My drummer's sister. The longer than I can remember, Lori's big-hearted, uniquely wise, and generous practice has been an inflammation of the family's style and practice to everybody's sense of humor. She had raised at least two children. There have been many contributions of practice here, including family practice, children's practice, and solid support. In 2005, she was invited to give a big speech.

[01:14]

And she finally actually answered the offer in 2015. Her name might be interesting. Michael Jose Villota. Maybe it's out of such desperation. Let's see what's been on Maria's mind in a dark world. Thank you. So, what's been on my mind, the title of this talk is, Does Big Mind Care? Or alternative titles, Give Big Mind a Chance. Or, Why We Don't Trust Big Mind. Suzuki Roshi was all about big mind. He talked about it all the time, big mind, Buddha mind, true nature, true self, all pointing to the same thing.

[02:14]

I found this quote. These are going to have to come off. I should have thought of that before. I can see you a little less clearly, I'm sorry. When you become one with Buddha, one with everything that exists, you find the true meaning of being. When everything exists within your big mind, all dualistic relationships drop away. For a long time, my image of Big Mind, I tried to connect with this Big Mind that was like vast, like the night sky, silent and still, you know, vast emptiness, no holiness. You know, probably I did sometimes, maybe. But nowadays, I feel much more connected with a Big Mind that's a little bit more turned towards what's happening.

[03:18]

with the kind of friendly respect and appreciation and deep, deep listening. That's more the kind of big mind that I actually can connect with. When one of the other practice leaders, Susan Marvin, and last summer, she was lay entrusted with her former brother, Ross, and I asked her this question. There's a question, a ceremonial kind of question and answer during that ceremony, and I asked her this question, does Big Mind care? And she said, well, it holds everything. And that's what I'm talking about, something that holds everything. It holds everything. And that's kind of part of the problem. Because, you know, in the human realm, when someone cares about us, they kind of care more about us, right?

[04:23]

In a way, that's how we know they care. That's the kind of caring, it's hard to feel like Big Mind cares about me if it cares about everything, you know? It's not that I can understand it, but the feeling for humans is, you know, something different maybe, the human realm. Last spring, another one of our head students, Ellen Webb, told us this story that has really stayed with me. On their vacation, they were up in eastern Washington in the mountains somewhere by a lake, and so every day they would go down to the lake, or every so often they would go down to the lake, and the first time when they arrived, they got down there, and it was in the spring, and there were to a goose and a gander and I remember 17, for some reason, 17 goslings swimming along behind on the lake.

[05:29]

And then the next day they went down to the lake and there were 12 goslings swimming along on the lake. And then the next day there were two goslings swimming on the lake. So, let's just say that there was an eagle or an eagle couple perhaps that was eating, catching these goslings and eating them to feed their eaglets, right? So, does Big Mind care more about the eaglets than about the goslings? Or does it care about them equally and does it feel like it cares? How do we know it cares? hard to experience it in that way, the way we usually think of caring. So we humans have babies too, and we care a lot about our babies, or we have pets, or we have pet projects, and we care a lot about them.

[06:38]

We care more about them than others, so I mean it's the ... in nature's realm, you know, it's the goose's job to care more about the goslings and the eagle's job to care more about the eaglets and that's nature's plan and ... but something about ... so we humans and we also have a natural partiality. But the problem, somehow the problem for humans is like it just quickly sort of devolves into something really dicey often. During Rohatsu, Sojourn Roshi was reading from this ancient text, the Shinshin Ming, and this one phrase caught my ear because I've been thinking about this. Picking and choosing never stays within bounds. And that's kind of what I'm talking about.

[07:40]

For example, what if you have two kids? And what if you like one more than the other? Already, it's really dicey. And then what if you don't? What if you are lucky enough to not like one more than the other? What if you like them both maximally? They still kind of are watching you, and they're like, why did Alex get to do Stage Door? Why do you say we get to go to Belize? You know, I mean, they're looking for the signs of love, right? And trying to figure out and, you know, teasing each other. Mom loves me more or whatever. So, that's the realm that we're in, the realm of partiality, the realm of picking and choosing. And then, you know, what if your kids have friends? you can't pick your kids over your kids, you know, like you just quickly in this realm where picking and choosing goes beyond bounds.

