Often when I'm preparing to give a lecture, I say to myself, you're greedy, because I want to accomplish so much. I thought I might tell you what I'd like to accomplish. I'd like to get clearer about the teaching of our lineage, and particularly for starters, to go a little bit more into depth about the teaching of Sagan Gyoshi, where he talked about how to avoid falling into steps and stages. I'd like to do more of that study. I'd also like to become more fluent with you about the teaching which is given in the case

[01:06]

Heide of the Blue Cliff Record, which is the consciousness of a newborn baby. Does the newborn baby have the sixth consciousness? And I would also like, because this is Sesshin, and also because in order to study these other two things, we need concentration, I would like to talk about some concentration practices, and also talk about how these concentration practices are also not only ways to harmonize our own body and mind, but ways to harmonize the environment here. Those are my immediate desires. I can't help it, that's the way it is. And right off, I'm trying to be patient with myself and accept myself as being the kind

[02:14]

of person that wants to accomplish so much, that has ambitions like that. And I don't know quite where to start. When I was in our class the other night where we were discussing Case 80 of the Blue Cliff Record, afterwards, Brian gave me an article, which is an interview with Alice Miller, some of you may know about. Alice Miller has written some books, for example, one of her books is called Prisoner of Childhood,

[03:15]

The Drama of the Gifted Child, and in there she talks about how gifted children, all children, but particularly gifted children, children that are very sensitive and intuit their parents' needs, have a tendency to try to do what their parents would like, because we depend on our parents for love and food and so on, so if we're sharp we can perceive what they would like us to do. The problem is that sometimes we don't want to do what they would like us to do when we're young, and that's okay, because we have different desires from our parents, that's not the problem.

[04:20]

The problem is, it's not even a problem that we want to do what they want, because that also makes sense, because, in fact, that will please them. The problem is that it's difficult for us to maintain the awareness of what we want, and the awareness of what they want, and it's hard for us to remember what we want to do while we're doing what they want us to do. So, and again, that difficulty is, I don't call it good or bad, that's just a difficulty that we have in life. The problem is that we forget what we want when we suppress it, and after a while forget it, can't even find it anymore. One time, Taya used to take gymnastic classes and she would go to the classes and while

[05:35]

she was waiting for her turn she would do various other things that had nothing to do with gymnastics, which annoyed the teacher, and if Rusa was there, annoyed Rusa, for example, she would talk and jump around and play all kinds of games while waiting for her turn to do the gymnastics. One day, Rusa told me, Taya was very good at gymnastics today, and I said to Taya afterwards, I heard you did really well in gymnastics, and she said something like, yeah, but it was really hard, it was really hard to be good the whole time, and not to do all the things I wanted to do, but I felt good that she could, she was still in touch with all these extraneous little things that she wanted to do, but she decided to put down for a little

[06:40]

while to please her gymnastics teacher. A lot of people become psychotherapists because they can hear about other people's feelings, and they like to hear other people's feelings because they themselves no longer know their own. I guess my fundamental thing, thing I feel real close to is the expression, the accomplishment of great peace has no special signs. The family style of peasants is most pristine, only concerned with village songs and festival

[07:53]

drinking. So I wonder, what are the village songs here, and what is festival drinking there? So we should have village songs, and so in a sense, what I like to think about what I'm doing in these lectures, and our session schedule, and what other things we do here as village songs, and then I think, well, village songs are something that probably the people in the village know, so there may not be so many songs that we all know so well, so there may be some kind of, that's part of what I'd like to do is for us to learn these songs so we can sing them together. But it's in the context I give them or offer them, in the context of learning these songs,

[09:00]

not so much that, they're not, they're just things we do here. Before we had our discussion yesterday, I was thinking that some artists, some very great artists, create some kind of a noise around them when they work.

