We vow with all beings from this life on, throughout countless lives, to hear the true Dharma, that upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith, that upon meeting it, we shall renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha Dharma. and that in doing so, the Great Earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha Way. Although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause and condition of obstacles in practicing the Way, may all Buddhas and ancestors who have attained the Buddha Way the way without hindrance. May they share with us their compassion which fills the boundless universe with the virtue of their enlightenment and teachings.

[01:04]

Awakening Bodhi-mind, we are one Bodhi-mind. Because they extend their compassion to us freely and without limit, we are able to attain Buddhahood and let go of the attainment. Therefore, the Chan Master, Luangta said, those who in past lives were not enlightened will now be enlightened. In this life, saving the body, which is the root of many lives, Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old. Quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions, as this practice is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha. Confessing and repenting in this way, one never fails to receive profound help from all Buddhas and ancestors. By revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before the Buddha, we melt away the root of transgressions by the power of our confession and repentance.

[02:31]

I think the first place that I encountered this teaching was in the service, a service that we did during the Dharma transmission process. First when I helped Sojan work on Dharma transmission with some people at Tassajara and then in my own. And I think it's also, is it in being upright or decided in being upright, do you know, Laura? I'm not sure. I don't think so. Maybe that's right. Anyway, it had a real impact on me and just to say I'm really enjoying discussing this with everybody. It's quite deepened my understanding and I hope yours And I was also very moved when we were at Tassajar, when Lori and I were at Tassajar last week, this is now part of the kind of rotation of liturgy that they do in the daily service in the morning.

[04:04]

You know, on certain days they do this, which had never been, I'd never heard it at Tassajar, you know, any place, any of the Zen centers. No, actually, Rev does it routinely for his lectures. Ah, yeah, I think it's a Revism that has moved in, which is great. Instead of an astrakath penetrating karma, it's a dharmic, this is what he does. And does he ever, has there been any teaching about it? Well, he, yeah, when I was at Tassajar, he did it in the context of karma. and transforming karma. Yeah, I think it would be really, I was thinking earlier today and this comes up from looking at this and what Ken was saying, it might be really interesting to talk about, to explore karma in say the study session next year or

[05:10]

because karma has a very broad and somewhat controversial implications, so it would be fun to do that, to look at the various ways, not just Buddhist, non-Buddhist ways of looking at karma, but even the Buddhist ways of looking at karma There's all kinds of perspectives, you know, is everything that we do karma? You find contradictory messages even in the early sutras and in the Mahayana sutras, so I don't want to get caught in that. I'd like to ask, is there anything that's holding over or hanging over from this morning?

[06:15]

Maybe not. And what time do we have until, Carol? Well, according to the schedule, we have until 4.15. Good, okay. What struck me is, you know, each time we listen, something jumps out. And in this, and I want to come back to repentance, but in this reading, what jumped out at me was, revering Buddhas and ancestors, we are one Buddha and one ancestor. Awakening Bodhi mind, we are one Bodhi mind. What do you think that means? One Buddha, one ancestor, one Bodhi mind. There's that line later.

[07:34]

enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old. Isn't it just saying, we're all the same. We're of the same mind. Yeah. It's so encouraging. I think that that's right. And you know, one of the ways that you, I think one of the implications of the well, of the Dharma transmission process, but actually all of our ceremonies are transmissions, and they're in the Zen tradition, what we're talking about is mind-to-mind transmission, what's said again and again is that we are one mind, we share the same mind.