[08:46]

You know, one minute you're trying to keep your kid alive, and the next minute you're trying to get him into college by paying a lot of money and pretending that they, you know, are doing a sport that they don't do. I mean, it just, it's just, it's, there's no line between. It just, it's a continuous thing, you know? So, um, there are six, so let's see, where am I here? I've got to find my... We have these formal meals in the Zendo, we use these little sets of bowls and it's very formal and one thing that we do in the ceremony is we have an offering, we make an offering on a little tray to the Buddha, we place the tray on the altar and when you're cooking, when you're the head cook for that day, you get to put together this little tray.

[09:49]

And for me, it's like there's, you know, everything's kind of, ah, when am I going to get done? And then you're doing this tray and you just, there's a moment, just a natural moment when everything is just making a really nice tray for the Buddha. It just happens naturally. And, you know, the point is not to get better and better at making a really nice tray for the Buddha and more and more ignoring the other people, right? The point is, oh, this feels really good to be devoted, to have this devotion and that the way it feels when I make this tray because I'm devoted. So, I mean, if I had more beings I was devoted to, I would feel good more of the time. That's the feeling, you know? And so you grow, you need to grow it out. And even with your own kids, you need to start with that, your impartiality, and then you need to grow it out.

[10:52]

Grow it out to their friends and your nieces and nephews. And if you don't have kids, you still have to do this. You have things that you love and you can't leave it there because picking and choosing never stays within bounds. You have to grow, keep growing it out. Well, this is what it feels like to care. If I cared about more things, I'd feel this way more of the time. So, where are the beings that I most need to turn towards with big mind? I most need to connect with big mind. Is it like all the really distressed, suffering beings all over the world who need our help so much? I mean, they're really important. Or is it our hometown where we feel more connected and we see people every day and we have, you know, a chance to really help people maybe?

[11:54]

Are those the beings? Or is it our fellow sangha members who are so good at getting on our nerves. Are those the beings we need to first really turn towards? Our sixth Zen ancestor Hui Nung said, sentient beings of my mind are numberless. I vow to save them all. We've got to pretty much start with the sentient beings of our mind because those are the ones that are actually kind of getting in the way of the other ones often. So, saving the sentient beings of our minds means holding them and not picking and choosing among them, right? So, maybe I'm sitting Zazen and I'm thinking, I'm so bad at this or I'm so good at this or maybe I'm not even, maybe I'm thinking I'm so mad at that person for what they did last night or last week or, you know, and there's this like really subtle, I think many of us have experienced this.

[13:05]

There's a very subtle difference between trying to replace that type of thinking with big mind type of thinking and actually just leaving that there and turning towards it with friendly respect and appreciation. And when you do that, you might find, I find, I often can think, oh yeah, that makes sense that I'd be thinking that or feeling that. Oh yeah, given these conditions that are happening here right now, that makes sense. It's not so hard when you remember to do it. It's really more about remembering to do it. So, last, I think it was a week ago, we were in Sashim, right? And I was having a difficult Sashim because, you know, my knee is bothering me and I was worrying about it.

[14:07]

So not only was it kind of bothering me, but I was like agitated about it. Also, my joints were aching all over and also I had to sit in a chair right now and it's kind of hard to sit in a chair. You know, it actually is. It's harder to keep your back up straight when you're sitting in a chair. At least I find it harder. It takes more effort. So I was like, you know, turning around a little. and thinking, if I weren't here, I wouldn't be feeling half of these things, you know? And then I remembered, oh, right, Sashin is about this. Sashin is about being with that, being with, you know, Sashin is about learning, a way to learn to hold what can't be held, whatever it is. That's why we do that. So once I, you know, I was like, oh yeah, right. Just this, just this.

[15:10]

That's why I'm here, to just be with this and respect what's happening in my body right now. And listen, listen, deeply listen to it. Suzuki, you know, she said, Big mind is the mind which is working on small mind. If there is no small mind, there is no big mind. And actually, he went a little farther there than I had been thinking. If there is no small mind, there is no big mind. I mean, that's really something to ponder to me. It's like big mind belongs to the sentient beings and the sentient beings belong to big mind. Sentient beings of our mind belong to big mind. Sentient beings of the so-called outside world belong to big mind and big mind belongs to sentient beings.

