To remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tataka's words. Good morning. As always, it's so good to be with all of you this morning, and hello to everyone online. So in my last talk that opened the practice period, oh, I forgot to say, is anyone here for the first time? Welcome. Hi. Connect with lots of people after the talk. We'll have tea and cookies. So last week, not last week, the last talk I gave several weeks ago, we opened the practice period, and I talked about intensifying our practice during the practice period, both here and at home in various ways.

[01:00]

And I've really been enjoying the practice period a lot. There just feels like such good energy and participation. Yeah, it has a nice feeling to it. You think, oh, so much of it is just the same. No, it's not, because we're actually bringing our intention to it, and that intention is kind of palpable in the field, mysteriously. So we've been studying genjo koan, a fascicle. And just to refresh a little bit, the one translation of genjo koan that I particularly like is the koan of everyday life. How do we live our everyday life from the point of view of the absolute? Genjo implies manifesting or completing or actualizing reality as it actually happens.

[02:02]

So it's both becoming and already is. What is? Already is and it's also becoming. And how do we express that? How do we know that experience? How do we awaken to that? And koan refers to the intersection of those two realities, the absolute and the relative. the individual and the universal and that paradox of awakening to that within everyday life, not just in special consciousness. And Shohako Okamura said, you could say that Genjo Koan means to answer the question from true reality through the practice of our everyday activity. So it's manifesting. Go on. And living it. You know, you could say that the duality, the usual way that we experience our world of self and others, doing this, doing that, reason, divisions between things, is completely contained within the absolute.

[03:24]

If the absolute, if the universal, if true reality excluded dualism, it would not be non-duality because something. And somehow I find this very settling, like no matter where I go in my mind or what's happening, I am still completely a part of the universal, the relative, true reality. awakening. There's nowhere to go, and yet it doesn't feel like that a lot of the time. So how do we open the door to that for our own selves, for our own experience? Dogen, who wrote Genjo Koan in the year 1233, had a a strong spirit of spiritual seeking from the time he was quite young.

[04:30]

And he had one burning question. He was a monk when he was like 13, I think, 11 or 13, somewhere in there. But he carried this question with him, and it drove his practice. And it was this. He wrote, As I study, both the exoteric and esoteric schools of Buddhism, the outwardly-faced and the more esoteric schools of Buddhism. They maintain that human beings are endowed with Buddha nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages be in possession of enlightenment? find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice. Or you could say, if all sentient beings are inherently endowed with Buddha nature and original enlightenment, why is it necessary to practice, train, strive, and struggle so much to attain enlightenment, this thing that we already have that

[05:47]

feel so elusive sometimes. But Dogen could not find the answer in Japan. None of the answers that he got from his teachers satisfied him. So he ended up going to China to find teachers there. And he did find his teacher, Tiantong Rujing. And with Rujing, Dogen had the realization that practice are not actually two different things. We don't practice to become Buddhas. We practice because we already are Buddha. And we still have to realize that for ourselves. So how do we feel there when there is apparently nowhere to go? It can feel a little elusive. given our usual everyday experience, when we even reflect on, can I awaken right now?

[06:50]

Hmm. Doesn't feel like... This koan of everyday life is not something that we solve or resolve, particularly in our minds. It is definitely something that we live, and in our... in our actions, in our words, we can become increasingly aligned with our vows, practice, bodhisattva way. This is why Dogen talks about not necessarily notice that they are Buddhists. You might be having a moment of just complete being, but you might not notice it. Because when you're just completely being, there's nothing to notice except everything around you. But you're not like, I am doing this right now.

[07:53]

So I think I had to say something. I think the sense of I gets softer and broader both. Maybe it's kind of like ink diffusing in water. Like I had this idea that I'm this little drop of black ink in this sea of watery universes. And my sense of it gets soft and broadens quite a bit. But there are so many images and metaphors for what that's like. So you'll have to find your own images out of your own experience and practice. So in my last talk, I spoke about some traditional ways to practice. particularly during practice periods, you know, service, zazen, or yoki, work practice. And you might try keeping the genjo koan, or just even those words, genjo koan, or whatever words bring that alive for you, that paradox of being both and, dual and non-dual beings.