[08:39]

And this is the same in, if I think about the commentary to the koan Mu in the Mumonkantha, you know, does the dog have the Buddha nature? It's like you have to work on this koan until your eyebrows and Joshu's eyebrows are tangled up together. Actually, could we have a little light? But it's just, it's an expression, Susan. It's not really going to happen. Yeah, Laurie. When you read this time, I just keep noticing, I mean, one of the things, we're always trying to heal the split. Our minds are always making these splits, right? Minds are always making these splits, and then our practice is always trying to

[09:44]

deal with the splits our minds have made. What are the splits? So, between us and the ancestors, a lot of this is about, and I'm reminded of the story of the Blue Cliff Record, it was just a couple generations later, like two or three generations later, the teacher burned all the woodblock prints of the Blue Cliff Record, because he could see that the people were reading it, the way they were reading it, was like, these other guys, these guys who are nothing like me, And it was only like, you know, 60 years later or something, let alone us looking back on those guys, you know. So, whether we really are or not, you know, I mean, it's just like that way our mind puts them, separates us, and then once we've got them separated, they can be infinitely far from, you know, I mean, like once you've got the separation, it doesn't even matter how far away they are. It's interesting and it gets to me, for me personally, it gets to this question of doubt and lack of faith.

[10:56]

I've been trying to gather some stuff because I'm going to do lay ordination in Germany when I go next week and so I was gathering lineage papers and seals and stuff and you know, on the lineage paper that I have, so you have at the end of there, you're Kechimyaku, and most of you have this, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, Hoitsu Suzuki, Sojin Mel Weitzman, my name, you know, as, and so the, one of the what is enacted in Dharma Transmission is, oh, you become a new ancestor. And it's like, me? You know, but that, the whole thrust of that ritual, and this is true, you know, when you receive Jukai, your name goes at the bottom of the Kechamiyaku,

[12:15]

And that bloodline, someone was talking about this yesterday, circles around back up to the head of the Buddha. So you are a new person, a new generation in yourself, in this one mind transmission. And in a way it's a little like Dogen's proposition of practice enlightenment that all of us are enlightened and that sitting down to do Zazen is an expression of our enlightenment and we still have to realize it. There still is some gap The reality is that we are enlightened.

[13:17]

The reality is that we are in the lineage of Buddhas and ancestors and one Buddha. This is what he's saying here. We are one Buddha, one ancestor, awakening the Bodhi mind. We are one Bodhi mind. This is not for people who have dharma transmission. This is like for everybody in the temple. And can we realize that? And if we realize that, what is the responsibility that flows from that? Okay. I keep thinking of this metaphor, see what you guys think. Someone told me about walking meditation, that we're all one pair of legs each, a centipede. I think that was me. I heard it elsewhere as well. Oh, okay.

[14:20]

But that's the organic, that's really the organic approach of, particularly of Japanese Buddhism. It doesn't, it's not true elsewhere. I couldn't think of an equivalent of a mind as we awaken the body-mind. It's a shared It's not my body line. It's only in my head. It's something that is bigger, more shared. Isn't that like in opening the hand of thought? He has that little diagram with all the melons on the vine. And you think you're just one melon, but you're wrong. You feel back there. It's on his end. I think we had them all in the salad for breakfast. Anyway, let me go on a little bit, because I wanted to get to this point.

[15:28]

Because again, this doesn't talk about Zazen directly. But I'm on page 55, I think, in Okamura's book. just about halfway down the page, there is another deeper meaning of repentance. We live in the reality of our life whether or not we observe the precepts. No one can escape from this reality. Even when we are deluded, we live in reality as deluded human beings. Ultimately, There is no separation between reality and delusion. In other words, reality includes delusions.

[16:31]

Even though we live in the reality that is beyond discrimination, we have to discriminate in our day-to-day lives. We have to decide what is good or bad. Without discrimination, we can do nothing. Even as we practice the Buddha's teachings, we have to make choices. This is the unavoidable reality of our concrete lives. Let's just take that paragraph. Does this make sense? That we're living in this reality even as we have to make choices. And of course, you know, we're somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm remembering the fourth ancestors, Xin Xin Ming, the Great Way is not difficult if only you can avoid picking and choosing, if only you can avoid making choices.

[17:39]

Well, yeah, it's not difficult if you can avoid making choices, but in our usual life, we can't avoid making choices. And so it is difficult. And that difficulty is also reality. It's also built into our true nature. We have to accept that. Everything is not equal. Yes? I think you mentioned in the lecture a few weeks ago something about Yes, we can visit Big Mind, but who's going to brush your teeth? It just stayed with me, just because, you know, which world are you going to be in right now? And how much of Big Mind does it take to brush your teeth? But those little decisions, we're getting on this little decision thing, and that's really where it is, in those decisions like that.