[16:16]

They belong together. One thing I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about some kind of like idiot impartiality, right? For example, so like when the Black Lives Matter movement started, there was a few people, maybe, maybe just one person, I don't know, who was like, wait, all lives matter. And you might think that's kind of what I'm talking about, like that kind of that's the impartiality, but no, not to me. No, it's like we don't whitewash over what's happening, right? Interesting word. We don't. It's like I heard this interesting statistic on the news that the Harvard class, 43% of the people in the Harvard class are either legacy students, because their parents or grandparents went there, or donors.

[17:37]

That's almost half. So, I mean, they should have, I think the school should have said that a long time ago, honestly, because pointing out the partiality that's there is not the same as picking and choosing, right? So anyway, that's, I'm not talking about the sort of making everything the same. There's this line in Zen Koan, it's like, it's not that you, add to a duck's legs and cut a crane's legs and have that be emptiness or something. So another thing that's kind of hard to take about Big Mind is that it actually can't do anything. We are the arms and legs of Big Mind. We are the hands and eyes. We are the voice box. That's how it's brought forth through us.

[18:43]

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, right? And part of what it means that it can't do anything is that it can't keep bad things from happening. It couldn't keep bad things from happening to us when we were kids. It can't keep bad things from happening in the world. So, like, why trust that? What is there to trust there? Somehow it's something that we can turn towards that's still always available to us and it holds us and it holds everything. And it may not seem so different, you know, to connect with that as to not connect with that because it can't do anything. But still, it makes a big difference, just makes a big difference.

[19:47]

It seems like plants and animals, and rocks just are always expressing big mind and they, and I suppose there's some, there must be in an ultimate sense, everything that happens is an expression of big mind, this big mind we're talking about. But from the human perspective, we can either block it or express it. We seem to be able to block it or express it. and blocking it is like picking and choosing and expressing it is like turning towards what's happening, no matter how, you know, turning towards the sentient beings of your mind, no matter how low brow, you know, turning towards what's happening with some friendly appreciation and respect and deep listening. Somehow this is something that's always available.

[20:57]

It's always available. It seems like, for me, it seems like the biggest thing is to remember, to connect with it. I know we have this metaphor where it's like, let the thoughts come and let them go, but don't serve them tea. You know that one? That's okay. I'm sure that's fine for a lot of thoughts. Some thoughts are probably like, let me go, let me go. But then maybe there's some thoughts or feelings. I mean, letting go seems to be something that can happen or not. You know what I mean? Like sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. So I don't think that's exactly a big mind anymore because big mind is something that's always available if you remember to connect with it. So maybe some thoughts or feelings, I mean, maybe they need tea.

[21:58]

Maybe they need tea. Maybe they need a little more time. Maybe they need to be turned towards with friendly respect. Maybe they need respect for sure and appreciation until they're ready to let go. Otherwise, strictly speaking, we're back to picking and choosing. Right? So that's how it seems to me. And I wondered what you guys thought about that or about anything else I've said. I've always had a lot of difficulty with the idea of not serving your thoughts to me for at least a similar reason.

[23:02]

I just feel like, you know, you can be here, but, you know, whatever. And then they kind of wander off, and we took that, and go to my room, and whatever, and it just doesn't seem like a very compassionate way of interacting with our thoughts, that I think are living things that are born out of the world that we live in. Tea is not so hard to make. Maybe it's more about what the thought wants. Maybe it wants to go out the back door. Maybe it just wanted to use your house as a passageway to its next thing. Yeah, so why not wait and see? What's the rush? Maybe we need to burst into tears and spend the night.

[24:19]

I mean, you don't know. You really don't know. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Keep going. I really appreciate what you're talking about. And just talking about what we do with those thoughts when they arise reminds me of Ralph, who says that when we have upset, between us or within ourselves the situation or the things right for compassion and that sounds like what it's going on yeah but i think i think i'd like you to explore a little bit more what we actually do in the sangha you know If we're practicing with each other, we're going to have upsets in our playground. What I've learned is that when I have an upset with someone or just with them, when I confront it and practice with it, it makes me less vulnerable for stuff from the outside.

[25:24]

So I really use this on that. I was wondering about that, like, do we turn towards the sentient beings of our mind because they're the easiest or the hardest? You know what I mean? I mean, is it the practice on the sentient beings of your mind or are they actually the ones that the only ones that you're having that's really having a problem with? And once you get those straight, you know, the others come naturally, natural human compassion flowing. And yeah, that's kind of, I mean, just like Sashin, it's all constructed to give us a kind of leg up on big mind, really, on how to connect with big mind. It may not always seem like it, and it may not always look like it. We may not always look like it, but I think so. And how do we do it is really each...

