from the moon all these ways of cutting up our time and space and measuring engaging
a source of that is the moon

and we can become quite caught up in measuring and
timing things and what time is it and
gotta get going and
schedules and all those things so much so that we miss the autumn moon
ah
now there's also this is miss manners not emily post but i just recently found out that there's certain times when you weren't supposed to wear a watch
and one of those places was at a bar in a in the drawing room their snouts wants to be a clock or in the ballroom and you're not supposed to wear watch to the dance and i think that so you can just lose yourself in the evening not worry about time who cares if it's midnight or three o'clock and you just dan
since until there's holes in your shoes so no one was supposed to or watches
and that's where the pocket watch was invented and the rhythm
the on the bracelet watch that had a little thing that clip down so you can tell it was a watch look like a bracelet
so just to enjoy yourself and have pleasure and forget about time you know there's some other places where we don't wear watches as well one of those one of those other places in the tea room
we have a tea house here ah
traditional with the traditional to traditional tea room inside and in us was to were actually watches or any kind of jewelry even wedding rings
and when you go in the tea room
ah time stops you leave those concerns outside the tomb and you just enter thoroughly ah
the extraordinary an ordinary event of making a cup of tea and having a cup of tea with your friends
the practice of tea is
ha
it the t people say that t is in there's no difference and i think then people might say you can practice then without doing t but i don't know if t people would say you can practice tube without zan i'm not sure goes that way
but down i'm just another reason why i'm happy to be out green gulch i'm taking tea classes again and
this practice is you know you some of you may be familiar with but you do all these activities with cloths and utensils and cleaning and cleaning the utensils making tea cleaning up all these simple simple things and you take care of each one
thoroughly and with nothing else in mind and why do you do it it's you don't do it for any reason you do it for the pleasure of doing you do it to express your human life to express the extraordinary an ordinary human life
and it's it's the the detail with which you can
focus and attend to this is
is marvelous and it's for pleasure it's for you it's for you to to enjoy
right now in autumn autumn is the season in fact it's happening this week where the summer t fire situation which is a raised fire
where coles or is taken away and the sunken
i don't know the name of actually somebody count me with a but anyway the sunken one is brought in and for the winter teas were as it gets colder and darker people move closer to the fire so if you're doing t all year round each season has it's own ah
expression
an autumn has a kind of poignant poignancy to it it's summer is over the harvest dizzy and it's getting colder and darker and last week when we came in on the altar or that
the token noma the place in the tea room where there's flowers there was flowers they had
autumn leaves that were a little bit
dried in some grasses that were little old and a orange ish flower they just spoke to the the waning light
so it's a kind of poignant time of year and if ah
if if we allow ourselves the time to feel that
we can find that
last week we said goodbye to ah
suzuki roshi his wife whose name we called her oak which beans honorable wife
and she lived at zen center for thirty years she was a t teacher
and she finally decided to go back to japan and she left have money we saw her off
and she um she is the kind of person who who in these kinds of situations where there are crowds of people
who are going to be missing her and love her and she knew what to do she sang a farewell song
i'm on a night where we young have a ceremony at zen center she sang a an old japanese fishing song with gusto and
weighted well tension song
cry the tears he had to cry and accepted her gift and actually wove the whole thing together with though
with consciousness of who she was and who we were
and saying by on monday when we arrived and pulled up a lot of people came from green gulch we pull up and she was out in the front steps from zen center singing another farewell song with a kind of glee club of friends who are joining in and then off to the airport and hugs to everyone even strain
agers and
a little words of farewell to each person and she just worked the crowd that sound sound disrespectful but she just net didn't leave anyone out she went from one person to the other until it was finally time to board the plan and then she waved her bouquet and waved into last past when that i could see was who bouquet
off
to the airplane and it was very thoroughly done and nothing left

so it's fitting that she would go in autumn somehow it's it's leave taking an autumn seems right
which she did have one a farewell party from her t friends that food told me about the director of google true is a t student evoke sons and she went to her her t class with the
these women she's been practicing t with and having this
t inn and suites for about over twenty five years and she was head guest and they were all seated and when the the person offering t came in with the table they all burst into tears
knowing this was their last t together

so how
so in the tea room
as in any endeavor anything you are actually putting full attention into
ah you may find that that's all you need to do you don't need anything other than fully doing what you're doing and in zen practice to completely do what you need to do to completely throw yourself into your activity with no traces
is enough it's it if you're doing years and practice there's apprentice period going on here green gulch that also just turn and if you find you're doing years and practice for approval or to be looked on as a real good student or a dutiful daughter or
ah good boy
you will get very tired of it at a certain point in san i could do this anymore