[18:41]

I've used that, I've stolen that several times by the way. Well, that's fine. some reason it's something that it's a thought I'm hung up on, but I think it's true, it's something as mundane as brushing your teeth. Do you do that because it's your vow? Do you do that? Do you brush your teeth to save all beings? Well, maybe some of us do. Or is it just a choice that we have? Or is it related to Save the body is the fruit of many lifetimes. It's just how we take care of things. Those things happen to be the teeth of our body. Yeah, it's a much broader meaning. Yeah. I saw another hand someplace, I'm not sure. Yeah, Katie. Yeah, I'm kind of puzzling on this. Reality includes delusions.

[19:44]

OK. Reality is beyond discrimination, but we have to discriminate in our day-to-day lives. Maybe. You don't think so? Well, I guess it depends. I feel like there's kind of a continuum. If I decide something is good or bad, that can be on a lot of different balances. You know, like, is it, you know, good because I want to be right and it's an ego thing? Is it good because I'm saving this body and preventing a toothache for a future me? I guess I'm just wondering, choices, it seems to me, choices can emerge from a lot of from thou, as you were just saying.

[20:45]

And so I guess I'm wondering, I guess, like, the dividing line between discrimination and non-discrimination doesn't seem to me to tell me, you know, that dividing line. I'm a little confused about why, for just all the other dividing lines. Yes, I understand. Let's think about this a second. Well, for some reason I thought this was in Sojourn's commentary, but I'm not seeing it.

[22:19]

How do you make your choices? If it's not on the basis of, on some basis of good and bad, what is it? Ken? And I was wondering, I have this image of, well, when a surgeon says, feeling from below behind your head, what I get from that, what I try to experience, or get to experience, is a direct response. That's not something that you think about. That is something that arises out of It's as if you're part of the universe and somebody falls, you catch them. You don't think about it, you just catch them. Right. And there may be other less kind of instinctual things that if somebody offers you a bowl, you take it, which doesn't necessarily seem to go through, is it good for me to take the bowl?

[23:41]

Should I, is this bowl, you know, somehow, There's no internal discriminator process that you can see when you do that. But, let me just, so, what you were, what he was, what Ken was referring to was the koan of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara and her thousand hands and eyes. and the koan is the teacher asks the student, how does the, or the student asks the teacher, how does the, oh no, the teacher asks the student, how does the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara use her thousand hands and eyes, and the student says, it's like reaching around for a pillow in the middle of the night. So if you think about that, you know, in the middle of the night,

[24:42]

right? All of us do this. Why do we do this? To make ourselves more comfortable. So there is some very basic physiological discriminative process. So this is in the realm of, if you're looking at the five skandhas, forms feelings and perceptions. Feeling is pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. Perception is beginning to have a concept of what is going on. So you're responding on a perceptual level. You're not making a story out of it and you never, no, I've never met a person who had to think do I deserve to be comfortable? Although in the rest of our lives, we think about that incessantly and neurotically, you know?

[25:50]

So on that level, it's automatic. And on that level, we respond, perhaps limbically, if you like, to other humans, to other mammals, to we're constantly readjusting ourselves so that, hopefully so that people could be comfortable. Sometimes if we're in a pathological state, it's actually to stake out our territory or to be in conflict with someone, but it's not necessarily at a conscious evaluative level. Yeah, Troy. Maybe I'm misreading Akamori Roshi. I kind of thought that what he was getting at there was the relative. You know, there wasn't so much, he wasn't talking about, you know, issues with judging mind or whatnot. And it's kind of like what the Koan that Sojin taught in last week's study class, which is number 63, the Joshua asks about death.