[10:14]

That a kind of background noise sometimes helps concentration. And sitting here, we have a kind of background noise of the stream and the birds, in which we try to practice concentration. And for some reason, in airplanes, you hear the airplane, but for some reason or other, when we turn the generator on, a lot of us think, well, this is a different kind of background noise from the birds and the stream. We have trouble accepting that one, which I understand, it's different, isn't it? And in San Francisco, with our Zenda right under the alley there sometimes, listening to people work on their cars and have the radio on and stuff, sometimes we have trouble

[11:27]

just hearing that, like the stream or like blue jays. But the thing I think most Zen students have more trouble with is the internal background noise. We have some tendency, I think, to not necessarily see that as helpful and to be a little tougher on our internal thoughts than those bird songs. Now, one explanation for why we are less tolerant of our internal thoughts and the sound of the generator is that there's a kind of compulsiveness.

[12:28]

Maybe our internal thoughts, it's harder for us to see the rhythm and dance in them, so it seems to be different. And maybe the generator sounds different than the sporadic, complex pattern with which the blue jays and the stream make their sound. I don't know why it is that we are less tolerant of our own thinking. But anyway, a lot of students say, you know, I'm becoming intolerant or I'm intolerant of all these distractions in my mind to my concentration practice. Another difference between, I don't know about the generator, but our internal thoughts is that we don't necessarily get drawn away to the stream, we don't go off with the stream. We can feel concentrated and hear the sound of the stream all around our concentration

[13:35]

and even feel more concentrated sometimes when it starts to rain or storm, but we don't tend to sort of grab onto the sound of the stream and go off with it, whereas our internal thoughts, we have a tendency to do that more, so we experience it maybe as undermining our concentration. So my first recommendation is that we try to be open to the possibility of listening to our internal thoughts, feelings, emotions, concepts and so on, like as though they were birds in the trees, as though they were the sound of the stream. This is actually a traditional recommendation, that you don't necessarily let them get you down and draw you away just because you think they're inside.

[14:39]

Don't be any more embarrassed for your own blue jay-like sounds than you are for the blue jays. Should we do the same for the concentration practices? How do you mean? To just think of them as things, as being the birds, just kind of flying off. Sure, yeah, yeah, fine. Concentration practices as something you're trying to do or something you'd like to accomplish or some kind of technique you're practicing, but it's also like just background noise too. Everything's just background noise to emptiness. Everything's just background noise to the fundamental. And without this background noise, there is no fundamental.

[15:47]

It's always just the center of all of it, the ground of all of it. So again, I don't know quite which direction to step. I think I'll step towards Sagan Gyoshi. When he went to the ancestor, he asked, how can we avoid falling into steps and stages? And the ancestor said, what have you been doing?

[16:58]

And he said, I haven't even been practicing the four noble truths. And the ancestor said, what stage have you fallen into? And he said, if I haven't even been practicing the four noble truths, what stages are there to fall into? This is an example of something which I hope will someday be a village song here. And I wondered if I could ask you, all of you, to play the part of the ancestor. And I'll be Sagan Gyoshi. All of you together are the big ancestor.

[18:02]

So I ask you, how can I avoid falling into steps and stages? For those who do not want to play the game, raise their hands, please. What have you been doing, is the ancestor's line. You just learned the one line of the causal nexus. How can I avoid falling into steps and stages? What have you been doing? By the way, the next line of the ancestor is, what stage have you fallen into?

[19:03]

I haven't even been practicing the four noble truths. What stage have you fallen into? Oops. If I haven't even been practicing the four noble truths, what stages are there to fall into? And then the ancestor says. Well, where is that stage? That's my line. I thought you asked the original question. Didn't you ask the original one? How can you avoid falling into them? But if you aren't even there, why are you even asking? So before the first question, why was he even concerned about that? Because he answers his own question. Yeah. So why did he ask it? Yeah, he answers his own question, so why did he ask it? Right. But why would anyone be concerned? First of all, if you already knew the answer, as you see, why would you ask?

[20:05]

But even if you didn't know the answer at the end there, why would you ask? Okay, you see those two questions? Does that make sense? Yeah. Can you see that he kind of answered his own question by the end? But let's say he hadn't answered it, then wouldn't you also wonder why he would even be concerned? What's so bad about following the steps and stages, especially if you're pretty good like him, and you can probably get up to the top step anyway? This is a difficult point for me actually, and that is that the Abhidharmasaka Sutra says, even the Bodhisattva on the tenth stage still sees reality as though through gauze. So, in one sense, the Bodhisattva cannot see reality clearly until everyone sees it.

