So we discussed where we're studying case 20. So how many people have never seen this story before? So the story goes, this monk, this man named Di Zang, Chinese Zen teacher named Di Zang asks Fa Yen. Di Zang means earth womb and Fa Yen means dharma eyes or eyes of truth. So earth womb asks eyes of truth, where are you going? And eyes of truth says around on pilgrimage. And earth womb says, what is the purpose of going on pilgrimage? And dharma eyes says, I don't know. And earth womb says, not knowing is most intimate. It

[01:18]

says here is nearest but also can be said most intimate. So we've been discussing for a while now what this not knowing might be like. And I want to say a little bit about how to study these stories. One way to study these stories is to try to find the eye, always try to find the eye of the story, whenever you find one of these stories, after you have become somewhat familiar. Hello, what is your name? Bryce. Bryce. Do you want to sit here, Fu? Do you want to sit here? Diane, do you feel comfortable sitting that far away? Do you feel comfortable sitting that far

[02:47]

away? Would you like to sit closer? There's a seat right here next to me. I can't see you. So these stories, they have eyes, like this kind of eye. And so it's good to find the eye of the story. So where do you think the eye of the story is? Have any of you thought about that yet? I have. I just read it, but it made me think something I thought before, which is all religions have a common element of faith, the lack of doubt, the trusting of something, and that state of lack

[03:51]

of doubt, trusting, believing, tends to make this sort of state of mindlessness, what's it called? Mindlessness or mindfulness or whatever? The good stuff. Well, that's all I was. Good. So do you have any idea, in the words of the story, can you see where the place of faith might be? Um, let's see. The way in knowing or in not knowing. Let's see. No. When the not knowing is nearest. Not knowing, it can be seen, at least by me, as that total putting faith in something unknown, be it God or religion or whatever it is. Maybe that's a cop out. Well, particularly, so I understand what you're

[04:59]

saying, but I'd like you to find the place where it says the case. Can you see where in that story do you think the I might be? Not knowing is nearest and I don't know. Around in there? I don't know and not knowing is nearest? Okay. What do you mean by I? Well, like the center, the place that, as much as possible, I mean the place that you feel most of the story is converging on, the place where you could like feel, the word in the story that you feel connects to all the other words most, or where all the words are converging. There's probably, not necessarily just one I, there could be multiple I's. In fact, there are multiple I's all over the place, but in the story you might be able to find the

[06:00]

place you thought was the most concentrated, most converging center of the story, the place where you feel like you can look at that spot and remember the rest of the story. So, um, you know I. Yes. Well, I know that word purpose. The word purpose? Uh huh. You thought that was the I? Yes. Because, sort of like the dog having the good nature of the children that's having a purpose, well, to me it wasn't about having or not having. I thought that the children that's was the purpose. Okay. So I, you know, I think it's a kind of an individual matter to some extent. Well, I think it's an individual matter. I think that this whole thing turns on individual selves. So yourself, it would be good if yourself would find and find an I in the story.

[07:12]

And then, um, what, uh, well, you probably already know. If you found this I, what would you do with it? Once you found it, how would you live with it? Keep it. Uh huh. How would you keep it? By breathing with it. Breathing with it? Breathe with the I? Look through it. Uh huh. Not settling into it. Pardon? Not settling into it. Not settling into it? Let it change and come and go. Uh huh. Any other instructions you'd like to give about how to live with this I, if you found this I? Or even if you haven't found this I, how would you live with this story as a whole? Yes.

[08:36]

Kind of let the I close. Let the I close and go to sleep. Maybe use the I to feel how other things are the same. Let it go. Take a situation right now. Uh huh. Try it out, hope. Uh huh. Can you work? Forget about it? And how would you forget about it? I don't know. Did you hear what she said?

[09:38]

She said forget about it and I said how would you forget about it and she said I don't know. Forget about it. How would you live with it? I don't know. For me, it's rather hot this evening.

[11:00]

I just finished washing dishes. I can go on like this. Are we allowed to talk or we just have to listen? God, you embarrass me. I never let it down. Aww, shucks. It's fun. Do you feel allowed to talk? Obviously. That's good, that's good.

[12:11]

You gave a lecture sometime back about a monk that came a great, great distance to get in teaching. I thought it was Banyan. Was it Banyan? I don't remember. What about it? The part of the lecture where Banyan came to Zen Master and he said I'd like to come and receive your instruction. Zen Master said get out of here. Different guy. What about it? I was making the connection between the great distance that that monk traveled and this monk running around on his shoulders. The idea is if this is the same monk then he seems to be willing to undertake a lot of walking around in uncertainty.

[13:30]

Well, you know it's, what do you call it, literally speaking this is not the same monk as that story. But that story was very much like this willingness to go around walking around in uncertainty. That was a story about this monk who came to the monastery and he traveled a long distance and when he went in to sit in the initiation room, which we call in Japanese Tangario, the room for the itinerant monks, where you sit for some period of time if you wish to enter into the training of the temple. And the teacher came out and threw cold water on the people who were waiting. And he yelled at them and told them that, oh no, he threw cold water on them and most of the monks who were waiting there ran away but this guy and his partner just wrung their robes out and kept sitting.