[26:59]

You know, Joshua asks Toitsu, asks him, what is it like when someone dies the great death and comes back to life? And the response is, you can't go by night, you have to go during the daylight. And the unpacking of that was that if you've achieved awakening, died the great death, that you then have to go back. You have to come back into the real world. Into the discriminative world. Yeah. So that while it may be true that you can, and we can drop all that. Right, well that's the next paragraph which I just wanted to read. Right. Here he's putting together, here he's delineating that we can't just stay in this ji sanghe, the relative, the repentance of

[28:05]

good and bad, right and wrong, and here he's pointing to, it's like, in our lives we can't clearly distinguish between the two, and yet we have to make discriminations. And then he says, Zazen is the only exception. When we sit in this posture and open the hand of thought, we are truly free from discrimination. Whenever thoughts come up, we just let them go. In our daily activities, however, we have to make choices based on discrimination, even though we practice the reality that is beyond discrimination. For instance, right now, I'm thinking, how can I express the Buddha's teachings in the most understandable way in English? This is my intention. Even when we try to manifest the reality beyond discrimination, we have to discriminate and make choices about the best way to do so.

[29:11]

Repentance means, although I think that this is the best thing to do in this situation, I recognize that it might be a mistake. It might even be harmful to others. I don't know. So that's included in is unavoidably included in our lives, and that is pointing to re-sanghe, to this kind of more universal repentance, recognizing that, one, there is a there is a kind of a non-karmic position, which is the position of Zazen, but that as soon as we're in any way involved in the world, the choices that we make have outcomes that we can't predict.

[30:22]

And so Just we are in the act of repenting them. We're in the act of repenting things that, consequences that we recognize will unfold and that we may not even know of. So it's like taking responsibility for everything. It's like a single being taking responsibility for the whole world. that's beyond the relative, and that's the scale of repentance that's where Shohakusan goes, but it's also, I think, what Dogen is pointing to. And for me, I think that that is included. Shohaku takes exception to it.

[31:23]

I think that's the repentance verse in our bodhisattva ceremony to say all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion born through body, speech and mind and now fully evolved means you can't see all of this unfolding and in fact the Buddha said something like to try to the streams of karma leads to madness and confusion, which is not to say that you don't take responsibility, it's just like you can't see how things are unfolding or are going to unfold, so you have to just take responsibility for them moment by moment as they arise. So this way of looking at repentance is all about process, then.

[32:33]

Isn't that what you're saying? It's not like repenting is going to get us something. And it's not something that we should look at as, oh, I made a mistake, so I have to repent. more ongoing, it sounds like. Yes, this is. I mean, if we make a mistake that we know about, yes, we do want to repent and start over. But it has this open quality. Right. It has this open quality of, I have the ability to see it another way. is not what it's saying. Right, to think of it another way, or to see it, yeah, to think of it, to see it in other ways is to think of it another way, which, to repent. So it would be an open attitude when you're just walking down the street and you're thinking, I have no idea what consequences, and you know, so like I'm open to that, but I don't know, but I'm sort of

[33:48]

I don't know, am I sorry or am I just, you know, I'm sorry if, you know, it's sort of like you just have this feeling that I'm making choices and I'm doing actions and I have no idea what the results are going to be and I'm doing my best and, but I'm in a process where I'm constantly sort of taking responsibility for everything that I don't know in a way, almost or something. It's kind of like the opposite of saying, I'm sorry if I hurt you. It sounds close to it, but it's really different. I'm saying what we're talking about is the opposite of that. There's a whole other section here. about, well he quotes this verse.

[34:53]

I'm on page 57 at the bottom. Another important verse of repentance is from the Samantabhadra Sutra. It addresses formless repentance, risange, and repentance of true reality, jisosange. So the verse is, the ocean of all karmic hindrances arises solely from delusive thoughts. If you wish to make repentance, sit in upright posture and be mindful of the true reality. All misdemeanors like frost and dew are melted away in the sun of wisdom. In this repentance, we do not actually say something like, I'm sorry because of this or that specific mistake. Rather, arsazan is itself repentance. And then he unpacks that.

