It's tiger feeding time again now, so be careful, step back, take the backwards step so that the tigers can get fed. Tigers are fed by sitting upright in the midst of the awareness.

[01:22]

Awareness of the oneness of self and other. If one person sits upright and still and quiet in the midst of the awareness of the oneness of self and the world, tigers get fed. And return to the mountains. I like using my hands like this.

[02:33]

Self and the world meeting. That meeting of self and the world is what's called the wondrous dharma, to sit upright and witness that meeting, to sit upright and witness that wondrous dharma, which is the oneness of you and the other, you and the whole world. This is called zazen. To devote yourself, again I don't like to say to do this, but to devote yourself, to

[03:48]

completely vow to live in that oneness, sitting upright and alert and giving your whole body and mind to this oneness. This is what makes possible, or actually this is, this makes possible and this is what's called dropping body and mind. Another reason why I like to put my hands like this is because it makes a container

[05:04]

and also makes kind of like a lotus, but if you extend the curve of my fingers all the way around until they meet each other, it like makes a dual mirror. So witnessing this place where self and other are one, being aware that all there is, is the self, receiving and using the self, that everything you see is just receiving and employing yourself, that makes your world into a dual mirror. That makes your awareness the dual mirror awareness at the same time as it is the self-receiving, self-employing awareness. This is also called self-joyousness awareness.

[06:07]

So how does it go? Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think, enjoy yourself while you're still in the pink. What's the rest of it, Jim? The years go by faster than you think, so enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think. The years go by quickly as a wink, so be sure to wink, wink at everything. At that time, dullness and distraction are struck aside, spontaneously.

[07:16]

There are people walking around this world who are quite popular who teach that the way to, I don't know what, maybe even they say the way to the Buddha path is to get rid of delusion, to get rid of dullness and distraction. They have various methods for doing this, maybe you've heard about them, jackhammers, bulldozers, tranquilizers, various kinds of gentle and not so gentle therapies to get rid of delusion. I don't think that's going to work because this teaching says that the place you should be concentrating on, the place you should be aware of is where self meets the other.

[08:23]

That's exactly the same place as delusion, where self meets other, where self does things to other, where self does things to the world and the world does things to the self, that's the same realm as delusion. If we get rid of that, there's no place for enlightenment, there's no place for dropping body and mind, there's no place for the wondrous Dharma, there'd just be kind of, I don't know what that would be called, not exactly a dead person, but a human being pretending to be something else is what it would be. As long as you're alive, delusion keeps appearing, thoughts, distractions and so on keep appearing. However, as soon as you wink at how pink you are, at that moment dullness and distraction are struck aside.

[09:27]

Many people, even some people so-called teaching Buddhism, say that what you do is you get rid of delusion and then make room for enlightenment, but I say it's like this, here's delusion and enlightenment comes up in the midst of that delusion. I say that following, copying the tradition that says just that, that a delusion is to be seen, to play with your mind falsely, and awakening is to see that you're playing with yourself falsely. When you say that two things are touching, are separated. English lesson, okay, ready? Two words, one word is buckle, in other words buckle, buckle is a noun and a verb.

[10:44]

A noun means something that buckles your belt, it's a buckle. It's also a verb meaning to buckle, to buckle, so you should buckle, you should witness that you and the world are buckled, but also buckle means to break, that when you and the world are buckled, when the oneness of the world is buckled, is broken, that's delusion. To witness that it's buckled back is awakening, but the buckling back happens in the same place as witnessing the breaking apart. That's a good English word for you to learn, buckle, it means to tie together, it means a thing that ties together, the noun, and it also means to break apart. The mind buckles oneness in both ways, actually the mind buckles oneness in the sense of creating

[12:03]

the delusion of twoness, and the mind doesn't buckle things back together again, the mind can witness that things are always buckled, and it's only delusion that plays with oneness and makes it into two and believes that. Another word is cleavage, you know that one? I like that one, cleavage is, do you know cleavage? Cleavage is the place where the breasts meet, right? It's also the place where the breasts separate, it means a place where things are separated, but it's also the place they meet. So, delusion and distraction are struck aside as soon as you, as soon as you wink, as soon

[13:20]

as you wink. And again, it isn't that delusion goes away and enlightenment comes, enlightenment comes before delusion goes away, before the donkey goes away, the horse arrives. So this is dropping body and mind, do you understand? Dropping body and mind is to just jump into Zazen, just throw your whole being, your whole body and mind into the practice of Zazen, into this study of the meaning of self and