restaurants not so much fun and that stuff gets stale doing something for approval gets stale after a time
so to do it just to do it for the pleasure actually of doing it like a sport you know
is closer is closer to the feeling of zen practice and as someone should praise you in the middle of you're doing it just to do it thoroughly that can throw you off sometimes off course in the tea room if you're doing something and someone is praising the implement sort or
or the tea cakes and then you have to respond to that you may forget that you're supposed to what the next thing is because it preys can throw you off and there's any stories where the bunk understand something and the zen teacher gifts a commendation and
one story that the monk puts his hands over his ears and kind of runs out of the room like i don't want to hear it it's enough to just completely understand you don't have to add frosting to the cake
it brown told an interesting story about these dogs who are trained to be young sheep herding dogs and they are excellent sheepherders and keep the sheep in line but when their trainer when their master begins to praise them they get all
mixed up in dizzying intellect the sheep go running all over the place
yeah so you get thrown off course
and either here rip said it because it's a conversation we're having that the best kind of praise that doesn't throw you off course is for someone to ask to work with you to ask you to work with them or for you to ask to work with somebody that kind of praise
this is fully affirming and validating and confirming and it doesn't throw you off it's like all right let's do it
in praise comes from the the route that means price or price and precious and appreciate but there can be a kind of hook maybe in praise sometimes to have to be careful if someone's flattering or praising unduly
the
but there is a kind of warm mom
feeling that comes over you when you get praise and i'm not saying never to praise that would be taking it too far although there are some
you know like the laura the little house on the prairie books mom and pop never praise laura and mary ever no matter what they do because they're afraid to spoil their children so that's going too far but just to know for your own self how how praise can throw you off and to look at whether are we am i do
doing this so that someone will say hey you you're great at that or am i doing it to do it

you know that story that i first
was drawn to about the moon in the water actually there's more to that story i'm finding
scuse me
then i first got
oh you know i i actually first thought that the water needed to be completely smooth that the effort was to make this water smooth whatever that meant in a really calm and composed and some idea of never getting flustered and that was that was
oz
true understanding or something
but actually i feel like it's it's a wider there's a what's in that that's it's too narrow right now for me
and for you if you know it's good for you know
and the young there's a poem that dogan wrote a
which it's called ons and practice now let's see if i can we say
i can't the moon abiding in the midst of serene mind
below's breaks in light into light
not do it again
the moon abiding in the midst of sir midst of serene mind billows break into light
so the moon shines down on both serene and calm wavy oceans and it shines down on
wavy billowing and breaking into myriads of droplets of water and
and what an what is that is that knots and practice this poem is called arms and practice
so to get stuck in you know serene you know perfectly round moons reflected from perfectly round moons is
may not be wide enough and i want to read this
story this is from a festival called one bright pearl
so the pearl and the moon have been associated they look like right
and in ancient times that the pearl is the oldest gem we have the oldest known gem first ones jams were pearls and they are the symbol of the moon so there's a festival festivals are funny word but it moves like a little essay
and as my bookmark
this task was called one bright pearl and it in it it tells the story of
teacher named genscher
and he was a fishermen and fished and just did that for years and years until he decided to practice in and he went to mount simple and met a master there and practice with him and at a certain point he decided he was going to leave and go
traveling and visit some other teachers and when he was leaving he stubbed his toe on iraq really badly and it began to bleed and was extremely painful and then quite unexpectedly he had a sudden self realization
and this is what he said this body does not exist he cried where's the pain coming from
and after he said this he immediately returned to his master simple and simple said did you go on a pilgrimage just to cut your foot and have a hard time
and then get her said please don't kill me
he said that was so great please don't kidneys but don't give me any problems about this important new and zippo was simple like the answer to simple was greatly pleased with that answer and told him what you have just said should be spoken by everyone but they lack your sins
charity
which is quite appraiser thing
why don't you continue your visit to other masters in ganesha replied bodhi dharma didn't come to china and the second patriarch didn't go to india and zippo praise this answer
this kind of honesty
between them
was some
wonderful so again chose the one he is wave when you explain buddhist teachings what he always said and only said was the entire universe is one bright pearl
and i wanted to say something about pearls before i read the second little part of the story
pearls are you know there used to be natural pearls that were be found in oysters and then since the sixties the mostly as cultured pearls you don't find natural pearls very much at all and the natural pearl was caused by the accidental insertion into a mollusk into
a muscle or an oyster of some kind of irritant i was used to think it was sand that got in there but it's actually most usually a little worm