[35:54]

Any action or karma caused by our ignorance of the reality of life, any actions are a hindrance because they prevent us from awakening to reality and liberating ourselves from self-clinging. Any activity that we do solely for ourselves, for our family, community, or nation, including Buddhist practices, can be a hindrance to actualizing total interpenetrating reality. Even our charitable acts often have egocentric motivations. If we did something good yesterday, we should forget it and face what confronts us today. What we did yesterday is no longer real. We cannot be proud of what we did in the past or think we are a great person because we did such and such.

[37:07]

Nor should we be caught up in our mistakes. We let them go and start again. We start right from this posture in silence, from the ever fresh life force that is free from any defilement. Moment by moment we start again and again. This is not where our human evaluation and discrimination works. This is true repentance. It's quite beautiful. So how does this work? I've been thinking about this a lot. It's like when we start practice, we come to the Zen Do and we sit down. We really don't know what the hell we're doing. But something has called us there.

[38:13]

Some, as what Sojourn was talking about, some inspiration. So we breathe in and we walk ourselves into the zendo. And then in the zendo we breathe out and we breathe in. and we encounter, even though we don't know what we're doing, we encounter this non-discriminating mind, which at the time, particularly when we start, but it's kind of always with us and to one degree or another, your non-discriminating mind, as you're sitting facing the wall, everything comes up, right? Every foolish, self-involved, distracting, whatever kind of thought you can imagine is part of the process of zazen.

[39:23]

The challenge, what makes zazen hard is to allow it to just flow through. And if you do that enough, you know, in any given session of zazen or any given sesheen, you begin to see that flow slowly taper off. And sometimes, if we're lucky, we touch real stillness, where thoughts are issuing or perceptions are coming forth very, very slowly or hardly at all. So that's the experience we have of non-discrimination and then we, you know, and then we do our bows and we leave and we're back in what we think of somehow, we think of we're back in what we call our

[40:31]

as if that time in the Zendo was not our real life, which it actually is. It's an opportunity really to see it. So, I think over the years, over years of practice, gradually, the ability to do Zazen infuses our day-to-day life. least that's what I perceive. And so that territory of non-discrimination widens. It's kind of like a stain that spreads, like that one on the carpet there. And can we allow that to happen? Are we open to that the diffusion of practice into our lives.

[41:41]

We can't make it happen. All we can do is show up here and practice and at least my experience is I feel that has happened to some degree and there's there's pretty far to go. But I think that many of you have this feeling. And this is how repentance, if you like, so you could think, I think Susan said, you asked this morning something, so is this mindfulness? What was the context? I didn't say it. No, it was the other student. Don't we share a brain? No, you don't. You share a name, not a brain.

[42:48]

Was it repentance? Oh, vow. It was after Katie, because Katie had given this example where everything kind of lives on one axis for her right now, where, you know, vow is is a mindfulness reminder and it's tied to her integrity and her practice. She's got it all in one spot. She's looking at it. You're pretty good, huh? That's a great interpretation. You better write that down so you know who you are. I thought, when we look at these vows like this, isn't that being mindful? Isn't that an action of mindfulness? There are several translations of that word, smirti, which is the Sanskrit word for mindfulness, and sometimes it's right remembering and also right recollection, which is, I like that a lot, recollecting.

[43:52]

ourselves. So repentance is, to me, it is in the territory of that, you know, of mindfulness. It's like, to repent, it's like, okay, I'm thinking about right now, what am I going to have for dinner? You know, it's like, oh wait, but actually we're in this circle of people studying Dogon right now. And so to bring myself back to that moment and that thought, is I'm recollecting myself. Well, isn't the thought about gender discrimination because it's like has preference in there or that's just stretching it, isn't it? No, I don't know if it is stretching it. What I think of it is if if what I did with that thought, you know, while I'm trying to talk to you and be present with you, I'm thinking you know, do I want to go to this restaurant, or do I want to go to that restaurant, or should Lori and I go out and buy some food, you know, if I'm thinking about that, then I'm really not present with you.

