Now I'd like to try to finish some of the, to some extent, some of the teachings I brought up during this session. But as usual, I don't know whether I can do it or not. Trying to find an entrance to talk about some of these things is difficult. But first, someone asked me if we could have any time during this last lecture for questions. And it's okay with me. For the most part I hope that I'll be able to see at least some of you in seminars where during this next few months where we'll have time to discuss things and question things more.

[01:17]

But if somebody has a question now or at some point please Before I get lost in my lecture. You're sitting in the first seat, You're sitting in the first seat, so you have to speak. I understand. Yes. Or I think that in Zen or in Buddhism, it is tried to do parinirvana over the body, which we generally call asinine.

[02:38]

And I would like to know, what is the religious aspect of that? But that always affects the material. Where is the reaction in these things? The experience I made through the Sesshin is that in Zen and in Buddhism, you enter certain territories through the body.

[03:44]

And please correct me if I don't translate properly. And Droshi emphasizes always how important it is, for example, with the full bow, to have subtle awarenesses and perceptions and increase your inner awareness. My question now is, where is the religious aspect here? What is religion to you? That's my question. That's the question. But you're asking it. I didn't raise the question. Yes. It's physical. Does it transcend the physical or isn't there anything transcendental after all?

[04:50]

In Buddhism there's nothing transcendental. Depends what you mean by transcendental, of course. I mean, I didn't bring up the idea of religious anything, but you did. So do you feel something's missing or are you just perplexed? Okay. Yeah, sure, why not? It's the husband and wife team. I think that we are doing religion and you didn't talk about it.

[06:02]

That's why the question comes up. And when I walk in and I carry the bullet trail, I, what, that's religion and this. So I don't know why I'm doing this and what it means. Okay, anyone else? Yeah. Why do Zen monks shave their head? Oh, gosh. You and Ulrike, now there's another team. Because the founder of Zen Buddhism, Dhamma, had a lot of hair, long beard and so on. In the paintings. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't planning to suggest you shave your head yet. Okay, anyone else?

[07:06]

Yeah, we don't know what we're doing is true. Or me, at least I don't know. This came up in Cortona with brother David and it's not an easy question. I think you can say that Buddhism somehow ends up, the actual practice of Buddhism, the people who practice Buddhism, end up in a territory that is in almost every respect similar to the territory that, say, Christian monastics end up in. I had a... I reckon I had a... interesting...

[08:17]

meeting in St. Francis's monastic cave near Cortona. And after the conference, we went to look at this place, which was only a few kilometers from Cortona. Where St. Francis created a kind of cave, a cell cave, which is now a monastery. And it's not a big tourist place like St.

[09:50]

Francis' huge cathedral where his coffin tomb is. Mm-hmm. And anyway, so we went in and there were some other tourists there. And we were looking at things. And suddenly this man who looked about 50 or so with a lot of vitality appeared. And he spoke some halting English. And I don't know, we took a liking to each other.

[10:55]

So he started talking to us about what happened there and so forth. And suddenly he took us up into the monastery where you know, the tourists don't go and I don't think women go very often. Maybe he didn't look carefully at us. Anyway, so we went up and he took us to the little church that's in it and then through the rooms and finally up to a long row of cells And he opened the door of one and showed us in and said that he was a novitiate in this cell 50 years earlier. Which makes him about 70, at least, not 50.

[12:11]

So it was quite cold, actually, and a lot colder than, or at least as cold as it was on the coldest day here. So we're walking around, and he's in these sort of sandals, barefoot. At some point I said to him, aren't your feet a little cold? He said, oh no, I'm used to it. So I smiled at him and he said, actually I take an ice cold shower every morning. Yeah, I said, oh. And he said, in fact, as soon as I finish meeting with you, I'm going to take my afternoon one.