[14:34]

And he came back later and said you're still here. He said if you don't leave I'm going to beat you up. And they said you think after traveling hundreds of miles to receive your discipline, beating us up is going to stop us? Go ahead and beat us up, it's not going to stop us, something like that. He said okay, you fools, you can stay. And then he made this monk into the head cook. And he was very strict, this teacher was very strict and the monks had been complaining to the head cook about the low quality of the meals. So one day the teacher went to town. While he was in town this monk who had become the head cook took the key to the storage room, went to the storage room and got I believe some oil and noodles and added them to the food and gave the monks quite a nice meal.

[15:35]

And the teacher came back just in time to get the meal. When he got the meal he noticed that the food had improved significantly without his permission. And he figured out that this monk had gone and somehow gotten food out of the storage room and he asked him and he said yes I had. He had done that and he said please discipline me, that's what I came for. The teacher said you have to pay back for what you took and not only that but get out. So the guy actually had to sell his bowls and robes in order to pay back and then he got kicked out of the monastery. And he asked to come back, not to live in the monastery but he asked to come back at least to have an interview with the teacher to continue his study with him and the teacher refused.

[16:41]

And then one time the teacher was walking in the town and he saw this guy standing around and he was standing in front of a rooming house that the monastery owned. The teacher said do you live here? And he said yes. He said do you pay rent here? And he said no. He said you should pay rent at this place. So the monk then started walking around town begging and with the money he got from begging he paid his rent at the monastery's boarding house. And the teacher found out about that and went back and told all the monks in the monastery that this guy was a true Zen student. Oh and they also say that every time the teacher said this stuff to him he never complained. He never complained. So that's the story about walking in the unknown as you were saying. He had some deep faith in something or other.

[17:44]

I don't know what it was, I guess it was deep faith that he wanted to get disciplined and he got it. And he finally was readmitted to the monastery after that. That's that story. But it's like this. Same spirit here. Yes? I think that story kind of encourages me to say that the word uncertainty perhaps is the most appropriate as a substitute for not knowing. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Because in fact you're right that this not knowing, this not knowing is a state of great certainty. You're so certain that you no longer depend on knowing or not knowing. And although you don't have the usual, you might even say crutches or dependencies of knowing certain things by which you can tell whether you're doing it right or not, you are somehow certain.

[19:02]

So, in the case of this story, how do you develop certainty in relationship to this story? How do we develop certainty in relationship to our life? Not even in relationship to our life. Because again, relationship to our life is something that we know about. We know of this thing. We have a relationship with this thing we know called life. How can we live with certainty and free ourselves from the need to know about our life? To be certain about our life rather than know about our life. Yeah? I can't do it very often, but for me I've found, and I'm a human, I use behavior modification techniques to train myself to recognize certain physical signs that I'm certain, as certain as I want to be, ultimately.

[20:21]

And it doesn't happen very often, but for instance, when I came here, I had to stop thinking of all the bad things that could happen. Like, oh, fuck, I'm going to be living with a bunch of idiots and I'm going to hate it and work is going to be too hard. And I go, well, Christian, if you think like that, it's going to happen. So in order to free myself of that, I just imagined, you know, what if it could be really good somehow, you know, and not knowing what really good would be, I just thought, okay, then I won't make the other shit happen. So I didn't. And then I started getting my usual signs. Like, I play the synchronicity game where I notice certain, in the environment, certain things. Like, I play with numerology. I open the book at random and pick a phrase and then write it down. Well, for instance, I'm a writer. I've had writer's block for a long time. And suddenly, since like yesterday, I've written pages and pages and gotten a reading list.

[21:24]

I've been starting to read. I've been starting to draw. My creative block is gone after it's been a couple of years already. Okay, so that's a physical sign that I'm doing something that I want to do and I feel happier too. So for me, it's just practice, practice certain things. Like, the meditation really helps make it unblocked for me. Anybody else here have writer's block? I'm trying to live with both uncertainty and not knowing. Well, uncertainty... Uncertainty can go with... depends on what kind of not knowing. The not knowing he means here is the not knowing that goes with certainty. And the ordinary sense of not knowing that people usually are talking about is more like uncertainty.

[22:26]

Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it makes sense to me. But I think there's a step before you get there and that's where I think I probably am. It's that I'm not certain that any of this makes sense. I'm not certain if I should be here. I'm not certain if there's anything of pure value. And yet, I don't know... I don't know the teachings. I don't know... I don't know much of anything. Are you sure that's not kind of like an inferiority complex where you're basing it on what is the usual standard? You're not smart enough, you haven't read the books. Okay, good. Because I had that big time. Well, you know...