[45:04]

So it's not even, it's not even gotten that far, it's just what I noticed, like, okay, I'm, Susan and I are having an exchange, and all of a sudden, up pops this thought of suffer. So if I notice it and say, but wait, actually I'm having a conversation now, so later for that, then I've collected myself, I've recollected myself, I've repented. It's as easy as that, it's a good example. Yeah, it's very easy and we're doing it all the time, but to to understand that we're doing it, and then not just to understand that we're doing it, but actually to make that a practice. Because all of us have experience of being distracted, right? You're in the middle of something that

[46:08]

has all of your, I mean this is the example that I think of all the time, it's like I could be working at my desk, I'm doing some project, something, and all of a sudden some other thought comes up and I stop what I'm doing and I do something else. It's ridiculous. You know, it's not even like, it's not uncomfortable, it's not drudgery, it's just distractible, it's just monkey mind. You know, so repentance is, you know, so you notice the monkey, and you say, well, monkey, we'll play later, you know, we'll have some fun, but right now I am doing filing, you know, or I'm studying something. And I think in the context of this text is sometimes the monkey is very insistent. really wants your attention and this is where we have to get some help.

[47:17]

We could say it's, as Sojourn puts it, imperceptible mutual assistance. It's like you pick up the red phone and get the Buddhas and ancestors to help you, but it's imperceptible. as we rely on our training and that's why I'm not so sure but here the true dharma it's practice dharma, to practice it over and over again so that we get that training in our bodies and that's what's saving the body which is the fruit of many our body and mind for, in the same way that like when the Buddha was being, when the Buddha was under the Bodhi tree and Mara was tempting him, he pointed his finger to the earth and said, the earth is my witness.

[48:34]

Mara was saying, you know, what makes you think you're so high and mighty? What makes you think you're enlightened? And he said, the earth is my witness. The earth is, in that context, the earth is, he was invoking the rest of his body, that he was living on the earth, he was rooted in the earth just as the tree was behind him. I'm sorry if I'm ranting, but that's I think the parallel between mindfulness and repentance. Our practice doesn't make us perfect or holy people.

[49:44]

Our practice is not a means to get rid of delusive thoughts. Being mindful of true reality is not a method to eliminate delusions. In fact, when we sit in zazen, we sit squarely within the reality before the separation of delusion and enlightenment. Does that make sense? It's like, if you think of it quite concretely, it's like this whole flow of thoughts come up and some of them are probably quite noble and high-minded and some of them are, you know, within the reality before the separation of delusion and enlightenment. So, these things are coming up. We usually think of ourselves as deluded human beings and of Buddhas as enlightened beings. We imagine that our practice is a method to transform a deluded being into an enlightened one by removing delusion.

[51:01]

This idea is itself dualistic and contrary to the reality before separation. So he's speaking to something underneath, I think, what Dogen is talking about in the Kotsagama. But he's not... But it seems like, if you don't mind me making an exception to what you said, it's not that you have high and mighty thoughts and delusive thoughts, It's like you're in a place where you don't even ... they're no different. They're just thoughts. And they're not characterized in that way. You have to characterize them in that way for them to become either deluded or enlightened. They're not inherently that. It's just by how we characterize them. Right, so what he says is, so should we give up practice and pursue our delusions?

[52:07]

No, what we must do is to sit zazen and let go of all dualistic ideas. In doing so, and what Suzuki Roshi would say or Soju would say is, let go of your self-centered ideas. Your self-centered ideas implies that Self-centered implies that there could be an other centered. And right there is where you have dualistic thinking. So, sit in zazen and let go of dualistic ideas. In doing so, true reality manifests itself. Delusion and enlightenment are both here. Neither is negated or affirmed. neither is grasped. We sit on the ground of letting go. This is the meaning of Dogen's expression, practice and enlightenment are one.

[53:13]

There is no state to be attained other than our practice of letting go. We practice within delusions and manifest enlightenment through sitting practice and day-to-day activities based on zazen. These practice enable us to settle our whole existence on that ground. He goes on, a little later in the next paragraph, our practice doesn't make us perfect or holy people. In a sense, practice means giving up trying to be perfect. It means realizing our imperfect nature. We accept even our delusions and take care of them as if they were as precious as our children. If we ignore our delusions, or our children, they can do great harm. He said that. When we take good care of them, they can be quieted, or not.