[09:10]

So because I've been so immersed in both doing talks and classes, I've been just immersed in Gensho Koan and thinking particularly about how to share it, a text that I have felt so deeply connected to for a long time. But how to share it, what to say about things that are fundamentally unsayable and ungraspable, and yet you have to say something. So it's been fun and challenging to try to play with that. And particularly because I'm a practical and practice-oriented person, I keep thinking, like, how can that manifest in our practice? Not just going off to do intensive practice or not just on multi-day sashines, but, you know, how can... to us at all times, to practice what we want to be, what we are already, but to inhabit it fully.

[10:25]

So I started thinking about, well, what is practice anyway? How would I understand that? How would I communicate that? Because I started thinking things, and then I started thinking, is that actually practice? Like, what makes it a practice rather than just something interesting to think about? because I have a very busy, happy, active, little creative mind, and it can get going on all kinds of things, and then I stop it after a while. I'm like, that's not, that's just having fun upstairs in my head. So this is what I was thinking about, characterizes practice. Oh, and I had the question, but is included, and is there anything that's not included or that might beneficially be set aside, maybe not permanently excluded, but set aside at least or considered.

[11:27]

Since, you know, I really believe that there is nothing outside of practice, by which I mean that there is nothing that you can't practice with, but what is the mind of practice that brings the practice? Because it's not the thing, it's not the object. Like you can be kind, like I can be kind toward this cup rather than bashing it down. I can bring a mind of care to how I handle things. So it's the relationship and the intention. So first of all, I think that practice has a spirit of repetition. It's not just doing it once. It's doing it again and again and again. If you're going to practice an instrument, there's going to be repetition involved in that. In learning anything, there will be repetition. If you just pick up something and have an immediate, that's just, I don't know what to call it, but it's not exactly practice.

[12:41]

Practice is the engagement, the ongoing engagement. So in order to practice and to maintain a spirit of repetition, you need some virya, some effort or energy to just perseverance, to keep doing something, whether or not it appears to bear any fruit, whether or not you can see it. If you garden or take care of plants, you know that you can plant things and then... Okay, I'm done. If they need water, then they may not live. Even though you can't see anything. So a lot of our practice is like that. Like we can't see it. Other people see it. You may have noticed this particularly if you've been practicing a while. Your practice where you didn't see anything happening. You're just struggling with Zazen or whatever. But you see people you haven't seen in a long time.

[13:42]

And they say, oh, you've really changed. You know, I feel a difference in you. It's like growing, you know, you can't see, you don't know yourself because it's very incremental. It's not what we think it is. I love that bumper sticker that says, meditation, it's not what you think. Very good advice. So you need some effort, some energy. without trying to grasp at it, like intention without attachment to a particular outcome. So if I'm going to be, you know, have a mind of kindness toward this cup, I'm not going to make it conditional on like, well, the cup's going to be kind back to me. You know, it's just... Yeah. And...

[14:45]

You know, the phrase to put something into practice, you know, it's like that's a great theory. Let's see how it works out in practice, in reality. And so to see how something manifests, you know, what actually happens. So I think that's also a very relevant way to think about practice is it's like how is it manifesting? Because I could think that I'm doing wonderful things. I could also think that I'm being kind to this couple, a compass, and going to respond back. I'm being nice to a person and come to find out that it doesn't land that way for them. So that's really important feedback to have because my intention is to actually be kind, to actually have some beneficial relationship with the person. If it's not, it's really good to know about that. So, of course, it's also good to be able to see things and not be like, well, that wasn't my intention. So, anyway, I want to use probably the most well-known segment of the Genjo as sort of a jumping-off point for extending practice into our everyday lives, exactly as we're already living them.

[16:04]

And it is this. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self... To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. So to study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is equalized by myriad things. There are three lines from Hongzhi that have really stayed with me over the years as just a nice encapsulation of that in language I could actually understand.

[17:14]

And I've said this before to you. The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. True reality is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. So all of our little... tendencies that we've actually solidified into apparent, readily visible habits that maybe we can't see, but others can. And what we're doing with them is practicing with them. We're letting go of our karmic habits that impede our ability to see things as they really are. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness. To study the Buddha way is to study the self, is to study our karmic tendencies.

[18:22]

That's exactly it. We don't have to be a different person, another self, a better person, a person who doesn't get angry, a person who's not needy, who's quite self-reliant. Whatever it is, there's no separate other self that we have access to. We can't wake anyone else up. We can wake up with others. We can help other people to awaken, but everyone has to awaken for themselves. To have that, I should say, to have that experience. I can't taste your food for you. You can't taste my food for me. And it tastes different on each of our tongues. I like this and you like that and we don't like other things. And when we study the self, we forget the self in a couple of senses.

