I got this, this is a problem I have, I just want to tell you, which I hope I don't, doesn't cause any disturbance if I tell you, and that is, we have, this is the third class, right? So we have three more classes after this, is that right? I don't think so. This is the fourth? Is this the fourth class? This is the third one. So this is the fourth class? So it's just three more classes. So anyway, we're not going to get to... Two more classes, so we're not going to get to case 37 this session. And... I mean, I shouldn't say we're not going to get to it. I say I'm tempted to try to get to it, but it's probably not a good idea. But it's one of the kind of most interesting cases. It's like case 32, in a sense.

[01:03]

It's just got so much going on that it's very interesting, kind of like the Buddhist psychology and Buddhology and Zen stories, and it's just really great. So maybe if I just say that, we won't try to get to it, even though we would like to. So we're on case 35. And I think that last week I introduced a way, you know, a kind of way of looking at working with this case. And that is part of the reason why I did this was I think part of the reason why I did this, I'm not sure, was that I did a workshop here a while ago on Zen theater or something like that, and there was an exercise we did where we looked at some pictures, at some photographs, and then we kind of tried to impersonate the photographs.

[02:11]

And with the aid of the other people, we tried to actually put our bodies exactly in the position of these people. In the photographs of people, we tried to put our bodies exactly in the position and posture of these people. And then when we got in just the right posture and got our body just in the right way, then we were interviewed as those people and spoke as those people. And I thought, later I thought, well, how about if you like, if you would like look at a statue of Avalokiteshvara, or look at a statue of Manjushri, or look at a statue of Buddha, and then actually like sit in the posture that the Buddha's in, like we do, right? We sit in the posture that the Buddha sits. But maybe if you looked at a particular statue, or a particular painting,

[03:14]

And then you actually tried to make your body, just like the painting, and people helped you put your body in that position until they said that you're exactly, you know, you're just like in that same position as that statue. And then they would interview you. You know, good morning, Mrs. Teshfara. Good morning, you know, Mr. Manjushri. you know, how are you feeling? And, you know, just to have a discussion and see what Manjushri would say through you adopting that posture. So then I brought up last week, what kind of a person do we think Lupu is and what kind of a person, well, particularly we're talking about Lupu, and what kind of a person do we think Jashan R is? And then, Grace, for example, had a little bit different interpretation of who Lu Pu was.

[04:16]

And I don't think we all have to have the same fantasy or the same vision of who these Zen people are. But we do have to be clear about what vision we do have. We all have some vision of these people. For some of us it may seem rather vague, but a vague vision is a vague vision, and that's the vision you have. And if it's vague, can you impersonate a vague image? And if you can, fine. A kind of ghost-like amorphous form, could you try that on? It's very difficult to try that on. It's easier to try on some definite, you know, more clear fantasy. But we all do have a fantasy. And if we could all look at the same picture and then And then somebody could try that on, and that person could speak from that position. Or each of you can put yourself into the image that you do have, but you have to check out the image you do have.

[05:25]

Now, if you look at a picture, like I looked at that picture in that workshop I did, I looked at the picture and I put my body in there, and then people helped me. They said, well, actually move your leg a little bit that way, or move your arm a little bit that way, or actually bend your fingers a little bit that way, or tilt your head a little bit that way, or actually your leg should be slightly off, askew, and actually your body should be tilted up a little bit. I was actually supposed to be sitting in a kind of a lawn chair. So other people can help you. So you may have an image, and if you tell people your image and you check out the image, you can actually help each other assume the, impersonate these people and speak as these people. So that's part of what I have in mind here when I ask you who these people are, who you think they are, is as a way to impersonate them. And this is a lot of work. to do this, actually.

[06:27]

I know it'll work. It's a lot of fun, too. But it means painting a very detailed... No matter what your painting is, you have to do it thoroughly. And so... that's part of what I have in mind for all these stories, is that you think, you look at what you see, who you see there, and you enter that vision, that fantasy that you have, and you articulate, and you speak from that fantasy, and you articulate that fantasy to the extent that you lack authority in expressing yourself. If you speak with complete authority, then maybe that's good enough, but if there's some weakness there, or some sogginess in your presentation of yourself, it may be that you haven't yet thoroughly assumed this person, and therefore you might seek help in a more thorough impersonation, and then speak again and see if you have more authority.

[07:53]

Now of course you can also do this with yourself. Just imagine who you think you are. You all have a vision of yourself. And of course that's basically what you're supposed to do, is you're supposed to impersonate yourself. But in fact people have trouble impersonating themselves, I've noticed. They don't have a clear vision of who they think they are. And The funny thing is that sometimes if you try out being somebody else that may help you realize how foggy you are about who you are. Not who you are, but who you think you are. It's not who you are, it's who you think you are. We all think something about ourselves and we are influenced by what we think of ourselves and we are influenced by our lack of clarity about who we think we are.

[08:57]

And in order to become free of ourselves we kind of have to admit who we think we are and how we see ourselves. You can't check out sort of like in absentia from yourself. So that's in some sense these koans, these stories, to do this with these stories seems sort of like, well Why don't we just do it with ourselves? And again, I think that I would propose that it's possible that the vagueness you have about Lupu has something to do with the vagueness that we have about ourselves. And the difficulty of clearly seeing who we think he is has something to do with how difficult it is to see who we think we are. And again, Who we think we are is not us. Who we are is far beyond who we think we are. But in order to realize ourselves, we have to be aware of who we think we are.

[10:00]

Because one of the things about us that we can be aware of is who we think we are. But we cannot be aware of who we don't think we are, and that's part of us too. But who we don't think we are opens to us as we thoroughly understand who we think we are. Who we can't think of and who we don't think we are is all around the edge of who we think we are. They perfectly fit together. You know, like two sides of a broken coin. of a seal. So it's in that spirit that I, you know, I feel that when you study these stories it's good to sort of like get a clear picture of these people. And I also, someone mentioned to me today that one of the

[11:11]

notable Zen teachers of just the previous generation, the teacher of some of the... Is that skirt the same as this? No. He said that it took him seven years. He studied case 10 of the Book of Serenity for seven years before he understood it. And I told also the story about, there's a story about one of Linji's friends. It wasn't a student of his. His name was Pu Hua, which means universal flower. Anyway, I'll try not to get into Puhua stories tonight.