and also can be a little fish a little other different little things go in there but a parasitic worm and this is an irritant and then the mollis begins to cover around and around this irritant that then becomes the new keyless it covers around with a substance called nacre
it in a c r e and this nacre
you know spins around around that's the pearly substance that we know about and in cultured pearls they put the irritant in you know the different sizes
ah
so the pearl the pearls arden ah
known that the most beautiful pearls are beautiful because of what they call luster and leicester of a pearl is not just the surface shyness of a pearl but it's the the glow from within all these layers of nacre so if a pearl is too
the glowing from within and the glow
he is it's not just a flat kind of white pearly color it has to do with the contrast of dark within the light there's a dark kind of neutralise core
and that contrast between the dark and light is what makes pearls truly lustrous the most lustrous have this contrast of dark with inlaid
so in and the longer the irritant is in the more nacre is is spun around it and with in cultured pearls now they take them out a little bit too soon and the nacre is kind of thin and breaks off
or can chip and pure
but down to i think of practice almost like this where you kind of your inside the oyster in oyster bed you know with some irritant some kind of pain and
and you just work on it and that gets that turns into
a beautiful
jul
that is
the symbol of purity
a pearl
so one brave pearls what genscher call the whole universe he said the whole universe is one bright pearl
and he always would say that so once a monk asked him i've heard you teach that the entire universe is one bright pearl how should we interpret that
ganesha told him the entire universe is one bright pearl what is there to interpret or understand
the following day the master himself question the monk so he went back to the same guy and said the entire universe is one bright pro what is your understanding of that
and the monk replied the entire universe is one bright pearl what is there to understand
and ganesha said you now know that even in the black mountain cave of demons complete freedom is working the black mountain cave of demons is
the footnotes has the lowest state of unenlightened mint
so here's this monk kind of repeating back with the teacher said you know well he said said it was this all say back see if that works you know
and in some way genscher you know did it work or didn't it work was that was that suitable was that the full expression of oh wow the full moon expression of this monk
just as
and see if i can say this i'll try
just as a pearl that doesn't have so much nacre on it you know maybe isn't quite as lustrous as the other ones baby has some flaws and bumps and stuff
even that pearl is
is the one bright pearl is the universe and so this monk who kind of gave 'em he gave his answer you know he gave it a try and in essence that to is a perfect perfect reply and is fully free
and operating even in as he calls it the cave
the black mountain cave of demons
so even if your perl is an illinois to that long what if it got taken out over there is pollution in the water and there's all sorts of troubles
even even that pearl it's like the pro with the thick lester is really the beauty
but even the one with the thin nacre that chips and all is still one bright pearl
and and that moon shines
mix it altogether the moon shines down on all those pearls equally right and whether it's perfectly
perfectly reflected or whether it billows in light
that was the main point i wanted to tell you
i don't know if got it and enough it came across
so this is all to say that i hope everybody practices thousand
and sit still
the m dogan zingy
was sick right about this time of of year of as in the autumn when he died and
he he was very ill and
went to kind of take care of get some and so forth by the way pearls that the man who invented cultured pearls in the big interest industry is a japanese man mikimoto and he at ninety four he said i owe my good health and longevity to the fact that every
day i eat to pearls and have since i've been twenty years old
so they're very high in calcium
anyway dog he was very sick and was went to get medicine
try to take care of it gets some medical help anyway he wrote this poem a week before he died
in autumn
in autumn even though i may see it again how can i sleep with the moon this evening
in autumn
even though i may see it again how can i sleep with the moon this evening
thank you very much

sayer talk about
i didn't want to mention one thing that i forgot to say which was that another place where we don't wear watches this is one of the main things in the zendo you asked not to were watching the zendo
and
serve like being in the ballroom where you can just forget about the time and you know one of the admonitions for zazen is too
you don't drop aside all cares about worldly matters in your business and listen that and just go in the same darwin and sit so that the where you watch i think is part of them to forget to see the most liberal haven't seen or to the ah
dishwasher repair i
dirt about a region that's interesting
the benefit you can't help it three o'clock in the morning years for yeah i can follow the same
the most work
greater pepper
sorry
religion ever get a problem
the of children yes the i saw your vision about when very a disturbance we weren't your problem recreate his birth
and i was trying provision ways that we do when varies with turbans and we better in a way we don't want to see if we we somehow
yeah it hurts us so much that we don't want to do with it and sometimes those problems could come from your childhood and the get in such a dark room way behind that we don't see it until something really bad
so i was trying to get a vision of what is it would do one that sort be true and we don't work on and pages
yeah he was you were talking the image that came to me was a kind of cement room you know third of a cement compartment where it's blocked off in thick cement somewhere but as we all know cement you know can be broken by little