[54:18]

There's a value judgment, I think, in there. But we can be liberated within delusions only if we face and care for them. If we don't, they become an impregnable barrier. There is a path of liberation within delusions and suffering. When we see reality clearly, we can see delusions as just delusions. Yeah? What does it mean to take care of a delusion? I can tell you what it means to me. I've been thinking about this a lot. If I get angry or upset, when that happens, that can be

[55:25]

It's very powerful. It has a lot of internal force for me. And on a physiological level, it's like there are these various neurotransmitters that have been set out, and they're running the show, right? The question is, do I have any control Do I have any mindfulness in that moment? So, you know, what I actually have as a practice is if I can inject a small wedge of mindfulness, even a tiny wedge, I can ask myself something to the effect, okay, you feel like this right now, how are you going to feel in an hour?

[56:40]

And then how am I going to feel tonight or tomorrow morning? This feeling which is so powerful right now, I know because of looking at it in the context of practice and I never knew this before actually yeah so I know from the context of practice that it won't stay that way very likely I mean some things stay longer than others but once it has come to the place where it's manifest in my body as anger or grief or injustice or love for that matter, then what I feel is that is the birth of a being and that my responsibility is to hold that being, and I think this is where your question is, just to recognize, okay, I'm really pissed off now.

[57:57]

or I'm really upset now, I need to take care of myself and I need to take care of that upset, not by fixing it and not by getting rid of it, but by recognizing that it's there and giving it a kind of bringing an unconditional acceptance to my delusion But also, as you would do with a child, you set boundaries. I see you. I'm not going to abandon you. I'm not going to pretend you're not there. I'm not going to ignore you. But I'm not going to let you push me into some kind of destructive behavior. In other words, if I get mad at you, I could step back and say, you know, Ken did something that really hurt me, really pisses me off.

[59:11]

And that's exactly the place where, you know, so this being is born in me and I would say this is not the moment to try to work this out with Ken. You know, go ahead. You said that that moment of anger could come out of love or there's something that's offending. There's a connection. I'm wondering if taking care of your anger might, I mean, something triggered that response and if underlying that is a desire to defend something wholesome, and your anger is likely not a very skillful response to that. But taking care of that anger is saying, well, thank you for demonstrating to me how important this thing really is.

[60:16]

And then I can kind of appreciate what it was that I can work with that trigger in a different way. Right. So what I say to my ... I've often said to people and to myself, it's like when that really strong emotion comes up, don't move. Right then, don't do something. But there's always a modifier to that. Don't move. people take it as like this kind of zen repression. It's like somebody insults you, don't move, just take it. The modifier is for now. Just don't move now. See how that unfolds and see what comes to mind because you might arrive at a more skillful

[61:24]

response. You might understand the other person better. You might understand, and I think this I was getting that your implication is like, oh we are actually connected and because we're connected I'm vulnerable to something that you do. So how do I want to manifest the connection? you know, what's a skillful way to do that rather than just giving you a blast of anger? Yeah, I was going to say, well, first of all, it's kind of fascinating, because you opened up something that you've never talked about before, and I see how that has ... I can hear Sojin in your teachings now, and what I've What I heard was, okay, so, and let me just run this by you, if I'm marking up the right tree.

[62:32]

So, when we get angry, we're expressing a preference of something. That's I want, right, or I don't want. Yeah, sure. It's usually like the source of suffering. Yeah. But what you're saying is that you put this ego in balance. when you wait. You try to figure out from a distance, what is this discriminating mind doing? What does it want? What does it want from Ken? Why is it hurting me? All these things. Yeah, but I'm not in a place to think about that right then. Right. When I'm angry, I'm angry. And I'm not going to be able to think rationally about what's going on. But what I have faith in, this is where faith comes in. What I have faith in is I will be able to do that. There will be a time when I will be able to do that. And don't do anything. It's like, I don't want to do something before I've gotten to that place, because probably I'll screw up, if that makes sense.