[12:14]

But anyway, Puhua once had a little interchange with Linji where he brayed like a donkey at Linji. And one Buddhist scholar who I like very much then has, since that, has been studying, has been working on this collection where that story appears for a number of years. And he spent considerable effort over a number of years and got lots of books about trying to find out what in the Tang Dynasty Chinese people thought a donkey bray was like. How did donkeys bray? How did they think donkeys brayed in the Tang Dynasty China? And he would, as he traveled around China doing research, he would interview, you know, camel herders and people like that that had familiarity with these kinds of things.

[13:17]

And got lots and lots of books about donkeys and so on to try to understand how, what kind of sound that guy made back there in the Tang Dynasty when he was interacting with Linji because it was an important expression, you know, it kind of got Linji off guard. Lindsay didn't know what to say when this guy did that to him, apparently. So this kind of thoroughness of study, you know, it's... it, you know, this shouldn't be like, you know, something that, it's not tedious, there shouldn't be this kind of enthusiasm to, you know, what do you call it, leave no stone unturned in your study of yourself. And don't, and there's nothing that could, that might not be the study of yourself. So...

[14:23]

And I was also talking to Fu today about studying koans and things like that, which gives me a chance just to sort of allude to case 37. And that is that I think that we it's good to be relaxed and at ease and flow with things. And that's not a problem, that's fine. And when we do that, we are expressing our freedom. But it should be that we can enter into all realms in that way. So in that case, case 37, he calls out to the boy and the boy, he says, hey you, and the boy turns his head and he says, is that not the immutable knowledge of all the Buddhas? He says, hey you, and the boy just turns his head.

[15:38]

He says, is that not the immutable knowledge of all the Buddhas? And then he says to the boy, what's Buddha? And the boy goes, uh... He says, is that not the fundamental affliction of ignorance? So as we move around together, we feel pretty at ease a lot of times, and then somebody says, what's Buddha, or who are you, or would you do this, or would you do that, and we freeze. And they're very closely related. And these stories, we're moving around, and we think we understand what's going on, and we come in this class, and we hear these stories, and suddenly we freeze. we need to bring that relaxation and that freedom that we feel in some realms, even into these stories. These stories are kind of like the part of, they represent the part of our consciousness where we freeze, where we feel like, you know, what? You know?

[16:40]

Where we kind of like stick or cling or think that, oh, well, this is a Zen story, so, you know, the Zen people must know what this means, or or I know what this means, you know, whatever, you know. But you don't walk around usually thinking, you know, when you open the door you don't think, oh, I know what this means. You just open the door. And if you go up the door and say, oh, I know what this means, you're stuck. Also, if you go up the door and think, jeez, I've got to get a Zen person to open this door. Then you're stuck too. How can you bring that freedom and relaxation that you have with your daily life into every realm? Into every realm. And these stories are kind of saying, can you bring it into this realm? And our first response is, we get stuck. We say, So, it's kind of a part of what I was trying to do with asking you to try to

[17:43]

envision or be aware of how you fantasize these characters. And again, I'm not trying to talk everybody into the same vision, but I just think if we can have the same vision, then we can work with that vision. But if somebody else has another vision, that's fine too. And they can talk to us from that vision. They can tell us about who that person is that they see. And if they see a person, then they can enter that person and talk to us from that person that they see, just like they talk to us from the person that they think they are usually. It's just... I was going to say it's just as easy to talk from your vision of lupu as it is to talk from your vision of yourself. But I could also say it's just as hard to talk from your vision of yourself as it is to talk from your vision of lupu. And I think most people think, I have a pretty clear vision of myself, but I don't have a clear vision of lupu, therefore I can speak from my ordinary self, but I can't speak from lupu. Well, I propose maybe you look at that.

[18:49]

Maybe you have as much trouble really expressing yourself as you do expressing lupu. So if I ask you now, please stand up and show us lupu, you may have some hesitation. But when I ask people to stand up and express themselves, it's related. Have you noticed that? It's related. The answer I get when I say, who are you, or if I say, who is lupu, it's related, the difficulty a person has. So all this has a kind of background, and this is something that will continue through our study of all things. Let's look at the story. Now, I remember I heard this story one time. There was this guy named lupu, and he studied with Rinzai, Linji, And he left Linji. And when he left, he said he was going south, didn't he?

[19:54]

Huh? Didn't he say, Linji said, where are you going? I'm going south. And then, and what did Linji say? He drew a line. Yeah, Linji drew a line. Huh? First he drew a line. Linji drew a line. And then what happened? And Luke who stepped over it? Or Luke who shouted? And then he got hit. And then what happened? Then he bowed and left. He stepped over the line and got hit. He shouted, stepped over the line? Oh, he didn't say he stepped over the line. He just said he shouted and And, and Linji hit him. Okay, this is, so this is a kind of guy we have here in the story.

[20:54]

He's, he studied with Linji for quite a while. Was he Linji's attendant by any chance? For how long was he Linji's attendant? For a long time? How long was he Linji's attendant? Long time. Michael? What did he hit him with? What did he hit him with? What do you think he hit him with? Was it a stick or was it a fist? A palm? Open hand. Well, he had his staff in his hand because he had just drawn a line with it. So he might have used his staff. Anyway, you know who Linji is, right? Everybody knows who Linji is. He was in case 13, remember? With, what's his name? With Sanshong. And then Sanshong was in case 33, right? Again? So Linji was a very intense bodhisattva.

[21:54]

He used to really shake people up in order to wake them up. And he apparently was quite successful in waking people up. Intensely sincere person who was really worried about people and really wanted them to become free of their attachments. And he used this method of yelling at them and shaking them and hitting them. So this young man is able to spend quite a bit of time with this very exceptional Buddhist teacher. And when he's about to leave, going south, the teacher says, where are you going to go? And says south, draws a line, and Lu Pu shouts, and he hits Lu Pu. Lu Pu bows and leaves. Okay? Yes. And then there's the thing Mark alluded to that he said as he saw him off. That's in case 33, when Linji saw Luke, he said, in the school of Linji, there's a redfin carp who wags his head, swishes his tail, and heads south.