[14:28]

others, the admission of that delusion that they're separate and the witnessing the oneness, witness the oneness, enjoy the oneness. This is a painful example so I probably shouldn't mention it, but I can get out of here, well I hope I can get out of here. So, I witnessed interactions between some people over the practice period about opening and closing windows. Some people think it's hot, some people think it's cold. Some people open them, other people want them shut. There are other things like that around here too. So let's say I'm the one who wants the windows open and somebody says they want to be shut

[15:34]

and then I think, or I want it to be open, they want it to be shut. I think it's hot, maybe that's enough, I'll just stop there, that's not enough. We should also be aware they want it, they think it's cold, get into the fact that there's somebody else over there that I think is not me or the other way around. I think it's hot, she thinks it's cold, rather than I think it's hot, that's the end. No, I think it's hot, she thinks it's cold, hmm, she thinks it's cold, I think it's hot. Get into it. Before you do anything, before you do anything, get into that, get into I think it's hot, she thinks it's cold, I think it's cold, she thinks it's hot, get into that.

[16:35]

Before you act, witness that interface, feel that painful separation until you can feel it get closer and closer, until really you can see, oh, that's me, that other one. If you just sit still with this before you do anything, the two sides will come together and meet and then if you just sit still and quiet with that, the world, the other will present herself to you to be unmasked. She will peel her mask away and you will see that it is you. The world is you with a mask on. Then act, then see what you do at the window.

[17:39]

We, I don't know what it will be, but it will be wonderful, wonderful, unpredictable miracles will happen with these windows coming from this witnessing. All kinds of creative, humorous, awesome acts will erupt from this awareness. Not to mention that from this awareness, the one who is in this awareness, the one who practices this awareness, who drops our body and mind, besides what happens with the windows, the whole phenomenal world will become this practice. This awareness is called the Buddha seal, the Buddha mudra.

[18:47]

It's the mudra of the Buddha. When you express this Buddha mudra on your thoughts, speech, and body, the whole phenomenal world becomes like this. The entire sky turns into enlightenment. The ceiling of the Zen-do comes off and it gets extremely cold. Anyway, yesterday I thought it was going to be a short talk and it was a long talk. Today, again, I am subject to that delusion that it might be a short talk, so I have to read this poem before it gets to be a long talk. This is a poem, I think it's about the same thing. It's about sitting upright, paying attention to what's happening, and noticing how everything

[19:59]

that happens is you receiving yourself, which is just yourself. I'm noticing how when you ride the boat, you make the boat a boat, and how you cannot ride a boat without the boat. Even though you do a lot of work, the boat makes you. And not only that, but this whole situation ... well, let me read the poem. It's called Landscape with a Boat. I don't know if I should read the whole thing, it's a long poem and I'm not a very good reader, so I might not finish. It's by Wallace Stevens, who was an insurance salesman or something like that, who had a

[21:09]

drinking problem. I mentioned to Daiguti that most of the Western people that I like are informal, non-classical yogis. They have some way to have a physical practice, usually alcoholics, or are depressed, or have some kind of a really bad disease, so that there's body in their thinking, so there's body in their art. The Eastern people I like have their problem by sitting zazen. Most of the people I like have body in their practice, have body problems, and the West, since the formal yoga practice, has somehow seemed to be lost for a long time. Most of the people that I appreciate have something that brings them down to their body.

[22:12]

Nietzsche had headaches all the time, Dostoevsky, depressed, Rilke, cancer, Freud, cancer, long time. Most people I like are sick, physically, physically sick, and in the East, not so physically sick because they've had zazen. It's not that zazen makes you not sick, it's your sickness is your zazen. You sit with your sickness, you sit with your delusion. Here's another sick guy, an anti-master man, floribund ascetic, he brushed away the thunder,

[23:23]

then the clouds, then the colossal illusion of heavens, yet still the sky was blue. He wanted imperceptible air, he wanted to see, he wanted the eye to see and not to be touched by blue. He wanted to know, the naked man who regarded himself in the glass of air, who looked for the world beneath the blue, without the blue, without any turquoise tint or phase, any azure underside or after color. Nabob of bones, he rejected, he denied to arrive at the neutral center, the ominous element, the single-colored, colorless primitive. It was not as if the truth lay where he thought, like a phantom in an uncreated night.

[24:35]

It was easier to think it lay there. If it were nowhere else, it was there, and because it was nowhere else. Its place had to be supposed, itself had to be supposed, a thing supposed in a place supposed, a thing that he had reached in a place that he had reached. By rejecting what he saw and denying what he heard, he would arrive. He had only not to live, to walk in the dark, to project one void into another. It was his nature to suppose, to receive what others had supposed.

