A commentary, or do you just want to talk about, you know, meditation? Any thoughts about that? Huh? No, but I mean, do you want my political commentary first, or do you want my, just my Zen talk? Well, I'll make the political commentary really brief then. I just think it's, you know, it's a, from my point of view at least, it's a terrible thing when somebody is not willing to listen to other people, and would rather do what he or she thinks without regard to what others think, and would rather do that than change, and would rather do that at tremendous cost in lives than change in their own being.

[01:01]

And I think that, you know, in this case, there's two such leaders of two different sides who seem to be both like that. You know, President Bruce said, I don't care what the American people or Congress thinks. I know what I'm going to do. And Mr. Hussein seems to have taken the same point of view. And they would both rather follow that belief and thought rather than listening to what others think and considering what others think or wish or believe. And however much they both like to blame the other, they both have tremendous responsibility. But anyway, it does seem to have, you know, ironically enough, like the earthquake perhaps, you know, brought for some of us at least a kind of tenderness into our lives and a

[02:11]

kind of renewed appreciation for life itself in some way. And it's encouraged us to seek out our friends and to reassure our loved ones and that kind of activity. But anyway, it's terrible business. So partly with that in mind, I guess what I wanted to talk about tonight is something about, is to say something about listening and receiving, and in that sense not always knowing what to do and not always being so sure about what's right.

[03:18]

Because it does seem to me that for a, if we are to have a new world order or even a new, you know, personal order where we can in our own life change, we need to be able to listen in some way. And that, you know, our leaders or our president doesn't seem to be willing to do. So far anyway. And I'm not, this is another aside, but, you know, I'm not necessarily, I'm planning to go to the march this weekend and, you know, demonstration and it's not so much because I think necessarily it's going to change anything, but it's more in line with what I was just saying about a nice opportunity to get together with friends and share some concern and compassion

[04:26]

and warmth for one another. So I think that's a pretty nice thing to do. Anyway, I'm trying to remember the names of the principles in this book, but I'm not sure the Zen story I wanted to tell you tonight, and I can't. But one of them was a Zen teacher named Nansen, and I'm trying to remember either his teacher or his disciple's name, and it's escaped me. But the story is that the disciple asked the master, what is the way? I think in that sense, you know, the way to go about things from a certain point of

[05:34]

view or, you know, classically it has something to do with what is the way, the Tao, what is the order of things or the way things work. What is the way? And the teacher answered, everyday mind is the way. Everyday mind doesn't seem like anything special, and it seems like everyday mind is rather, you know, we experience in everyday mind a fair degree of confusion or frustration, anger, sorrow, pains of various sorts, confusion. It seems, it doesn't seem like much of an answer. Perhaps the disciple in this case thought it wasn't much of an answer. Anyway, his next question was, how can I attain it? And that's fairly usual for us to want to do, to have the answer and know what to do.

[06:47]

How can I get it? How can I have this everyday mind? And the teacher answered, of course, as soon as you try to attain it, you'll lose it. As soon as you try to have the answer, that kind of, that degree of certainty and sureness, that degree of knowing and grasping and holding on to something, when you do that, you lose it. You lose everyday mind. You'll lose your capacity to respond to things as they come up and to... You'll lose the capacity for your mind and body to absorb experience and respond to experience of its own.

[07:49]

And so the disciple was rather, you know, confused at that point. If I try to attain it, I lose it, then what should I do? And the teacher said something like, I can't remember exactly, but it's something like, you know, let go. Or you could say, you know, something similar to what I said at the beginning of the meditation, that meditation is a time to stop trying to grasp everything and know everything and figure out everything and let your body and mind absorb and digest what's happened and see

[09:06]

what comes of that. Let your body and mind be moved by the energy of things. See if you can open yourself to experience. And opening yourself means there's a kind of, you know, like we've all been experiencing a kind of inner turmoil because we can't grasp anymore. We can't be sure anymore what to do or where to, how to be, or what the meaning of this is. And although, you know, then in this case then we don't know what the fact of our, you know, to open to events and to absorb events, we don't know what our response will be or