[21:13]

On the other side, if you don't get into a practice which gets you up to a high level of development, where you can't see reality except through some kind of ... still through some filter, which the filter is the stage you're on and the great progress you've made, maybe that's better than making all this progress and still not really being able to see clearly. So, in some sense, there's something in the Zen lineage about not even getting involved in steps and stages in the first place. And yet, the people who do this practice called not getting involved in steps and stages, they practice really hard somehow, and then they're really sincere and diligent in their practice. And sometimes people say you have to prepare a long time in order to do this practice, just to have an ordinary mind.

[22:16]

So, he was concerned in the first place about not falling into it, because there is the teaching that even the Bodhisattvas on the level of Manjushri Bodhisattva and Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, and Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, even these very highly developed Bodhisattvas who have developed this, their development is equal to a Buddha. Still, they don't make it. But beings who are even before the first step share Buddha's mind. As soon as you take one step up the ladder, you already make a mistake and slip backwards. So, how can you avoid getting into steps and stages? What stage?

[23:29]

Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm where you are. Thank you. Which reminds me, I mean, sorry, it reminds me, there's no connection, it just happened to me. One of the things Alice Miller said, what she told us, she quoted Hitler, who said, I have a very special secret pleasure in seeing how unaware people are of what's happening to them. And I felt good when I heard that because it really hurts me when I see people who aren't aware of what's happening to them.

[24:40]

That really hurts me. It's the thing that hurts me most, just about, you know, is to see people who don't know, aren't aware of themselves. Which again is this training of, don't be aware of yourself. Be aware of what I want, not what you want. Be aware of what we want, not what you want. And I'm not saying we should do what we want, as opposed to what other people want. I'm not saying that. I'm saying we should be aware of what we want. First, then be aware of what other people want.

[25:42]

First. Then you can decide what to do. What do you want? I think I really want peace and harmony among all people. I think I really do want that. I think I really do want a world where people aren't afraid of each other. And I think that in order for people to be that way, we have to understand what's happening. And I think if we do understand what's happening spontaneously, we're not afraid of each other. Is there another line to the Ancestor?

[27:18]

That's why I asked you what the other line was. The other line is inside the Ancestor's heart. Inside the Ancestor, you went, mmm, yummy. I got me a disciple. Because see, then he says, later he says to say again, Now that I have a disciple, I don't have to worry anymore. I've got this robe which has passed from Bodhidharma, which is proof of succession. But now that I've really got a disciple, I'm just going to keep this robe here in the temple. Because this robe has been causing a lot of trouble lately. So I'm not going to give it to you. And besides that, I don't need to give it to you anymore, because you are really Buddha's child. And I feel you in your truth. I'm so happy that you don't need this robe anymore. We'll just keep it here. And they are going to mummify me with this then.

[28:21]

And then people will be able to see the 6th Ancestor's body with this robe on it. And you'll be free to practice Buddhism. See, I want to finish the story, but I also get a feeling some other people want to talk about something. Why are we afraid? Where will this fear come from? Where does it come from? It comes from thinking that life is fragile and that it might end any minute. And you know what? That's true. So our fear comes from the reality that our life might end. As living beings, we're afraid our life will end.

[29:23]

And our parents tell us that they'll kill us if we don't do what they say. They give us these threats. So we develop all these weird habits on top of this basic struggle to survive. But that basic fear, I think, is reasonable. But once we get down to where it's at, we realize that there's nothing you can do about it anyway. So there's nothing to be afraid of, actually. That you're going to live right up to the moment you die. And also you're going to choose when that is. So there's really nothing to be afraid of. But when we were little tiny babies and we get threatened, we start to get some bad habits. But the fear, I think, makes sense. I don't know if it's all clear. You had your hand raised, didn't you? No, I didn't. Huh? Just you two? Not me? Yes, you did. She didn't ever raise her hand?

