The story about the fifth ancestor, I'd like to put some more stuff on it, or put some more into it, whatever. So, the fifth ancestor's name, what's his name? Hung Ren. What? Hung Ren. Hung Ren. What does that mean? Spreading patience. Spreading patience. Daman. Daman. Means? Completely rounder. Completely rounder. Great fulfillment. So, he was, he used to be the pine-planting, they used to call him the pine-planting wafer of Broken Head Mountain. And he came to Dao Xun and he said, can you please teach me the way of truth?

[01:06]

And Dao Xun said, we're already old. Even if I, even if you hear it, will you be able to spread the teaching? And the pine-planter said, no, he didn't say that. The pine-planter didn't say anything. And he said, even if, even if you hear it, will you be able to spread the teaching? And, if you come back, I'll wait for you. So, the pine-planter left. And he went to the riverside and there was a maiden there and he said, can you give me lodging? And she said, you'd better ask my parents. He said, if you'll agree, I'll leave. She nodded and he left.

[02:07]

She was the youngest daughter of a family named Zhou. And when she got home, she was pregnant. Parents thought this was terrible and drove her out. She had nowhere to turn to, so she found work and daytime spinning. And at night, she stayed in an inn. Finally, she gave birth to a son. And she thought he was the, she thought he was the reason for her problems, so she threw him in the river. However, he flowed upstream and didn't even get wet. And spiritual beings protected him for seven days. Two birds covered him with their wings by day, and at night, two dogs curled around him to guard him. After seven days, his body and mind were still fresh and clear and alert.

[03:13]

And his senses were intact. And his mother realized that something was up. So she started to feed him and take care of him. As he grew up, he used to go begging with her. And people called him a nameless child. One day, he was walking on Yellow Plum Road, and he met our old friend Daoxin. And Daoxin could see that this was an unusual child, lacking only seven of the characteristics of a Buddha, the physical characteristics of a Buddha. I don't know which ones he lacked. I know I lack big earlobes. I have webbing now.

[04:15]

Can you see it? Anyway, so he said to the kid, what's your name? And the boy said, what's your name, nature, right? And the boy said, I have a name, nature, but it's not the ordinary name, nature. And the ancestor said, you don't have a name, nature? He said, I don't have one because of natural emptiness. Well, what is your name, nature? My name, nature, is Buddha, nature. So, he said to his mother, can I have him? I think he belongs to me. I think I've seen this guy before. About nine months ago, no, about seven years and nine months ago, I saw this guy.

[05:16]

So, can I have him now? And she said, okay. So, from seven years old, he was attended to the great Daoxuan and spent 30 years with him. So, there's the story about the fifth ancestor. And as I mentioned, in the time he was ordained, he was always sitting. And sitting means practice not having objects of thought. He didn't see anything outside all day long, all night long. Just sitting. Continuing the tradition. So, what I'd like to pull out of this for starters is, number one, the business about already being old.

[06:19]

And I'm not talking to you necessarily, I'm just talking about this. And I would say old, this means spiritually old. And if we're spiritually old, and I would say jaded, then even if we hear the teaching, the ground's not moist, it's all dried out. And even if we get the teaching, it won't be able to spread. So, why even get it? It's like people that go to drug treatment centers or alcoholic treatment, particularly alcoholic treatment centers, unless they're really down and out, they don't accept them, because they don't really want to do it, usually. Somebody walks in and says, well, I got a drinking problem, I'd like to, you know, come back some other time. I'll wait for you. So, I don't know how old the prime time waker is, I don't know how old we are spiritually,

[07:32]

but the issue here that I'm trying to bring out is, when we're old and jaded, we can't receive the teaching. It can't take root. And we've got lots of reasons here to be jaded. And in a way, especially during the last four years or so, I thought it was great how jaded things kind of got. Like, no teacher could get a foothold here. People could say, did you see that? This guy's no good. This gal is no good. She's this way, she's that way. Well, she's pretty good this way, but, you know, she's too uptight that way. I don't like to care about people anyway. Male or female, they couldn't fool us. Anyway, that's nice for a while. And we had a lot of reasons why we're that way. We got burned.