[10:08]

what we will do, what will come of that. But we should make this kind of effort. So this is a rather different effort than, you know, it's curious that this is also a kind of effort, but it's a different kind of effort than the effort to grasp everyday mind. How do I attain everyday mind or, you know, and so there's a quality in this kind of effort of letting go. And yet this takes a kind of effort or without effort the natural tendency is to close the so-called, you know, natural tendency, although we also have a real wish to open and to grow and to absorb things and to respond, also our tendency is just to close down. And it takes then some real effort to, not to just close down in the face of terrible

[11:16]

events and to take this kind of time to breathe and to settle in some way, settle into our physical being and be with our breath, be with our physical sensations and be with the, allow the inner turmoil and the shifting around of our being. This isn't something that, you know, to some extent it happens naturally, but on the other hand, it might be just as natural to close down. So, this kind of story though also refers to, and what I often talk about, everyday

[12:48]

mind is the way. It also is a kind of, you might say, you know, it's in a certain way a kind of secret, and it's also a kind of, you know, assurance, and it's curious that we don't, you know, tend to trust ourself in that way, and the irony of it is that the people who do believe in themselves so strongly, in a sense, you know, have this kind of misplaced belief that their mind is the way, and others of us are always doubting and not sure we can trust

[13:51]

our own response to things. Is it right? Is it okay? Is it, you know, okay for me to be me? And we have, in that sense, of course, a deep wish for it to be okay for me to be me. That's the way I put it sometimes to myself, you know, we'd like that, and yet somehow we can't, we have trouble believing that it's really all right for me to be me. You know, Thich Nhat Hanh sometimes has said it's very important for a tree to be a tree. It takes in carbon dioxide, it gives off oxygen, it provides shade, there's a certain vitality

[14:52]

to it, and it makes a kind of offering to the world. And there's a tremendous sincerity in a tree being itself, just being a tree. And there's also, of course, a kind of vulnerability in the trees being a tree, or a flower being a flower. And I, excuse me, I forgot to put the flowers on the altar. Krishna brought some flowers for us to share, and they should be up here where we can, it's our offering. But you can see, like, with the flowers that they have, that kind of, in a sense, you know, it's harder for us, but they have that kind of willingness to be what they are, and to offer them, to make the offering that they have to offer the world.

[15:57]

And after a while, you know, they will wilt, and they also have then that kind of, not just because they're wilting, but because they're in existence, they have a certain vulnerability. Things can come along and step on them, or cut them up, and in spite of that kind of vulnerability, or uneasiness, they are what they are. Anyway, in the same way, of course, it's important that a person is a person, and that we can each of us be who we are, and make the offering that we have to offer to the world, whether or not, you know, in some big story, we can affect, you know, global events in just the

[17:08]

way we'd like. Still, we have to make the offering that each of us has to make. And it's important that we're willing to do that, and willing to be the person that we are. So everyday mind is the way, gives us, is a way to remind ourselves that at some level or in some way we can trust our own being, our own mind, everyday mind, and that this is a, both a, you know, in a certain sense the source of our difficulties and problems, but it's also then the answer, or resolution, or the resolving of our everyday kinds of problems, and the source of our deeper kinds of creativity and sustenance.

[18:13]

Our peace and harmony and tranquility are all also in everyday mind. But you know, of course, like in the story, if you try to, you know, say to your mind, what have you done for me lately? This doesn't seem so sustaining. Your mind is probably not going to come forward with, you know, something to offer you in the way of what you were looking for. And somehow we have to, in that sense, take the time to, in a way, settle into everyday mind. Or look into everyday mind. And certainly we wouldn't say to our own mind, in that sense, you're not giving me

[19:27]

enough satisfaction lately. You're not giving me the kind of experience that I want you to give me, and if you don't, I'm going to beat you up. You know that wouldn't work very well, if you were to, in some way, punish yourself for not providing adequate nourishment and sustenance, or whatever pleasures you wanted. But anyway, this kind of, so this kind of statement is, of course, in Zen. Known as a koan, or a kind of puzzle, and it is a kind of, then, phrase or expression you can use with yourself, you know, throughout the day, if you want. When you're uncertain, you can bring it up. What is everyday mind? As soon as you try to attain it, you lose it.