[13:15]

Evening shot. And I said, uh, do all the monks take, this is part of your practice, do all the monks take these cold showers? He said, oh no, it would kill them. So I thought, jeez, okay. So we walked some more and we went up and out over the bridge and this man A monastery is built right up into the cliff of a mountainous stream that comes down. And I'd asked him how he spoke English pretty well, and he said he'd been to England two or three times and to America once.

[14:29]

And so anyway, we walked out, and I wasn't going to tell him that I was a Buddhist. I thought I'd just, why bother him with that? But he took so much time with us and showed us so lovingly the monastery inside now that I decided I should just say that I was a Buddhist. And so I told him that I was a Buddhist and that I liked this place particularly because it was like Tassajara, the monastery I co-founded with Sikirushi. It was built, I didn't tell him all that, but it was built up into the, face of a side of a mountain on a real rocky river stream.

[15:43]

And a lot of the buildings are quite old, built in the last century out of the rocks of the mountain. So anyway, I said this to him. And I said I'd like to send him a picture or something or communicate with him. He said, oh, I'll go get my address. And I told him that I would like to send him a photo of this place Tassajara and stay in touch with him. And he said, wait, I'll quickly get my address. And he came back with a postcard of the place and his address written on it. Brother Theobaldo... Ricci. Ricci. Theobaldo Ricci. Isn't that great? And... Here was this totally alive man standing in front of me, and I said to him that I told him I was a Buddhist, and I said that he'd said a couple of times St.

[17:25]

Francis was the second Christ. And here stood this completely living man in front of me, to whom I said I was a Buddhist, and he said to me several times that St. Francis was a second Christ. So I said to him, although I'm a Buddhist, I would hope to be able to learn from Christ and St. Francis. This was okay to say. But it was also a stupid thing to say. And he didn't let it pass. He said, Christ and St. Francis is not something you can learn, it's a gift. And he just... It has to be given.

[18:26]

It has to be given. I think he said gift, but... Oh, I'm sorry. Let's interrupt. Anyway, in any case, he was just, you know, full of showering light, and I was very touched by it. He was like... you want a Catholic monk to be like. And even though in Sashin I'm not allowed to take ice-cold showers, I still... After you, I still felt some connection with him through my Buddhist practice.

[19:50]

And I think Ulrike did too. I mean, we knew what he was talking about. And I think he saw that when we were just there among the tourists. So there's some, you know, Buddhism is a religion. But there's no God and there's no transcendence. Emptiness? But it's not transcendent. It is exactly form. It doesn't transcend form.

[20:51]

Okay. We could say that Buddhism is usually taught that there are four noble truths. But we could also say that Buddhism is the teaching of two noble truths. One is that the world is, just as it is, utterly perfect. Die eine ist, dass die Welt genau so wie sie ist, vollkommen vollkommen ist. And that the world is also simultaneously imperfect. Und dass die Welt auch gleichzeitig nicht perfekt ist.

[21:53]

And these two things, these two statements don't contradict each other. And this is, from the point of view of Buddhism, this is reality. And reality is our teacher. And reality is a pretty strict teacher. So the... The first noble truth is that the world is imperfect, that the world is suffering. The third noble truth is that the world is perfect and free of suffering. And the second and fourth noble truths are the connection between those two.

[23:03]

That it's caused and that there's a path. Now, devotional practice in Zen, which to some extent I'm a devotional Buddhist, I suppose. I'm devoted to my teacher. And I'm devoted to you. And I'm devoted to the whole gift of the teaching.

[24:13]

And I'll do anything possible or impossible to make this practice possible for myself or you. But most of the devotional practices in Buddhism are part of the practice of reality. They're not really about devotion to something. And most of the things, for example, I mean, this is sort of an example, most of the things are, most of the, most, Virtually all of the forms of Sashin that I've been teaching you and Steve's been teaching you.

[25:20]

And I think Steve has been remarkably open and patient, teaching how to do this simple version of the service over and over every day. Now you bow, then you ring the bell. But all these bows and bells and so forth at particular points are again part of a way of entering into form that's characteristic of Zen practice that I've been trying to bring out as best I can during this aship. So to finish my sentence, virtually all of the forms of the Sashin that we've been teaching you, are details that not only give the sashin shape, but are also forms that are characteristic of all of Zen practice.