[08:33]

But not, you know, the burning was partly from our own, the way we were practicing, too. There's two kinds of resistance. Resisting too much and resisting too little. And we resisted too little around here. And it's Zuckirush's fault. It was so nice, you know, that we resisted too little. We gave in too much. We said, you know, just sit back and get tanned, you know. This is a nice warm sunlight. Anyway, that was his weak point. He was too nice. So anyway, we got in the habit of being kind of like just too receptive. So then now we swing the other way for a while. You can't get me. So back and forth. What's the balanced place? That's what we have to find, you know. So we were swinging way over to the jaded side. You can't fool me aside from the side of I'm fooled.

[09:38]

And now we're looking for what's the balanced place in terms of not just relationship to a person, but anyway, in terms of the teaching, in terms of what you hear and see in the world. What is the proper attitude? What is a moistened ground? What is to be young spiritually, young and fresh, like the beds right after they get fluffed up and double dug and compost on them. They're just sort of like, there's something on me. And you plant something and it grows. So Dao Shun said, you're already old. Even if you hear about it, can you spread the teaching? If you come back, I'll wait for you. So it isn't just a rejection. You can come back again. Just going away and coming back is already pretty good, right? A little bit of a rejection there. But still, you kind of crawl back. Yes, I do want the teaching. Okay, I'll wait for you. Come back again.

[10:40]

The third time, usually, they say, okay. Unless it's a little kid, then they'd say, so, all right, first time. Little kids don't have to ask three times. And I remember Suzuki Roshi said, again, some K-dash newspaper probably, he said, American Zen students are really good. They have empty minds. They don't know anything about Buddhism. And now you just pour it in. There's nothing inside there saying, hey, this isn't Buddhism. That isn't what I thought. You just pour it in. Again, too easy. But that's nice. Empty vessels. Just pour it in. And again, I would also say,

[11:43]

maybe I haven't thought about this too much, but I suggest that we find some way to be spiritually young and innocent, but psychologically not young and innocent. Psychologically sophisticated, but spiritually open. So, I've already told this to some people, but I think it's a good idea to spend about three years checking the teacher out. That's the psychological phase. See, what kind of a person is this? And after three years, then, if you still have your spiritual innocence, then work on eliminating resistance. And if you are resisting, see it as your problem. But at first, don't see it as your problem. Check it out. It's fine. And there are ten criteria you can use to check a teacher out.

[12:45]

A Bodhisattva teacher. Precept teacher has six criteria, but we don't have Vinaya teachers around here, so we have Bodhisattva teachers. Ten criteria are, if the person seems to be studying and skillful at the three learnings, precepts, in terms of their own practice and study, precepts, concentration, and insight. Another one is that they definitely, this is maybe the most important one, they definitely understand emptiness. Another one is that they are always taking good care of themselves and other people. All right? Another one is that they keep studying themselves. Another one is that they're eloquent in speech, but not too eloquent. Another one is that they teach cheerfully.

[13:53]

And... ... Another one is that they have a good memory, but not too good. Let's see. Constantly taking care of other people's speech. It says, let's see, it knows, or knows more than the students, about something. And... on the other list of the Vinaya teachers, there's one which I think should be on the list of the precept teachers, and that is, judge the person by their students. Do they have good students? Are the students kind of wrecks?

[14:55]

Are they kind of trembling their boots all the time, licking his feet or her feet? Or are they kind of like, you know, do you like the students? That's important. By that criterion, I'm a good teacher. Everyone says people are good students. So those are criteria which you can use and check somebody out, see if they satisfy those. Accordingly, if you check those ten out, it's pretty good. If you think that just checking them out is good, even if they don't meet them, it's a good exercise. Really, you're looking at yourself anyway. So it's nice to do. So anyway, you have to... I remember Ed Brown. Ed Brown was at Greenbelch. When he was at Tonto, he had this... this experience of...