[20:35]

And in this story, you know, there's not anything outside of everyday mind for you to go off and seek, you know, some kind of special experience, or, you know, secret teaching, or special understanding of some sort. There's nothing outside of everyday mind that you should be, you know, if you think, I'm tired of this, or this is too much for me. Still, in that experience itself is our, you know, something to sustain us, at the same time that it may be something troubling. So in a simple way, you know, we say sometimes hindrances become the opportunity for practice. The opportunity whereby we can more deeply trust our own being.

[21:49]

And settle into our own being, and express ourselves like a flower. It expresses itself in the world. So we'll have, you know, various ways we can, things we might do, each of us. It's not as though there's some, you know, right or good response to things. In the Vietnam War, I was at Tassajara, so we didn't do any demonstrating there.

[22:53]

We just got up in the morning and went to meditation, and had breakfast, and went about our lives in a peaceful and harmonious situation. You know, being, trying to be, you know, do our meditation and our work, and befriend one another, and support one another's effort. And, you know, other times we may find there's something we want to do in the world. Sometimes, you know, there's the sayings, you know, in Zen, people will say, having a cup of tea, I stopped the war. So we, you know, if nothing else, we can have a cup of tea like that, peacefully and quietly.

[23:57]

And we can experience our everyday mind and the, you know, the depth of our everyday mind, which we don't always have an opportunity to experience. So much of the time we try to make ourselves over in the kind of, in, according to some image that we think is a good person, or, you know, a spiritual person, or an enlightened person, or whatever, we're trying to make ourselves over. So that kind of effort will be a mistake.

[25:04]

It's not realizing everyday mind. So we need this kind of assurance. Everyday mind is the way. And we need somebody to, you know, tell us the secret. Sometimes we need somebody to tell us over and over again. So that we can more and more deeply trust in our own being. And being who we are, through and through.

[26:05]

All right. Could you all hear me talking? I wasn't talking very loud tonight. Huh? Not very. And you didn't say anything. Just part of it. Oh, just, you got a little bit here and there, huh? All right. Yeah. Well, you'll have to say something. You know, sort of like, you know, there's an example. Is it all right to be you and say something? I can't hear her. Can you talk louder? Sorry, what did you say? I was just saying, there's an example, right? Of, you know, is it all right for you to be you and not be able to hear? And then, you know, put that out in the world? Because it is hard to hear sometimes, especially when the heater goes on. And if you say something or...

[27:17]

I'm capable of it. I'm going to turn this off now. So the rest of this is off the record. I think I've told you the story before about Nangaku and Baso. The student Baso was practicing meditation and his teacher asked him, why are you practicing meditation? Or perhaps he asked, you know, what are you doing? What are you doing? And he said, I'm practicing meditation. And the teacher said, why are you practicing meditation? And he said, I want to become Buddha. I want to be enlightened.

[28:25]

And at that time the teacher went away and came back a while later and had a little tile and I guess they traditionally the tiles are polished a little bit after they come out of the kiln for a roof tile. So the teacher was polishing it and then Baso's turn to say, what are you doing? He said, I'm polishing this tile. And the teacher said, and he asked again, well why are you polishing that tile? And he said, I want to make it into a jewel. Well, you've gotten the point already I see. Your response is like Baso's. Excuse me, but you can't make a tile into a jewel by polishing it. And the teacher said, yes, and you can't become a Buddha by doing meditation. This is one of the