[22:59]

In whose house will it die, immersed in a pickle jar? He swishes his tail and... In the school of Linji, there's a redfin carp who wags his head, swishes his tail, and heads south. In whose house will it die, immersed in a pickle jar? In whose house will it die? In whose house will this guy die, immersed in a pickle jar? Okay. Well, you know, Linji is an area that's sort of north. A lot of Zen teachers were south. I mean, that's what I would think. So it seems like the shout was the crossing. The shout was the crossing line?

[24:00]

Yeah, I could see it that way. So we've got here a... what do we have? We have a red-tailed carp, do we? Who's going south? Red fin. Red fin. Well, red fin, red tail. Burnt tail sometimes? Yes? The symbology of the carp? The symbology? Well, Chinese people like carps, you know, and the goldfish, they're often gold or red. The carps, they have in their ponds in front of their monasteries, and the carps clean the pond, right? Yeah. And we have the carp in case 33. What's this carp going to do when he gets out of the net? And we have carp here.

[25:01]

So there's some kind of a fish, and they're golden, and they're appreciated, and they have the ability to be transformed. And they can reproduce. It's a transformative stage. It's a transformative stage, and also, usually when they say golden fish, they're referring to a carp. And also, the nice thing about carp is they do, what are their bottom dwellers, right? They clean the bottom of the pond, and they're golden. They live in the muck, and they're golden. So this theme is a connection here, case 33. We have this thing about the carp, you know, breaking out of the net.

[26:04]

And we have this thing about how could you keep this, how can you keep this noble person, this wonderful being, in a pickle jar? How can you think that this would be sunk in a pickle jar? So part of the image of the pickle jar is Okay? What does it mean to, in whose house will it be put in a pickle jar, that this wonderful fish will be pickled? In other words, that this wonderful living practitioner will be pickled, will be put in, sort of on specimen, will become part of the fixtures of the house. So there's a thing there, too, you know. In what house or what style of practice will this become, like, established? Right? I have a different feeling about that, that the house is the house of perhaps the next teacher, the house of another teacher. Yes. To be transformed beyond and harmful.

[27:07]

Yes, and another thing is that his disciple will pickle him. Disciple pickles the teacher, makes the teacher, you know, kills the teacher and puts him in a pickle jar. I have a specimen. See? My teacher's dead. So there's a dynamic here in one sense that the teacher will become obsolete and will become like a specimen or a museum, you know, a specimen not living anymore. Another side of it is that it will become the symbol of the school, the new house. You can read it. It has this dynamic. a sad side and a living side, a dying side and a rebirth side. Anyway, this is the fish that we've got on our hands here. So he goes down into the area around Ja Shan, the mountain Ja Mountain, and he goes to a little hut and lives in the hut for a year.

[28:13]

And the teacher of the Mount Ja hears about him, sends a messenger with a letter, and Lupu takes the letter, sits down, and makes a gesture of seeking, and hits the guy. Right? The guy's shaken, goes back and tells his teacher, and the teacher says, if he reads this letter, he'll be here in three days. He comes, apparently, within three days, and just stands in front of the teacher, which is not the usual decorum. And the teacher says, this is like a chicken roosting in a phoenix nest.

[29:17]

It's not the same species. Go away. And and Lu Pu the commentary says Lu Pu understands that this dismissal is not really a dismissal. So he he doesn't leave. He says I've come from afar to receive your teaching. I I beg you to give me a reception." And Jaishan says, Before me there's no you, here there's no me. And again the commentary says that Jaishan knew that he had here a person who was really a representative of the true imperative or the true order of Teacher Linji. So he wanted to see this guy express himself beyond any sectarianism.

[30:26]

And Lupu shouted. Again, you may say, well, that looks like the school of Linji, like he is speaking from a school. But again, as I mentioned before, particularly like in case 13, One of the ways you transcend a school is you use the means of a school to transcend a school. You don't just use something new. You use the old thing to put an end to the use of it. So he again gives a shout and makes again the shout obsolete and puts an end to the sect of shouting. And then the teacher says, Jia Shan says, don't be, you know, no, no, no, don't be crude and careless. The clouds and the moon are the same. The mountains and the valleys are different. I don't say that you won't cut off the tongues of everyone on earth.

[31:35]

but just that you should make the tongueless person speak. And Lu Pu doesn't say anything. And Jia Shan hits him. And Lu Pu acquiesces. So the story is, we see these elements of hitting and shouting. Shouting, hitting, hitting, shouting, hitting. These are being played together by Linji, Lupu, Lupu, Lupu, Jashan. These elements, these activities, These expressions of hitting and shouting are being woven together into this network of expression between people.

[32:41]

And with quite a bit of other things going on, of a great deal of respect. We can see respect between Linji and Lu Pu. We can see respect of the monk to Lu Pu. We don't maybe understand Lu Pu's respect to the monk. We find Lu Pu setting up his hut near Jia Shan for a year as an expression of his interest in this teacher, him coming to this teacher. and standing in a phoenix nest in the posture of a standing phoenix, the teacher ironically saying, I would say that he's a chicken, Lupu then speaking kind of softly and easily, the teacher responding in this way of saying, there's no you here, there's no me, Lupu again bringing the shout back,

[33:53]

teacher saying what he said of, you know, don't be crude, but also saying moon and clouds are the same, mountains and valleys are different, so now please, I know you can cut out the tongues of everyone on earth, now please show us a tongueless person speaking and he doesn't say anything. And again, one final shout. And this great acquiescence this great prostration of the goldfish. So we talked last time about who is lupu, and I'd like to know who you think. What's kind about all this? What's the story here? Who do you think these people are? Let's try to envision this now. this background.