plants and think so it does it's not you can't actually submitted off necessarily forever and also just use that semantic keep that room airtight and all it takes an enormous amount of energy that gets siphoned off to to keep it so
so that's the image i have of when we do that what it looks like you know does that accord with yeah yeah me feel good
i was thinking that are maybe that calories can you say that makes through previous comment clear your dreams yeah yeah so maybe we have to pay attention to our dream i think that maybe that's been cracking the summer
rl
actions of body speech and mind you know things that seem to come from nowhere some kind of out of left field you know
offhand comment you make to someone or a feeling that comes over you or fear or all sorts of stuff that you you can't get a sense of what it's all about is also i think the cracks you know you can follow those they're like clues you know you can follow those backing to dreams is
working with dreams is so very powerful way to kind of get into the cement room pink
room
scrap himself
yes mister yes you are quite this one out

nervousness do you do public speaking do you do public speaking again
yeah
yes well i've given num i've been lecturing since nineteen eighty and i've given i know over one hundred lectures in various places
and every time i have
i know this about people who are on the stage also who have to go up perform there's that kind of what is it called stay is that in statement and no matter how seasoned professional someone is some people have it every time so now i just
so what it feels like if they can eat you know and i shake and my mouth is dry other regular things that went else
ah well
oh yeah yeah and of draw blank but i know now that this is just my way of preparing i see it as my way of fully prepared to present what i want to present a my body goes body mind goes into this state and its
very embarrassing or i'm not so embarrassed about it anymore it used to be very embarrassing because in the city you put on a little microphone and they have an andre from the start and then you started to chant and your voice would be over the microphone going me
how dare you shake it out and that for everybody control how nervous you are but they don't turn it not till after the chan
agatha so i just trusted actually as this is the way that i prepare and it looks like this and there's nothing i can do about it and it's okay with me
you know suzuki roshi had a nervous cough and you know the story he lectured at who had an aunt and the and do this and he he said i have a nervous cough and i remember thinking how can a saint master have a nervous call it doesn't make sense but actually
that's like thinking the pearl has to be flawless and you know actually or life isn't like that and we i think there's a tendency to get off into wanting everything to be really perfect in full self confidence know nervousness but the actual perfect
one is who you are and if that means you have a nervous cough or than that's who you are
and there's something very calming actually about settling into your own whatever it is nervous nasser it has its own
stability almost too
your
mushrooms
i used to allow it's like you shouldn't be speaking they should ask you to talk because you're not ready this proves it and all that stuff you know very self denigrating n
self critical really strong of
and yet to
what's happening altered fly
so i'm kind of i don't
i think that comes up and i kind of those kinds of thoughts will kind of go through but i don't pay much attention and so like oh yeah says who were you know i'm just kind of continue but the shaky on did you see my hands were shaking a little you know trying to get the mujer and the thumbs kind of
for was wasn't have been wasn't my brother are you didn't see that
could you started speaking radical go ahead oh what they could grow and grow some real
always think about when i read many years ago about a with a quote from when will
a oh or follows was teaching has been who he says he was and why the oil rig will be perfected and the keeps the five precepts a river and i always think of the reason i think of the seems like most
religions don't talk about why very much but the buddhist fiction to represent work
i was talking to a christian and years ago the send you spoke my dad how are these to
with help him salvation remarried and salvation through written but he said environments and along with something and they were the reason s that was the i think that that's an important issue from the or what's actually happen
so did you say something about that have you can you do you think about that or have you lived
in
i'm not sure i understood your question puzzle that i'm not so familiar with the bible so i don't know about the christian past those to pass
and
you know i don't know what you're asking exactly how it when i think about my birth or would da vinci's the enlightenment practice you know we have this know that this is a really about tradition very highly possible so much happening with know when we're not doing much but there's so much
i guess what i'm asking this way what a how how is the power transmission from shockingly brutal to jump to jurgen from japan to gear and to our actual practice with why why should i come from russian and welcome besides it's a great place on the beach but was ridiculous
it was the religious significance i guess that's what kind of thinking is are just went back and terms to just er attending what good merit like a lot of little that remark reserve it
so i guess what i'm saying is like word about the efforts of practice would become and white that's what i'm saying okay for a woman
ah

i actually thinking that i'm not trying different yeah okay i don't have much of an answer besides
i hope people come here because they find it speaks to their life you know when it's a great place or not a great place that it somehow touches what needs to be touched and nobody knows exactly how that happens or why or wherefore but you know if it's touch you
no and so you keep coming back so