[25:42]

Without accepting, he received what he denied, but as truth to be accepted, he supposed a truth beyond all truths. He never supposed that he might be truth himself, or part of it, that the things that he rejected might be part, and the irregular turquoise part, and the perceptible blue, grown denser, part, the eye so touched, so played upon by clouds, the ear so magnified by thunder, parts, and all these things together, parts, and more things, parts. He never supposed divine things might not look divine, nor that if nothing was divine, then

[26:47]

all things were, the world itself, and that if nothing was the truth, then all things were the truth, the world itself was truth. Had he been better able to suppose he might sit on a sofa, on a balcony, above the Mediterranean, emerald becoming emeralds, he might watch the palms flap green ears in the heat, he might observe a yellow wine, and follow a steamer's track and say, the things I hum appear to be the rhythm of a celestial pantomime. You people, fortunately, have been able to suppose that you might sit on a sofa, on a

[28:01]

balcony, above the Mediterranean, emerald becoming emeralds, and you might watch the palms flap green in the heat, you might do this, you could suppose that you would do this. Sitting in this way, giving yourself to this practice, dullness and distraction are struck aside, you don't have to do anything like that. If you try to strike them aside, they become more fierce. There are several more points, nineteen to be exact, in this text that I feel are essential

[29:26]

to bring up before the end of the practice period, so I will probably not be able to do that, since each one deserves its own sitting. I'll tell you what they are, just so you know what you missed. One of the essential ingredients that's brought up in this text is the transmission of this wondrous Dharma, that this Dharma is transmitted. That this Dharma is inconceivable and abundant in all of us, that it's not actualized

[30:27]

without practice, and it's not experienced without realization. Also, I think Regina asked yesterday about, is such and such a good sign in the practice? There are various good signs that I thought I might mention to you. I'd like to also talk a little bit more about how this Buddha Mudra is impressed upon body, speech, and mind, and how it becomes the whole phenomenal world. I'd also like to discuss the imperceptible mutual assistance that occurs on the occasion where one wholeheartedly devotes oneself to sitting upright. And also about how all this fantastic stuff that happens as a result of this

[31:38]

intimate mutual assistance, how this is not mingled or does not appear in the perceptions of the meditator. How conscious elements do not appear in the radiance of the awakened one, and yet awakened ones are conscious. They're conscious, but their illumination is free of consciousness. And how the consciousness of non-illuminated ones is not mixed with the illumination. I'd like to talk about these points, but if I don't talk about them today, this would be not a very long lecture. I will, but I can talk about them later, see what I mean?

[32:42]

I can talk about them some other day instead of today, and I can kind of stop now after I tell a few jokes. I'll tell a few jokes, and then if you really want to, I'll give you two more lectures today. If you really talk about one of them and illuminate the others? It's already happened, that's why I have these other things down here, because as I was talking about what I've already been talking about, all this other stuff came up. All this stuff got illuminated by the other stuff. Once you look in that dual mirror, this other stuff's right in there, all kind of like perfectly detailed out. You know about that dual mirror? You sit there and you look in it. It's like self and other, one. The world is me.

[33:44]

Look in that mirror. What do you see? There's Les and Leslie. They're not me, but they're actually me. Turning away and touching are both wrong. If I turn away from them, in some ways my life will be simpler. If I touch them, my life might get more complicated. How are turning away and touching both not quite right? It's like a massive fire. If I get excited, this dual mirror will become a fire.

[34:49]

It's like a pitfall. It's easy to get excited about this dual mirror, I think. I get very excited about it sometimes. Especially when I look in it. I get very excited. It's very easy. Then the wondrous Dharma becomes a pitfall. That's why I have to sit in my pain to keep me from flying up off the ground when I look in this mirror. My pain are nice sandbags to keep me down. You see what I mean? That's why I mentioned yesterday about enlightened self-interest. This dual mirror is self-interest. This is self-interest. That's why it's so interesting. It's because it's yourself. But it's yourself far beyond your usual little kinky, painful version of yourself. It is the wondrous Dharma self.