[29:34]

important stories in the Soto Zen tradition. And it has many kinds of ideas to it. First off, perhaps this idea of that meditation is a time to set aside gaining ideas and strategic mind. Since we spend so much of our time and effort involved in a kind of strategic mind and economic sort of thinking, I don't know what you call that, but Wayne, what will be better? How will I get ahead faster? And the very thought of enlightenment. If I practice meditation and if I do this and if I do

[30:34]

that, then something. So we have this kind of if and then kind of thinking. Maybe if I get married things will be better or if I get divorced that will help or if I quit my job or if I get another job or so many different things. And of course one of the interesting things is that we have no way to check back and see if we made the right decision. Because we only live in one life and we can't be living two alternative lives and try out would it have been better to move during meditation instead of trying to sit still or would it have been better to sit still instead of moving or what would have been the better thing to do. Whether it's small decisions or big decisions or we get married or don't get married or there's no way

[31:37]

to check and see which will be the which would have been the better way and are we headed in the right direction so that things come out all right in the end. So I remind you sometimes that spiritual practice is not like a kind of insurance policy. If you do spiritual practice then things will come out all right in the end. It doesn't seem to make much difference you know. Or in his book it was kind of funny he spoke the mind of clover he tells a story about he spent many years in he was he happened to be studying Buddhism in Japan when the war came the second world war and so he was arrested and put in prison and he spent most of the war in prison in Japan. And at one point when the war was going

[32:38]

badly for the Japanese the guards came to the prisoners and they said you know if we lose the war we're going to line all of you up and shoot you. So you don't think it's so great that you know things aren't going good for us. And this was kind of depressing for them. They were going to be either stuck in prison or you know if the Japanese won or if they lost they were going to get shot so they were really moping around and there was a lot of glum silence and then there were perhaps there's one in every group but one fellow who was kind of upbeat about things generally he came into the cafeteria or dining room or wherever there was a number of prisoners who were sort of gathered together and he said hey I guess you heard that if the Japanese lose the war we're going to get lined up and shot.

[33:40]

And they kind of yeah so and he said well you know what in a hundred years it's not going to make any difference. And Eikinoshi says I'm afraid none of us laughed. But somehow the basic thrust of meditation or you might say the point or what one gets out of practice is not that one becomes a Buddha or somehow wards off disasters exactly but one is more perhaps more prepared in a very simple and direct way to be settled in one's

[34:43]

life, engaged in one's life in a very simple and direct way and to be present and respond to things. It may not make everything you may not be able to fix everything or correct things or make things right but you'll be able to be with good experiences and bad experiences and you won't spend so much time looking the other way or looking for how you might be in a better place than you are. Instead of spending all that time looking for a better place you'll be able to use what I talked about earlier your creativity in the present moment. So this is a big shift in the use of one's creativity and the usual way we think about creativity you know, the usual idea

[35:44]

of creativity is how do I create you know, something new and we don't think so much of creativity as you know, that just our life itself is a kind of creativity. It's sort of the difference between you know, some people think of like Kaz Tanahashi who paints and now he paints you know, big brush strokes. He has a book out called Brush Mind and there's a picture of him there where he has this mop for his brush and he has the paper out on the floor and the picture of him with his mop mopping the paper with a big stroke of ink. And so partly or sometimes people look at that and

[36:47]

you know, on one hand you might think that to be creative you need to have lots of color but for people who do that then their creativity is even in the simplest thing of one line, one stroke their creativity is still there and they don't feel then anything lacking because they don't have red and green and blue and all the other colors. And it's in some ways it's maybe in a certain sense it's harder to be creative but on the other hand it's much easier. It's harder in a certain sense not to have an infinite number of possibilities or materials but on the other hand you can get lost with that and it's much more complex in some ways to use all those other materials

[37:48]

rather than taking something very simple. So anyway usually we use our creativity we start, we say well my life now is not very good I wonder how I can make it better. You know, what should I change? And then you know, rather than changing you know, in a more basic way the way I'm going about living we tend to look at it more like do I change my where I live, where I work, my family etc. Where I go to church so we think about the kind of we tend to think about the kind of changes that we make at that kind of gross level rather than changing the way that we go about things, changing the way we are, the way we

