The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at adiodharma.org.

In Dharma, you sometimes hear things like there's nothing to become, You're merely accessing the goodness.

You're just expressing Buddha in this moment or something like this.

But then you also hear things like the mind is so run through with greed, hate, and delusion

that we must strive on with energetic vigor.

And so the question like, are we accepting or changing ourselves?

Larry Rosenberg described this story of being in a temple in Asia, maybe in the 70s or something like that.

And the teacher asks, you know, one student, this kind of sweet, hippie guy, you know,

what are you doing here, you know? And, uh,

and, uh, the, the practitioner said, I'm following my heart, you know. And the teacher said, you're following that pus-filled organ of greed, hate and delusion, you know, like went off on this whole thing, right?

Like, okay, there's change to be done here, right?

But then we have this other side, right?

And so are we accepting ourselves, are we changing or both?

And how do we do both if it's both?

So Niels Bohr said,

The universe is so constructed that the opposite of a true statement is a false statement.

But the opposite of a profound truth is usually another profound truth.

Suzuki Roshi offered two profound truths. Each of you is perfect as you are,

and there's some room for improvement.

Right?

And on this path, I would say the answer is in fact both.

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