[34:58]

Yes? I was reading a paper this week and they were telling a story about a recording made at the time that Hillary first came down from Everest with The two of them had just come down from the column. And they came to the base camp. And there's an actual recording of his voice. And basically, the first words that he said is, well, George, we knocked the bastard on. And I thought it was a little poop at that moment. I had this sense of him just standing there in the flush. of this monumental achievement. But yet, actually, the second part... At what point?

[36:06]

At what point are you thinking of him standing in the flesh of the monumental achievement? At what point in the story? When he first came down, he was standing in front of the sushant. At that point, you find him standing in the flesh of a monumental achievement. Yeah. And with everything, you know, with well-done flush of... At the same time, what also came to mind was what you said about Dallas and the San Francisco 49ers. It was a piece of... It was magic. It was a brute... It has a great strength, but only one part of it, which was in itself a great achievement, but not complete. And it looked pretty strong yesterday. How could we say?

[37:12]

And, you know, I like what the commentator says. He says, it's not that you don't cut off the tongues of everyone on earth. And the commentator says, he just has the thousand foot cold pine. But how can you make the tongueless person speak? He also needs the bamboo shoots. So he is able to, the thousand-foot pine is not just a pine tree of the Linji school. Linji was a pine planter, pine tree planter. But he transcends the pine trees, thousand-foot pine. But he also needs to, after, you know, dwarfing all beings, he needs to also bring all beings to life and find this tender little bamboo sprouts.

[38:13]

He must do this too. And he stands in silence upon hearing this. And then Jia Shan shouts. What is, can you envision, if you want to try on Michael's version of the beginning of their meeting, of envisioning a great achievement, maybe, maybe now we can say we have the Dallas Cowboys have, they've won the Super Bowl, okay, and now they're coming to meet Joshan. What is it? Is his name Troy Ackman? Troy Ackman now is coming to meet Joshan. In the flush of achievement he's standing there and he wants to meet the god of Buddha, I mean the god of football. the Buddha of football.

[39:16]

Just now that he's achieved the highest, you know, for him anyway, the highest thing he can do, now he wants, now he's going to try to, now he, because he's done so well playing football, now he can find out the meaning of football beyond winning. So he stands before the god of football. And the guy at football says, yeah, pretty good, but this is a chicken in a phoenix nest. So you want to picture him? Do you like Michael's vision that he's flush with achievement? But still coming now, still coming to meet the great teacher. Yes? I don't know. I just feel like... really sincerely practicing his way that he's a fan of Satan.

[40:25]

Trying to show him that he has to let that go, to make a tenuous person speak. Yeah. Right. And so he presents his sincerity and his skill at liberating beings to this teacher, to see how this teacher feels. And I think that's right, that Jaishan is going to teach him how to let that go. But what is it that he's achieved? Who is he? So what does he have to let go? Each of us will have our own skill that we have to let go. What's his? In what way is he such a helpful person? What's his understanding like so far? And what is it that he has to give up? Yes? I think that he can just be perhaps the most intense embodiment of the absolute. When I get the image of the thousand-foot cold pine or the spirit of the dead of winter, it's just...

[41:38]

He could just build a shack on the top of the mountain and just sit there. He can just answer everything with a shout and leave you with no ability to describe anything with your tongue. And so he just... His great ability is you look at him and maybe you see the absolute, but you've never seen it before. Yes. Does he not use it at the beginning? Do you see him not using it at the beginning? Or not using it at some other point? Is he using it at the beginning? He's just being the thousand foot climb in the beginning. Can he even get that up in the end? Maybe he gave it up when he went to the mountain for a year.

[42:43]

Maybe he gave it up the day he walked across the line, he gave it up. Maybe. How do you see it? Yes? I see when he stands before Jia. He sort of arrives feeling complete and he arrives in a challenging way. That's my sense of it. And what he understands is when he shouts, he shouts no. He doesn't just make a sound. He screams a no. And it seems to me that he's reduced again to realizing he has to let go all of the teachings he's already had, and he's going to start fresh with his new teacher. Okay.

[43:48]

And then the teacher would say, no, no, don't be crude and careless. Does that follow for you, that he would say that after listening? Yeah, because there's a... Don't throw away, don't hastily throw things away. Don't be too crude in your transcendence. Don't be too crude in your transcendence of your school, of throwing away your shout with a shout. That's a possible thing. Gee, a lot of people had their hands raised, but I'm looking at Arlene now, so... I was thinking of in yesterday's game that Emmett Smith, I know you guys didn't do it, but there were like more than once when one of the commentators made this remark about this guy was at 209 pounds, was so focused that he lured three defensive guys that weighed 290, 305, and 310.

[44:55]

another four yards. And he did it repeatedly. And if this is what we're supposed to be learning, then how to just keep cutting through and staying with it to not let any obstacle come in our path to keep going through. Because I did think about this class when I made that comment about Emmett Smith just staying so with it. to get that extra yards, to go that extra distance, to go beyond what was an accomplishment, a good accomplishment, or what was considered in that realm. But he kept going further and deeper. Linda? Well, I think he hasn't developed the feminine yet.

[46:03]

That's what he's missing. He's extremely developed on this one side. But this bamboo shoots thing, he's like, all you need is like Ferdinand. This was the vision I had just now. Ferdinand, this big, the biggest of all the rules, sits down and he smells flowers. It's like he doesn't know anything about that stuff yet. Just he got an inkling of it right there. It's like it's dawn, like there's a whole other repertoire and word. So when he was first silent, maybe, do we see him, what was he doing? Do we see him as not acquiescing when he was silent? He was silent but not acquiescing? He thought they were two equals. It doesn't just say he was silent.

[47:06]

It says he had nothing to say. He had nothing to say. Those hands can go up again, Stuart. My sense of him, I think, agrees closely with Michael and Tim. And I think that part of his situation is that he's very exalted and has incredible attainment. And I think that he dwells in lips and one of the, in joy, and this, this kind of joy is exalted, but also over time tends to scatter the cheek, but it becomes not rooted.

