Alleluia, alleluia, Alleluia, [...] does not get rid of the whole truth, but is a misstatement of the whole truth from the point of view of emptiness. And that the architecture really doesn't get rid of the things that it's criticizing. It's not criticizing, it's not criticizing, but only for the only in order to bring them into a correct view.

[01:07]

And since I've already said, the true form of everything is no-form, which is what we call intimacy. The true form is no-form. Therefore, all forms are the forms of intimacy. And if we want to exist in the truth of emptiness, we have to exist. And last night I talked about passion as a protein.

[02:12]

And rather than getting rid of desire and passion, to find emptiness within the passion and desire. The work of the bodhisattva is to find within the passion and desires empty. So instead of giving up desires and passions and leading an empty life, of one-sided kind of life, where nothing comes up.

[03:17]

We live our lives moment by moment, dealing with whatever is. And that's all part of practice. desire. Desire covers a whole realm. As each desire comes forward, one can see it for what it really is and let go of it, or deal with it in an appropriate way. Letting go doesn't necessarily mean to run away from it, but to deal with it, use it in an appropriate way. So it's possible to actually use life, rather than being used by life.

[04:21]

Or to be a victim of our desires. Instead of being a victim of our desires, or having others be victims of our desires, to see desire in its true form, and to have some choice to let it go, or to use it in some way to benefit beings, to benefit ourselves and beings. And non-attachment, of course, is key, but non-attachment is not so easy. Even though we want to do something, I don't think it would be nice to do something, and when it comes up, it turns it around. So we're always being turned around by desire. But at the same time,

[05:24]

to see it in its true form. And that effort to see it in its true form, even though we're struggling with it and constantly giving it to problems, is our practice. Right there is our practice. So sometimes we think, when did I ever get out of this practice? By now I should be not hot. By now I should be perfectly clean and stainless. But actually, we're always struggling with something. And what we've learned from our practice, what we've got out of our practice, is how to face our problems. as practice. So again, this is not original, it doesn't, but it brings us to life.

[06:49]

That stumbling block, that thing in your road which you stumble over, is also the thing which helps you to stand up. If there's a big stone in your path, and you stumble a bit, triple a bit, you also hang onto it. So it has two sides. One side of the problem is that they give us a problem and they get hurt. The other side is, through the problem, through working with the problem, we can get all the way to truth and emptiness. So, in particular, she used to call it a problem for the treasurer.

[07:55]

He used to say, you should get rid of your problem. As a matter of fact, he said, the problem you have today is the problem you will always have. But there's a wonderful kind of finality to that. It's like, stop trying to make living. He used to tell us that we were always changing our equipment when we went into the lab. Changing our equipment is like changing the scenery of our life, but leaving the problem intact.

[09:04]

And that's what we do, of course, a lot. probably change our life around in a sense. But the problem is still where we are. So at some point, you just feel it. You can see it all the way through. It doesn't matter so much. Well, I won't say it doesn't matter. That's counting it too far. It matters. What does matter most is not what problem you have, but how you take it on as your own. And when you have taken something on as your own, good things will happen and bad things will happen.

[10:12]

and you'll want to be attached to your problems, and you'll want to throw your problems away, and you'll want to throw yourself away, or something. But, since everything changes, and nothing really stays the same, you find that it's not so much the problem that goes away as that You become transformed in the process of dealing with the problem. So we look to the problem as the problem. But actually the problem is like a grindstone for sharpening a knife. Even though it takes a little bit off the edge, it becomes much sharper. more useful, sharper, much... honing is important.

[11:20]

After enlightenment, our practice is like honing, sharpening, going deeper. But each one of us is born or develops some kind of problem And that problem is what helps us to partner in helping to develop our character. How we relate to this problem. Some of us have pretty easy problems. And some of us have really tough problems. Really hard problems. Some of us have almost impossible problems. Sometimes when I hear some of your problems, all I can do is scratch my head.

[12:28]

But I can give a little advice. I've been through most of your problems myself, actually. There's not a lot that I can do. But I can listen to you, and I can encourage you. And mostly my encouragement is, do not abandon the program. Unless it's really too much. Sometimes it's good to change the equipment. That sometimes helps. Stay with what you have. And know that it's practice.

[13:31]

This is the important part. When you know that whatever you're doing is practice, then somehow the burden becomes different. It really becomes different. If you only see it as, oh god, it's got me, then you're just a victim. But if you can see it as, This is my practice. Everything that comes to me is my practice. And this just happens to be a big one. Then you have some distance, a little distance, a little... some place where you're not attached to the problem, even though you're attached to it. You know that everything comes and goes. And you can see your own attacking. And somehow there's a wedge between you and the form.

[14:37]

A little opening. If you only see the problem as nothing but that, then you really have a problem. your enlightened practice is to be able to see and experience all of these problems that come up as your approach to all of them as practice. Then, whatever you're doing is in the realm of practice, and you're really no longer attached, even though you're still attached. So it's non-attachment within attachment. And you have some way to turn around, a place to turn around.