[38:51]

do. So meditation is a time that we can what will make it meditation is that we can set aside that kind of strategic thinking and the kind of gaining ideas that we might ordinarily have and if they come up we can use the opportunity to set them aside or to ignore them or to acknowledge them and let them go and not get any way, not get too caught up in if then kind of thinking well if I can just do this then it will be so much better or if I can sit still then that will be a good sign and then if we do that kind of practice

[39:53]

we never arrive. If we have that kind of life we never arrive. We're never actually in our life, we're always preparing for the life that's going to come when we behave in the proper way and when we do the right thing or so on. So at some point we should be in our life. Don't you think? I say we should I mean isn't it what you want? Rather than to be projecting into the future all the time. So it's a little bit like you know so at some point if so what will this quality be? It means that we have to dream things up. We dream things up to do and we stumble upon things.

[40:55]

You know Thich Nhat Hanh tells another story which is in the same book I think Being Peace. I used this story last Sunday when I gave the talk at Green Goats so you may have heard it. I don't know if some of you might have been there. In that story he talks about a woman who does the meditation of reciting Buddha's name homage to Amitabha Buddha homage to Amitabha Buddha in Japanese they say Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu and there's another school you know that instead of chanting Namo Amida Butsu they say homage to Lotus Sutra which you may be familiar with because there's a cult around here that they come up to you on the street do you want to come to a Buddhist meeting etc. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo So that can be a very powerful practice and it's quite interesting though that anyway this particular woman

[41:58]

you can get very concentrated and actually actually the do you want a little aside I met I was driving back from Tassajara one time and I was coming on to 101 down in Salinas and there was a guy hitchhiking so I picked him up and it turned out his truck had broken down he had been driving a big semi-trailer truck which was a Kenworth and one of the fancier trucks so at the time I had a shaved head or almost shaved head and he said are you a convict or something like this did you just get out of prison the army I said no I'm a Buddhist and he said oh gee I'm a Buddhist too it about floored me you know this kid off the freeway right well it turned out that he had been practicing Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and this was a young man

[43:01]

about 20 and one of the things that they tell you if they accost you on the street or you know if you get to their meetings or whatever they tell you that you can have anything you want by doing this chanting whatever you want you can have money, you want money, you can have money you want health, you can have health so you can get whatever you want by doing the chanting and it actually works yeah it actually works and maybe in the long run you even might want enlightenment or even in the long run you might want to not be bothered by wanting all these things you might want what I was just talking about like to be actually in your life and and not be chasing after one thing or another to be more settled in some way you might want that eventually and then probably the chanting would help you do that too but on the whole they emphasize the getting the material goods so the first thing he had met this woman and she was chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and she said if you want me to be your girlfriend

[44:02]

you'll have to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo so that was his first success and after that he kept chanting and he got his truck you know his Kenworth truck and various things and then his chanting had fallen off and obviously his truck had broken down so you're only as good as your last period of meditation I guess but anyway the story that Thich Nhat Hanh tells about this there's this woman who chants the name of Buddha Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and she had done this for years, 8, 10 years and she was very so called religious about it very determined and she was very energetic about it and very disciplined she'd do it for an hour a day and I think even maybe twice a day for an hour a day so she sat and she had

[45:03]

her little altar at home very dedicated practice but you know the funny thing was it hadn't changed her in all those years see this is where the creativity comes in you know something besides just this kind of pushing ahead but anyway one of her friends decided to teach her a lesson so one day he came over and he knew right when she was going to be doing her meditation practice so he knocked on the door while she was meditating and he said Mrs. Wu, Mrs. Wu and she was determined just to continue her meditation practice, not be interrupted and she kept chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo Nam-myoho-renge-kyo but the person wouldn't stop knocking on the door and calling her name Mrs. Wu, Mrs. Wu and then so finally after about 10 minutes of this she just slipped out flew off the handle laid to her feet, went to the door opened the door what are you doing here calling my name