[63:42]

Katie? I was just thinking, that's really interesting. One of the ways I try sometimes to take care of these intense states is to be with them on a physiological level and drop the story. And one of the helpful things I've found, and I think I can assign a treat with it, was that kind of matching your physical activity and energy level to your emotional energy level. It's really interesting just how much things will ease if I go for a brisk walk. And it doesn't have that feeling of like bottling up or something like that. And it's really bad, you might need to break into a jock. Or a sprint, whatever. I find that it takes me out of that kind of spinning wheels.

[64:44]

Yes. Well that's something that to me that's a component of what you do, we didn't talk about what you do, you get into a rather close investigation, what you do when you don't move, you have to do something, and part of what's really good to do is investigate, okay, where does this actually hurt, how do I hold it, what does it want, wants you to run, to take a run. There's various ways of engaging with whatever is this afflictive emotion and physiological is important because at root I think it is a physiological, it's a psychophysiological effect. You have a psychological response

[65:45]

things in one's body. Yeah. I'm not sure this is a much better way to come at it, but one that sort of helps me sometimes is, I don't know, it feels like one of the big learnings, I don't have a fancy way to say it, but it felt like a huge learning here in 3000 was that 99.9% at least of what goes on in the world has absolutely nothing to do with me. So you may have just done something and I may be furious, but if for one second I can just raise the question, does it really have squat to do with you? Gives me a chance to step back and disengage. Right. And then there's another, that one percent that does have to do with you is, you know, it's like, you don't want to be caught by that either. Yeah. How can you be free? or how can you be productive in responding to that? I'm aware of the time, and I just wanted to, if there is anyone who hasn't spoken, or hasn't spoken much, who would like to say something, or ask something, I'd like at least to make that an opportunity.

[67:06]

There's no requirement. Anyone? Or anyone, period. So the end of this section is worth reading. Okamura-san says, I think this repentance is essential for modern human beings because we have such powerful technologies. We can kill all the living beings on the earth. Most of the major problems we face today are the result of human activities.

[68:13]

They are not caused by bad, foolish or cruel people. wars, ecological destruction, and so on, have been caused by sincere, brilliant people under the banners of justice, liberty, human welfare, and national prosperity. These people are often respected as great leaders. Many religions cause problems by encouraging us to cling to doctrines and beliefs. We have to become aware of our self-delusion and clinging even while we have tried to accomplish good. Only in this way can we be free from the defilements caused by performing good deeds with imperfect motives. This is the true meaning of repentance. And I think this is what Dogen was saying when he talks about although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated indeed being the cause and condition of obstacles in practicing the way or actually in living may all the buddhas and ancestors who have attained the buddha way be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects allowing us to practice the way without hindrance to me that includes

[69:44]

every person on the planet yearning to be awake, not just the Buddhists. We have to account that everybody has the ability to wake up and there are different tools and approaches for doing that. We don't have the market cornered in this. I don't do this because of a belief that I have. The only reason I do this practice is because it seems to work for me and I like the people like all of us who are sitting around the room. I like the people who do this and I see them, like me, trying to lead whole lives.

[70:57]

But since I get to travel and since I have different experiences, I also see people in a variety of circumstances who are also trying to be awake. So I really appreciate the tools that we have and partly I think, and this is why I love this vow, that I really wonder what would my life be if I hadn't encountered people who had already taken this vow, if I hadn't encountered my teacher and he hadn't encountered Suzuki Roshi and on back. Might have been okay. I might have found another path. But I know that I wasn't on one before.

[72:05]

Before I came to this. I was looking in the same way that actually Sojin talks about He was about the same age, like in his early to middle 30s. He was looking. But whether I would have found something, I don't know. And who is responsible for that? This is where we get this imperceptible mutual assistance, like the Buddhas that point us to the gate that we can walk through, but we have to do the walking, but it also means that all the Buddhas who came before had to create this place, had to create this practice, and so it just goes, you know, it's like it's turtles all the way down, you know, or it's

[73:06]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