[15:55]

Sometimes Your problems are so great that even sitting in God's room will take care of them. But my experience has been that it's a really excruciating problem to just turn it over to God. And it's always worse. even though the puddle will just grab you and tear you apart. And it gives us a little bit of freedom. And you can still move around. You can still operate like that.

[16:57]

a little bit of freedom. And it's kind of like, sometimes like, hanging on with your teeth and gail. But at some point the wind subsides and you find you have a way to go. So, hanging on in that way, with really difficult problems. Strengthens our sense of purpose. Gives us a lot of confidence. Learning in a true way. And we realize that whatever comes up, we can deal with it. And that's how our character is formed. So, whenever in this world fails, whatever in this transient world fails, which it will, practice is never failing.

[18:15]

Our own practice continues forever. And then we begin to see the true form of all forms. When you have this kind of confidence in emptiness of practice, or practice of emptiness, you can see how all the forms arise, how we become attached to them, how desire sets in, craving arises. And little by little, we can be more careful about how we act. how we get into trouble, and still keep our heart intact. This is really important. Sometimes we have too much trouble, it's easier to just kind of let the light in our heart go out.

[19:23]

But rather than doing that, because of our own suffering, we can arouse compassion for other people. And that compassion takes the place of our passion. Compassion can actually take the place of our personal desire. So instead of getting rid of desire, we can just turn it. We're not getting rid of anger. We just turn it. Anger can have a lot of intention or strength in it. And when we can turn anger around, the strength really helps our motivation.

[20:33]

It's wonderful to feel really angry and sit right in it. And when you sit right in it, you just have all that strength and power. And you just put it right into driving. That's really strong driving. Not today. After, in the Sutra, after it says, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no patterns, then it says, no cognition. No cognition, also no attainment. With nothing to attain, the Bodhisattva depends on Prajnaparamita, and the mind is no hindrance.

[21:42]

And without any hindrance, no fears exist. And far apart from every perverted view, they dwell as two bodies. And in the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Pranayama Karmika, and attain Amritara Samyak Sambuddhi. Complete, perfect enlightenment. But here it says, no cognition. No transmission can also sometimes translate as no wisdom or no knowing. And I remember Bodhidharma's famous answer when the emperor Wu at the temple what is the highest meaning of the Holy Truth.

[22:48]

There's no knowing. Just, I don't know. But, more literally, no knowing. Beyond knowing. So knowledge, although it's useful, Citrus pointing to intuition. Citrus pointing to all time is intuition, which literally means direct knowing. Directly knowing. So, no cognition. Beyond cognition. Beyond no. Also, no attainment. Bodhicattva has no attainment.

[23:51]

And sometimes in other translations there's no attainment and also no non-attainment. To balance it out, no attainment means no attaining something which is not already there. and not wanting it, and not throwing it away. So, no gaining and no throwing away. Not getting rid of something. Not adding something, not getting rid of something. And with nothing to attain, nothing to throw away, the Bodhisattva depend on prajnaparamita. Now this is... What is depending on prajnaparamita?

[24:55]

Depending on the perfection of wisdom that says that it works. What do we really depend on? This is a great question. Someone should answer this question. I used to ask that question. Yeah, I know. What do you really depend on? If you ask it, it's no answer for me. I'm not going to tell you. Do you know? Do I know? No. It's a state of trust, and we're not an object. I can depend on this, or this, or my mind, or my intellect, or my defenses. Mostly we depend on our defenses. But if you have no defenses, what do you defend?

[26:01]

Good question. How can we live our life with very little defense? Self-defense. is our ego. The more self-defense we have, the more ego we build, because we're trying to protect something. So, the philosophers say, with nothing to protect, the holy philosophers became philosophers and philanthropists. Sometimes you say, don't take this away or I'll be vulnerable, but Vulnerability is the goal of practice. Not that you can be hurt, but that you can be open. Because if we're open, we're allowed to get hurt. But if we're closed, we're just hurting ourselves before we get hurt. This is part of suffering.

[27:04]

Being closed is part of its own suffering. So we always have this choice, and it's going on all the time. Do I want to be really open and vulnerable, or do I want to be closed in suffering? That suffering. Do I want to accept the suffering as being closed? Will that do? But it doesn't. It's a little bit unsatisfactory. So what we really want is to be really open. Because air is too rare for them, too cold. So little by little, sometimes it's supposed to be like... But little by little, it's good.

[28:10]

You notice that most people They no longer have any, if they're still going, they no longer have much defense. They don't care about things so much that they cared about when they were younger. And so they don't take any bologna off of people. I have, my wife has a 90-year-old aunt, and well, ever since I've known her, She, her mind is really sharp. And if she doesn't like what you say, she'll just tell you. And if she likes what she says, she'll smile. But there's no pussyfooting, no trying to be polite, or no defenses.