[23:33]

I think we often get in situations where the thought comes up in our mind, is this worthwhile? For example, is it worthwhile to listen to this person who's talking to me? Is what this person is saying worthwhile listening to this person who's talking to me right now? Or this person who's... yeah, this person that I happen to be with right now. Who's talking this way. Ever have that happen to you? Ever think that? Especially if the person goes on and on. Or, you know, you don't necessarily have to sit there and listen to them. You could also say, well, is it worthwhile for me to say something back to them right now? Like, could you please stop talking for a little bit? Here, I want to say something. And then is it worthwhile for you to say something? Like if somebody tells you that you're cruel or something,

[24:49]

is it worthwhile to tell them how that feels? Is it worthwhile to listen to them talk about that some more? Is it worthwhile to tell somebody that you feel they've been cruel to you? Are these worthwhile situations? Don't we wonder about them? Okay, so we'll probably keep wondering about that. Those kinds of thoughts probably will continue to occur unless they just don't for a while. They might stop, actually, for a while too. It's possible that they'll stop. But very likely they'll start again. In my experience, if they come and go, thoughts of wondering whether I'm wasting my time at some particular time and place. Whether this is actually the most interesting and important conversation of all time. And not even comparing it to the past, but just like right now, this is what's happening.

[25:52]

Is this where my life is going to happen? So like, is this class where your life is going to happen? Is this class where my life is going to happen? During this class time, for the next... We have 50 minutes left. We stop at 9 o'clock usually. Okay. So, I mean, you could all... You don't have to come into this room to think about that. But we have this text here. And Zen is not based on this text, right? So we have this ironic, paradoxical situation where we have a text which is a literature of a practice that isn't relying on text and we're using this text as a point of departure for our discussions. So is that worthwhile? Is this class...

[26:53]

Is one of the things about this class to encourage us to use the, you know, moment-by-moment experience of our life as... as what we use? And actually to decide gradually or abruptly to decide that that is entirely what we're going to use for the rest of our life. Though we're always going to... always and only going to use what's happening right now at least as a basic commitment. And you were supposed to remind me about something. Do you remember? Yeah, I think it didn't happen for me. What? It hasn't happened yet? I don't have that feeling. I was going to remind you. If it happened. Oh. You were going to remind me if it happened, not judge me? Is that the agreement?

[27:53]

I thought you were going to... I thought we were going to bring it up even if it didn't happen, but you... Anyway, I invited you... I invited you... We'll talk about it, but I guess I invited you to mention it when it happened. But I thought, so you do that, okay? And I'll bring it up in general. In general, what it's about is the fact that all these, a lot of these stories here and these comments can be interpreted in many ways. And... what Gloria mentioned was that sometimes when we're talking about the many interpretations that can be made about these stories and even the many interpretations that can be made about the interpretations about these stories that sometimes it sounds a little bit like the way an alcoholic might talk. When they sometimes talk in this very slippery way of kind of like making sense out of nonsense or nonsense out of sense. So you can't really

[28:56]

you know, pin them down for what things said. And... I feel that if that kind of language is happening in this class and you start to get that feeling like this is the way alcoholics talk that it might be good just to say I feel this is the way... this feels like some kind of dysfunctional way of talking and just say it because that's one of the things that you don't say in those situations, right? Or you might not say. So if it starts to be that kind of alcoholic or drug type of talking which is kind of whatever you want to call it slippery or... Evasive. Evasive. Yeah. Denial. Denial. If that stuff starts to... if you feel like that's what's going on then just call it by that name. You know? If you get that feeling that reminds you people of some kind of way of talking that seems like the way you felt about talking to alcoholics. I got that feeling whenever I talked to her like she's all, no! That's not it! I didn't.

[29:57]

But I didn't think about it until now. Well, particularly, you know particularly whenever you feel it you can mention it, okay? Because it can happen here. The same pattern can happen here, right? Of feeling uncomfortable but don't... but not wanting calling it... not want to call it that or something of that nature. Yeah, so do you have any memories? No, I mean, it's been a very good... I felt like that a lot. And it's almost like sometimes your energy gets so high and so intense it's almost like someone on cocaine. And I'm on alcohol and I've gotten really crazy at this point. And I know that it's different but sometimes just the energy... So, you might mention that. Does it happen tonight?