[19:31]

One is that it's like my ideas about myself softening, crumbling around the edges, that little drop of ink is diffusing in the clear ocean of reality. in the boundless field. So there's less of an experience of needing to hold on to something or prop it up or defend it. And when we forget the self, we are actualized by myriad things. We're letting the whole world and everyone and everything in it come through us. And the self is how we manifest that. We manifest, we actualize through the self. So you can phrase, you can frame true reality

[20:45]

both from the point of view of nothing or apparent nothing or emptiness, no self. The Buddha's original analogy for the self, meaning the totality of being, not the self in the psychological sense, but just the whole of the being, but it definitely includes the psychological senses of self as well, because that is also That is what we are made of, is our thoughts and how that plays out. But the Buddha's original image, metaphor for this is a cart. So the cart has wheels and sides and a bottom and something to pull it with, a console and hubs, spokes. And if you start pulling parts of it off, it ceases to be a cart. It's not just... And a cart is not a pile of all the parts.

[21:48]

The cart is when all of these things are working together in a particular way, and then all these things are together, and it's used in this way, we call it a cart. But someone else could see it, and it could be like, oh, this is a nice place to put my clothes. Or this is a nice thing to decorate my house with. And they won't see it as something to use. So we still all see things in different ways. You can give them a present, you know, especially, I don't know, somebody who's like five, six, seven, you can give them a present, and you have an idea about what it is and how they're going to use it and why it's special, you know, maybe something of yours that's special, and then they take it apart because they have a very different idea to engage with this. So... So that's the emptiness side. But particularly in the Mahayana, there's also the interbeing side.

[22:51]

You can look at the whole of the universe continually functions together. Our eye of practice cannot encompass the entire universe throughout space and time from human being. That is not... possible. But we can have it, which is kind of amazing that we can think about things that we can't visualize or that don't actually exist in a way that we can relate to it. So holding that view in mind can actually be very powerful and fruitful and creative and kind of opening the impossibility of it is kind of nice, actually. Like, I'm not going to get this right, but I get a feeling for it. because I can see it on a more human level. So I've been looking around my world, my human world, and seeing where that manifests.

[23:56]

And one of the first things I noticed was the construction site on the corner, which has been going on for months now. I forget how long. It's just, you know, it's an interesting thing to watch go up. It's noisy most days, every day. And I started to recognize the workers who come in, different crews who come in for different things and different sounds. Oh, there's the grinder. Oh, that's cutting rebar. And, you know, oh, it's quiet today. I wonder what they're doing. Eventually they'll get to painting maybe, and that'll be nice. But it's this whole, you know, just... And I walk up and down Russell Street like every day. That's my walk, you know, maybe a couple times a day. Go to the bowl. You know, I become aware of patterns. It's not just like you walk by and it's one thing. It's like, oh, I see this guy. I think he's a supervisor. And food trucks out periodically.

[24:58]

One food truck will come for a while and then it'll be a different one. Oh, I wonder if the food trucks are coordinating who's on what corner at what time. So it's this whole, like, ecosystem of a construction site, you know, that's all working together. And they both are and aren't what everybody's doing. Like, the people who come in early to do the foundation, they never see what happens later. People who come in later, they don't see all the work that went into. There's this whole underground thing. I think it's parking, but we're never entirely positive. You know, it's like, I don't know. Someday I'll... lives there and say, what's that thing? And there will be parking, okay. And then there will be people living there. And I look at the Zendo. After looking at the construction site, the other morning I was sitting, because I sit, looking at the Zendo, it's like, this Zendo came into being some decades ago and it didn't used to exist.

[26:02]

And I was looking also at the floorboards. Like, every one of them is different and unique. You know, they're all the same kind of wood. They're not all from the same kind of tree, I guess. But they're all unique. And this is all together. It forms the zendo. But, you know, these four pillars were trees from Ring of Bone, Gary Snyder's place up north, and were selected. to be here and plain... And members of the Sangha built it, you know? So it's not even like a crew comes in. It was like the people who were here actually built it. So it has all this history, and, you know, it extends back. And, yeah, the whole thing about it has this resonance going out. It doesn't... Like, why do we have... Little shoji windows, you know, why are the doors made that way with sliders instead of a handle?