[26:46]

And in the essential sense of them, are applicable in your ordinary life. And if you learn the Sashin well, you can feel the presence of the Sashin in your daily life. In one hand, glad that it's over. And at the same time, feeling its presence through being glad it's over. Now in the morning we chant, now we open Buddha's mind, a field far beyond form and emptiness. The Tathagata's teaching for all beings.

[27:59]

Now actually, the word mind is something I put in there. It's not in the original. But I may alter the chant so it says mind, but at present what it says is robe. And in this context we can say mind means robe, but it also means robe. Und in diesem Zusammenhang könnten wir auch sagen, meint bedeutet also gewandt, aber er bedeutet auch, gewandt bedeutet auch einfach nur gewandt, nicht auch meint. So, now we, now I, now we open Buddha's robe.

[29:03]

Jetzt öffne ich, jetzt öffnen wir Buddha's gewandt. A field far beyond form and emptiness. This is actually a translation I worked on several years, this simple thing, before I got it the way I wanted, but it's a pretty good translation, I think. A field far beyond form and emptiness. And we could say the Tathagata's manifestation as all being. Okay. Now, what the sense of this is, as now I open Buddha's robe, which is beyond form and emptiness, Which is a kind of Yogacara expression of Majamaka teaching.

[30:15]

Majamaka. Majamaka. And I mention these teachings because as you study Buddhism, you should get used to the idea that Zen is Yogacara and Madhyamaka and Hua Yen teaching primarily. And this book, I keep bringing what you say. This book I keep bringing in is the Huayen Teaching. This is one of three volumes. So, do we need to giggle?

[31:30]

I'm going to learn. Okay. The sense that the actual physical object, the robe, goes beyond form and emptiness, is an example of this teaching of meeting in objects. Okay, so Now Dungsan, I mentioned Dungsan's three roads, which are one of many teaching devices.

[32:56]

And these teaching devices are quite useful. And this one of Dungsan's is the bird's path. The hidden path and the extending the hands. Now, the bird's path emphasizes emptiness. Now, by the way, if I'm going to try to finish this, I hope you can just relax and change your posture now and then, etc. Okay? Okay. Okay, so the bird's path emphasizes emptiness or trackless.

[34:06]

Selflessness. Or non-self, rather. And the hidden path emphasizes form. Der verborgene Pfad betont die Form. And form at the, at the, how can I say? All right, one day I was walking down Broadway in, no, Washington Street in San Francisco. Und wie kann ich Form beschreiben? Eines Tages ging ich also die Washington Street hinunter in San Francisco. Yeah. And I saw a cloud. A rather low cloud over the hill.

[35:13]

And I just was walking along and I saw the cloud and I thought the cloud's over that building over there. And then I thought, the cloud's over me. And then I thought, I'm sorry, it sounds so stupid, but then I thought, well, no, the cloud from over there is over that, and from over there is over that, and from here it's over me, et cetera. And so it was clear that the cloud was over everything and nothing. And then suddenly I shifted positions with the cloud. And I realized that all these things, this building was over there, but it was all just temporary.

[36:35]

Suzuki used to say that if he had to identify himself, he felt like a cloud. And at that point I felt that. In fact, I feel that that cloud is right over this building now. It stays with me. It's like the guy I told you about the other night fishing for the moon. He knows the moon is always with him. But sometimes he goes out to talk to the moon so he fishes for it. And he knows she knows that she can't catch it.

[37:46]

But even though she can't catch it, it's always with her. This kind of experience of This situation, which is very particular to Washington Street, a particular time in my life, a particular cloud, which made me realize I have no location. It's not something I can explain. I can barely explain it to you in the Sashin. And it's certainly, I could hardly explain it to the other people walking on Washington Street.