[31:00]

You look away and focus? I'm not really clear. I'd say the way an alcoholic talks isn't a definition for that. It's what you're talking about. Well, like last time we were talking about this conversation between... when Furong was talking to Mr. Yang and he says, how long has it been since we met last? And Furong said, seven years. This is a kind of straightforward talk so far, okay? Again, you can play with this but you don't have to yet. Mr. Yang said, have you been studying the way engrossed in meditation? Again, that seems fairly straightforward thing to say to a Zen monk. But then Furong says this kind of funny thing. He says, I don't play that fife and drum. Again, that's pretty straightforward

[32:05]

in a way he's saying... in a way he's saying, I'm not... like we talked about this last time, he's saying, I'm not... I'm not engrossed in meditation. He could have said, no, I'm not engrossed in meditation, but he said, I don't play that fife and drum. And we talked in one interpretation of that is when you are really involved in something and someone asks you, if you're involved in it, sometimes to say yes maybe doesn't convey it as much as to say no. Just like if someone might say, do you love me? Sometimes it might be more... somehow you just might feel like yes is not the right answer, but you might say no as a way of saying it. And then the next part, you see, is where we start getting... it starts getting slippery because then Mr. Yang says, when you wander... then you wander for nothing over mountains and rivers incapable of anything. And part of... one of the things in Zen is that oftentimes as a compliment, sometimes when you can't...

[33:09]

you know, you feel a compliment for someone and then you feel a bigger compliment for someone and then you feel a bigger compliment for someone and then you get to a certain point where the people you feel closest to, all you can say is, you're a demon. Or you are the worst student I ever met. Or, my God, after 20 years of study, finally I get a blind ass as a student. You know, this kind of talk happens in Zen stories, right? It's ironic and it's obvious, you know, in retrospect, you can see it's obvious since this was his great disciple, you can see obviously it was a compliment. But somehow, most... in a lot of these stories the teacher smiles or says, that's right. There's a lot of stories like that where the teacher says, that's right, that's it, you got it. There are stories, many stories like that but the more interesting ones in some ways are the ones the teacher says this kind of stuff,

[34:09]

like, now here is a case where the student is saying to the teacher, well you're... so you've been practicing all this time or you're not practicing your meditation so you're wandering about incapable of doing anything but again, incapable of doing anything is an epithet for a Buddha. Buddha, incapable... Buddha, Mr. Incapable or Miss Incapable. That's an epithet for a Buddha. Unable to walk or sit or roll over. That's an epithet. Those are all epithets for an enlightened person. So, you can read that and I can say what he's saying is Mr. Yang is saying that what a wonderful way of talking to the teacher. And then the teacher does the same thing I could say. In other words, he's saying while we haven't been apart for long, only seven years, again, sort of ironic, you sure can talk on high. And then Mr. Yang laughed aloud. So this is an example

[35:10]

of language that could sound a little bit like what an alcoholic might talk or alcoholics might talk with each other. That's when it came up, right Gloria? Well, mostly it's that he said that no is actually a stronger response to, have you been engrossed in meditation? And when we're talking about it, you know, what question are you answering? And I'm sure if there's a one-to-one conversation, maybe you know what it is. it's always that question, are you answering the question I'm asking or are you answering some other variation that you're making up in your mind? Right. Yeah. And also, I think you also said that in situations like that, no means yes and yes means no. You play those kinds of games, right? And so if you know

[36:10]

what's going on, then you know what's going on. But if you don't know what's going on and you let it go, now, have you been drinking? Well, no. Or, yes, I've been drinking, you know. In other words, say yes, but not really be sure that he said yes. Because he says it in an ironic tone, so it's like, you know, he didn't really admit it or something. In other words, not straight. And in some ways, if you're really virtuous and if you're really honest, then maybe, then irony may be more acceptable and you feel more comfortable with it. But if you're using irony as a cover for dishonesty, then, um, it really seems to be unhealthy. Yes? I feel a lot more comfortable saying that this is the way poets talk. Because I think that to, uh, uh, bring in

[37:11]

the, uh, this type of language dysfunctional, alcohol, whatever, is, uh, I think, uh, straying away from our particular form of language, which is a whole other type of language. Right. Yep. And that's, see, that's fine too for you to say that, right? I don't want the people who are in the class who are feeling, uh, that this is like double talk or evasive talk or alcoholic talk. I don't want them not to be able to say that. That's what I'm saying. I understand that. I think it's a good idea for people to be able to say it, but to have some sort of neuro-linguistic anchor to the word alcoholic or dysfunctional, to me, actually, is problematic. Uh, so I would suggest the word poet. Or some other word that was, that didn't, uh, categorize people so much. Right. Well, uh,

[38:12]

it's such a negative connotation. The, uh, the basic thing in this Zen business, right, is that there's nothing to attain. Right. You can't, there's nothing to attain here. There's nothing to grasp. There's nothing to get a hold of, right? You ever heard about that? Okay. And then, and then, when I say that, as soon as I say that, that becomes a kind of very basic insight in Zen practice. And then that gets made into something. Okay? Yes? Hm? Oh. So, we have to watch out to hypothesize, to, to substantiate or hypothesize language about, about alcoholism, language about dysfunctional language, about poet language, about, um, fundamental insight into non, non-graspability