there is questionnaire behind you going to the discussion i feel like devices i've read recently about music it would you have that your you just read it you should say hello here they are you want to go to recover rounder yeah i let them sort of recognize your here in that way and when have your
of of assyria i think it's as to
lauren
it's the beginning of your talk you use mentioned that the moon shining on the calm water and that that had been an ideal of sarah
notion that appeal to you and that later your view of that broadened to include the turbulent water the difficult pieces
on this gentleman was talking about the dark places and you were saying the zendo is a place to
you can go in there and forget all about backers and just put them as i said so i noticed that when i'm having a difficult time or when there's something really deeply troubling me when i go into sit
very hard for me to leave the side so when you talk about working with the difficulty
i don't think you mean showing it dividend i'm thinking about it but but i do find myself thinking about a difficult sip and so could you say something about what you mean by working with the difficulty or including the troubled waters
ah ah
i think that's true if you do have some trouble that's going on the kind of trouble
you can't leave it with your shoes and step in it's it's you can't do it so am i think you know the the dropping aside worldly affairs is sort of like
planning your wedding and that kind of thing i have a friend who planned her entire wedding during saw that you know the bridesmaids were going to wear food and that kind of thing you leave out how with your shoes but some of these other kind of difficulties there are they can't be dropped now they have a whole you so
plus also when you sit some troubles that you didn't even know you had will come through the cement come right through the cement and right into your room living room there
and unbidden so you have those a bubble of as well
so
so the question of how you work with those
is that the question was how you work with those are the difficulties
why i think the main thing is to not
try to get rid of not try to push him away and part of that is i should be like the calm waters why my and been terrible and student i'm been practicing all these years and i'm and it's not smooth water here and so then you add to the the basic defense
multi of whatever it's going on in one's life a kind of added layer of self criticism in
a flagellation or whatever you want to say of how tear of you are because you can't let go of this difficulty so that whole layer of suffering that kind of secondary suffering is really not necessary the suffering of the suffering of our lives loss of our loved ones and
sickness and all the things that we are
subject to as human beings which we cannot get out of which we can't get rid of that's it comes with
it comes with birth all things
to not push them away is
is the main practice to actually stay close
so
and that's not as i don't feel that so stagnant thing when i just said actually by staying close you see what needs to be done and wearing a helper who might be able to help you or by staying with it but if the effort is to either i shouldn't be feel this way because i'm more mature than that or something
that or and want to think about these and forcing yourself to think of other things are
divert your attention by various means then it just come homes
that
gives me something like that so what we're doing meditation ah
you know we're concentrating that really
sometimes i get messages ah ventures that we're giving ourselves a break from all these problems just by concentrating side of us some time i have get the message that are you a problem consume in your reputation you can park is in that
and would that mean that if something go through his crack and even during the course of our meditation here we are concentrating are reading and from it comes in there would be a good idea to just focus on that you had tried to see ramifications and not understanding and that we were
working in that from i wouldn't say necessarily to do that insulting but to note
to note it and to do that kind of thing later about analyzing looking at if ah if it comes in during this as in it's like ah ha you know i really do
feel horrible about whatever
but to get off on match and and then you can get lost in that so that's not necessary the working on it is to not
is to acknowledge it actually to know it to to know that that happened rather then so we can do a really fast who step to get away from unpleasant thoughts you know
for years i am had involuntary movement in thousand where i did a kind of
and won't show you what i give it anyway did kind of
be wild back and forth movement that i couldn't stop people can attest to it yes freezing
and the bell would ring after a period of forty minutes of this kind of thing and i wouldn't think about the rest of the day pp decree doing my job that that i'd go back into the zendo and skirt this kind of thing again so there was a real it's like what was going on in thousand and the rest of
my life was very compartmentalize another way of compartmentalizing so
so what comes up in thousand and you needn't certain work on it in that way there but to know and you're actually some people because a lot of stuff was coming up would jot down your head a little notebook note i think you should talk to somebody before you bring a notebook into the zendo but their be be
big things bubbling up and would be so distracting and upsetting that they'd want to work on in thousand but they just made a note of it some of you who sit at home may want to do that if that's happening to some kind of bubbling up a lot of stuff and then later you can really take a look at what what's going on
there was somebody on here
i have a game of ginger girl had a clue what was twisted terms of passenger car
i sometimes find i am on their friday night
how long can a touch
the comments
become a holiday
i have to be aware of it
an american but i have like to have it now or something
bring his that i my mine enjoyed it i think you know it like
famous like
the twisty tourney yeah yeah yeah well it's very captivating you know how