[38:59]

And so it's called the hidden path of form. And Samantabhadra, the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra who rides on an elephant is the Bodhisattva of this hidden path of form. So this hidden path of meeting in objects So is this hidden path through objects to meet each other?

[40:00]

Actually, I think I've probably said enough about it, and if you can understand this or get a feeling for it, which I think you do have, it will develop as you practice. And maybe I can find some way to give you more of a feeling for it. But this sense of the physical world teaching us is very characteristic of Buddhism. I think that the idea of a script is very important in looking at practice. When we look at the world, we usually are scripting the world.

[41:38]

The way we perceive the world is in a kind of script. And we hold our personal and psychological script in place by how we script the world through our perceptual formations. Now I'm trying here to give you a sense of how you practice with this meeting in objects. So let's imagine that we're all standing on the bridge out there looking at this beautiful park.

[42:51]

I started to say yesterday when I was talking about the winding water and land here, which is so unusual. And as beautiful as this place is, it was really the first meeting with Frank and Angelica which convinced me to come here. That's true. I had such a good feeling about this place through you that I wanted us to come here. And sometimes when I feel greedy I wish that a place like this would appear somewhere in Europe that we could practice in regularly.

[43:58]

But this is perfect, so it's okay. So we're standing out there. Of course, you're sitting here. It's the same, but let's say we're standing out there on the bridge. And you try to relax, I don't know how to say this any different than this, but you try to relax out of the way you script your perceptions. Or you allow your sense of the situation to expand beyond your script. So, as I said yesterday, one way is just to name, you bring your attention to the situation you're seeing, you name it, and as you name it, you let go of it.

[45:15]

And as you let go of it, you relax into that letting go of it. Now this is actually a specific Buddhist practice, which requires a certain subtlety to be able to do, or for me to be able to tell you about. But if you do this, that you bring something into the attention of your consciousness, and you name it or just notice it, And then you can let go of it. Awareness appears. And you relax into that awareness. Now, if you get in the habit of doing that occasionally, you begin to

[46:39]

dissolve internal mental formations. Since we so script our external reality, One way to change your internal reality is to study your scripting of external reality. And what I've been pointing out in the Sesshin as Eric pointed out, is the physicality of the phenomenal world as practice. Now, this is not usually, as I've said several times during the session, taught or talked about, because it's not thought to be something lay people can do.

[48:13]

Because it's learned, the physicality is learned from being with other people who do it. But if this world is all we got, and part of the face of Buddhism is the certainty that this world is all we got, And when you are standing on the bridge here, you are facing, and whatever is there is the play of everything there is of phenomena.

[49:29]

The play of the totality of reality is there. And this reality is your teacher. And how to make this reality your teacher is practice. Now, one thing you know for sure is that you live and you die. And this is a pretty strict teacher. And you know you can do something about how you live. And if you really do something about how you live, you live in order to die.

[50:30]

And when we die in order to live without dying our life is entirely based on dying. But And we can do something not only about how we live, we can do something about how we die. And since dying and living are so inextricably one, dying is present now. But dying and living and dying, the fact that we're going to die, is not the only strict teaching of reality. There is also sickness and health, which are teachers.

[51:41]

But there's also on each moment, each perceptual millisecond, there is sickness and health. There is being in the midst of the perfection of existence or not knowing anything about it. The full bounty, joy of living in each moment is always present. The indivisible world is always present. But we are Much of the time, most of us are pretty far from it.

[52:55]

And we are so far from it, so much of the time, you must admit that reality is a pretty forgiving teacher. Because we're still surviving. But at a certain point there's no more forgiving. Or very little forgiving. At a certain point it becomes almost too late. But maybe even when your habits are so fixed they're too late, it's even easier, if you're lucky, to see around the corner of those habits So when you face, here we're back on the bridge, you're attempting to nakedly face this play of reality. Now, this is a world that is hidden.