[46:05]

like this and he says gee you're pretty angry I've only been calling your name 15 minutes think how the Buddha must feel you've been calling his name for 10 years laughing but somehow the you know she had in some way used her her you know her the kind of you know in a sense competitive mind or accomplishment mind you know strongly enough that there wasn't any opportunity for her to stumble upon something or to dream up some other way of being and she was someone who in a certain sense had the misfortune to be able to do that kind of practice successfully most of us go to do some practice like meditation and we can't do it and we can't do it

[47:06]

the way that we've been doing everything else or the way that we think life should be done right I want to do this meditation practice well I want to be a success at this meditation practice the way to do meditation practice is to be very determined I need to be very energetic when I do meditation I should be very concentrated I should be calm and collected and then when we can't do it like that and successfully you know this is a big problem but it's also our great you know good fortune and at that time you know if you continue to meditate then you do have a chance to stumble upon some other way of approaching things or to dream up another way of living and at that time you're in sort of the dark about what to do if I can't do it the way that I know how to do things and the way that I'm good at doing things if I can't do it that way then what way

[48:08]

am I going to do it this is where your creativity comes in in a certain sense you know I say your creativity but it's not obviously creativity isn't exactly your possession right so creativity you have to give it a chance to you know you have to give yourself or your being or you give some time to come up with something and so again usually we think about so creativity and dreaming something up and usually you know often times our dreams are in a certain sense when we start to dream up something particularly in a kind of day dreaming rather than night dreaming we're dreaming up something that is not related necessarily related to what we're actually doing where we actually are

[49:10]

who we actually are and we dream of being another kind of person or another and to some extent there's a certain kind of or to be in another kind of place or another kind of body and so we dream up like that rather than in a certain sense using the materials you know that are there at hand and dreaming up what to do with the actual ingredients so to speak that we have okay so I often use the kind of example of the difference between if you want to cook a meal and you have to dream up what to make you know on one hand it's again it's simple if you can use anything right and you dream up and you can imagine anything that you might want and then

[50:10]

but then the problem is that if you when you do that you have to then and if you actually come up with a plan that way then you have to figure out how to get all those ingredients and then whether it's money or time or whatever it turns out to be it's rather difficult to actually go and accumulate all those ingredients of those things that you dreamed up and make everything fit into you know what you dreamed but if you actually look more closely at what's already there in the refrigerator in the pantry in the jars or how much time you actually have you or you go to the store and you see what's actually in the store then you dream up what to do with what's available to you this is a different kind of creativity you see than the these are two different kinds of creativity

[51:12]

but we shouldn't think or you know abandon our creativity because we can't do it in the first way and actually it's much more useful for us in our lives to use our creativity to take the materials and ingredients and actual events and people in our life in our own bodies and the kind of time we have the way that we're able to go about things and dream up how to work with all of that material all those ingredients this is very this then can be very powerful kind of dreaming whereas the other kind of dreaming we tend to dream up stuff we might do or stuff we might have and then but there's no way to bring it into fruition really so that kind of dreaming you know will be a kind of draining if we do you know too much of it . . .

[52:33]

I was very you know certain things happen to me and it took years of meditation practice to find out you know some very simple things I mean I know for we have some tradition of leaning from side to side when we sit down to come to a stable upright sitting posture and I did that for about two years before I realized that I could actually experience my body while I was doing it you know actually kind of feel my back before that it was just some kind of exercise you put your body here you put your body there then you put it here you put it there and that's what you're supposed to but actually you can actually feel and sense that's a very simple example of bringing your

[53:35]

your awareness your capacity to dream your capacity to experience to bring it into the present moment and into the present activity and actually then you know be doing the present activity in a sense in a creative fashion one day I found that you know I had been for years I had . . . it turned out I didn't even know it but it turned out I had a conception that my back was you know because the Zen tradition you talk about sitting up straight so I thought I should keep my back straight and then the breath was something that was like this little bubble in the front the back was in place but the front moved and one day it occurred to me that both the back and the front could breathe this is very interesting this is after six years or eight years of meditation this is how long it takes