it wouldn't you say about the calmness fit well sometimes seem like a high speed yeah know it and put it gets not enjoyable my mind them wait
well the com the that
the com doesn't come from saying i must become in here you know the com comes from knowing exactly where you are and just like the nervousness i am completely nervous right now boy am i nervous
that then you're right home you know and you know where you are and when you know that
there's a calmness which comes out of it's like that the pearl the the luster of it is from the inner
the inner layers you know it's not a shiny surface thing so you know when you're describing these twisty turns i was picturing those pasta noodles better on
am picturing those guys
what does this happen in south and been described me or is it might never have i
have i've never gotten very foreign to us
into south and you've never ah because it
lol comfortable
and what i'm saying it's always be comfortable in johnson yeah oh no
when i first got to them fit or can i asked someone oh i heard two things once somebody said i feel the greatest
in my life when i'm sitting thousand and that's when i feel the best and somebody else said i feel the worst in my like when i'm sitting zazen was like i thought which way what's a woman to do you know
after that this is how could this be but actually i think that's true of
thousand is so why do you know it's it can't be you can't save thousand and he is
one thing or another i mean yes it's called the comfortable practice i think that's
this posture is called the comfortable practice and i think in some ways cross legged posture which holds your backup and keeps your spine elongated and allows your belly to have it full wrath and and you can sit this way for hours and hours because your vertebrae are stacked and all that yes it is the comfortable posture but
thousand has the full range of human experience from ecstasy to in a hell realm all can act within thousand and so you you don't have any preconceived ideas of how it's supposed to be you just pick up practice like county your breath and you do that
was full
body mind and then then when the twisty tourney then you know oh i'm going down the twisty turkey roll back to number one you know back to my breath and posture posture and breath pasteur first breath
ah
when you see very clearly when you're going down when you back when you're drawn off again when you went down a whole bunch of passages and then it's like oh where am i the number one
the it's i do feel like there's a tendency for me to to get caught in that it's supposed to be this a certain way and if he is an umbrella get me wrong i myself forget it
the to see grid
that just provided we have a sense that i have had
not so much in this as and but just in my life when i allow myself to go into the twisted pats part of the
art of what feels liberating freeing eventually the sense that i can't bring myself out of them
i can go deeply into them and also know that i can about the other side
and the fact is really essentially how i go through that process and there's something as you describe the process of sitting and and letting yourself be with whatever comes out and then bringing yourself back that feels like a real mastery
him to me in that feels
no sense it's interesting how you say mastery because they've happened like billions of times during that same thing it's almost could be almost moment by moment and and that doesn't you know it's not like
you're doing it wrong or i know that is the process
when you said that's how you grow i had this image of you know when little kids are learning to walk in the fall before the fall on their knees that impact actually helps the bones grow the it's actually necessary that falling that impact to m help develop and
incredible it's empty
the i have a couple of instead of like real or what i was them this up about
wanting this whole thing i want i want i want and people always wanting kinda i just need to keep keyboard together and
the brain can you know they have their own set of ways of and i would say figured out that
two people are the people that are wanting people
what they want obviously they're not gonna work out but then i i figure if you let another person
what they want a certain point to where it's not give up my wanting same the less be himself
my being indifferent you know by now stating what i want it if i say whatever you want
and
ah
i mean that was kind of confusing and then i a sort of thinking well why should that person always get what they want you know
it was waiting for that i get and tight-knit and eventually it's like this person who thinks for you know i don't really care because one way or another i'm indifferent me
and so this is kind of vicious cycle there was that whole scene and then another thing that i'd like to be attacked by is out
oh
she says what
just to attempts you just know that for users to you know and i've going to the point to where i don't want to piedra i mean to come here i come here to get
that's a direct experience and i want to acknowledge the direct experience of what my life seo and then what to tell about and i don't wanna you don't beat around anymore so
should i put me to be more superficial and
happy confused and let let me see if i can restate the first thing i could get everybody hear what he said
they have two people who have desires read about various things and they yum
you know it's back and forth who who wants this who's the strongest who's more aggressive in their desires and sometimes you give up some as you say no i want him anyway it's that
but it's only you took the tech of whatever you want whatever we want to to save yourself from
disagreement maybe you're fighting about it or
ah fighting a says if this battle pushing the boulder up in a m
does that sound familiar this africa
in so you know desires one of the the for bodies half of his desires are inexhaustible i vow to put an end to them you know how you chant that so it's a very useful thing to remember to memorize because