[54:18]

And it's hidden by our anxiety and our ambitions and our distractions and excitement and so forth. And our passions. Confusions. Now, these things, confusions, whatever, distractions, are a problem because they go against the wholeness of us. If that makes sense. They go against the wholeness of us.

[55:22]

There's nothing wrong with them, really, but we don't feel good about them because they don't feel good to us. And they don't feel good to us because we know at various levels that they work against us. Okay, so first you have to have the faith, the certainty, the The fastened in feeling. Do you translate that? Fastened is to tie something together. Fasten a boat to a dock. To fasten something together. Glue it together. The fastened in feeling that you are fastened into. The play of this reality. This reality which is a strict teacher even in its minute details, not in just the fact you're going to die.

[56:40]

And much of the difficulty of Buddhist practice in Sashin is not the difficulty of Buddhism, it's the difficulty of this tough teacher reality. Now the dolphins have been around, I'm just using the dolphins as a kind of one of our lineage. The dolphins and all the dolphin brothers, whales and so forth. Brothers and sisters. All have brains that weigh more than ours and are more complex than ours. And And they're also about four million years older than our brains.

[57:54]

So these dolphins and their friends have been hanging out for four million years longer than we have with more complex brains. And I'm bringing this up only because Horace Dobbs, in his sweet English way, is convinced they live in indivisible reality. Who knows? It may be true. It's a wonderful thought. If they do live in indivisible reality, it's understandable why depressed people feel so great hanging out with them. Okay, now the more you can, whether this is true or not,

[59:00]

The lineage is characterized by folks who at least get close to indivisible reality. Good work. The whole list has to get... Jeez, I don't know what I'm saying, and it gets all turned into German as if it was real. Remember, this is emptiness, and she's giving it form. Some form. I woke Ulrike up from a nap, and I had a cup of coffee. She likes coffee. And I had a cup of coffee, and I sat near her bed, and I blew the vapor of the coffee toward her. And she woke up, half woke up and said, I hope form is not emptiness.

[60:10]

And I said, no, emptiness is form. No. So when Dung Shan is asked, I told you this story, when Dung Shan is asked, what form of Buddha does not fall into any categories? And Buddha is already one who's considered to live primarily in the indivisible world. But even the idea of Buddhism is a division. So this alert apprentice says, what about

[61:39]

Reality that doesn't fall into any categories is not divisible. And Dung Shan says, I'm always close to this. So, the expressions of devotion in Buddhism the bowing and wearing this robe and the shaved head and so forth, are meant to represent in the teaching that goes with them are that this is a way of standing on the edge of the divisible and indivisible world. And I am not, you know, I am a person who's committed to living in this place.

[62:58]

And even though I'm not very good at it, still I'm committed enough that I want to put my body, embody it, put my body on the line, so I shave my head and wear these robes. Now actually, I feel my robes are the mountains and rivers. And the veil of spring leaves and And because I feel my robe really is the mountains and rivers, I'm willing to wear this robe. And feel quite comfortable in it.

[64:06]

Anyway, that's how I think about it. Okay, going back to this each of you standing on the bridge. Now partly I'm using the bridge because the breath is a double bridge. The breath is chosen as a vehicle for meditation because it's the one automatic bodily function which is also we can influence and it goes inside and outside. And it's also, as I said yesterday, the inner posture which connects zazen practice and daily life. So it's a bridge from the outside into your interior.

[65:34]

And it's a bridge from your interior to your daily life. Okay. And in the similar sense, your mind, mind in Buddhism, in Zen Buddhism, is a bridge between the indivisible world and the divisible world. So when we're standing there at the bridge here, we could maybe name the bridge the bridge of the divisible world and that its secret name would be the bridge of the indivisible world but we wouldn't mention that outside this room we Buddhists have to have some secrets

[66:48]

I hope you'll be patient with me while I try to get through this. It's not a task, I'm having fun, but it may require some patience from you. Mm-hmm. Okay, now this guy, you guys, standing at the bridge, what does it require to be an apprentice in Zen practice? It does require a certain amount of intelligence. You all have far more than you need. In fact, yeah, probably a bit of a problem how much you have.