[35:50]

It's not the objective self. It's yourself. It's the self which is nothing but the self. And that uses nothing but the self. This is a wondrous, joyous self. It is a joyous self. And you can get excited about it. And then, unless you have some pain or some sympathy with other people's pain, you can fall in a pit while you're looking at this mirror. Walking around looking at this mirror. You got to keep your feet in the ground while you walk around this mirror. If you are aware of your feet, you can actually walk around and just look in the mirror and not look at anything else but this mirror. You can look at this mirror all the time. And walk downstairs and upstairs. And drive cars. But you have to keep your feet on the ground. Otherwise, since the mirror is in your face,

[36:52]

you're going to trip. Because you're not aware of your feet. So, looking at this mirror and excited means you're forgetting your feet. Forgetting your pain and not being sympathetic to other people's pain. On the other hand, if you hesitate and you don't look at this mirror, you'll spend your life looking backwards. So, we have to be alert and see this mirror. But to preamble to telling you this story about somebody here who told me that while he was waiting for Doksan, this person is my best student, by the way. That's why.

[37:55]

I can't tell you who this is because I don't want you to kill this person. And in that way, snuff out my lineage. So, she said, I mean, he said, or she said, whichever it was. Of course, while she's waiting for Doksan, she's constantly thinking of my teaching. And my teaching is, this is your life, Pierre. So she said, well, my life. So she laid down in the Doksan waiting area. There was no one else there. So, he made it all the easier to act from this realization of, it's my life. And so, that was what he did. He laid down. And then, after a little while,

[38:57]

he was sort of waiting to hear the footsteps of the person previously in Doksan coming. So after about 15 minutes, he heard these footsteps and he thought it was this person. So he jumped up and looked out the window to see. It wasn't that person, so he laid down again. And then this kept happening over and over because the person was in there for quite a while. And every time some footsteps came by, he would jump up and then lie down again. I wasn't clear whether she jumped up because she didn't want to get caught or if she wanted to see if it was time to go. But she observed that this was kind of like reverse bowing. Now, this person thought this was very funny. I myself can't remember if I thought it was funny

[39:59]

but I do think it's profound to see how this evil person indulging in this evil practice because this is my true disciple turned evil into good. And so, this person just turned the world upside down and he was a religious fanatic. But really he was a religious fanatic to try this in the first place, to put the teaching into practice. It would have been better if there was somebody else in the room in a way, but anyway, that's what he did. Then he also told me something else which I thought you might find entertaining. He said to me, your lecture yesterday was really good. It's the first lecture that you ever gave that I was proud of and I wanted to send to my friends. He said, some of your other lectures I thought were pretty good but I told my friends about them like this thing about to kill is not to kill

[41:00]

and that kind of stuff or not killing is killing and also just be yourself. I told my friends about that and then after that we'd be riding along the street together and my friend would turn over to me and look at me and would say, thanks for being yourself. So those are the jokes for today. So I really think probably I should wait till later to bring up these other wonderfully interesting topics. I hope I'm able to someday. And if I'm not, you knew what they were or you know what they are, so you can study them. Study this transmission of the wondrous dharma, study that and study this imperceptible mutual assistance and how all this wonderful stuff that happens by imperceptible mutual assistance to the one who's practicing zazen, how all that is not mixed with your perceptions

[42:00]

and how your illumination, particularly check out how your illumination is not tainted, is not mixed with any consciousness. Is that alright? Are you enjoying yourself? That's all there is to enjoy. Except, of course, release from that joy. And those who enjoy the self will be released from joy of the self into a joy that is inconceivable. That reminds me of one more thing

[43:01]

and that is, this practice I'm talking about is rather tedious, in case you haven't tried it yet and not much fun a lot of the time. Not that, but you can't even see it happen most of the time because it's unconstructedness and stillness. But don't let that get you down. You have a lot of company in that. All Buddhists feel that way about it too. That's part of the reason why they say that this practice is the essence of the teaching and this is the supreme of the supremes and also it's required. I think part of the reason why they recommend this practice so highly and are so clear that it's indispensable and essential, they say that because it's hard for us to do our work. It's hard for us to do our work because we think we have an alternative and we forget that the alternative

[44:04]

is unadulterated misery. So this samadhi which we sit in you know, ji means self ju means to receive or experience and yu means to employ like your job. So another way to translate this samadhi is the awareness of receiving yourself that all you're doing is receiving yourself and doing your job doing your own job. This is your job and this awareness is abundant in you right now. It's not like you have to make this happen it is already going on you just have to witness it. We all,

[45:17]

all of us sentient beings besides you need you to do this. Please not do it, we need you to what? I don't know, what's the word? We need you to be devoted to this. So I think I'll stop there if that's okay and then tomorrow I'll talk about some of the other topics other aspects of this and the next day too. Thank you.

[46:18]

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