you know you're looking through a catalog right before bed you know ll bean a that match ago the trees and sale and day look i think i'd do any terminix i'll get about for it let's see what are the colors in was just it just produce you just print deuce desires for whatever you see
if you throw the candle of way you wouldn't think about it again you know that usually happens if you don't get on the phone
in the or at the grocery store if you ever gotten into go sister without a plan pick up
whatever it is desires are inexhaustible on every aspect that's the human condition desires are inexhaustible i vow to put an end to them what's putting an end to them ah
knowing verily very thoroughly that you desire one thing or another not necessarily getting that thing
the getting the thing
or not doesn't put an end to the desire the desire would just come up again just knowing that you wanted to be a certain way really bad or want a certain thing
that is the putting an end to the there
so if you're interested in putting an end to desire because it does cause an enormous
you know this in the twelve links of causation one of them as craving
ignorance hammock formations consciousness name naman form six cents field cutting feeling craving after feeling comes craving and right after craving comes grasping but writing between craving and grasping you can crave as much as you want but you don't have to grasp you really don't have to
call the eight hundred number and ordered help don't have enough are covered
so craving is
it's this thirst that we have four lots of stuff new experiences and
tangible stuff and not to have pain but the grasping is the so right in there you know is is the kind of thumb
here's a breath rated an hour between grasp the engraving
you can claim to be so with a relationship you know they're so complicated so com and i don't know what relationship you tie him up but if if your link you know the at this is the image of for doing what images of a beautiful relationship you know the two people come together and they make
you you know they're they bowed together this is their life and they both stand and can do things on their own and they come together this what they make that's a wonderful image sort of rather than one of these you know it can
oh you're hooked and your caught and it's fraught
so you know these can be untangled you know and then be like that they really can takes a lot of work
or you may feel it can't be entangled we're too
bruh just it's not going to work and and
decide not to stay together something but anyway as you said to always be the one can do anything the dishes are giving up what you want or taking the garbage out or
doing the kids or whatever it is if it's always you had to prevent a certain point you begin to resented and feel trod upon and there's all that stuff that comes out so
so it's it's a flowing thing between two people you know sometimes it doesn't matter so much other times you really feel strongly i mean what is no formula is no formula so if you're in a formulaic kind of always giving over pretty soon you're going to begin to resent it you know because it's not
not it's not really what's working what's the over to be direct with your second titles to be near well i don't know this thing about analytical your to analytical in to what was going to from intense
i don't think that the antidote to analytics illness and intense this is superficiality
you know to try and be more superficial it's like somebody once said to me know if they didn't say to me that but they said it's someone was about to give a dharma talk they had heard this person before and they said as they went in and tells her anything couldn't you make your talk a little more deep
the person giving the talk was
haha i know that pushes virtue so mortified you know
but
you know you make your talk will you do the best you can if someone feels it was a deep talk and really hit them other people that that was very superficial you do you express to the best of your ability and if someone says it's one thing or another
i don't know you can't some
it's their understanding i think for you if you feel caught in a particular mode all the time
then you have to find out what how you can express your full by know
it might be you might explore different way to that because you want to not somebody else your to such and such
her questions and if you have your experiences clothing room yes we're practice you worth money and keep you from grasp keep you from grasping is to know you're craving
so like right now some of your dying to get out of this room it's hot you heard enough you've been practicing all morning and it's time to go
right so
so to know that
and decide that's that's right or that works or but you might say know it'll be rude to leave in the middle i'll wait you know it's to know what it is that you're at about right now is
i mean i'm not saying that you never grasp i mean you have to have a sip acadiana occasion
you know i mean our life is a series of
actually that this is and we'll see i can feel is grasping think this is from a palm grasping things is basically delusion okay
so that this has to do at the objects out here
ah like this cup my taking up this cup is no grass began no drinking of t this is
because why because
but the teaching is that the objects there are no objects out there outside of the moon mind the full moon mind okay and the moonlight says
the moonlight from the moon this full moon mind this moonlight shines out there and all these what we seem to see as things out there but those things are you know how to instruments a moonlit night and everything's all shimmery and that and covers everything those
what we think of as things out there is the moonlight is your own light so grasping thinks is basically delusion means you can't actually grasp anything outside yourself
this is this is one of the main m main teachings
note to the main teaching is that there is no outside yourself and so
and so we we can do things like have a cup of tea and a conversation but you don't have to get it and get it in your pocket and take it home there is no
there is no well that's where the precepts of