[68:15]

What is needed primarily is courage and generosity. And you don't have to be so smart, actually, if you have the energy, energy enough to, enough extra energy to pay attention to things. Because really the basic ideas of Buddhism on which practice turns, a child can learn. How to give you a sense of the gates to this simple teaching, though, is sometimes complicated. So what's needed?

[69:21]

Courage and generosity. And the courage of decisiveness. And the courage of honesty. In fact, any actual thinking requires honesty. You can't be honest with yourself, you're not actually thinking, you're just glossing over reality. Okay, so the courage of generosity and decisiveness. And by decisiveness I mean you have to be able to stand there at the bridge and just make a decision. Take a chance. You may be wrong.

[70:22]

But you don't really care. You're going to make a decision anyway. So you suddenly feel, I am certain this is the entire play of the totality of existence. And even if you feel this for a moment, you maybe think, geez, I better not feel this too often, I'll get bored with it. This is pretty schlocky. Is that a good German word? Schlocky? Schlocky? Schmaltzy? I think schlocky is Yiddish. But actually, this sense of the wholeness, the indivisibility, the perfection of the ever-present perfection of the world is also always refreshing.

[71:44]

And it's always nourishing. And it means you have to be able to look at the details of this existence outside of the generalities of generic mind. So you try to stop making comparisons, and this is like this, or I'm thinking about it, or something, and you just name it or bring it to your attention. And as you bring it to your attention, you let it go, and awareness comes up, and you rest and relax into that awareness.

[72:47]

Now what you're doing each time you do that is, at first it doesn't feel like much, you're letting yourself into the water with the dolphins. Maybe you also have to be certain that your vacation is now. We think we have to go away somewhere to have a vacation. It's great to take a vacation. I'm not knocking it. But in a deeper sense, in a spiritual, religious sense, vacation is now. And there has to be a kind of certainty about this to make this work. So if you're also practicing the completeness of each act, and you can relax into the completeness of each act,

[73:58]

And you can relax into the wholeness of each moment. Even though you don't really know it yet, if you can believe or have faith in it, this is quite a lot. And you actually may, and some of you have, remember this feeling from childhood. And the script of your life has prevented you from even remembering that you remembered or once knew. But this is not just hidden in childhood, it's hidden in this present moment. And this takes a certain courage to enter. Now you don't have to be afraid that this is so schmaltzy it's going to make you change your life for some kind of schmaltzy reason that no one will understand.

[75:43]

Because the more you practice this sense of completeness and wholeness, with the courage of letting go of your formations at the present moment and feeling awareness arise you you begin to find yourself more in this water of wholeness.

[76:46]

Now, this is the teaching of this Flower Ornament Sutra, which puts it, as I suggested, very poetically, that the world resides in a fragrant ocean of wholeness. Now this would be bringing, if you could believe this in whatever poetical or scientific terms you put it, bring this vision and have the courage of this vision into your activities, then you're really practicing Zen Buddhism. Because this vision of you and the inseparability of the world is essential to the deeper practice of Buddhism. Sometimes we speak of the four perfections.

[78:08]

Perfect. The first perfection is that awareness itself is whole and perfect. And again, as you know, I'm making a distinction here between awareness and consciousness. And the second perfection is that mind and the arising of the phenomenal world are perfect. And the third perfection is that no third item or anything else entering into this field disturbs the perfection. And the fourth is that this perfection of the world exists in each person.

[79:32]

It may not be acknowledged, but it does. Now I think there's two more aspects of this that I should try to make clear. The one is why Zen Buddhism says that you don't have to get rid of impurities. And why it says good and bad are really aspects of the same thing. And Zen and the practice of uncorrected mind says you don't have to do anything about these things, which is what I'm trying to point out now. Now, if you can bring this vision of the perfection of the world

[80:35]

of the perfection and the indivisibility of the world. Now, to see the divisible world, you need divisible eyes and divisible ears and a divisible consciousness. Now, to see the indivisible world you need indivisible eyes, indivisible consciousness, or indivisible mind and awareness. And the third eye means the eye that sees the indivisible world. So somehow, You need the certainty and faith if you are going to be able to find your indivisible eyes.