[16:00]

when he was at Tonto there, whenever visiting teachers came, people always said, oh good, a teacher's coming. Kind of bothered him a little bit. And when one of those teachers came one time and everybody was saying... and the teacher was teaching stuff that Ed taught, but they didn't believe Ed, but they believed him. He said, why don't they believe me when I tell them that stuff? They don't think there's any teachers here. And he said, well... He said, what if there is no teachers? And the teacher said, well, then you should make yourself ready for a teacher. If there's no teachers, then you get ready for one. You make yourself so that if a teacher comes, you'll be able to spot it. So we have to make ourselves ready for the teacher. That's part of what this means, I think. You're too old. I'll wait for you. Come back. So... he had to...

[17:00]

he had to do something. So what did he do? Well, he went to the riverside, didn't he? So that's pretty good. It's a river. You're in the right spot. He had two of them, cornered between two riversides. So he did that part. And then, he saw a woman, and he said, can I have lodging? So the next step is, you have to get lodging in a woman. Or on a woman. What if you're a woman? Huh? What if you're a woman? Same. That's a different story. That's a different story. It would be a different story if this was about a woman, yes. But, I'm sorry, male or female, you still have to take lodging in a woman. It breaks. You can't take lodging in a man.

[18:01]

And what is this woman? This woman is the earth. Okay? You have to go to the riverside, and take lodging on, in, the earth. You have to go into a little shed, or a little hut, and sit there on the earth, on the woman. And there, you can die. You can shed your spiritually old body, your jadedness, and you can become reborn, and refreshed, and innocent again. But you have to go down to the ground and die. Okay? Sitting is going down.

[19:11]

It's true earthing. You earth yourself. Sitting is humiliation. You have to humiliate yourself. Dying is pretty humiliating. You go down to the humus. You must, we must do this. And so, also being on time is humiliating. Following the schedule is humiliating. Time is earth. Space is the sky. You forget about space. You, you humiliate yourself to time. You follow the schedule. You put yourself on a spot. You don't just wander in space. You know, I don't know exactly where I am. I'll tell you later. No. You're not. You're in a spot. You're on the spot. On time. In time. That's humiliating. We must do this to sit. Sitting is this. So he did that.

[20:20]

He went to the riverside and took up lodging and died and was reborn from the earth. A fresh spiritual being. This process of humiliation is that's what session basically is. You humiliate yourself. You go down to the ground so that you, you can be reborn. A fresh, clean, healthy, Zen student. And then, then you can learn from anything. From dogs, birds, the stream, even from me. So the Diamond Sutra says, the Diamond Sutra says, so What?

[21:24]

These sons and daughters of good family will be will be well humbled. These sons and daughters of good family will be well humbled. That's right. And yet, Subuddhi, these sons and daughters of good family who will take up this very sutra and bear it in mind and recite and study them, they will be humbled. Well humbled they will be. Those who study the Prajnaparamita will be humbled. Prajnaparamita is a woman too. A female deity. And why? Impure deeds which these beings have done in their former lives and which they are liable to lead them into states of woe in this very life by means of humiliation annul those impure deeds of their former lives. By means of humiliation, your former deeds are annulled.

[22:26]

The effects of your former deeds will be removed by humiliation. And, you will reach enlightenment of the Buddha. We have to go down. And this place is built for that. All we have to do is do it. That's pretty hard. It's hard. It's painful. Quite a few people around here are thinking of suicide. But not all the time, just every now and then, in between feeling quite happy. But isn't that funny? In a nice place like this, people think of committing suicide. But they do. Fortunately, they tell me about it. So I know who you are. Anyways,

[23:35]

a lot of pain going on here. And worse than that. But these, this woe from past karma will be annulled by humiliation. By sitting on the ground. By following the schedule. By being on time. Now, part of the woe, you know, the woe that we have is coming from the way we're built. The way we have built ourselves. We are what we eat, so to speak. If we eat these certain kinds of poisons for a long time, then we're going to be miserable. Because that stuff is bad.