[48:09]

And energetically between Luopo and Jiaxia, I see Luopo in this exalted, and list attainment but unrooted and Joshua extremely rooted who then forces him to realize his state and causes him to regroup, regather his chi and ruin himself. He's a master of cutting off delusion. And he's in some ways always playing that part of being the one who cuts off delusion. But he seems to lack a little bit in understanding how to participate, how the solution in the white .

[49:19]

Did you want to say something before you go, Grace? Did you have a comment? When I said last week that I thought that he didn't rest, it's not so much working accommodated to the colon, that it, and I still agree with Linda, that the colon and his behavior felt to me very non-relational. in the beginning. And what I wasn't convinced of is it says he acquiesced. But the path that led to his acquiescence was, I read it as the same sort of Pavlovian path that you dig down before.

[50:24]

But I'm trying to think of whether a woman would be in this corner in the way in which her behavior is described. And I realized I just couldn't see anything or know. You know, he is very adaptable. In the beginning, he showed a lot of adaptability, because I was thinking about the case 33, when it says, reading is strong, be weak, reading is soft, be hard. In the commentary here, it also says, we saw that Zhao Shan's method was strict and hard, that each was unyielding, so he went easy and said to him, I've come from afar, find out your way, teacher. So he does... Their relationship there changes in relation to Joshon's response. It's sort of that typical feminine trait of adaptability.

[51:33]

I think we have a lot of trouble adapting these koans. I think when we adapt them, we adapt them to our own ego-driven, when you use the word delusion at the same time as master, it sounds like a total contradiction. How can you be a master over delusion? Master is a judgmental term. It's a hierarchical term. And delusion is, that's what delusion is. So I think I agree with you. I have felt as if we're portraying these two people like two ego-ridden maniacs trying to decide who's stronger, who's better, who's going to top the other guy. And male is very much a feeling bubble. And I feel like it's a feeling bubble.

[52:40]

What could possibly be that this is about? What do you think it's about? I think that's what it's about. No, but what's another vision? It has to be about not mastering. It has to be about not ego. It has to be about freeing yourself from all that, about not caring, about not being into all that. But I think we read it like, when the Matthews are coming and saying, boy, we only paid it, and I think that's the only way to do it. We're doomed to be like that. Well, I didn't hear necessarily we were reading that way. Another way to hear what we're saying here is that they've done the accomplishment.

[53:43]

The accomplishment side has been done I would say that if people don't have some accomplishment, then it's pretty hard for them to practice the path of no accomplishment because the tendency to accomplish keeps seeping into everything. So these people have kind of like accomplished enough. They both accomplished plenty. So this story is not about accomplishment. And yet one of the ways that you can maybe see if the story is not about accomplishment is that there's so clearly a demonstration of accomplishment as a given. So once you've got accomplishment, then that's the base which makes clear that there might be a possibility now of giving up accomplishment. So the story's about you have attained the state of being able to cut off the tongues of everyone. Now go beyond that. I recognize that in you.

[54:44]

And That's also being said, in a sense, at the beginning, when he says this is a chicken in a phoenix nest. So I don't hear people here saying that what this is about is that they're trying to one-up each other. I hear what people are saying is trying to understand how beings of accomplishment give it up. I don't think that people of no accomplishment can give up that tendency. Isn't it a relative term, accomplishment? You know, you could say, like, being healthy is an accomplishment compared to someone who's sick. Like, is this a stake that I'm at? It's a relative accomplishment. It's a relative term. But whatever you think, if you feel health, whatever level of health you have, that's the level you have to give up. It doesn't have to be anything special, but you have to feel that you've accomplished.

[55:56]

If you don't feel that you've accomplished, then it's going to be hard for you to give up accomplishment. All you've got to do is feel accomplished. That's why I say, let's try to envision... whether we feel that these people feel accomplished. And if they do, then that's done. Now, when you're at that state, then where do you go from there? Everyone's already accomplished here at something. Now, again, you know, using that example, and this is a problematical example, but using the example of training a horse. Horses, we don't... Horses already have accomplished at a certain age walking, trotting, galloping, cantering, and standing. I don't know what else. They've accomplished that. Each horse has accomplished it at a certain level, and they don't get better at that stuff. They just accomplish it. That's just their thing. What we have to do now is get them to go beyond just accomplishment and to relate with these accomplishments.

[57:03]

So he's got plenty of accomplishment. But now can he relate with this accomplishment? Can he respond to this person? Can they use their accomplishments to go beyond their accomplishments? And he can use his accomplishment to transcend sect, but there's something, there's more subtleties to going beyond his accomplishment. And so part of what, I think part of what's required in this case is that you fantasize accomplishment. Not fantasize beating somebody else or whatever, but you fantasize the accomplishment of cutting off the tongues of all beings. You fantasize the accomplishment of great bliss. You fantasize that accomplishment. You think what that would be like. You try that on, and then you think about what it would be like to give that up in relationship. Not give it up on your own terms either, not like, okay, now I give it up, but give it up by the way you respond.

[58:09]

Since Lynn G scored without shouting and hitting, is it possible to see this as nothing to say, as a way of letting it go, actually? Yeah. I mean, I feel like through the commentary, it sort of skips in the direction. I think, no, the story goes on, though, but I think you can see it that way. We can try it on that way. We can try on... So, you know, the one thing to do would be sort of, he says this, he says, now, you know, you're this thousand-foot pine, that's clear, okay? Got that. Now, what about these little sprouts coming up out of the earth? Let's see those. Show us that. Make that happen. Now, there's two different stories. One story is a different story.

[59:17]

One story would be he would acquiesce at that point. Because he would bow down at that point. As soon as the teacher says, show me the tongueless person speaking, acquiesce then. But he didn't acquiesce then in his story. It says he had nothing to say. And then the teacher hit him. and then he acquiesced. I could see the story going the other way, that he would be ready to acquiesce after hearing that, but that isn't what it... Something more happened before he acquiesced. I think that's important and interesting. Although the other story, I think, would also work for me. It could have ended with, the teacher says, make the tongueless person. You can quiet... You can... cut the tongues out of everybody. You've got this accomplishment. You've got this great bliss. You've got this great freedom. You've got this accomplishment now. Forget about that and go down to the earth and make the sprouts come up for all sentient beings with your great attainment.

