Part of creating a container, for me, anyway, part of creating... I think the container is... And what I think the container is, is that you get to say, it's true. That's what I think. The container being the kind of, I don't know what, some understandings we have about how we relate in this meeting room during our Monday evenings. So another idea I have about the container is that it has to do with time and space.

[01:05]

So I can stop right there. I can see what happens now. You want to say something? What criterion do you think you're supposed to remain in? With this group? Pardon?

[02:08]

Can I ask you personal questions? Or do you want to say you don't want to be asked any personal questions? Part of the container would be that I might ask, I might offer to adjust your posture, but tell you that Thank you. I would suggest that I would ask, sorry, if I asked you where you're going when you get up to leave.

[03:34]

and things like that. Yeah. Perhaps I miss it, but we ask what the container is like. Well, mind-spanning what the container timing possible is intensive. So it sounds like It's a way of creating a common understanding. Even if they have a common understanding or don't have a common understanding, they're deliberated.

[04:40]

With intimacy, I feel, is an enactment of reality. And we can even have reality of it. We can have different opinions, same opinions, contradictory opinions, only the same opinions. We'd be free of more. We'd be free of fooders and dead drugs and the nature arts and fanatics and all those people. But most people, as they approach intimacy, freak out and run away. Because they think they can't come. They haven't made their commitments that they're going to hang in there when things get difficult. They don't have some idea of what recourse they have if they get scared. Play and sing.

[05:57]

Thank you. Thank you. Let go of our views?

[07:00]

You like to know? Well, then that might help you. Because you like- Are you saying you like to let go of our views? I'd like to. It's also my understanding that this is a lot of it. It is like a personal story. But for me, I think... Wow. I don't know if you're wrong. You might just be like, what do you call it, 92% or something. Probably somebody else in the room has that agenda. Because, you know, some people... What part of the invitation for the South? Happiness. That's why I put the phone before the South. I'm not interested in this. I've got this realization that the South is not behind the happiness.

[08:04]

I'm not going to hear the South. It may be that a lot of people couldn't realize the relinquishment of all views, but we need to get out of that moment or something. But still, it'll be interesting to find out. Shall we check? That's not cool. This one will be there. I'm going to take a look at this one. Thank you.

[09:25]

Some people seem to like them. Some people not want to like them. And so on. We should be clear about this, what it is. So again, an idea which I offer you is that the realization of freedom from your own views, particularly that you're free of your of your erroneous views. But if you're free of your erroneous views, then you wouldn't be attached to your non-erroneous views. So some views are just misconceptions, and we're attached to some of those. Other views are not really misconceptions or misconceptions. But if you understand, if you don't have any misconceptions, you won't attach to any conceptions. You just have conceptions to use as tools.

[10:45]

And I feel that intimacy is a testing ground for whether you let go of views. Because you may think you agree with somebody until you get to know them, and you find out that they didn't mean what you thought they meant when they said blah, blah. So in intimacy you actually test to see if it actually happened with that. What?

[12:14]

Oh, it's got your sound, your power. You can't fully express yourself by yourself because the majority of you are living by yourself. You need partners to express yourself. Do you see those pressure? Do you see them? Do you see them? Okay, let's go.

[13:42]

I don't know Which I know is exactly what you do. I've got all of the long fingers. It looks like it's below the end of the Pacific. It's pretty beautiful. It looks incredible. What?

[14:56]

What? What? Here we go. Are you happy now, ma'am? Yes.

[16:01]

Not to say, be able to say what it is. What is it? Okay. It's a melody.

[17:48]

How do we deal with feeling like we're different from the very active class? We're different from the very active class. It's again, that all can happen in class is that somebody feels a bit much time or something, but they don't want to raise their hand because they can be better than one meter. It's so close to the people. you feel the plague before it's not soaked we all sit in your seat and have our feet in the ground no way the exits are Thank you.

[19:19]

All right. Thank you. When you notice, that's a little bit of a problem.

[20:31]

Basically, it makes it remarkable. ... [...] I don't know. that was good

[22:05]

Oh. Thanks. Yeah. So. And, um, those, those moments I've ended up knowing, but views, people, we know very much.