[24:37]

That stuff is stored. So, in Buddhist teaching, in yogic teaching we say, the mind is sovereign over the senses. The psyche is sovereign over the senses. The breath is sovereign over the psyche. And the nerves or the body is sovereign over the breath. When you think dualistically, when the senses are operating in such a way that they see objects and we think they're separation, this is the arrogance of consciousness which you buy into as soon as you're born. This is hubris.

[25:38]

This is violence of oneness. This is violence of the earth. And this manipulation, this separation, then feeds back into the psyche and disturbs the psyche. And then the psyche disturbs the breath. And then the breath disturbs the nerves. And after the nerves have been disturbed for a long time, then even when you're just sort of sitting around being a good little kid, the nerves disturb the breath and the breath disturbs the psyche and the psyche disturbs the senses and you feel miserable. So then when you feel miserable, then you think again, well, fix it up. So then you just disturb the senses again and the senses disturb the psyche and the psyche disturbs the breath and the breath disturbs the nerves and the nerves disturb the breath and the breath disturbs the psyche and the psyche deserve the senses and it's worse and therefore because it's worse you try harder this time get the senses and pretty soon finally maybe you fall down

[26:42]

flat in your face and you start being humiliated and then the process starts to turn around because you realize when we have it based on the dirt maybe you don't know what you're doing maybe you don't know how to fix it up maybe you're just a confused person and then the process starts to turn around a little bit and one way I've been talking about is gratitude turns a process around another way to talk about it is having no objects of thought having no objects of thought is the same as gratitude it's just that the essence of gratitude is objects of no having no objects of thought

[27:43]

and heard that one before huh I just made that up guess what I think it's true the essence of gratitude the core of gratitude is no object of thought there's other kinds of gratitude arguments what kind of fluff around the edge but the core of it is no object of thought that's really being grateful for this that's not just that's not grateful and you want a little bit better no or anything like that it's gratitude as suchness so the one practice Samadhi is gratitude you one hair's breadth deviation from object of thought and a gratitude won't work it works partly but part of it's going to start the process going with again disturbing the psyche disturbing the breath disturbing the nerves nerves to screw and sitting and humiliation is no object of thought to sitting is

[28:58]

having no object of thought you and earth are flat-out the same your birth is due to the earth do the woman you take lodging on so then you reverse the process then the senses calm down because you're not using them to split things up anymore and this because the senses calm down it's like he comes down because the psyche calms down the breath comes down because the breath calm down the nerves say you mean we don't have to do anything other than just function my god I don't believe it we'll test you make the breath get upset make the mind get upset make the senses get upset and you just sit there and the next barrage of sensory disturbance come to say thank you and then the psyche says maybe they're not kidding and the breath says hey maybe this is different and the nerves say you mean they're not kidding

[29:59]

hey maybe we'll leave the breath alone maybe the breath will leave the mind alone maybe the mind will leave the senses alone and a mind or the psyche leaving the senses alone means no object of thought so you have to work to turn the process around work work work humiliate no object of thought if you keep working at it day after day year after year pretty soon your nerves will agree and then you don't have to work anymore the nerves will keep then the nerves will tell you no object of thought but they've been harassed for so long that now they're telling you that there's objects of thought you mean if you're willing to believe the teaching and try it still your body's saying no objects you can't do that there's objects of thought you've stored all that stuff in your body your body is telling you that now so when people come up to you naturally go well forgive yourself it's built in but you can turn it around so after a while your body doesn't even feel like there's other people your body feels grateful for these other bodies your body thinks that they're not

[31:03]

somebody else but even when you're even if you start practicing no objects of thought it'll still take a while before your body will agree with that a while I don't know how long years years of training the nerves through the breath through the psyche and fundamentally through the meditation on oneness for the meditation of oneness okay which is humiliating that's why he had to take birth in a woman to be on earth okay so that's going down and you're all doing it very nicely you're following the schedule the attendance is terrific very good attendance people aren't being late much you're sitting very well you are doing this you are doing it you're sitting so I just want you to know that you're doing the right thing and so the boat is the diamond