[60:22]

And he could have just acquiesced at that point. But he didn't. It's different. Something happened there. He had nothing to say and the teacher hit him. And then he acquiesced. So what's the difference in those two stories? Let's see. Michael, Tim, Martha, and Stuart. You work it out. Martha? I just had that sense at that moment when you were describing it. That last hit of Darshan, almost like shaping... to, you know, say something, be somebody, go, come off the hill, start teaching. It had a different quality to the previous bits. It was almost out of impatience or frustration at his sight.

[61:23]

But when you say that, I have this vision of, here he is, this wonderful young teacher, who's been working very hard, hanging out next to Linji for all this time. Imagine hanging out next to that guy for a long time. He leaves Linji. I'm not clear about their relationship when he leaves, but there's some relationship we were seeing. He comes and does this sitting for a while. He comes to see, he goes through this dialogue. The teacher says, okay, now you make the tongueless people talk. And from what you said, then I have a vision of him just being quiet for a while and just like being still with that instruction. And, you know, I don't know what, maybe not even thinking, but just settling with the work of bringing tongueless people into the world of activity and speech, of raising the dead,

[62:29]

Okay, there he is. And he's stable and quiet. He has nothing to say. And he's been there before. And he's been there before. And the teacher hits him, shakes him out of that a little bit. And then he, and then maybe, maybe that's it then. This acquiescence maybe is the bamboo sprouts. Yep. What do you think? The story doesn't go on. Oh, you think he might have been disappointed. So Martha thinks that he didn't quite bring the sprouts up. Is that what you're feeling? He didn't plant them deeply. That's what I want to hear.

[63:37]

If you had been... Hit him back? Okay, that's good, Micah. Let's see, Tim... I guess I sort of see at that moment when he's told, make a tongueless man speak, who could have maybe, like, turned away at that point and gone back up on that mountain and sat for another year thinking about how to make a tongueless man speak. Yes. But he came down here for a teaching. Yes. And he hadn't gotten it. And he's waiting for the teaching now. Yes. And... The teaching that Jia Shan, I think, is trying to give Hulu a poem is saying, you really know how to not set something up, but I want to see you set something up here.

[64:43]

Let me see you sort of manifest this absolute using what's here right now. It just wasn't in him right then to do that. So what Jia Shan had to do is he had to manifest the Absolute using what was right there, right now. And what was right there, right now, was Lu Po's attachment to this teaching that he had. And so the thing to use was that very teaching, that very shouting, hitting style, to turn around on him and let him see it like that. That would be Jia Shan... That's Xiaoshan's bamboo shoot. That's Xiaoshan's freshness of the moment right there, grounded in what's going on right there. And it just seems that look who had a bow there. OK. What do you think of that, Martha? Well, I'm not sold on it.

[65:46]

OK. Let's see. Next is Michael, I think. Will you next, Michael? I am. I'm puzzled and I have a feeling it may be because of my own background of a lot of violence in my family. I don't understand anything. Every time I come to the place, I'm blocked there. I can't feel what purpose or how it's done. I just don't understand it. So I actually am asking for clarification. I just can't see it as a teaching. And I know that... Well, it's a long story, but basically there's a lineage here, okay? And the lineage is... Linji's lineage, he went to study with Wang Bo, okay?

[66:49]

And he was there for a long time, three years, and The head monk said to him, how come you never go see the teacher? And he said, because I'm already enlightened, I don't need to see the teacher. I'm just hanging out here enjoying myself. He said, the head monk says, you should go anyway and see him. So he went to see him, and guess what happened? Wang Bo hit him. And Wang Bo was not into hitting people that much. That much implies... He didn't hit very many people. Does this go beyond Wang Bo? What I mean is Wang Bo... Hitting was not very common. Wang Bo's teacher actually hit him one time. But anyway, this hitting was very uncommon in Buddhist teaching. But they started to get this thing going of this hitting as a skillful device to wake people up in that particular lineage. And Wang Bo hit Lin Ji. Lin Ji then went back and told the head monk what happened, you know, and he said, well, he hit me.

[67:53]

He said, well, you should go back again. So he went back again and he hit him again. He went back and told the head monk that he hit me again. Well, you should go back again. So he went back and he hit him again. And then he sent him to somebody else to study because it wasn't working. And then he went to see his other teacher, and what happened there? You haven't met him again? Huh? You haven't met him again? What? The teacher what? The teacher said, you should appreciate Father Lowe's compassion. Grandmotherly compassion. He's a sweet grandmother. And at that, then she woke up. Yeah. At that linge, he realized that this was grandmotherly compassion. And he broke down, realizing how kind he was.

[68:57]

And then he did something else. What did he do next to it? He hit the teacher. He hit the teacher. The teacher who told him how kind his teacher was for hitting him. Makes perfect sense. And then he went back to Wang Bo, and what did he do when he got back to Wang Bo? He went back and hit his teacher. Then he hit everybody. And then he hit everybody and shot at everybody and woke up all these people. A very unusual phenomenon that happened. And it's characteristic of, they say all Zen teachers, they have a thing that they find. to wake somebody up. And then the disciple often will use that for a while until he or she finds her own way. And this was a device that occurred there. It's very uncommon, actually, to be used other places. But it happened in this particular lineage, and this is a very important lineage.

[69:59]

It had... Are you talking about, like... It's like heavy blows... What is this here? Again, what you need to do is you need to imagine. You are imagining right now what those things are. You need to check out what you imagine that is. It's not that you have to imagine what somebody else says it is. But you need to check out what you think and then express what you think it is, and then see if when you express that, that expressing that, what happens to your expression of your fantasy of what this hitting is. You don't have to hit somebody to imagine this. But we all have some imagination of what this hitting is. We all do. What is it? And express your understanding of what you think was going on there. That's what we all must do. They say various things, but still, whatever you hear, you always interpret it.