[23:13]

It's just sort of, you know, being called together. But sort of part, and then it seems really obvious to me that work when everyone's sort of in their routine of doing or in automatic. You know, if it doesn't take very much to make people sort of come together and wake up a little bit, Here, there's sort of, for me, there's a other sort of overlay of expectation, I guess, of, you know, this is the place where you really should be paying attention, you can really work out, you know, because this is sort of what we're here for. Right. So there's this other sort of pressure. Mm-hmm. Councilman? mean intentions.

[24:14]

Who has what? Mean. Mean? Mean, M-E-A-N, mean intentions. And for me it's like there's no one in this room that has bad intentions or mean intentions or whatever by definition coming together like this. But sin is probably about a public and sisterhood intention to learn to get much as possible. And it's based on trust which takes time Well, I think the people who come to this class come here with really good intentions. You sometimes even lofty intentions.

[25:14]

But if in this room somebody says something and then somebody else says something and it really hurts that other person, the person might suddenly want to hurt the other person back. The first person might not even have intended to hurt them, but they just might have laughed at what they said or something. And the person might feel really hurt by that and then say blah blah to the other person Yes. 3, 2, 3, 2, 3,

[26:32]

I don't know. [...] and for us to address the wounds and heal them, or at least patch them up before the class is over. But it is There's a lot of positive energy, but people sometimes lose track of their positive energy when some very painful penetration happens. A lot of people tense up when they stick some sharp object into their tissue.

[27:37]

Some people don't. Some people go, whoa, that really hurt, and they don't strike back. But some people tense up while they're hurt and then become defensive. That is intimacy, right, but sometimes what they do in the intimacy is they intentionally strike back the other person, which that sometimes happens. But I think I'm kind of up for that myself, that I think we can take care of. I don't think anybody's going to get that hurt that we can't help them and come to the aid of anybody that's getting hurt. probably can happen. But it's dangerous. I think it's dangerous for us to develop public intimacy. But I think that's what these cases are about, is public intimacy. These are public cases. Yeah. You were talking about time and space earlier, and it made me think of sort of here and now.

[28:39]

And one of the things that I think would be interesting is to look for some way to work with, as we're looking at these cases, to . . I don't really want to be hurt, but I don't find it that interesting to feel it. We might map a list of acceptable things, and then there's one acceptable thing. The victim is clear. You know, you know that if somebody does anything on the unaccessible list, they're getting off.

[29:43]

Probably most of the people across, it wants to identify the people who are talking about the list. So we agree not to do that. We want it off. We're not going to do those things. We agree that. But I think a lot of people think what they have to say is maybe unacceptable. but they have to check to see if it's unacceptable. Could we go back to case one now, please? Is that unacceptable for anyone? I think we could have the understanding that Let's just say, for now, we're not going to hit each other without asking for permission beforehand.

[30:43]

Shall we? Is that OK? So we did that. We used to hit People's Zen Center without asking for permission, with sticks, hard. And then we started asking permission, or waiting until it was requested. And then we stopped pretty much. Generally speaking, we stopped. But we might just reiterate that that applies to this room, just one little thing like that. Elenia? It's feeling to me like intimacy appears to happen between two, me and another. Yes. But it doesn't feel dependent on that for me in some way. That I'm not sure I'm ever having intimacy with anything but myself anyway. Because, I mean, if I sit here right now, I think my blood pressure is probably up a bit and my heart rate, I know it's all my own inside experience based on what I'm

[31:52]

He vaguely thinking is going on around me while I'm talking. It doesn't, I don't know that there's, and as I'm saying, I'm not getting you on anymore, but feeling that could be here. But it doesn't have words. There's something that starts to happen that could scare me more. You have the capacity to be more scared than you are right now? I think so. Probably you do. You don't look that scared. Yes. I would like to ask everyone, including myself, to be as honest as possible with oneself. And then be able to share that. Because I think what I get scared about is that that people will be hurt and won't say anything, and then it will shut down.