[32:13]

sutra says this and the Lotus Sutra has a story one of my favorite stories about this midwife she's very skillful at birds and various kinds of secret medical work had to be secret so the doctors didn't know about it and she had all these kids and she had this medicine cabinet at their house and so she went away one time on a little trip to deliver some babies and when she got back her kids she found out her kids have been eating eating her medicines and they were all sick rolling around the floor vomiting at each other and stuff one kid ate 16 blueberry pies and a lot of mineral mineral oil that part about the mineral was an excerpt from a movie called stand by me

[33:28]

hey you're resisting so anyway they were really sick and so he came back she came back and she said oh well here's some medicines so she gave him the medicines and those who had clear heads clear eyes they took the medicines and they were well but some are still so confused that they didn't take the medicine so then she left again and she sent back message that she was dead and then the ones who wouldn't take the medicine went into a state of grief and their grieving and their pain cleared their eyes and they realized oh yeah she told to take that medicine they took the medicine and they were okay Daoxin gave the medicine a long time ago have no objects of thought

[34:35]

did you take the medicine if you take the medicine you'll be just fine but we won't take the medicine until we grieve a long time and the grieving clears our eyes so we can see oh let's take this so this grieving that you're going through this pain all this difficulty of the session and everything else is difficult this clears your eyes up so you can see that it's time to take the medicine so take care of yourself but also don't worry about you know having a hard time I think you all can see maybe not yet but anyway you all will see pretty soon in just a few more days that your eyes are getting clearer they are so anyway that's the sutras say we're supposed to have a hard time in order to clear up if already clear you don't have to have a hard time though as a matter of

[35:40]

fact you'll see that you're not having a hard time you'll be grateful okay so that's those two points in the story I thought were really important that you know you're already old and that it has to go down pick up housing here in the earth in order to be born again I'll do anything else oh yeah and one other humiliating thing this is a little bit more subtle which latch reminded me of last night and also I was talking to Carlos about and that is you know you can't do Zazen I can't do that then you can't do that when people don't do Zazen Zazen is being done constantly but people can't do it also you can't do

[36:41]

the one practice Samadhi but you can taste it you can that you can you can not interfere with it you can join it but none of us do it because Zazen and one practice Samadhi are just simply the oneness of all life I don't do the oneness of all life I can pay attention to it I can wake up to it but Zazen is not just my waking up to it it's also it my waking up to it is not that I'm over here looking at it it's when I join it it's not when I'm standing up above it looking down at it or standing down looking up at it it's when I'm it's actually really to be the oneness of life to be included in it that's Zazen I can't do that but it's already been done this is another part of the

[37:45]

humiliation okay so I think we're just about ready for the big six big six six ancestors used to be known as the six patriarchs the brute the moron the barbarian the illiterate the untouchable the unavoidable sixth ancestor we're just about ready for him but I want a one more story before I before we talk get to him and that is about the relationship between hubris and humus

[38:45]

and humiliation and self-reliance okay hubris is etymologically not related to humus it's a different root sounds kind of like humus because it's got a hue in it but it's humiliation and humanness is related to humus humans and humiliation are related to the earth but hubris means to violate to be insolent and to outrage okay and the root U D I mean U D is this Indo-Iranian root and it means to kick up kick up the dirt standard kick it up so there is in Zen there is

[39:48]

in Zen something called self-reliance but self-reliance in Zen is not hubris self-reliance in Zen is based on humiliation it's born of the earth of being down on the ground that's where it starts and if you forget the ground you come from that's not Zen self-reliance that's hubris and if you stand up from the ground and and realize self-reliance and then you forget after a little while where you came from then it turns into hubris so it's possible that a spiritual practitioner can get up off the ground like a child when they first stand up see a little kid stand up when it first ends up it's a great moment it's a great moment for them it's a great moment to watch ever see that it's fantastic that first moment when they stand up and take a step it's so beautiful and they're