[27:08]

You know, why are the windows high? This all comes from Japan. This comes from our ancestors in Zen. So everything is, you know, it's like everything eventually, if you knew where everything came from, like six degrees of separation, you know, it comes from everywhere over time. You know, there's nothing really separate. But thinking about that brings me more of a feeling of connection with the world and with the world where I'm in and the wider world as well. And I think that's a lot of the point of bodhisattva practice is to get out of just our own individual worlds and minds and considering others. You know, how do we be of benefit in the world? What can I be doing? Yeah. And just even in my being, how can I do that?

[28:09]

Oh, I had one thought for everyday life besides just noticing, like, notice around you is traffic, if you're driving in traffic, because you have a very distinct experience of being behind the wheel, So that's at, you know, human level, a few feet off the ground. But if you imagined yourself being way up in the sky and looking down, pattern of cars, you know, slowing, speeding up, stopping, just watching. Oh, oh, this doesn't look good. No, okay, so now it's slowing down. And, you know, it's a very different way of viewing the world or relating to things to step back. Not to be distant, but to have a wider perspective. Not to say it doesn't matter, but just to take a bigger view. Or on a larger level from that, somebody showed me a book once.

[29:14]

It was just a series of pictures, and it went from absolute micro, as far down as they could take photographs, up to the widest scale of the universe. And, you know, it started with like subatomic whatever, whatever they could take. And then I think it was, might have been called something like 10x or 100x. It was like 10 or 100 times larger for each photo, just like going up and down. But it was all from exactly the same point. Because when it started pulling out, you're like, oh, that looks like cells in some body eventually you saw that it was the back of a person so it was like going way down into the microscopic level of one person and then coming out to the surface of their skin and then they're on a beach lying face down and then the beach is probably something or you know anyway it's just like solid bodies all lying on towels and it's like

[30:22]

It's looking a lot like the atomic level, you know, all these different individual units, and then it goes off into space, and it's like, space looks a lot like atoms. Little dots with space around it. And I went around looking at the world like that for days after that. I mean, this had been decades, and I still remember it with such delight, you know. It's like to... Not just abstract things, but it's like, oh, from my point of view, it comes back. But you could pick any other scale, and it's another world. It's another whole set of perceptions. I've also thought about how to bring, like what would it, like we take care of the temple. We call it work practice. So we're taking care of the temple. It would conventionally be called work. But here it's work practice.

[31:25]

So what is the mind of work practice? And would it be interesting to bring that to our regular work? A lot of, you know, meeting people, meeting with, I do basically two things in my day. I meet with people and I sit on a computer. That is in terms of being Abbott. Those are kind of the two, and study. But mostly it's, you know, people and computers. People are easy. you know, showing up for that. But having a mind of practice, I think it's easy with people because, you know, we're here to be with practice together. You know, that's like most of the people that I know are involved in Zen in one way or another or connected in some way to that. So it's like that's kind of the whole thing. And I find that very supportive. You know, of course I'm going to be kind and, you know, warm and receptive and interested, you know?

[32:27]

It's like, yeah. Coming to my computer and finding like 40 or 50 emails, not all of which are from Sangha members, of course. It's like, and I have other things to do as well. It's like, hmm, how can I relate with that in a mind of practice? So that's been a whole thing in itself, And one of the biggest helps I found is posture, zazen posture, to really sit up because I tend to fall into the computer screen. I was working on a laptop for a long time, and I discovered that was not happy and not helpful because I hunched, and that just kind of brought my mind really down. So then I got a monitor. That was a lot easier because I could look. And it really reminds me to sit up, open my chest, open my heart, not be leaning into things.

[33:30]

So I started thinking of being exhausted and bringing more intentionality to it. So that's been an inconsistent practice, but I'm just starting. And every time I remember to come back to that, I'm like, okay. Good, coming back, coming back, coming back. I've also been practicing with several times a day, remembering that in my own being and body, I am actually manifesting Genjo Koan right this moment, like just my body. My fingers are working like each... My hands are entirely independent from each other, but they know exactly how to work together. They're not getting in the way of each other. My right hand doesn't bump into my left. My feet usually don't bump into each other. Yeah, when I'm mindful, they don't.