[32:53]

Is anybody even hurt so far? In this class, so far? I haven't been hurt, but I just share that sometimes I can't be honest with myself, but I would like to get into the guilt too. That's me when I think. Yeah, so she's making a request, and some of you, and Rosie's saying that she'd kind of like to meet that request, but sometimes she can't, and she hopes that it will be acceptable when she can't, right? And some people actually might feel like, I don't want to meet that request, and that's okay too, even if they don't say so, which you'd like them to do, but they aren't going to. Susan? I just need to share, in order for me to get a step closer to the intimate group, I just need to share that I just felt, you have a newcomer, Green Gulch, and I just feel like I'm in a room with a lot of experienced Green Gulch cultures, so to speak, and so sometimes I am

[34:09]

Often I am intimidated to ask a question or to make a comment because I think I'm supposed to know more to be here. So I just need to put that out there because if I don't, then these five weeks are going to go by and I'm not going to say much. And I'll leave at the end of every class. And in my head, I wouldn't have gotten a lot out of the class, but not so much in my heart. Well, sometimes you don't have to say anything to get a lot out in your heart. But sometimes you do have to say something because that's what your heart wants. Okay? So I feel like that we have not really... I don't feel clear about the container for our meeting.

[35:09]

But I think that's how I feel. And I wonder, does anybody else think I'm really off there? Do you think we really have clarified the container, and I just missed it? Nobody does? Yeah, I don't think we have. So at least we're clear on that. We have not yet established a container. So in some sense, we need one. I think we need one, and I don't think we have one yet. But I don't necessarily want to spend the whole class trying to build it. But I would like to point out that until it's clarified, and everybody, in some sense, until everybody could kind of like stand up and tell us what the container is, And everybody else would say, yeah, you got it. In some sense, we don't have one. And we're not there yet. I can't tell you. And I don't think anybody else could. Probably. So we have some work to do.

[36:11]

I think we have to do some work in order for this group to be able to do what I would like it to be able to do. What's that? Yes. What? What did you say? What's that? Pardon? I was just thinking maybe it's sort of empty the container and very maybe clear like glass and that we sort of just have to start pouring in to it and then we'll see whatever shape it is. Yeah. Before we get another. Or we may find out where there's holes. Right. Yeah. Is it Daniel? There's something last week about establishing guest and host or teacher and student. Yeah. Yeah. So that's another element about there is implicitly a teacher-student situation going on. And last week, we were talking about images of the circle and this fostica as being the primary symbols for the transmission of the teaching.

[37:20]

So the circle is a symbol of equality. So the teaching isn't like necessarily from the teacher to the student or necessarily up-down. But there is this up-down teacher knowing the stuff set up at the beginning of the circle dance. In the end, it's going in both directions. It's mutual equality. But there is this teacher-student thing as one of the ingredients in the setup here. It's a thing we need to get over, but it's something we have to deal with. Yes. You were doing circle things? Yeah. I was just kind of thinking, maybe we might consider as a container, changing our container as in a room. Maybe we'd like to meet in New York or something. It's more we could be a circle if we wanted to be. And we wouldn't face backs.

[38:24]

It feels a little different to me to be able to sit like that and make a swastika. Mm-hmm. How many people would be opposed to that? Opposed. Anybody opposed to meeting in the yurt next week? Two. Two are opposed to meeting in the year. I don't ask if anybody's in favor because probably, that would be probably two also. You could have. Pardon? You could have. I could, definitely I could. But I'm not going to ask now. Yes? May I? No. How about the beach? How about the beach? How many people would be opposed to the beach? Oh, I think.

[39:26]

During the day? During the day. So for the two people that are opposed, was it Elenia and Matt that were opposed to going to the earth? Yes. We are opposed, but will you come anyway if we have the class there? I will feel well. Okay. So maybe there might be a sign in the door saying please go to the yurt next week. And the sign will also say if you need an escort, stay where you are. And the what do you call it, will pick you up on his way to class. Yeah, Jack Russell will pick you up. Where is Jack Russell, by the way? Oh, OK. Sleeping on the job again. OK.

[40:29]

I don't think we'll be able to fit. Huh? That's why I oppose it. One single circle. No, it might be having to be two circles. Two circles. Yeah. So a little bit of back facing. There'll be a little bit of back facing. Yeah. One circle is, what, 45, 40 people, maybe? But we could have a circle of chairs and maybe a circle of cell phones. I think that would do it. Listen, we could probably try it next week. So I feel like okay to go ahead knowing that we're not fully equipped yet. There's still some uncertainty about what is okay and what's safe. But maybe you'll find out what's safe if you keep your eye on the ball. Yes? It's not a place. Pardon? It's not a matter of faith that the process will reveal itself. What is faith that the process will receive?