[39:13]

too. What I'm specifically addressing my point to is a discussion that we had about, well, what are you doing in this class, Rob? To paraphrase. Uh, we had the discussion of the lawn. Well, what are you doing in this class? It seems like we're trying to solve these koans. No, I'm teaching a foreign language. And if we can learn to speak this language, we can speak it to one another to begin with. And maybe if we speak it to one another, we can speak it to other people out in the world. So to, uh, use, I think that it's a very important function in this foreign language class, the word alcoholic, to identify something that is going on that, that to me sounded like it had sort of a, a distracting element or a negative that doesn't serve as well. Uh, yeah, I, I don't, well, I don't think that we should then say that's what's happening, but I'm just saying that when people

[40:13]

have feelings and, and are uncomfortable about something, there's some truth, there's some reason why they feel that way. Now, the word they may use for why they feel that way may not really be the right word for them, but they should be able to express they feel uncomfortable and, and whatever word they come up with, they can come up with that word. The important thing is the, the reality is they feel uncomfortable. Right. And, that's what I, that's what I'd like you to, to, when you feel uncomfortable. It is. What? It is. It is. Yes, Lynn? I wanted to say that for the way I perceived that when it said have you been studying the way? Uh, it, to me it was almost as if you were suggesting that you are separate from the way and that is perhaps the part in which I wanted to respond because it did seem that I am the way.

[41:14]

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yes? I wanted to say that whenever the language starts getting that way, my inner visualization of the conversation usually is sort of like an M.C. Escher painting. There's all these different syllables and all these different areas and there's all these meanings or interpretations sitting on each one and my little fairy body sort of slides over to the one that fits what we're talking about at the moment. Sometimes the conversation gets so loose so the words aren't carrying the air in between the people speaking or carrying it and if you're listening and trying to keep up with it you're flipping from platform to platform to platform looking for it you start getting a headache and when I find out when I'm doing that that I just sort of float up there and look at all the platforms my headache

[42:15]

calms down I find a little spot there and I can go back to it. I guess I'm trying to say I sort of have a trust that we're not just speaking drunken gibberish here we're not just batting words back and forth sometimes and you might lose the track and but it's not that something negative or malevolent is out there or something that you're afraid of you find again that you just look. Well you know um I'm glad you're in the room to say that. But I uh do not have faith that we're not speaking drunken malevolent gibberish. I just don't have that faith myself. I don't believe that or disbelieve that. But I do not feel

[43:16]

that that I do not sort of say that's not what we're doing in here. Even if we are it might be fun gibberish is sometimes fun. Even if even if it's fun or even if it's not fun I'm just saying that uh I'm not saying I don't believe that we're not doing that. I'm not carrying that one. But to have you in the class who's not that that's not going on or trying to work yourself into a place where you can believe that okay. You are welcome to be here feeling that way and I would suggest to you that because you're that way you constellate somewhere in this room some dark evil forces. I'll make somebody else do some other work. And we need and this is the

[44:17]

we have the whole world in this class because we have some people who are working on one thing or another you know. We have some people turning away from high states getting into high states and then turning away from them but when you turn away from them you constellate something else. We have some people having fun and breaking through brighter blocks. We have people constellating themselves. So but you know you can you guys can clean this place up. Anybody who wants to clean this place up anytime can go right ahead and do it. You can move up to a level where you can realize that actually this situation is really immaculate. And the rest of us can be dirty or we can all be dirty and then from that filth an extreme purity will be manifested from the an extreme

[45:18]

purity will be manifested from the utter and complete filth of each of even one of us. Complete purity is manifested. But if you want to be goody goodies this can be the most evil room in the Bay Area at least. Like right now you know I don't know it's not Sunday morning right? So we don't have any competition. Maybe there's no place else. Like on Sunday morning there's probably some churches where there's some real heavy duty goody goody kind of imagining going on. Therefore a deep evil is constellated by their ignoring their evil and all of them in the room feeling like God I better not feel any of that because nobody else in here is. Ignorance, just pure ignorance of the truth of Zen that can be happening in here too. So

[46:27]

I'm going to give you a little peek at and we're have a little more empathy and if you feel like this I don't understand it like you said okay so if you're feeling that you yourself and for me not to understand and then I don't get it okay? Yes. I get really confused about the stories in my films. I feel like it would be okay to not get an actor involved. It pushes a button for me. Like the story that you said about the deaf actor who kept them in the way. And, you know, before you explained it, I thought, well, that would be cool. Yeah. And so I don't know if you get that feeling. I think that that's really cool. And I feel like it's happening because of my intuition, not what it's going to do.