[34:35]

It's when it wanders off that it's like, oh, okay. But just... remembering I am actually always manifesting this paradox of the everyday and the absolute, moment by moment by moment. And something about that, for me, felt very both containing and spacious. It felt kind and kind of loving, like, well, everything's included. You're here. You're fine. And when you reflect on this, you become more aware of that, more soft, more open. I also was reflecting on not just the parts of the body, but the whole biological neurochemical system inside the body is continually working to

[35:41]

to maintain energy and homeostasis and all the life processes, you know, just like making the best about what to expend energy on, what to conserve on. My idea of myself might not like all those choices that my body is making. Like, I want you to have more energy right now than you do. Don't be sleepy. But, you know, that's... That's my body doing its thing. And Greg has a T-shirt that I love very, very much that some of you may have seen. And it's a T-shirt that was put out by Temple in L.A., which is, I think, the oldest Soto Zen temple in this country.

[36:43]

It's from 1922, a long time. Still, mostly Japanese temple. And there, the title I put out was during COVID. And it's a row of six jizos, like done in like sumi ink, like brush strokes, kind of rough. but very lively, these six little Jizos, and every one is wearing a COVID mask. A blue shirt with white ink on it, so they have their little white surgical masks. Jizo looks like a little monk, a little bald monk, and they're often rather childlike, so they're all just kind of huddled together. And what it says underneath it is, everything I encounter is my self. Everything I encounter is my life itself. And I've just found that so encouraging, you know, that there's nothing outside, and that, you know, being here right now, this is my life.

[37:57]

When I meet each one of you individually, you are my life. You know, this is all what makes me. I mean, of course, what I bring, too, but I can't separate those things. So, you know, whatever I encounter is my life itself. So we know from our own experience that very often when we're met with kindness or warmth or patience, that tends to arise in us too. When we're met with anger, impatience, frustration, judgment, whatever it is, we feel that too. So it goes both ways. But we still get to choose, to some extent, what we intend.

[38:58]

We get to choose our intention on what we want to put out there. So I tend to want to get things right. Not for other people, just for myself. And part of my intention has become to be a little more hands-off, to not worry about things so much, to not try so hard. Because then I can... I'm so much more available when I'm not contracted from my own self-judgments. So I... ...something that they are... might find impeding, might want to put down or soften around. So it's like, how do we encounter things? How do we encounter people? What do we want to bring to the meeting? I think one of the easiest things overall is to bring some curiosity or interest to what this might be, some openness to

[40:08]

This is harder. Openness to being surprised. But that's a good one. Can I be what I think it's going to be? You know, it may be, it may not be. So I think that's all I wanted to say. Are we stopping now? I think it's quarter after, right? It's questions. Exactly. What I was thinking. So thank you all very much. And does anyone have any questions? And a microphone will be going around. Do you have a microphone? No. Okay. Yoni Peter Gregg. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were getting up to me. Sorry, Ben Peter Gregg. Thank you, Linda Roshi.

[41:18]

Is it always kind? So when you were talking about these ways that the human mind can conceive of interbeing and the marvelous way that things cooperate often to our benefit, but there are other ways in which the larger being, um, cooperates with us that maybe are not so kind from our human perspective or so. Um, I just, it's a small thing, but I think of, um, in my neighborhood at certain times of the year, you'll often see a dead squirrel on the road or you'll maybe even see it happen because there, going for nuts and foraging, or they do, and even a careful driver is going to crush them.

[42:20]

And from a certain perspective, it's just that that interbeing seems horrific to me, but I know that I have only a very limited, tiny view of what that all means. To wrap it up, can you say something about... when interbeing or cooperation among the many looks like a horror or feels like a horror, something about that. Yes, thank you. I think I was talking about what we as human beings can bring, bring forward, because we are human beings and our human interbeing thrives best in Awareness of others as actual others and not as demons or non-entities. I mean, squirrels are one thing, but there's horrific things going on between human beings and this world, which we all know about.

[43:24]

And that causes tremendous suffering. So because we are human beings, I think it's... For a long time they thought only Buddhists can be human beings. And then, you know, it was expanded to, no, earth, grass, rocks, trees, tiles, and pebbles are all engaging in Buddha activity. But they're engaging in Buddha activity from their own point of view, not from a human point of view. A rock engages in its own rockness. A car is just being driven, and it's engaging in its own carness, which is having a massive impact on One squirrel's whole being. So from our place, this is the only place where we can act from. I can't know what it's like to be a squirrel or a mountain or a tire. But I do know what it's like to be a human being. And I do have some sense, some broad general sense of what it is to promote human flourishing.

[44:38]

because we're not separate from the world, that human flourishing cannot happen at the expense of the earth and all the beings on it. And yet it will be, because we're interdependent, and it's... But we do the best that we can. And... I don't think that the universe, as an entire universe, If the universe cares, it's in a very different way than we care. I don't imagine the universe or that totality, but I do see that somehow all of this exists. And I treasure existence, so I try to support existing for everything, everyone. Thank you. Peter?