[41:33]

What do you mean by faith? So do you have faith that the container will be built? I agree that the container will be built. You kind of think it will be? Or you believe it will be? Or both? I think it will. Okay. Do you have doubt that it will be? Doubt that it will be? No. You don't have doubt. Does anybody have doubt that it will be? Some people doubt that it will be. But also, doubt doesn't mean they disagree with you necessarily. It just means they have doubt about your faith. And doubt and faith actually have a dynamic relationship. So, if you don't have any doubt, fortunately, someone else does. That will help your faith. Brett, how do you suggest we feel safe in a container when we feel forgiven judged?

[42:46]

I suggest that if you feel judged, and you want to learn to feel safe in such a world where people can judge you because, in fact, that's where you do live, right? That part of feeling safe would be to ask the person or persons that you feel judged by if you could ask them some questions. And if they, let's say they say yes, then you say, I would like to know if you're judging me. And then see if they answer you. And if they say, yes I am, you say, well, how are you judging me? And they can tell you. And when you know that they're judging you, I think that might help you feel safe. Once you know, you know, make it clear.

[43:57]

You are judging me, and you're judging me this way. Okay, got it. Then you're sort of like on the ground with the actual person agreeing that they are judging you in such and such a way. And they might say, no, I'm not. But then, you know, if someone asked me, if I asked one of you if you're judging me, boom, I would have some more questions for you. Because I don't think anybody in this room meets me without judging me. I think you judge me every moment. I think you're kind of like saying, okay, he's okay. He's not, you know, he's not, he's okay. He's not out of line right now. He hasn't gone too far. Ethan, you know, it's okay. It's all right. It's okay. You know, I can stay here in the room with him. It's okay. Okay, all right. Your mind is, you've got a brain that can check me out. Moment by moment, very quickly, in a lot of different directions. You've got a lot of things you're checking out about me, and you're judging whether or not you can sit there with me or not.

[44:58]

And you're dealing with the other people in the room, too. You're checking it out, and you're, so far, everybody, as far as I can tell, stayed in the room. That's because you've been doing a lot of judging. So if I asked somebody if they were judging me, if I thought they were, and I was uncomfortable with it in any way or felt unsafe, then what I'd recommend to myself is that I ask them. Because I know they're judging me, but the point is I'm worried about what judgment it is. So I know people are judging me all the time, but if I thought everybody was always judging me positively, I shouldn't say always judging me positively, but if moment by moment I thought everybody was judging me positively, I'd feel pretty comfortable. But the fact that one or more people are judging me negatively, then I feel unsafe because people judge you negatively, they sometimes punish you or whatever or tell other people

[46:03]

They're negative opinions. It's a dangerous situation when you're being judged. So I find that I try to find out what the judgment is, and once I find out what it is, then I know that I can deal with it. And usually I'm okay, but I feel anxious when I feel judged but don't know what it is. If I feel judgments are vaguely floating in the environment somewhere, then I feel anxious, I feel threatened. So by going to meet it and being intimate with the judgment... I feel more and more liberated. And so the basic principle is intimacy with the judger will bring you freedom from the judgment. Whether you're judging yourself, judging others, or being judged by others, if you're intimate with that judgment process, Maybe you do.

[47:17]

You become more aware of the exit. Because you're not putting your energy into despising yourself. You're telling yourself or talking yourself out of others. Rationalizing how it's okay that you're being judged. You're actually, like, coming close to us. So that's what I'm saying. That's what the container's for. The container is to move closer to the judge. And again, koan, as part of the etymology of the word koan, is a koan is a judgment. A koan is something that a judge, it's like a brief that a judge passes down on somebody. That's what the word koan means. It's a public case. It's the judge's judgment. That's what the koan originally meant. It evolved to mean these Zen stories. But originally, Koan was something that a judge passed on. So the judge thing is . They partly came

[48:30]

And it's probably that at any moment someone could turn to them and say, you don't understand this koan. You don't know what's going on. You don't know anything about Buddhism. It could happen. Or et cetera. Some other things could happen too. Yes, Kara? Ah, wonderful. Yeah, it's fine. I was going on. I'm sorry. Yeah. That it's intimate with the genesis of your actions.