[48:01]

Well, you know, that story, I told that story at Green Gulch on one Sunday, and I knew if I told that, that some people would have thought, well, this just sounds like abuse, you know? But the reason why I told the story was that I was talking to Mel about this story, and he was saying how, you know, in a way, you can have a whole Zen center or a whole community just so that one person like that guy could appear. One person who, not that you could be cruel to, but one person that you could do what is necessary in order to help him or her mature. It wasn't so much, and it even wasn't so much that the teacher was so loving as to be this cruel. I don't know what to say about the teacher. All I can say is that the teacher was somehow a way for this guy to do something which a

[49:08]

human being can almost never do. He did it from now on, the student was able to do something which almost none of us could ever do, and in the end, the student became, you know, the successor to that teacher, the one successor, because somehow he was the only one that could do that and took the whole monastery and teacher's whole life to provide what this guy needed in order to do this incredible thing. And at the same time, he was a nice guy in a way too, you know, he was nice, tried to make good meals for the monks and all that, he was certainly not a wimp in the first place before he got to be, he was an exceptional person, but then when the teacher just, and it wasn't like the teacher was being arbitrary either, the guy actually stole the food, even though he had a good reason, it wasn't that he did wrong either, it's that he gave the teacher a chance to do this thing, right? I don't know what to say. One of the dynamics in our practice is, you know, there's one world where you try to be

[50:13]

really careful and do everything according to the rules and, you know, be very mindful and thorough and all that, and there's another world which is really mysterious and, you know, magical, and you have these two worlds and you don't get rid of one or the other, they work together, bouncing back and forth. In China, the country where Zen was born, we have this Confucian tradition and the Taoist tradition in the background of this Buddhist tradition. And Confucianism has these, you know, all these rituals and formulas and moral patterns and so on, and Taoism is very wild and free and iconoclastic, and that's in the background there. And Zen inherits both of these traditions, plus has this basic insight of nothing to attain, and trying to make that into something, as I mentioned before.

[51:16]

And if there wasn't some other people teaching Buddhism in a way that you'd get a hold of, then it wouldn't be possible for me and you to have a class like this. There are other kinds of classes where you can, you know, which maybe are more, I don't know what you want to call them, but anyway, where, I don't think there's any classes which are going more into the mysterious side, but there's classes which are going more into the understandable side, or more into the human point of view side. So fortunately there are classes like that so that we can have a class like this where we can explore whatever we're doing here, which is always pushing on the limits of what we can stand here. I feel that. It started making me uncomfortable just a minute ago, because even though I've been like, I've been really on tonight, you know, most of the time, but then whenever you started talking about the disciple attaining something like really superior, that made me feel like

[52:29]

a lot of people, I do this, they want to be the best, they want to, you know, be the best Buddhist, be that disciple to succeed, you know, overthrow the king, you know, and that competitiveness comes up in me sometimes, because I forget sometimes that you don't have to be the best in order to have it. Right. You know, you can have it even if you're not succeeding, you know. But it's gone now, it went away. Well, you know, the word success is a real important word, because usually with success, not usually, I shouldn't say usually with success, but anyway, with success, often there is some kind of violence around that. Travelling on the underling. Yeah. And that's not right.

[53:30]

Or progress usually has a waste product. So one way, so what do you do in a case like that? One way is to avoid success. That's one route. Especially if you tend to be violent with it, if you can't handle, if you, okay, I'm talking about being gifted, okay, intellectually or physically, where you're confident, you know you have that, you're not like avoiding competition, except whenever it gets to the point where maybe you have a streak of humanity, and you feel like you're hurting people, or they're hurting you, because you get alienated from them, you don't know how to be with them when you think that they hate you, because they think you're better than they are. How do you like toe the line, how do you be with people with a certain gift or whatever? This is a different subject slightly, but sorry.

[54:33]

No, no, it's different, but it's related. It's related to this. You don't want to feel alienated either. Well, you don't want this, you don't want to create a practice which is alienating. What's happening, sister? From what? Where are you distracted from? What is happening right here? What?

[55:36]

I go from boring to silly to mildly annoying. Evil. And I come here for the interchange. Anybody else want to feel that way? You. I feel like I was just sitting here. I felt that way. But I really love 18. So, are these stories evil? Are they what? Are these stories evil, are these evils good? Do you? Well, I think they can be, if you get into them as stories.

[57:10]

In a way, whatever's happening now, no matter what it is, is a form that I do not know. If I treat it that way, then it's not evil. You lost me. But did somebody follow me? Whatever's happening here, in a lot of ways, is safe. No matter what it is. No matter what the topic is. Because it's stuff that's happening right now. And if I'm in a place where I may be in the moment, but not the next moment, I can treat that as what's happening, as you talked about last week, kind of. Just deal with that real closely. Without regarding its content. Like being with a statue of the Buddha, I can deal with the topic of this conversation. Yeah. Is a statue of Buddha evil? It depends how I hold it, I think.