[45:40]

Yes. Perhaps we'll bring a microphone. Yes, and thank you. Earlier, you used the frayed. I think it was perhaps about when you were speaking of Hangzhou. You said, is there a problem? No. Oh, okay. And like this. You use the phrase, seeing things as they really are. And when I first heard that, I was thinking, oh, how do I do that? And who is doing that? And when you unpack it a little further, it's sort of seeing things. looks really dualistic. And as they really are, who knows what that means, but it seems like it's much bigger.

[46:51]

So I'm thinking about how do we practice with this expression, which I really like, but which, you know, perhaps I'm misinterpreting. Words are very tricky. I mean, words exist in the dualistic realm. And Dogen's language is interesting and wild because he's trying to use words to point beyond words. So seeing things as they really are, it's like it's not another thing. It's not seeing with our eyes. But I think many of us are here because we have some some awareness, some intuition, that there is more to the world than we can see or sense with our senses. Something that's intuitive, relational.

[47:58]

I don't even know how to describe it. So seeing things as they really are, a kind of just opening to something... It's the finger pointing to the moon. Thank you. Thank you. Greg, and then we have someone online. Thank you very much for your talk. So we hold it like an ice cream cone. Hot dog? This works better, right? Yes. I really appreciated what you said about bringing practice into everything, things that we don't normally think about as this is practice. And you were talking about how you . Because these glowing rectangles, they've hijacked our lives for a lot of us.

[49:03]

And it is a very important point of practice And I think we don't talk about enough. And I'd like the way you talked about your upright posture. Having, I guess I would say right view. And my mind just went off on this little riff. I'm thinking about Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom. You know, the Manjushri on our altar is pretty chill, California Manjushri. But often iconographic representation of Mount Jushri is this guy with a big sword, like a huge sword, really scary sometimes. And, you know, that's the sort of dialectic. It's the sort of cutting off illusions. That's the sort of... I find it helps me. You know, I do a lot of visualization practice, and I can visualize that sitting upright, having good posture. Here comes the sword. It's the delete button.

[50:05]

Boink. Powerful. It's your friend. You know, when you say this, it's like the image that came to me is like, cut it out. Not like cut it out, but like, you know, when your mom says, cut it out, you know, you're making a fuss, cut it out, you know, just stop. Like, oh, okay. We have one person online. Hi, Allison. Good morning. Thank you for your talk, Linda Rokshi. I have a sense that a question is coming in me around practicing with Genjo Koam. It hasn't taken shape quite yet. And with that in mind, I'd like to share what first... few sentences of Zen My Beginner's Mind and hear your thoughts on how Suzuki Roshi's insight might relate to practicing Zen Koan.

[51:19]

Suzuki Roshi writes, people say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to see in a cross-legged position or to enlightenment is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense. That sounds perfect. Do you know what the fundamental sense is? I don't. It's not to get rid of defilements. It's to see that there is no separation. It's a non-differentiation between purity and impurity. It's to see the entire field. That's the mind of purity. Sojin's name means essence of purity. It doesn't mean that he was a pure being. It means that he has a pure mind, which doesn't mean things don't come and go in it, but that you don't stick to them.

[52:26]

I wonder how his insight, and I think the question percolating is around the notion of how you closed your talk, around sustaining an openness to being surprised. To practice, to cultivate... So how long... can teach and teach and teach and teach. And does that relate to what Suzuki Roshi is offering? Yes. For me, it does. I mean, they all seem to relate to all the same things. Funny that way, huh? Yeah, it really is. It's like, oh yeah, that too. Of course. But it makes me think of something else Sojin said, and I won't get his words exactly right, but he said, if...

[53:30]

if you continue to have other people, if you continue to focus on others' faults, you are yourself perpetuating their faults because you're holding on to a fixed view of them. So that's another side of letting yourself be surprised. Like usually, like I need to be cautious about this, but that's different from expecting or I know how this is. I know how this is going to go. we've also seen some things in the world in a positive way go not the way we thought it was going to go. So letting yourself be vulnerable to not shut down around it's going to be like this, whether good or bad, you know, clinging to hope or clinging to hunkering down. And that openness, which initially feels like vulnerability, can be flexibility of a keto, of more truly responding to what's happening.

[54:40]

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