[40:48]

doing it and they transcend their roots it's wonderful and then after a little while they may forget oh what a great thing that was and where they came from then they become start to get insult and stop paying homage to their roots and think oh I here I am standing up I'm doing this all by myself I don't need the earth to do this I just happen to be standing on it then it gets to be insulting so when you stand up on the earth that's a wonderful moment for all of us self-reliant overcoming your dependence on the earth but not forgetting your dependence on the earth overcoming doesn't mean you forget it it means you stand up on your own and you realize I'm doing this in dependence on that that's not that self-reliance and that self-reliance is you know so important

[41:53]

in Buddhism especially when it moves to a new country and you'll see a lot of self-reliance in the six ancestors really being out there and saying this is my understanding and I want to talk about it but it's based on humiliation and you can always lose it you can always forget and slip into hubris some people even slip into hubris from around the ground there's no situation when you can't do it we're very clever I told you the story about when I was a kid I when I was eight years old I hired a kid to beat me up in public you ever hear about that? No. Well I did that when I was eight years old. Big kid?

[43:01]

Huh? A bigger kid? Well he wasn't he wasn't a lot bigger than me he's about my size and everybody sat there and watched and said why is he making you do that? What's he up to now? They knew that you had sort of set that situation up. Well what did you have in mind? What did I have in mind? Well I was getting kind of long at being being you know being arrogant so I thought I would lower myself I thought I could I thought I could lower myself by you know according to my plan I don't like it's true I don't like being up here all by myself sort of being a boss at the playground so I want to be friends with my friends right so I had

[44:03]

one of them beat me up but I get to choose which one to beat me up and he was working for me yeah it wasn't it wasn't like I just sort of went up to some guy that was two or three years older than me and said I wanted to look humble so people would like me I didn't want to really be humble just smash down the ground it's like putting marbles on your head so tomorrow read about the barbarian from the south and start studying this wonderful ancestor slipping into hubris how do I prevent it yeah I don't I don't prevent it well I

[45:20]

guess the the main thing is just first I guess I first of all say that I probably won't that I probably will slip into it and then just sort of am I this is it is this hubris you just keep ask just be open to the possibility that what you're doing is hubris at any given time standing up or laying down you could be insulting or you could be becoming arrogant right and just being open to that or even just maybe almost this plain-out admitting that you are might be that won't prevent it but it kind of keeps it you know it keeps it from getting totally taking over and really destroying everything because just remembering it is kind of humiliating starts to bring it down a little bit it brings me down but never completely so I guess just just always

[46:22]

be as much as possible be be ready for that possibility and don't ever cross it off the list but don't don't ever cross that list plus even even check the list now and then a possible possible errors like and also when you practice as and don't don't slip into thinking that you're doing Zazen remember that everybody here and a lot more than this is making it possible for you to sit here you're making some contribution and you can pat yourself on the back for it's okay to say I did a good job but not in such a way that you forget who made that possible besides you and if you think of all the things that make it possible besides your effort then even though you appreciate yourself you also recognize other people and you don't put yourself up above them and you don't

[47:23]

outrage the rest of the earth so those kinds of practices help nothing can sure avoid it because then you can say I'm really good at this one yes well that's good too that's all the better other people can help you too if you take you tell other people that you know that you're open to their feedback and that you want them to ask you about things if they feel funny about them that also helps so setting up a support system of hubris hunters also yeah I guess particularly the ones that irritate us or anything that irritates us is always a good help yeah so living in a sangha with a variety of people and not eliminating those who don't like you is also helps and also not eliminating those who can talk and the courage to talk and say you know what are you doing

[48:30]

I don't get it what's what's this got to do with anything you know this kind of making sure that there's people like that in your life well you don't have to import them because again if you import them you choose the ones that you know but just don't eliminate the ones who are who are being questioning what you're up to as a matter of fact hold on to those a little bit tighter than the other ones friends Romans and countrymen know what is it the mafia people say keep your huh Machiavelli's keep your friends close to your enemies close Machiavelli said that that's great Mafia says that too that's tricky doesn't right yeah keep your keep your friends and your family close keep your enemies

[49:33]

closer and make sure your advisors can talk all that stuff is that helps too but still nothing can nothing's for sure so deep in your heart be suspicious of yourself not other people other people you know they're bad Oh Oh

[50:48]

I

[51:28]

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