[58:12]

It can feel that way if I'm not into statues of Buddha. How about if you were into statues of Buddha, then could it be evil? Yeah. Either way. Either way. It's just a statue of Buddha. Is it good? Yeah. I did have something to say. Okay. Somewhere back in one of the other classes, way back when, you were talking about the koans and the interchanges. I think of something, if I'm correct, that you can't really see the Buddha way or have some sort of opening enlightenment without interacting with other people. That's what I like about reading these, seeing the interchanges and knowing that it's those exchanges that move you along

[59:19]

and open things up and open you up. Not just sitting by yourself in isolation, trying to work on something. That's what I appreciate about this. It was helpful when you had that discussion. For me. You see, at the beginning of the story, Fa Yen was sitting by himself. I mean, he was by himself. That's where I can try that on. He's sitting by himself. This is like, you know... This is somebody who was really sitting by himself. He did that part. He did it so thoroughly that he forgot who he was. And then this person called Earth Womb comes over to this person who's sitting by himself, completely, and he goes and talks to him. And he says,

[60:23]

Where are you going? He's not going anyplace, is he? He's completely still. And the teacher says, Where are you going? And he says, Around on pilgrimage. Still, completely staying home, but now responding. And what's the purpose of this? Every step of this story I propose to you is somebody completely still, somebody else completely still, somebody else completely still, somebody else completely still. Stillness, and then stillness. But first stillness, and now another stillness reflects it. And then this stillness reflects back again. That's one way to see what's going on here. And you cannot... Nobody, neither the teacher nor the student can understand

[61:25]

without being still with what they are. And it's very difficult for us to be still with what we are. Almost all the time it's very difficult. Once in a while it seems easy, but then when it's easy then we don't do it either because... No motivation. Right, exactly. I just came from being all by myself, you know, away from people, and I've been interested in this kind of stuff for a long time, but man, the lack of luxury turned me idle, totally. And even though I had the opportunity to meditate as much as I wanted to, and I actually have gone to certain so-called high states that were very enjoyable and stuff, but there was no prod to keep... In everyday life it's hella boring, you know? And you don't want to do this, it seems like too much trouble. But I think if I can make myself do it, then I will probably be happier. Oh, wee. How come these reflections have to speak to each other?

[62:43]

You mean why they have to talk? They don't always talk. But... But in these stories they don't always talk either. Sometimes a guy picks a piece of grass. But if I see you pick up a piece of grass, what I see there is a word. You don't see anybody except by a word. You see a word. That's a... In other words, everything you know, anything you know about in the realm of knowing, you know conceptually. Concepts are words. Concepts are community projects, community developments, like language. So, in fact it is a word. In the realm of seeing each other, meeting each other, there's words there. If there's not any words, then there's no bondage.

[63:45]

Without words there's no bondage, I suppose. You cannot tie yourself up without words. And you cannot release yourself without words. Words release us and words tie us up, and words release us. So whether they're talking or not, anyway, the reflection is verbal. It is linguistic. It is conceptual. So when we sit by ourselves, and when we sit still by ourselves, we sit still by ourselves, and as much as we can, we sit still with our words. And when we do that thoroughly, then we walk to meet someone. And between this person being with her words, and this person being with her words, between these two beings is a connection.

[64:51]

And that connection is what will make these two beings become free, will help these beings become independent. The way we're built is you cannot become independent by yourself. You have to become independent through a connection. Because the one who gets independent is the one who's not just on one side of this relationship. The problem is that between these two words is an ocean of death, a sea of death, or an ocean of left death. And these people have to dive in here and swim through this death to meet each other. Otherwise, you can have two good Zen monks completely owning up to the words that they're living with. I'm depressed, I feel uncomfortable, I feel happy, I wonder if I should be doing something different from this. Can I be this way? Over here being that way, and over here being that way.

[65:53]

That's as good as you can do by yourself. That's good enough. That's your work. That's as much as you can expect of yourself. Except that you should walk this person to meet another person who's walking to meet another person. And then these two people have to dive into this death. And then they meet. And through that connection they understand the limits of what they could do by themselves. And then they're independent. I propose that as a model of liberation. Complete liberation. Yes, I would say that. But that is not a problem. Everybody is in bondage. I've never met anybody who doesn't have that problem except psychotics who refuse to admit that they're in bondage. Well, neurotics refuse to admit it too,

[66:56]

but they don't completely refuse to admit it. They admit it a little bit. And the more you admit it, the more you admit that you're in bondage, the more you're doing your work. The more you admit that you're in bondage, the stiller you become. And when you've admitted as much as you can that you're in bondage, then you should go meet somebody else who's admitting that she's in bondage. Two people who are honest. Two people who admit that they're completely trapped in words. Those people meet. And then they both have to jump into the water. The darkness of not knowing. The darkness of not knowing. But not from just sort of like lackadaisically hanging out somewhere in the neighborhood of your neurosis, but right on the mark of your own pain.