[26:27]

The problem is each situation is new and fresh. You do sort of learn something from the past, but it doesn't help that much. I mean, it's more about just, can you connect in yourself and what's getting triggered in myself? Why does this person, you know, why can't I accept this person, but flaws and foibles, but I can't accept this person, you know, why is that? That's something inside, you know? So I think it is a how thing, like how can I do this right now? How should I deal with this right now? Ken, yeah? treat my thoughts, a lot of it has the troubling part, the part that doesn't feel good, is when I treat them with meanness and disrespect, and like, oh, oh, why did I do that?

[27:46]

And you would never treat a guest like that. When they come to your house, don't put your feet there, you know? You really do treat them with respect and curiosity, how's it feel like? And I think it's the same thing for other people. If you can, there's something about a defensive net, you know, allowing yourself not to be defensive, to be more open and curious and compassionate. And yeah, and also if you can't, or you know, you could also see that part that's going la la la, that may also need to be held. I mean, it's whatever is happening. If you don't, it's really easy in the practice to be trying to let go of the wrong thing. Oh, I'm so mad at them. And that makes me such a bad person. So I'm going to let go of my anger at them. No, you need to let go of, I'm such a bad person. Or maybe not let go.

[28:48]

Be with that. Be with that. So we've got Sue, then Heiko, then Liz. Are you making a distinction between being blind and hearing? I think what I meant was we have the idea that we're supposed to paper them over with big mind or replace them with so-called big mind, whatever that means.

[29:49]

But the real big mind is to turn towards what's happening, yes. That's a metaphor. Well, mine are Mine are like my anger or my fear. It's a metaphor. Yeah, exactly. It's stories, but it's more than just a feeling. It could be a story, a recurring story. or a belief about myself. Those are a lot, those are important. Like you don't even realize that you have all these beliefs about what you're capable of and what you're not capable of, yeah. Stories. Okay, Heiko?

[30:54]

I wanted to comment about the arriving of thoughts in my mind or the arriving of irritating situations and meanings in practice, for example. I have taken the practice of faith and mind so seriously that when any of them arrive in front of me, I bow to them. I might serve them tea. I say to myself, oh, there's a purpose for this one. Now, the ones I don't invite tea are the ones that repeatedly return. I say, ah, you're here just to see if I'll send you away again. So I send it away. So the idea is faith and mind brings me the workout faith in mind brings me the experience faith in mind brings me the test and each turn of that occurrence gives me an opportunity to learn more how to let go of self and to encompass or embrace these things that i say are separate maybe although i mean i mean one question i have is

[31:59]

Or one way I experience it differently. I mean, that's really good. Thank you. But the ones that keep coming around are actually maybe those are the ones that really need some attention. Because those are the stuck beliefs about, you know, like, this person makes me feel bad about myself. This person makes me feel all these people make me feel bad about myself. It's not these people. It's a feeling. It's a way I I'm used to feeling bad about myself, a pattern of that as a bully, you know, I believe that I'm not worthwhile. So once you have one that keeps recurring, I'm not sure that's the one you let go. I understand what you mean, but I think I understand what you mean, but please go ahead. I'm just saying that we can understand from our own experience of seeing that thought, how to, you know, do we have this thing to go with it now? Are we ready to deal with it now? Yes, I know, I've already talked about my mother enough, you know, and I realize that she's X, Y, and Z, and I'm okay with that, but here it is again, just because the sky turned blue when I heard my mother, you know what I mean?

[33:15]

So these ones, we can kind of allow to be done, and not create the delusion and the formation in front of us, or the change of vision in front of us, so that we see the moment has a big mind and embraces people. Maybe they need to tell you when they're done. I'm not sure. I mean, it's probably a mix. It's probably in the middle there somewhere. Again, it's a metaphor, Liz. Oh, you didn't mention him? Oh, OK. Thank you. Deb? I remember that any person who appears in my thoughts is a being of my creation, but they might have a base of someone I interact with, they might have certain things in common.