[54:40]

and these things keep happening why didn't we figure that out sooner you know how long do you have to try to follow your breath before you find out that your breath can be in many more places and you know move through your body in many different ways that it never occurred to you well the only way that you find that out is because you have to let go of your if you already have in mind what you're going to accomplish and how your breath goes and you can accomplish making it that way but then you won't but then when will you ever have the opportunity to experience something that hadn't occurred to you or something that was in that sense like beyond your conception beyond your thinking and to find out that there's more to it than you thought there's more to your life than just a simple thing of breathing so again it's just a very simple

[55:40]

example Charlotte Silver who teaches sensory awareness work I read a quote of hers recently in a brochure that I received and it said that she was talking about her teacher who was named Elsa Gidlow and she said when she would go to these classes the teacher would talk and she would just have this tremendous feeling of the teacher is talking for me she's saying exactly what I feel exactly what I think exactly what I believe and I would just feel this wonderful rapport with her and then I'd look at her and she would look away from me laughter and she said after a year of going to classes she was looking at me and then I did something and she said at last a real movement you've been

[56:45]

posing all this time this is about sensory awareness work so and then she said after that things became much more difficult laughter and her real work began you know something something happened something she came finally into her being and into her movement in some real way it wasn't just putting herself in some place you know or doing her breath you know the way that she knew how to do it she finally came into her being in some way that her teacher saw and then she could find out how much you know how much more there was of this kind of work that she needed to do laughter so on one hand it's you know it's wonderful something happens and

[57:46]

you come on you stumble on something or you come into your being and on the other hand you might find sometimes it's kind of overwhelming to think of my gosh how long I've been doing it in such a awkward way or such a limited kind of way so meditation is some time to you know see if we can't enter into this other way of being a way that is not so competitive or accomplishment oriented or you know limited where we experience things the way that we think they should be that we can have that we can in some way be open or receptive or

[58:46]

and actually be present for events that and we notice that things are not the way we think and we find it out the way things are in our own experience and that there's already when we come to our experience with some openness and in a sense a kind of creativity then we find out that already in our being there's tremendous depth and compassion and a kind of wisdom and this is all then you see quite different then and I'm going to work in a way that I get to be a Buddha or I'm going to chant the name of Buddha without interruption or I'm going to follow

[59:48]

my breath without interruption I'm going to have these goals for myself I'm going to succeed at this practice and then there's so the various kinds of so called rules or directions for meditation we should have some way it will help if we have some way to understand how the rules or the suggestions or the directions help us do that kind of make that kind of effort so for instance the direction to you know sit up straight or the direction to follow your breath it's not just something to

[60:48]

to be accomplished but in the practice of that we'll find out what is the usefulness of that how does that help us come into the moment so to sit up straight you know it's like a that's a little bit then like a kind of yoga asana a posture that it actually takes some ongoing awareness and attention and concentration to be able to do that when our mind wanders then our posture goes or to follow the breath it's the same kind of thing you'll be able to part of following the breath is not so much that you follow it but that you have something to do so that you notice when you're not doing it but it doesn't mean that it's some accomplishment to be able to follow your breath you know moment after moment it might just mean that your awareness and everything is so tight and narrow and you've got such a grip on your mind and that wasn't

[61:49]

the point of the meditation to be able to have you you know grip your mind in such a wonderfully you know tight fashion so we should you know it will help if you kind of you know remind yourself in some way or another you know what the what the point in a sense is and not make this kind of mistake about what the point is and be hard on yourself for you know say for not being able to accomplish something that wasn't the point anyway right right alright and even if you you know are a failure then it becomes your you know in that sense a kind of you know you will have to find out how to live with failure and that will be just as important as you know in terms of

[62:50]

an ingredient and finding out what to do with your ingredients as anything else and you might have to kind of there's many times in our life we have an ingredient like failure or sorrow or whatever it is and we have to sit with it for quite a while before we know what to do with it you know in a sense what we are going to make of it and then one day we dream up what to do and that actually that was our friend all along or at least our you know companion or