precepts come from seeing likes taking what is not giving that there is no stealing actually and if you know that than you don't steal you know you can't actually get anything
anyway so moonlight illuminates on your own moonlight as the full moon mind illuminates these objects that are actually not objects outside of you they are the moonlight your own moonlight so that the admonition and some people are working on this from the classes to turn the light back and look at the mind that thanks
in this way turn the light back and look at this mine turn your own this is the moonlight shining back so the moon and the moonlight it's own
this is a this is an obstruction as an instruction to turn that light back
so grasp the craving grasping things as basically delusion
mom or
right partner to like video the the unruffled surface water yes
he served actually know if i'm free
to have unruffled yeah
service sir
it's an aspiration that makes enormous that's what about also quickly becomes a standard mode which we assess our progress towards not going to feel will relieve us from the bird human
and we begin to say as i set myself from rich of egg up neighbors when you come here night
you know our wide work games
the earn
look for me as i grow on for
plans for a patrick person and going on
money to benefit show and and your only to
hi i'm just gonna watch watching football
a better
the person you know a perfect of have you don't get it i
the seo i think the standard of this this where women when asked because the dimensions of the other dimension shows as a benchmark for with you have fallen short visit
you begin to be angry at yourself in a patch mood for feeling that you resist stone so i have a feeling that you have the words running in sometimes onto the negative out to my thoughts it's a bit sense sentimental reasons and sisters has been come here is there are the anger
for the guy cutting other i it there are no retrench room is not my fault etc and i think that's a very blissful conditions here
provided you understand the are you know
you're not jr
you know you're not i want controllable in college
i'm not turn
i think ever i i have to relinquish the notion that i can somebody if i do the right thing often enough as severely ill have you claim them
thing that i'm really good
where around or challenges that's a trap i mean that's what the unruffled water can be a path
thank you it was very nicely put the initial put i you know i i know a number of people who stop sitting and they the thought of going into the zendo kind of they begin to be kind of nauseous the reason is that for years and
years but when it near to be perfect we know to be but perfect meaning this kind of unruffled
not perfect in the sense of whole you know are light and that sides the the dark within the pearl that makes it lustrous you know the dark and light you going to be one sided and
and that's that's a an actual vengeful action against yourself to to do that yourself and i'm it
it's a shame i think that you know someone doesn't say something that's where it's very helpful to have good damn of friends who say you are getting off you know
and you can almost smell it you can almost tell when someone's really got this
little miss bodies are actually that was somebody think somebody called me once the little miss body south africa
and i got it actually when they said it i think
thank everybody that this person didn't say that because it was like i saw it what she meant little miss body sofa and i was caught in that completely being know having the best car show the best fingers together and no air
right now i got show i mean i make it may look the same but i know that the difference you know doing it for approval doing it to me the shining one you know and it's some
it will it will send your practice down some other way now i say that
and then i step back and say even that you know if even that trying and going the wrong way and getting lost in the maze is your practice know is your attempt in year
so it's not like you're a horrible person or something but you may need some help you know
getting the ox to kinda stay
stay in the front yard
yeah started for words and said that it stirred i think i was what i was trying to say is that it's hard for me speak to and
because
every time to me when we speak it's a risk that because someone will totally misinterpret your intention they will totally misinterpret the literal from the story aspect or the second meaning or they will read
into it and meaning that you never pretended or and so it's it truly is always a risk when he's been a one five hundred and
at times in my life when i have spoken to many people i would have afterwards twenty five different
i understandings of what i said and none of them for what i meant and and so it's always a risk to speak and on
also you really you might offend some i think people are lot and and that
cash or to stop caring to build which is not a polite but it's like know i don't believe votes am what he was saying that the deep wired
i've always been afraid to get in that deep water because
then you're caught in nets it's not a cage like read mr you're caught
in this mass of humanity that truly
he's not going to understand this will drop of water or caramel and i think that
in a way that's why we escaped into poetry the words i think that's why we do because we do want to be in that
mass and you don't know when they'll all turn on you and seventh has happened historic will
and so i don't know why in the top of his but when i was gonna ask by started first the same long as long as defense this man talked about the two waves of carrying water
chopping wood f enlightenment that it it reminded me of them the christian mary and martha martha soon crashed when doing mary simply lack presence by
and it seems to me that the it's not the same
but it is the same care me wiring
in theory but in buddhism did to vote
you have to be enlightened return with them and chop what and so whether you're sitting zazen whether was walking around the world it would seem to me that
it's just a minute by minute ritual of
every day like remember when he crossed the bridge now you just constant