[67:58]

You admit that, and from there you jump into it. When you were talking about the darkness, what you were talking for about sort of being in pursuit of not knowing, all of a sudden running around together, the universe created an objective reality, a way of reflecting back on yourself. How do you know that? The universe provides an objective reality. Or experience is... What did you just say? What do you mean? So when I was listening to you talk about two people reflecting and diving in, it just sort of seemed like it gave you a sense of aliveness being that beingness and having an object to reflect on. And that sense of what I feel here, for me,

[69:02]

as I listen and try to put these thoughts into words, this language, if that's what that is that's going on for me, is something to help focus some idea or some awareness I have that's kind of like it takes form when I listen to everybody define it. It just kind of takes and holds on, but it holds it into an objective place down here that I can look at. I want to tell you another story. I'm teaching a class in Berkeley, and we're studying a case which goes like this, which some of you have heard before. A monk named Virtue Mountain was visiting another monk named Dragon Pond,

[70:04]

and he stood in attendance upon Dragon Pond until late in the night. Some people say, some versions of the story say he sincerely questioned Dragon Pond. Into late night, and Dragon Pond said, it's getting late. Perhaps you should retire. So Virtue Mountain walked out of Dragon Pond's room and met darkness and said, it's dark out here. And Dragon Pond lit a candle for him, a paper lantern, and gave it to him. And just as he was taking the lantern, Dragon Pond blew out the lamp and Virtue Mountain woke up. So, there was darkness

[71:07]

and the teacher gave a light. And the student was about to take the light. Now there's light. The teacher blew out the light. The student was in darkness. And the student now entered the darkness anew. First of all, the student was in the darkness. Then he got light. Then he entered the darkness again. But this time when he entered the darkness, he woke up. So, again, I'm not telling you where the I of that story is, but I would propose one place the I of the story is is at the blowing out of the light. If you can picture the place where the light gets blown out, you have a light, and then picture it getting blown out, and then see that darkness, the darkness before you can say what it is. Just when the light's blown out, picture that darkness that comes to you before you even can say it's darkness. There's a darkness that sneaks up on you, you know,

[72:07]

gradually it gets you open. You know it's dark. You've already got it. Then the light comes on. Now the darkness. When the light is blown out. So in this story, there's a kind of thing like that too. All these stories, it's a place where the light gets blown out. Where you face darkness. Where you face darkness before you make darkness into something. As soon as you make darkness into something, you've got the light on again. Which is fine. But that's not the light we're looking for. We're looking for the light that comes on in the darkness. And so what did the teacher do there? You know, how did he... What did he do? How did he help that person? He gave him one darkness, and he gave him another darkness, and that was enough under the circumstances. So...

[73:11]

There's a darkness in this story too. And... Did he see that second darkness as darkness? Hmm? Did he see the second darkness as darkness? Well, you know, I don't want to say what he saw. So it was a rhetorical question, I imagine. I'm just saying, you know, in that story, the I is either... I think the I of the story... For me, the I of the story is darkness. But maybe the way to find that darkness, which is the I of the story, not just the word darkness, but the actual darkness of the story, maybe the place to find it would be in the blowing out of the candle. If you can... If you can see the light

[74:12]

of your discriminating mind blown out and just meet darkness. It's like having the rug pulled out. It's like having the rug pulled out. But that only works when you've got your feet on the rug. So, again, two people who have their feet on the rug both jumping into the darkness together. You did. Well, is this symbolic darkness too? This is a story about darkness, the symbols of darkness to initiate us into... into our darkness, into the darkness of our mind. That happens in the last part of the story. So, would you like the fifth drink?

[75:12]

Would you like the fifth drink or symbolized by darkness? When the candle is blown out. No. I think in this story, the story about blowing the candle out, I think that the end of the story is... the first or second rank. No kidding. When he wakes up. First or second rank. And part of the reason why I think that, ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you next week why. I could tell you more... I could tell you more of the story

[76:13]

to tell you why I know more of the biography of this guy, about why I think it's only the first or second rank. It's in the... It's in the bluecliff record. It's case four. And it's in the book of... It's in the Mumon Conjugate, this gate, room 28. Dushan, yeah. It's called... It's called Dragon Pond's Far and Wide. After he woke up, he said... He bowed. And Dragon Pond said, What have you seen that you bow? And he said, From now on, I will never doubt the words of old teachers who are renowned far and wide. So I... I don't know what to do now. We're on case 20. So I don't know what to do. What do you think? Should we... Should we go to 21?

[77:14]

Yeah. Definitely. Do you want to go to case 21? No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What? Well, what do you want to do? Do you want to... Do you want to start studying case 21, but then come back to 20 next week? More, or what? Huh? Um... Okay, well, if you want case 21, it's up here, if you need it. And so you can start studying it if you want to. And we'll do more on 20 next time. Because, you know... We're just scratching the surface, actually. Up 20.

[78:16]

So... Find that eye. You can. I hope you... I hope you can find a way to live with it, if you find it. These are... You know, they're all... They're all eyes into the same wound. But they are different eyes. Actually, different points of entry. They're different... They're different access points, so... Be careful about, you know, trying to... See if you can notice the difference between these different eyes. That's important. Anything else before we stop tonight? Okay. That's the thing about, you know,

[79:31]

each of you, each of you, and each of you with everybody that you meet throughout the day. Can we somehow recognize the person in front of us? And enter into a life like that? Thank you.

[80:01]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