[29:10]

Nothing. Just out there. And most people get that way, because after a while there's nothing more to defend, nothing more to, you know, nothing to protect. And it's very refreshing. Without being, to be open without being, you know, open, then people will want to trust you. So there's nothing to depend on and nothing to be afraid of.

[30:18]

And it says here too that the bodhisattva depends on prajnaparamita, and the mind is also no hindrance. Without any hindrance, no fears exist. So the mind is also no hindrance. In other words, it's possible to get beyond our thinking mind. And in Zazen, we do it all the time. If we didn't get beyond our thinking mind in Zazen, we couldn't do it. You know the story, Yakusan, the monk asked Yakusan, I have a friend who says, I think not thinking.

[31:28]

And I go, how do you think not thinking? And he says, non-thinking. Non-thinking, the noun of non-thinking means non-dualistic thinking. It means not getting caught up in thinking of not thinking. Not feeling problems out of thinking or not thinking. Most of us create the problems out of thinking or not thinking. Because we're concerned with ourselves. We're concerned with the problem of our own mind. But if we are not so concerned with the problem of our own mind and just pay attention, So, pay attention to posture, strong posture, following the breath, letting the thoughts come and go, without getting tangled up.

[32:47]

This is another aspect of Stay out of the way. Even though we have lots of thoughts inside them, we just pay attention to what we're doing. And don't look around. By looking around, one form of looking around is to... Another form of looking around is even when we're sitting inside them and the thoughts are coming up, we're looking around. We forget what we're doing. So if we really know what we're doing, if we really stay with our posture, stay with our breath, and not look around inside our head, then things, various thoughts will present themselves to us.

[33:52]

They're wonderful thoughts. Nice to know you. You're a terrible thought. Nice to know you. Bye. Hello and goodbye. Bye. This is what I'm doing. I'll take care of you some other time. This is non-thinking. Non-dualistic thinking. Not rejecting, and not being caught by. Not craving the thought, not rejecting it. Yes, taking care of your own business, paying attention to your own business.

[35:27]

What time is it? 9.54. The Sutra says, take far apart from every perverted view. Perverted views, there are four perverted views. But it also stands for false perverted views. But in Buddhism, the view of permanence is dealt in light. To think that permanence, when they are in fact transient, is a perverted view. And to see things as easy, when in fact they're difficult. To see a self when no self exists, is very difficult. And to take delight in that which is actually not delightful.

[36:31]

to take delight in something which will actually hurt us. That kind of delusion is usual. That's a more worldly understanding of it. You're going to do something which in the end will hurt you. Which is not good for you. You can do that all the time. So these four perverted views, you know, permanent, even though we're doing something that's impermanent, and it's not that we don't know that it's impermanent, but we don't feel as if it's impermanent. We take something up to a point of view that's open-ended.

[37:40]

And it's good to set limits. When we set limits, It helps us to realize the impermanence of what we're doing. If we just do something open-ended, we think it's going to last forever. We know it's not, but we set that up in a moment, to view that it could last forever. And we kind of go on until the end, and then just, what happened? So these are all forms of suffering which come from perverted views. But anyway, these are examples of perverted views and are part of perverted views that dwell in their violence.

[38:44]

Nirvana is here. And as we talked about before, the kind of criticism of the Hinayana viewpoint, which is Nirvana, is when you take samsara away, then you have nirvana. So nirvana is a kind of ease, or If you take away all the difficulties, then you get the peace. And kind of people, worldly people, try to do that too. But actually, Nirvana, according to Sutra, is only possible through samsara. So, instead of getting rid of all the problems, we have to find Nirvana within the problems that we have. At the base of our problems is Nirvana.

[39:52]

So, even though we make life, we try to organize our life in some way, to practice, we still have these problems. And without trying to take the heart out of life, You have to find what's on it within. That's all. And it's not a matter of producing something, but revealing what's on it within. Maybe a country, a piece of it, the way things are. Another singer moved on time one time. I don't know who it was that took over. This person said, I control the world.

[41:09]

And I said, how do you control the world? That's because everything goes exactly the way I want it to go. And you can think whatever you want of it. I saved it. But, I don't know what the excuses are. Everything goes the way I want it to. I control everything. And that's also a good corner for the game. I love these installations, though. Not everything's so bad.

[42:13]

It's fun. If I... If I don't practice it, I'm stuck. I'm stuck with it. It's difficult to think that my problems are big enough. And I feel that my problems don't... I feel that my problems don't... I need that problem to be able to change it. I need that problem to be real big. So, big problems. I have two sides. One is that they're terrible, and the other side is that they're awful. So, then it says, they dwell in Nirvana.

[43:33]

In the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on prajnaparamita. He said, he said, sutra saying it again, that's the second time. And attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. Well, that's like Nirvana. And then I started talking about how the prajnaparamita is a wonderful, transcendent mantra. And I really want to talk about that tomorrow.

[43:57]

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