[64:08]

or [...] that's about all I have to say tonight is there anything that any of you would like to bring up now or talk about or I have an example just went away when you were talking about what's the point or I was hoping that I could... I just had this strong feeling that I wanted to do a six-week retreat, and I organized everything that was great, and I thought, you know, now I'm going to do this, and it's going to be really wonderful. And I told my children about it, and they

[65:13]

were... they didn't say a word, and my daughter said, Mommy, why do you have to do that? I said, Well, you know, I think I would like to become a better person, you know, and try to sort of put it so that they would understand what... And then she said, Well, but you're pretty good already. I don't want you to be too perfect. And, you know, suddenly the daughter, you know, she said, You know, what's the point of you being perfect if I don't see you? And that was... it became very clear that I really had to be with my children. And it's... and it's... Thursday night's off, that's it. Right. And they're very happy when I'm going. Now, you know, usually they like me to stay in for a good night, but this is my day off, and it's great.

[66:14]

How old is she? She's nine. When you talk about the kind of creativity that involves using the ingredients at hand, utilization just keeps coming up. Utilizing them, right? It's starting to get really important to me because I'm really fond of doing things that way. I'm not sure what it has to do with anything, what you talk about, but I started a new painting

[67:53]

today, and what I was absolutely determined to do was to paint a beautiful nude woman in like a forest scene, a beautiful flesh-colored nude woman. And I walked right over to the black paint, and I painted this black face with wild pink hair going every which direction. And I said, God, what's the point? What am I doing here? I have no control over anything. That's what I was thinking about when we were talking. Yeah, I think for some people artists like that. You know, where it seems like, you know, I mean, you know, Ginny does, works with Natalie Goldberg,

[68:55]

you know, in writing, and one of her rules about writing is just to keep writing. And so in that kind of context, one of the basic things is not to censor yourself. And different writers I've talked to have different ways not to censor themselves. And if you, in that situation, if you were to censor yourself, then you'd sit before the paper and, you know, like nothing would happen because it's not coming out, you know, something acceptable. It's some strange thing that's coming out that's not acceptable. And it's nice if we have some activities in our life where, you know, the not acceptable can come out. And there's some chance for it to then become acceptable. You know, this is another kind of, obviously, you know, psychologically or whatever, this is another kind of metaphor of the way meditation is.

[69:55]

You know, that we can, that's another way of saying that, you know, rather than being accomplishment oriented or goal oriented or whatever, that, you know, everything in the context of meditation, whatever experience we have, is acceptable. That's exactly what my painting and my writing and my meditation are all the same. It's remarkable how similar they are. I understand. There's, of course, another skill involved in writing and things at times, and meditation at times, is a kind of editing. Or, you know, polishing. Not what you do with pink hair. I mean, you know, at some point you, just because you do all that writing doesn't mean that you force other people to read it. Yeah.

[71:04]

Well, that has its value too, I just mean that, you know. Natalie obviously doesn't put all of her, what she writes into, you know, the books that, you know, go out to the public. There's different contexts for different things. But certainly if we, you know, our tendency, our strong tendency is to over, is to over edit ahead of time. And then consequently nothing comes out. You know, because I can't say the right thing, I'm not going to say anything. That sort of thing. And so, it's useful for us, whether it's meditation or painting or whatever, at least if there's some arena of our life where we can let it come out, then we're not censoring it ahead of time. And we can be surprised, and we can, you know, greet the unacceptable

[72:20]

or meet the unacceptable. And then sometimes we can, you know, work that into something. Maybe the, you know, black face and pink hair is perfect for, you know, next week maybe there's a story or somebody else's story. You know, and suddenly it's, there's a context for it and it fits in. Or maybe you just paint over it. Who knows? All right, well, I appreciate your efforts and your practice, your being here. Thank you.

[73:04]

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