[30:26]

Okay. Big hand. All right. I was thinking about my fantasy yesterday of jumping in the bath with our brothers and sisters there. And I think that... I mean, sometimes I'm really in that mood when something like that happens. Sometimes I'm really in the mood of trying to do a flying tackle on somebody in the dark. And then asking questions later. And what makes a difference for me is whether I feel like I'm going to lose myself or not. And I think that the trick of jumping in the bath with them isn't so much that you'd be 6'5 or somebody would have a steel vest on so you couldn't get shot or stabbed or something like that. I think whether you have a sense of being able to maintain yourself, your frame of mind, where you're coming from,

[31:36]

you're submerged in that situation. And not lose it. Somebody would say, well, if you jump into the bath with them and start drinking beer with them, well, you're just going to encourage them to have a good time and come here again and, you know, it's going on. But if you can jump into the bath and have a beer with them and really be with them, but at the same time be completely in touch with where you're at and what the wider picture is, then you won't have that fear. You won't be in fear. You'll be in control. So, back to the story. I think it makes some sense that he says, first of all, how can I avoid this? What have you been doing? And he says, I haven't even started doing these basic Buddhist practices.

[32:39]

But then the ancestor says, what stage have you fallen into? Now, the point is that when he says that, I think you can see that if you haven't even started the practice of the Four Noble Truths, maybe you haven't fallen into any stage. You haven't even started to go up the ladder. But, if you practice that way, there is the possibility that you actually have, although you're practicing at such a fundamental level, you know, that even before going up the ladder, you're practicing in such a fundamental way. But still the ancestor says, what stage have you fallen into? In other words, even practicing before the beginning of the step ladder, although it's not a stage in the usual sense, it is a stage, it's called the fundamental. In other words, you can get stuck in the fundamental or you can get stuck in the pit of liberation.

[33:45]

Practicing in such a way that you're practicing even before concentration, even before anything, is liberation. But, you can still get stuck in that liberation, so the ancestor says, what stage have you fallen into? See, the question goes two ways. The person says, how can I avoid falling into stages? The ancestor says, what have you been doing? He says, I haven't even started practicing. And then you can understand the ancestor asking the question in two ways. One is, well then how could you fall into a stage? The other way is, what stage did you just fall into? But then he says, if I haven't even been practicing the Four Noble Truths, how could I fall into a stage? In other words, he's willing to come back into the world and have a conversation.

[34:48]

He defended himself. He left the fundamental in response to the ancestor. He's not left it, but he wasn't holding on to the fundamental and entered into the logic of the conversation. This is a very similar conversation to a previous one. Do you remember one in the past we talked about that's like this? Which one? Yeah, how do you say it? Do you remember? Do you remember this? No, I have no further involvement. Yeah, he comes and he says, I have no further involvement. And Bodhidharma says, Doesn't that fall into nihilism? No. And then he says, Right. Okay. I'm doing a science class, good for you. Okay, you hear that song?

[35:54]

The second ancestor goes to Bodhidharma and says, I have no more involvements. No more involvements is the same as, I haven't even started to practice Buddhism yet. I haven't even started to practice yet. Is the same as I have no further involvements. Same thing. At the end of all involvements is like you never even heard about him. Okay? And Bodhidharma says, Isn't that nihilism? That's the same question. Isn't that nihilism? What stage did you fall into just now when you said you hadn't even started to practice? You smarty pants. And he says, no, it's not nihilism. And Bodhidharma says, prove it. In the story we just said, he didn't ask him to prove it. He just said, What stage did you fall into? Is that nihilism? Are you stuck in the fundamental? And Quaker said, Okay, you want me to prove it? I'm always clear.