[49:33]

Intimate with the genesis of your actions. If you're judged sometimes, but you know, you go back, you see, you're being judged, and you see, you know, it wasn't just, it wasn't a choice that could be judged. Maybe. And when We did what happened. We made what happened. Instead, there's nothing to respond to. Right. Right. That can happen. There is that story. In the scary idea of going to see how we're judging you, what we're scared of, Even that, do you want me to go in that way? Even in that, I didn't follow that.

[50:35]

I want you to go to that way, to that person, to that way that you're deep in your own action. Just ask them if there's a question to you. Yes. I have a question. Yes. It was first Susan, then Sarah. You say what you mean by teacher-student. What does that mean? Get over it. I think get over it means that you're relaxed with it, that you're not attached to it. That you particularly don't grasp the duality of it. It's not, you know, the causes and conditions that make it appear in the world may continue for some time. For example, the teacher may continue to live. And even after they die, teachers are sometimes very important to people.

[51:42]

Deceased teachers are very important. So the teacher, in some sense, may continue to be an ingredient, but the sense of separation... is something that you can get over. The sense of one side influencing the other, like we don't so much talk about the student influencing the teacher, but students do influence teachers in a healthy relationship. Students save teachers, and teachers save students. It isn't just the teacher saving the student. It's particularly if the education program is this education program of being Messiah. So actually, it's kind of where Messiah is school. And so it should be mutual eventually. But at the beginning, it may fail.

[52:43]

unequal and dualistic. So that's what you did over it. I mean, that's what potentially is the point of the circle. Sarah? I just was thinking that When you said we were all judging you, for me, I feel like I've sort of made a judgment about you, which is that I love you, and I feel like you love me. And so now I'm curious about, I'm very curious about you. I'm curious to see if I understand what you're saying. which doesn't feel quite the same as judging you. It's more, you know, and it's not to say that I'm always going to like everything that you say, but it's more a feeling of curiosity about it.

[53:50]

And I'm not sure what real harm, I mean, if somebody's judging somebody else, so what? I'm not sure what the big deal is. Well, I'm not saying that judging people is harmful. I'm just saying that we do judge people. Somebody did some kind of research on, you know, on the word judgment and judgmental. And in the 60s, before the 60s, the word judgmental didn't mean what it means today. Now the word judgmental means judging negatively. If you judge someone as an excellent person, we don't call that judgmental. We call judgmental basically looking down at people. The word judgmental has come to mean a violation of the seventh precept, namely praising yourself at the expense of others. I'm the judge, and you're at some level of criminality.

[54:54]

That's what judgmental means now. But before the 60s, judgmental went with just making a judgment. So, for example, for you to adjudicate that who you're looking at as Reb is a judgment. So every time you see me, you've just made a judgment that what you see is me. Now you may follow that up with curiosity and so on, and whatever I say, you make some judgment about what I said. Also, you make some judgment about whether you like what I'm saying or not. So you're making judgments all the time, but that doesn't mean that's all you're doing. You have this fantastic mind. That's just one of the things you're doing. But every moment, your mind does judge what you're looking at. You judge the lighting. You judge the sound effects. You judge the air quality. You judge each person that you look at. And you can do all that very easily because you have billions and billions of little calculators. So, anyway. Judging is not necessarily bad.

[55:55]

However, negative judgments, particularly a judgment that violates that precept where you think, you know, you're looking down at somebody and you're thinking, they don't seem to understand what's going on in this class, and I do. I know what this koan means, and they're like off track. I know how to study this koan, and this person's approaching it the wrong way. People think those kinds of thoughts sometimes. And if they would express them to you, it might hurt you. But I would suggest that if that could be expressed somehow fully, everybody could get over that. And to hold it in, for people to sort of be holding in all their negative self-righteous feelings about some of the people in the class, in some sense, I would say, well, I'm sorry we're not in a state of evolution where that stuff can get out and get flushed away. I hope it could be, actually. OK, well, let's look at the case.