[71:05]

How do you interpret these stories? What do you think that hitting was? Do you think it was cruel? Do you think it was kind? How was it cruel? How was it kind? How are you not sure it was kind? And if you're not sure it was kind, what do you think happened? And how do you think that wouldn't be good? This is you impersonating, by your fantasy of these stories, you impersonate them. That's the first thing you do. We do that mostly with these things. And that's what we do with everything that we hear and see. We interpret it, we fantasize it. So we're going to do that with these stories too. So we do that when we hear about the hitting. And that's fine. It's unavoidable, it's fine. Then use it to get yourself into the stories and to get the stories into you. Or if you don't want to use these stories, then use your own story. What's your story? But again, if you use your story, which story are you going to use?

[72:11]

Are you going to use case 31, 32, or 33, 4? In this class, we go 1, 2, 3. We're on case 35 now, so this is the story we're using. We can choose a story in this class to work on. Can you choose a story in your life? If you do, fine. But choose one and work on that story. Pat and Linda? I've been trying to think about language as communication about communication. One of the ways that I can even read these stories about fitting and sort of transpose it into my life, into the present time, is to just change the word hit to touched. Because it actually is a touch, whatever force is behind there or not. But it is, if I just change the word hit to touched and read it, it's a way that I can sort of work with it differently.

[73:12]

Yeah. And then you can change it back to hit and just imagine the hit as a touch. You know the word for shikantaza? Ta means hit. Za means sit. It's a construction which means to hit sitting, which just means to sit. Okay? But you can... you can understand hitting as simply the essence of form, the essence of the body in Buddhism. The body is not something you imagine. There's no such thing as the body like this shape of this thing. This is all fantasy. What the body is in terms of experience is the body is being hit, the Buddha said. Rupa, rupani. Rupa means, rupa, which is translated as form or matter, means, has a root of rupani, which means to be hit.

[74:14]

The Buddha says the body is that which is hit. And it's being hit in five ways. Color, sound, and so on. It's what's hit by electromagnetic radiation, mechanical waves, and so on. Our body is what is hit. There's some disturbance there in that. You can say touch, too. Touch is the primary sense. All the other senses are modification of touch. Touch. But also, the root meaning of that word touch, the essence of sensation is being touched, and the root of that is to be hit. So you can imagine this however you want, but there is this touching that's happening between us. You can hit a person with your voice, you can hit a person with your color, you can hit a person with your hand, you can hit a person with your smell.

[75:16]

These are ways we hit each other. And this is part of what's going on here, is that we're hitting. Linda? Linda? You know, I can go along with what you're saying, but there's like a part of me that feels like it's really an over-abstraction, and that in a way, with this kind of hitting in stories, we're being asked to imagine that violence is somehow, you know, something positive and grandmotherly, and having worked in domestic violence a lot, You know, one of the things that's set in, which is a justification for it, is always that it's like for your own good, or that there's some kind of like, you know, grandmotherly aspect to it in a certain way. And when I've read or seen movies like my, there's that one on the concubine, or when I see these movies about ancient China, and

[76:17]

stuff it's like it's like violence is really used as a training device and that you know it achieves you know creating great opera singers or whatever but it comes at a great cost and so when i run into these kinds of stories um like part of me feels that it's a cultural overweight and that for the culture and people at the time get to work in a certain way. But there was also something that was off about it. And that I can appreciate, you know, Lindsay's school and being hit. I'd like to be hit myself, not like physically, but I'd like, you know, dope songs or whatever where I have that feeling of kind of shock or whatever that is. But at the same time, I think I find an over-abstraction of these stories in a way that's not particularly useful.

[77:25]

To me, it's kind of like the opposite of how to cut through these stories, rather than what we're doing or talking about in this way. I have a feeling, you know, kind of short-circuited somehow in a way that it isn't necessarily... I don't know if I'm helpful. Or even the opposite. Well, I think that I have a tendency to be abstract, that my approach to the story would be I figure it out, and what I want me to do is group figuring out. It's kind of feeding what my mind would already be doing anyway, which is my understanding of Kant's study is more that it's like to cut through that. So this is like one way of cutting through it by doing more of what my mind is already doing. Right. But in another way, it feels like, you know, what... Basically, I...

[78:32]

Basically, I propose that that's what we're doing here. We're doing more of what our mind ordinarily does. That's what this class is for. This class is not to do less of what we ordinarily do, it's to do more of what we ordinarily do. It's only an hour and a half a week, and it's hard even to do it for an hour and a half. But I think the problem with people is they don't do enough of what they do. that people are half-hearted, that most people, when they study these stories by themselves, they do what we're doing in this class by themselves, but they don't do it wholeheartedly. So in this class, we're doing all of what we're doing with our minds, we're doing what our minds would do with these stories, And we're hearing what other people's minds would do with these stories in a very intense way for a certain period of time to get a feeling for actually what we're always doing with these stories and with all other stories too. So I agree with you, that's what we're doing here. We're exaggerating and intensifying the unhealthy functioning of our mind for an hour and a half to see how that works, to get some insight into how we think about this stuff.

[79:47]

I don't think of things about these stories here that I don't think of someplace else, but I hear what you're thinking and I can't think of that. I can hear many other ways to think about this and add to my repertoire of thinking, which I think can cut through, to intensify and thicken the media through which I fly. So I think that is part of what we're doing. And if that's not helpful, What is helpful? Can you throw that into the... Huh? Yeah. Could to hit mean union? Could it mean union? Hit means union. When you hit, there's union. These two made a union from which there was no image left to remain, so then... People could then say what he loved by this union, of this union.

[81:01]

He could say what he loved, did you say? He could say what he loves. In other words, he could make people speak. You could imagine the hitting as touching as union. Could there be some impact? There's some impact between the two that fit each other that made a union. They realized there was no image. They turned it around so something could be saved. Yeah. Let's see, we have Catherine, Christina, and Cindy. It's interesting. I hear people trying to, like, for example, remove the brutality from this story, like this theme over and over again, like take the hitting out of hitting and substitute touching.