[34:26]

or my way of working something else. And it seems important to me that I thought to kind of bow to the person in front of me as someone I can't know. You know, a separate being who is not the same I mean, they're there kind of to bring up the fresh possibility, right? Like, maybe I'm not just turning around in this thing. Maybe there's fresh a fresh possibility here. But they also are always. what you cognize only you know what they're always being poured through your cognitive apparatus so but still they're also there in a different way in another way you know that you can never get at and i guess you yourself are too in your own sense beings of your mind and everything you know it's like that so i've lost track here i think peter and ed then judy oh sorry and then ryushen

[35:49]

The potential could be completely eliminated by a level playing field. all the rest of existence, so called life is a bear. Big mind holds it all. Yeah, big mind holds it all. That's really hard, hard to take. Holding it all doesn't cancel out. Right. Thank you.

[37:00]

I also think that it's very difficult. I don't think it separates our need or desire for independency, others from the world in which we live, the post-apocalyptic world we live in. So we're talking about, I mean, interdependency in this frame that you're talking about is a good feeling, a feeling of being connected.

[38:26]

Because interdependency is also vulnerability and doesn't have to feel good. It could be that we're so interdependent that we're vulnerable to everybody and everything that happens. And that's sort of the other side. So maybe we're trying to create, when you have a community, when you try to create a community, try to create a world where interdependency feels good or feels safe, feels like you could let go into it, feels like you could try it on. And then you go out and try to keep come seeing somehow knowing the truth of that, even in other circumstances. But you know, it doesn't know. I mean, yeah, I think it's both interdependency. I think it's interesting that you immediately went to you assume that word meant a good feeling of we're all a family together or something. I don't assume that interdependency is where you lose your control over the situation.

[39:30]

that you never had. But still, I want to hold on to it. Judy, and then Rahushan. Well, there are just so many wonderful threads. What's in front of me right now is the challenge of language, and also the challenge of identity. And so sometimes in the way that people will say, well, instead of using the word enlightenment, switch out awakening, because one is narrowing the other to birth. Or like in physics, instead of thinking of light as a wave, think of it as photons, particles, asleep in the other's emotion. So I was just, what I noticed sometimes, what I tap into, be related.

[40:33]

And then, and then what I noticed in terms of, I used to have a practice where I had two night shifts, and all the stuff going on, and then we'd walk down the street, and I would consciously identify with trees. So I would place my awareness between trees and relating to trees. And so I wonder if Big Mind is more about identifying that we're continuously evolving and shifting in relationship. And that really helps me to not grasp or push away outcome. It allows me to be resilient, to step into agency, in here and out there.

[41:38]

And what I come to with that is the relationship, not between people or things, but between what we're with. Thou... and... I think it's really good to witness and observe what words do, you know, how words make us feel differently. I don't think there's a right enlightenment, you know, right to awake. I don't think, and sometimes a new fresh way of talking about it. Like maybe it was fine at first to talk about the thoughts coming and going and don't serve them to you. I mean, I never had a problem with that before. I mean, I wasn't as tuned in as 10 was, but you know, I mean, that gets kind of tired and then you see the flaw in it.

[42:41]

So, you know, um, I mean, for some reason right now, respect is the thing on my mind, the word, the word that kind of turns it, that helps me connect with big mind. But that's just right now. So I think that part of what you were saying was how words become concepts which influence how you experience and even practice. Yeah, totally. Uh-huh.

[44:04]

Yeah, I mean, I kind of think that's kind of a million-dollar question, how I have this thing with my teacher, Steve Weintraub, that the, I don't know, theme of our relationship or something is what is actually helpful, you know? I think that, well, I'm beginning to think that the recurring ones are the ones that actually need more attention and and trying to start like not be in such a hurry not have a again it's the goal oriented right it would be better if I had resolved this thing with my mom That's picking and choosing. Maybe it wouldn't be better. Why do you think so? And why are you going with that? This is the thing that's coming up. And what is it telling me? And what its purpose?

[45:40]

You could try to think that everything is here with good intention. Every part has a good intention. And it's getting to know it enough to help it transform. Maybe. It is getting into the psychological, yeah. uh-huh uh-huh And if, you know, if Big Mind can hold it, who are you to say something different, you know?

[47:08]

But of course, there's a scary, you know, then we could go to some really intense places that we didn't go to at all today about that. But I think it's sort of like, don't try this at home or something. Something along those lines. Okay, we're done. Thank you.

[47:32]

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