[56:59]

And this case is a short case, but it's a rather popular case. It's a case that you can read about. This case 78 in the Book of Serenity is case 77 in the Book of Blue Cliffs. And it's also translated in Munan and Dudra. Gabyo is a Japanese way of saying Sesame cake, the rice cake. So you can read Reverend Dogen's take on it, and Gabyo can read K777, not K777, because K777, this book appeared in the world first. And the person who collected the cases of the Book of Serenity, who read this book, would tell them read it because the book was built at least.

[58:19]

A commentator. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, to me, I want this one.

[59:41]

I'll do it. [...] This is part of the world. The world, the [...] world, And this point is very interesting to this place. It says, turning upward, turning upward, you can pierce the nostrils of everyone on earth, like a falcon catching a pit. Turn downward. Excuse me.

[60:44]

I said to him, he says, he's turning up where he can pierce or she can pierce to not break everyone on earth. Like a falcon touching pig. I saw the other person there quite a while ago. I saw a falcon touching pig. I had to sit in and look at this. I saw the pigeon thrown through the head. The pigeon was flying all over the place. And I noticed the pigeon was . Anyway, turning upwards like that, turning downward, His own nasprosom are in the hands of other people.

[61:47]

A turtle hiding in the shell. So, what's that? Who's that? I'm judging. You look like you don't know what to say. You look like you don't have an answer, but maybe. Now I'm judging you differently. You're just all being polite. Yes, Liz? No, it's not turning up your nose. It's turning upwards. you pierce the nostrils of everybody else's nose. Huh? Yeah. Turning upward, you pierce everybody's nostrils. You can just take it. You got it.

[62:47]

No. But you know, certain people, you know, if you pull down on their nose, you know, you can pull her up by pulling down on the nose. But actually pushing up, they're more, you know, they go along with it better. they're more vulnerable with pulling up on their nose than pulling down on it. Because a certain person who remain unnoticed sometimes uses the upward lift on my nose. when trying to torture me. Which I usually laugh at that time, just like now. Anyway, you could take it as turning upwards, you know, take people, lift them by their nose. But the point is anyway, turning upward, you basically take control of the situation. So this is also sometimes called the grasping way. In other words, the student comes to the teacher and the student says something and the teacher takes the student by the nose and lifts them up and moves them around the room or says, no way, no way.

[63:55]

You don't know what you're talking about. And that's what's happening. That happens sometimes. So a teacher is very powerful sometimes. This is about the teacher. That's what this is about. This is about yin men, for example. So one of his approaches is he goes upwards, and he can take everybody in the country by the nostril. He's like a hawk catching pigeons. But yin men can also go down, which is kind of like what everybody, whatever anybody says, basically it's great. It's called the ranting. You rant everybody is Buddha. Very soft, and everybody else can just push you all over the place. You can go either way. Whatever is helpful, that's what it'll be. So you can go down, get pushed around, or loom up and dominate the situation. Whatever.

[64:56]

This is going up and going down. And then he says, if someone suddenly comes forth and says, fundamentally, there's no upward or downward, what's the use of turning? OK? So I mean, you know, someone to come forward and say, it's all illusion. What are you playing this game for? I would say, simply, quote, I know that you are going inside the ghost cave or the demon cave to make your living. You know what that's about? Hmm? What? What's grasping emptiness? Yeah, that's grasping emptiness, right. You're grasping emptiness. You're saying, you're saying, well, you know, all these techniques and stuff that these people are doing, these stories and whatever, they're really nothing to them.

[66:00]

There's nobody going out or down. So then you're like, you're living in this ghost cave of a demon. In other words, you're, another translation was you're living in the realm of the dead spirits. You know, Mara is the name of the demon in Buddhism that interferes with practice. But Mara really means basically death. You know, Marana is a Sanskrit word which means death. And Mara means basically morbid or deadening. So the Buddhist demon Mara, which challenges the practitioner, is various forms of deadening. So one way to deaden the situation is to grasp the truth, the ultimate truth, that everything we're doing here is empty and all the comings and goings are unreal.

[67:01]

And all the ups and downs of technique are very illusory. And then just like not play. But this is like, we say, living, making your living in a ghost cave, a demon's cave, a cave of a deadening spiritual life. Is it the same thing as being cynical or indifferent? It's not the same as being cynical. It's actually saying that cynicism is empty. Basping in. It's grasping emptiness. But it's not being cynical because even cynicism, cynicism could be like the grasping way. Cynicism could be like the hawk, which is like, you know, you're practicing Zen? You're just using Zen as a cover for your selfishness. for your selfishness.