[81:49]

And partly I'm able to talk to you about this because at least four of you have had this experience in Sashin. And recognizing to some degrees that if you just look a little differently, the world is perfect as it is. Now, although you may not know that all the time, even if you're a Buddha, still, the deeper knowledge of it emanates in you. This world is as it is, and as it is is perfect. And as it is also is imperfect.

[83:02]

And we think we know the imperfect world and we probably are equally blind really to the imperfect world as we usually are to the perfect world. Now I'm not talking about an idea, I'm talking about actual experience of actual people that I know and some of you know. As you melt your internal formations through relaxing out of your script. The phenomenal world by changing how your script, your perceptual script of the phenomenal world begins to melt your internal formations.

[84:19]

Because your perceptual scripting and your psychological scripting are one fabric. So we can say that the inner and outer world is a repository of impressions. And you'll find that as you change your outer script or inner script, very impressions arise from the outside and the inside. And the more that happens, and it only happens really, the more you develop the sense of wholeness and completeness in this moment. These things that before were anxieties, pollutants, disturbances don't disappear but are absorbed into the wholeness.

[85:30]

And they begin to be radiant aspects of yourself. The very thing which was working against you before it remains there but now it's working for you. Now in a sense it's a transformative process. But really it's more of a process of this indivisible world, which includes the exterior and interior world, taking hold of you for a moment,

[86:35]

We call it, when it takes hold of you, a turning around, a deep-seated turning around. And in its various forms, it's also called enlightenment. And when this deep turning around takes hold of you, the indivisible world takes hold of you for a moment, through this hidden practice, this hidden road of the meeting of the phenomenal and the interior and exterior world, when this indivisible world takes hold of you for a moment, everything makes profound sense. everything you've done, want to do, suddenly feels like your energy and your power.

[87:55]

And everything feels like it makes tremendous sense. It's all yours and connected with everything. And the more you've had the taste of this, which produces a deep faith in just how we live in the stuff of our existence, this deep faith begins to allow this to pervade our life in little ways. We lose it and we lose it and we lose it. And at the same time it's kind of like there's a mist, a fragrance from the Buddha. a fragrance or mist that penetrates our clothes and penetrates our mind and body.

[89:19]

And even though we're quite inadequate and quite unrealized, the occasional sense of this fragrance in our life and in our activity Even in its little molecules of fragrance it's so deeply satisfying. In this sense we're willing to live and die. And you don't have to worry about Again, as I said, this making you change your life too much. In some ways you just become more what you've always been. And the extent that more and more of your internal formations begin to melt in the presence of this indivisible world, Your life may change.

[90:37]

But it changes as easily as you might wake up in the morning and find your feet were two sizes bigger. Or two sizes smaller. You'd have no problem at all buying new shoes. And when it becomes that clear that you need to do something about your life, Now in Buddhism, someone who lived all the time in this indivisible world would be called Buddha.

[91:41]

And a Bodhisattva is someone in the fullest sense, a Bodhisattva, Mahasattva, is someone who lives in this indivisible world and freely lives in the indivisible world too. And this bodhisattva not only realizes the indivisible world, but can manifest and realize it and can manifest it in other people but for most of us we just have a taste of it and most of the time we live in the divisible world but just the taste of it is worth quite a lot Because to know this luminous, radiant, indivisible world is always present with us, living and dying, is the gift of our reality teacher.

[93:00]

And the gift of Buddhist teaching. And this teaching belongs 100% to you. As does the whole of this existence. As usual, I didn't get very far, but that's as far as I can get. Thank you very much.

[93:50]

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