[36:57]

Words can't reach it. Okay? And Sagan Gyoshi says, If I haven't even started to practice Buddhism yet, how could I fall into stages? Same statement. I haven't even started to practice Buddhism yet, how could it fall into stages? I'm always clear and aware. Words can't reach it. Same thing. The nice thing about these stories is they're the same story over and over again. So, we want to do a practice, I want to do a practice, that really is so fundamental that anybody can do it. Including me. I don't want to do a practice that somebody can't do. From where they are right now. But I also don't want to,

[38:08]

by choosing that kind of practice, slip into fundamentalism. In other words, I don't want to slip into an ism. Even an ism out of this thing which is so fundamental, it's even before isms. That can be an ism too. You can make anything into that. And this brings us back to child rearing. Or teaching. And that is, we shouldn't have any theory of teaching, or any theory, well, actually we shouldn't have any theory of teaching. We do have a theory, but we should recognize it just as a theory, and we shouldn't hold to some ideology about how people are supposed to learn, how children are supposed to learn. A teacher doesn't know, before a teacher meets a student, doesn't know how the student should learn. A teacher may know how the teacher learned something,

[39:16]

him or herself, but does not know how this student is going to learn. So Alice Middle's point is, focus, respect for the child is the focus. Respect for the child is the focus. Focus, by the way, means, is a Latin word which means hearth. So the same for us, for ourselves. Respect for the child, for the undisciplined, uneducated child here, for whatever level we're at, respect for that in ourselves is the focus. And also respect for each other's childlike quality is the focus of the teacher. And the teacher does not have, in this situation, does not have an ideology about how the student is supposed to learn. If you do have an ideology about how they're supposed to learn,

[40:24]

well, then the child should accommodate to it and forget about who they are. This doesn't work very well. So, when people become... I ordain some people as priests and when they become priests They come inside some kind of measure, some kind of feel, some kind of screen that I look at them through, which is a screen of the forms of being a priest, shaved head or not

[41:28]

shaved head, robes or not robes, bowls, precepts, samadhi, insight, compassion, amen, the rules. I look at them, and I noticed in myself some pedagogical principles or some pedagogical ideology was in me, and I thought that they should be right there on the screen, and I noticed that they weren't, and gradually, actually not so gradually, pretty fast I gave up my pedagogical principles and decided to use the screen as just a way to watch them run around, a way to look at them rather than a way to fix them in some position on that screen, and I feel myself about to say something which is very important, which I can barely

[42:33]

say. I think that I, and you too, and each of us, have some sense when we look at a person running around in the field, we have some sense of when they are really themselves. Not when they're in the right spot on the grid, that of course we have too, we have our own opinion, you should be right over there or you should be there, but this is just, this is again just an ideology, some kind of dead opinion about where they should be in this field. We have those too, but I say trash those. But there is something which I think we do have, and that is we have a sense of when a person lights up and becomes themselves in that situation. I think we have an intuitive wisdom in us that can tell when a person's face is on their face. Do you always love them?

[43:37]

At that point do you always love them? You sure do. And also you're not afraid of them. And you're not afraid of anything at that moment, no question about it. And so I can say to someone, I feel your face is not on your face. You may be on the goal line or on the fifty yard line or whatever, or right in the center of the thing, but your face is not on your face, that's my opinion, that's my view. I think we have that about each other. And so the form of practice, the schedule, the monastery, the style of being a priest, the style of being a Soto Zen priest or a Rinzai Zen priest or a Catholic priest or a Rinzai layman or a Soto layman, whatever, anyway, these styles give us some way to look at each other. We can't look at each other without some kind of something. But the point is, I think our work, our kindness to each other is when we feel the person has

[44:50]

hit on the mark for that person. And here comes the next part, which is hard for me to say, but there's some of my friends who I feel are a little bit not on their face, their face is a little bit off from their actual face, and I feel them saying to me, would you please tell me that my face is off my face? Would you please tell me that? And then if I say so, it sometimes sounds like I want them to be somebody else, but I feel that they're inviting me to say, please tell me which direction would be more my face? If I don't get invited to say that, I don't really feel like saying it. But some people say, this is where I think my face is, but where do you think my face is? Is it right? Is it, where is it? And then I say, well that's a little bit to the left.

[45:52]

Not I want you to be a little to the left, but I want you to be a little bit more onto who you are. That's what I really want. And not only that, but you're asking me for that. You're saying, please, please tell me about that. But it's not that I don't think you're finding where you are, you're finding where you are too. And it's not exactly an improvement when you move more onto who you are. And you see, the point is, it's not so much that you move over onto your face from my point of view, but that you move over onto your face from my point of view and from your point of view. That you become aware, but also you settled on yourself. Because even if you were right on your face, even if your face was on your face and you didn't know about it, I still wouldn't really feel like you were. It's that your awareness is also right on your awareness. You're aware of what you're aware of.