[68:03]

Most people are outside here sincerely trying to beat out everybody else and make more money. You come here and pretend like you're not, but actually you're just trying to beat everybody out here and be the best Zen student or be better than those people. At least they're on the open. And if you catch them, they might admit it, whereas you, So cynicism can be used to help people. But some people say, well, cynicism or whatever the other side of cynicism is, they both fundamentally don't exist. That's what this is talking about. And it also says, you're making a living in this ghost cave. You can make a living. You can be a Buddhist monk and get donations for this kind of attitude because people think it's fabulous. that you're not into cynicism or optimism, you're like really transcendent.

[69:06]

Transcendent. You're like, hey, there's no Buddhas anyway. This really sounds pretty good, doesn't it? It's okay to say there's no Buddhas, but then you have to play with them. So I think that's a good thing to, I like that dimension now and then. Then he says, but say, how will you distinguish initiate from the naive? And then he says, how will you distinguish the initiate from the naive? You judge. Initiate from the naive. And then he says, if there's precepts, follow. If there's not precepts, follow? Go by a precedent.

[70:07]

So if there's precepts, let's use the precepts. But there's some situations where there's no precepts. For example, there's no precept about somebody coming to you and saying, what is the talk to transcending Buddhas and patriarchs? There's no precept about that. So you have to go by a precedent. What's the precedent? Rice cake. So these cases are for situations where there's no precepts. It's not that there isn't any precepts, but no precepts say what to do. We have precepts that say don't to steal. We have precepts that say don't lie. We have precepts that say here's the regulations. Learn how to practice with them. But in situations where there's no precepts, then we say, how about a precedent? But what does the precedent mean? So we have these precedents. These stories here, which are not about the daily life of the monastery where people have precepts to follow, or they have regulations and ceremonies.

[71:12]

That's a big part of the life of the people in these stories. They're mostly working with precepts. But they get into some situations where there's no precepts, but they do have precedents. And then that's why we study the precedents. And again, it's like the legal system, you know. that's similar to the real legal system. If there's precepts, you check to see how they're going, and you make your koan, you make your judgment. If there's no precepts, you look for precedents. But then you have to interpret the precedent. So that's part of what we're doing here. What is this precedent? What's it about? Yeah. Well, when this koan created, there was no precedent for this way. So how can you look to precedent in this situation and hope that there is no precedent?

[72:15]

Well, I think you could say that the precedent for Yun-men was Shakyamuni Buddha. That's what he was looking at. And I forgot, you know, but somebody commented on this and said, when Yin Men said rice cake, somebody commented and said, this is exactly what Shakyamuni Buddha was doing for 49 years. Of course, he never said rice cake, probably. And so did Yin Men never said it. But anyway, the point is that the precedent is We are doing what the Buddha did. We are following our teacher, right? But the Buddha wasn't, you know... We don't, like, follow the Buddha's following... Most of the time, we're not, like, following the Buddha because the Buddha followed the precepts. We follow the precepts.

[73:16]

But the precepts don't cover all that Buddha did. A lot of stuff Buddha did doesn't look like... He's just talking, you know, or responding to people. It isn't clear how that's... You don't use the precepts to see what he means, necessarily. So anyway, I think we do have precedence. We do have precedence. The question in that introduction was, how do you tell the difference between that and the two words that we use, but between the authentic or inauthentic? The initiate and the naive. So you keep This answer or this response has to be great. In and of itself, you can't tell by precedent whether this is an initiative or if it's coming from an advocate or from a real understatement. Well, maybe you can't.

[74:21]

Maybe you could. So you could both, you could be trying to see in this story, this case, you could be trying to see who the initiate was. And you could use precedent to try to see who the initiate was. And you're saying you can't. I would say you can't. But also, you could use this case as a precedent to decide who in this class is the initiate. So here's a precedent here we can use. So we're going to use this to find out who the initiates are, right? But at the same time, in this case, he was using precedent to find out who the initiates were. And his precedent was to say rice cake. Not his precedent was. He said rice cake in response to the precedent.