[82:09]

I find myself doing something else with this thing, which is, I'm sure, when you say... to crawl inside these people or inside this story and make it, you know, what you want it to be. I'm saying particularly crawl inside your imagination of these people. Well, what I find myself wanting to do over and over again is to prevent somebody from being hurt or defeated. In other words, there's been a lot of tendency, for example, to see Luku as defeated or being shown to be less than, or something like that. What I feel, you know, this acquiescence that he does is, you know, I don't want that to be a negative thing, and I don't think it's intended to be a negative thing.

[83:26]

Does anybody think it's a negative thing? No. Because it says Lu Pu, we know it wasn't... Because whenever you see anybody's name in a Zen story, if their name's in the story, you know they're a success. When you see their name... Well, it wasn't some monk. It wasn't some monk, but even the monks, but you know for sure that this guy is a success. After all, he reappears in Case 41, you know? He's a great Zen master. He's not being defeated here. He's acquiescing. You can't defeat Lupu. Nobody can defeat... Nobody can defeat anybody. That person cannot be defeated. Okay, you just asked if anybody... You just asked if anybody thought the acquiescence was a defeat or, you know, and like... You know, a couple of people shook their head no. But I don't trust that really...

[84:28]

that in general people don't feel, that it's not viewed as, well, here's an inferior monk who got his comeuppance, you know, because he encountered somebody who had, you know... Do you feel that way, this inferior monk? What I feel is that I don't know his understanding. There's no evidence in my... I can't see any evidence that his understanding is equal or as good as Jia Zhang's. However, you asked us to look for kindness in it. Where's the kindness? Where's the... And that's what I naturally do here. I don't... My natural inclination is to see how this is a story of... gentleness or assistance or saving, and not of humiliation.

[85:31]

That's the way you're looking for it. That's what I'm looking for. And that's what I'm looking for too, all the time, everywhere. And can we find it in a story where there's this hitting and where there's an appearance of perhaps... Can we see it as a success story? Can you see this as a success story without... And take it as it is. That's part of the challenge of this story. That's part of the question of this story. What's helpful about this? Christina? Christina? I remember when we had the opportunity to get hit while sitting and remembering the experience that there is a moment there that is each time a surprise, even though I ask for it and I know it's coming. And there is something beyond what I can imagine that happens.

[86:37]

And that has a very specific quality. And so I think something also what Linda said, it's kind of a shock quality, but it's not like a traumatic shock. that actually puts you in a different place for a moment. Or Castaneda, in his books, he says, don't want, he didn't want this back, and he was moved into another space, into complete different awareness. So I... thinking about this giving today that this all came up, but also it moves it actually beyond our usual way of seeing a relationship where something like that is not acceptable. So I see it more as actually

[87:42]

A very skillful need, if it's a deep skill for it, to actually help people get into different points of awareness for a long or short moment. So for example, I find it a loss that we don't have this object in the same way. That's a loss. Cindy? When in hitting or in touching, if you can, the association with violence is kind of, or if you have no judgment around the violence of it, it's like, you can't really do it to yourself. You can do it hard enough so that you can feel, you know, yourself, but What I see as the feeling or touching is like touching.

[88:56]

When you touch me, I can feel what I can't feel in the context of you touching me. I can feel anxiety. Then if you hit me, I can even feel myself even more. So I see it as like maybe not. In my story, I guess, in my experience of it, it's just bringing your experience back, really, to who you are. And you could do it by being hit with your eyes, or like you say, with any others with us now. But it's hard to do it alone, kind of meet the context of being hit or touched. That's just how I feel.

[90:00]

And as someone was talking, I was thinking of this story that a friend of mine who lives in New York City and who has a lot of really strange people is telling me about a woman that he knows who's a dominatrix. And people come to her to be hit, to be whipped and hit. And she was explaining to him how there was this guy who really gets, he leaves and seems normal. He comes in there and he does really, you know, really high energy wheeling and dealing all day long and has no feeling for that. for the kind of consequences that he's creating in the world by his business. And so he goes and gets hit in his context. And he gets to feel who he is. So then he gets up and he goes, yeah.

[91:01]

Interesting, huh? There was also recently a... an article in the New Yorker about this autistic woman who couldn't stand it. When her mother hugged her, she totally freaked out because she was so overwhelmed by the sensation of being hugged. So she invented a hug machine that she can get into and she can turn the hug machine on and she can turn it off if it gets overwhelming. And she just loves to be hugged, but she cannot stand it like if a person hugs her and she loses control of how long the hug's going to last. So, like, you know, some people like to say, okay, now I want to be hit. I want to feel it now. And I want this kind of a hit. And then... So having some control and having a professional, you know, hug machine or hitter or something like that, some people find that helpful to experience themselves, you know.

[92:04]

It's... And that's also part of, you know, Zen practice. You go... This guy went to the teacher... He went to this teacher to get this experience. But I feel kind of in conflict because I think there's several people who still have their hands raised, but it's now almost ten after nine, so I think we should stop. And I think maybe we'd go on to case 36 next time. And I just want to mention that this case also appears in the Blue Cliff Record, case number three. It's a sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Master Ma is unwell. And that has the famous verse in it, of how many times have I gone down into the green dragon's cave for you. This class is the green dragon's cave, you know, going down into this kind of thinking. Going on, this thinking is going on all day, but to go down in the pit of our thinking, you know, an intense form of looking at our thinking and how

[93:09]

It all works. This is the cave we have to go down into. And it's difficult work, but it's part of the work that these pastoral monks have to do, part of the work we have to do. And I know it's hard and scary and disorienting and all that. It's the tradition to do that. Will we only talk about the case in the verse? I still suggest that the best way to do it is to start by reading the case in the verse alone and deal with that first for a while before you start feeling what other people have to say about it. And maybe the next week you can read the commentary. Sorry to keep you late.

[94:12]

Like, one thing you said in the beginning is that this case was about union, all in the other case of not setting up and setting up. Can we, like, just do a few minutes on that next time? Like, I don't quite get that term. I'm not in control. You can do whatever you want. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[94:33]

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