[46:54]

That's what I think everybody wants. And again, to be at the fundamental where you're really willing to live your life and be who you are, even before Buddhism, even before Buddhist practice and Buddhist precepts. To be that person. But also to be aware of that. So that's why I really, you know, if you ask me where am I, can you say where am I? I say I'm where you are when you ask me. So really if we try to set up steps and stages, fundamentally there are no boundaries.

[48:03]

Where can you put a ladder anyway? Buddha has no stages and no practices. In the end, Buddha doesn't do any practices, Buddha isn't practicing spiritual stages, Buddha is just Buddha. But again, you can get stuck in that. Respect for the child is the focus. Okay, well, in this 80th case of the Buddha's record. The commentator, the commentator's name, by the way, what's his name?

[49:24]

Yuan Wu, or Engo in Japanese. The compiler of the cases is Sui Du, he compiled the cases and made the verses. And then the person who writes the commentaries in the Buddha's record's name is Yuan Wu, which means round, awakening. And Yuan Wu says, we should have minds like a child, like a newborn baby. In other words, the sixth consciousness is intact, but it's not really functioning. Now, he says, a person who studies the past must become again like an infant. That sounds like steps and stages. I think it's true, we really must become like an infant, which means that we appreciate people as they are.

[50:29]

And also, that if they ask us to do something with them, we can hear that too. But you can hear that as he's telling you to go up some stages and go up to the top of the ladder and then go back to the beginning again. Attain the great attainment of being a child again, and having a mind that doesn't discriminate between good and bad. And he says, he quotes, he says, an ancient said, my patrogarment covering my head, myriad concerns cease. At that time, I don't understand anything at all. And this is interesting, because he said, an ancient said, but this ancient actually was a woman, an abbess called the great teacher of pure wisdom, Hui Guang.

[51:32]

She was the abbot of Miao Hui Monastery in the eastern capital. In the early 1100s, the emperor called together an assembly of Zen monks, and gave, Zen elders I should say, and gave them cases. And then he commanded them, each of them to give, to preach the Dharma. And she was last. She got up in the seat and said, if it's a matter of talking about Chan and the way, well, these Chan masters have already explained it. At this point, what would you have me say? Haven't you heard how an ancient worthy said,

[52:38]

myriad words and explanations are just to make you clear, and free you from ignorance. Since this is so, ultimately, what is it? She covered her head with her vestment. In other words, she took this case off and put it back over her head like that, which is a permissible way to wear it. This way of wearing is a little bit more humble. See up there, Shakyamuni Buddha has it on like this, right? He has it over both shoulders. See, I'm touching. And then in the stories you hear, they say, so-and-so approached the Buddha and bared his or her left shoulder.

[53:40]

That means that you take the case off your shoulder and bare the shoulder, as a sign of respect to Buddha, who has it over both shoulders. But you can also then, when you have it over both shoulders, lift it up over your head and sit that way sometimes. Anyway, she covered her head with the Okesa, and after a long time she said, a patch robe covering my head, myriad concerns cease. At this point, I don't understand anything at all. I don't know. Were those her words or the emperor's words? The emperor didn't say anything. The emperor just commanded them to give talks. All these Zen masters gave talks, and she was the last one. And her talk was,

[54:43]

concludes with, covering my head with my Okesa, myriad concerns cease. When I get to this point, I don't understand anything at all. Well, I'd like to continue with these various topics tomorrow. I don't know, you know, none of us are probably going to put our Okesas over our head today, but, in a way, I think you all can do that, put the Okesa over your head, and let the myriad concerns cease. When we get to that point, none of us know anything at all, just like a baby. This has really been kind to yourself, to do this,

[55:59]

and you can really be kind to yourself. And if you can really be kind to yourself, I think you maybe can be kind to other people. So, thank you. Thank you.

[56:18]

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