[75:23]

But is there something about rice cake versus sweet cake? that we know by looking at it or scenting it or feeling it or the rhythm of it or something about it that will help us know that it is an initiatory response as opposed to just, you know, microphone or hint or what is it about sesame cake? Is it just that it's unexpected? Is it that it was in front of him and he was eating a sesame cake? What is it? That's funny. Mary? There's something you keep reminding me of all the other columns that I saw. It's like a movie that we saw. Did you think that? That's right. It's an appropriate response. That's why somebody commented, this is what Buddha was doing during his whole teaching career.

[76:28]

This rice cake was what Buddha was always doing. That's what the rice cake is. If the koans are, if you are saying that, if you find the koan an appropriate response in the koan, then every one of those appropriate responses is exactly what Buddha was doing. Buddha was always doing different things. Every situation, Buddha's response was different, but it was always the appropriate response. You're always doing the same thing that is making the appropriate response. That's what a Buddha is, is appropriate response, appropriate response, appropriate response. So some people feel like Yen Men's response here at this point in the story, and by the way, this is the center of the story. It's such a long, this is one of the shortest cases, but that's because the actual dialogue is too long to be kind of too long for a koan. This is just the center of the whole story. So you can read in the commentary the long dialogue they had.

[77:30]

But in the middle of the dialogue, this is the place where they're putting the acupuncture needle. That's where he made this great corporate response. People feel like that was a great response. That point right there. And so Susan's sort of saying, well, what's so great about that response? How does that response work in that place to be such a So this turning up and turning down happens at that point. What is that about that statement, that point? And if I can say something. Anyway, I was telling a story to the people who obtained Buddhahood yesterday. I was telling a story to them the other night, a Zen story. And I got to this one point in the story, and one of the people went, wow. And in this story, too, the commentator says, did you get chills when you heard that?

[78:35]

Didn't you get chills when you heard rice cake? That's what happens when you see emptiness. You get chills. Your hair stands on you. You get goosebumps. That's what happens when you see an appropriate response. You go, wow, or something. You cry. Your body has this huge thing. And it's okay to ask, how come I got goosebumps? What was it about that comment that gave me goosebumps? It's all right. We can talk about that. It's a free class. What was it about that comment that gave me goosebumps? Susan can explain to me. It's the goosebumps I didn't get that gave me goosebumps. Say thank you. So the glist bump time is coming to a close.

[79:48]

Yes. I was just trying to suggest that that was an appropriate response, that there were millions of other appropriate responses. But it could have been. You're going to suggest that? And I would say... No. Just like you cannot be millions of other people right now. You have to be the one you are. I can't be different than I am right now. We have to be who we are in the moment. There's no choice. You can't move us. However, we can change the next moment. Matter of fact, we have to. What the appropriate response might be is totally open before it happens. There's all kinds of possibilities. But once it happens, there can't be other ones. Once the stuff falls into place, once the condition is set up, the Buddha has to have that response. Once you show up, you influence the Buddha, the Buddha cannot give the lecture that she had in mind before you came.

[80:56]

She has to say the thing that your arrival brings out. The Buddha is not sitting there with 16 appropriate responses and then chooses which one to do. The Buddha has infinite possible ways of responding. That's because the Buddha is free. Then you show up and the Buddha has only one response for you. And you make it happen. And the Buddha cannot avoid it. And you can't avoid making the Buddha do that either. So you can't make... Once it happens, the probabilities have dropped away. And it's now 100%. Yes. In other words, the appropriate response... can sometimes be something which is really unskillful. Because sometimes a teacher has to be unskillful in order for the student to become skillful.

[82:02]

Is that like offering up your nostrils? Yeah, that's the granting way, where the teacher becomes very weak. So the student can become strong. But once some students come and they force the teacher to be weak, other people force the people, not forced, but are the conditions for the teacher being strong. And so the teacher looks like the teacher. And sometimes that's the way it has to be. The teacher looks like the teacher. Other times the teacher looks like a fool. And then the student looks like a teacher. And that's what has to happen. Otherwise, the student always stays in this position of being the fool, the guilty one, and the teacher being the judge. But that's tough on the teacher, to be unskillful and a fool. Poor teacher. Thank you. On that note, I retired.

[83:14]

There will be no more colon classes.

[83:21]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_71.52