So these charts show all the people that are in the Book of Serenity. So you can learn their context, their relatives in study. I'd like to explain something about the charts, because I think you'll find it confusing.

[01:10]

There's two different romanization systems on the chart. That means the way that you write the Chinese word in English. One's called Wei Jiao, and the other is called Qing. And what you'll find is, when you read the books, is that when you read the Book of Serenity, all the old Chinese words are written in Minyan. So when you read the Book of Serenity, you'll look under the Opinion Index to find the work. So if you're reading the Book of Serenity, you should be looking in the Opinion Index. If you read the Blue Cliff Record, which is also by Cleary, then that entire book is in the Wage Isles Writing System. So when you come across a name there that you don't recognize, you can find it in the Wage Isles Index. of the list. And it's confusing because the same name will be spelled a few different ways. It's the same person. So a lot of confusion can arise from that. Most of these do not include the chart that we have supposed to.

[02:15]

They're only the index here in the back. Only five copies have the actual chart that he was talking of. Most that I passed out that were back here only have the index. Did you know that, Hank? Yeah, there's... I brought about 10 charts tonight because I didn't know how many new people would need them. Okay. So you brought a lot of indexes. I have a lot of charts too. I didn't know you were going to bring the charts. But you did. So he brought the charts. I did bring some indexes. But he didn't bring... He brought lots of indexes and a few charts. But I have lots of charts. Next week I'll bring many charts if you want charts. These stories in this book are about the realm of unsurpassed perfect enlightenment.

[04:13]

They're about conversations either around the door or in some interior space of that realm of communication between enlightened beings, where they teach each other about Buddha's wisdom. And the entrance into this realm of these cases is called the self-fulfilling awareness. And the entrance to the self-fulfilling awareness is being upright. So, I don't know how often I can remember in my own practice, and I don't know how many times, how often I can remember to remind you to practice upright sitting throughout your day and night, but also particularly to practice upright sitting when you study these cases.

[05:45]

In daily life, many things happen, as you know, that seem to say, come forward, lean backwards, take a position this way or that. And they seem to be saying that. And then we may, I don't know what to say, we may go with that, in other words, because it's easy for us to go with these possibilities because we have strong habits to do so. We have strong habits to lean one way or another. So one way to talk about what we mean by being upright is, again, that we don't lean forward physically, verbally or mentally.

[07:14]

We don't lean backwards physically, verbally or mentally. We don't lean to the right physically, verbally or mentally. And we don't lean to the left physically, verbally or mentally. And when we're that way, we approach these cases and we read the words, and then the words may, we may go, oh, this is difficult, and lean backwards, or think, oh, I think I know what this means, and lean forward.

[08:30]

So, The position of uprightness is a position of renunciation, of giving up, of being involved in the future or the past. It means giving up affirmation and negation. When you're upright, it's not like there's no past or future there. There are past and future in every moment. But the uprightness is that you renounce these things. The future is right in front of your face. But you don't have to grab it. You don't have to lean forward into it. The end of this class is right before us.

[09:42]

We don't have to lean towards that time. Tomorrow is here. Tuesday. See? That's tomorrow, right? Wednesday is the day after tomorrow. This is the future. But you don't have to worry about the future. You don't have to lean you don't have to be imbalanced about Tuesday. However, I think most of us know how to do that. We know how to lean towards Tuesday and not appreciate Monday. We know how to worry about Sunday and not be on Monday. We know how to lean backwards and we know how to lean forward. And we may even know when we are leaning forward and when we are leaning backwards. When you're not leaning forward or backwards or right or left, when you're upright, you don't know it.

[10:53]

If you know that you're upright, you're leaning. Maybe not a lot, but a little. Just the amount that you say, I am actually upright. If you also say you're not upright, you're right. If you say you are upright, you're wrong. If you say you aren't upright, you're correct. You're correct two ways. You're correct about being not upright. That's correct. Maybe just one way. So I like to start with that as the fundamental stance in these cases and the fundamental stance in Zen practice throughout. Someone may say to us, actually, even while we're trying to sit upright or be upright, someone may come up to us and say, you're leaning.

[12:17]

And it may be very difficult for us not to lean when we hear that we're leaning. When someone says you're leaning, it doesn't mean you're leading. All it means is someone saying you're leaning. But if you're a Zen student and you're trying to be upright and someone says you're leaning, it would be very difficult to just stay upright then, especially if the person who tells you is an elder and says it in a kind of nasty way, self-righteous or arrogant way. as though they know such a thing. You could easily get into, who do you think you are to talk like that to me? Now, you can say that, something like that, and still be upright, but it's likely, you know, if you talk like that, that you're kind of leaning away from what they're saying one way or another.

[13:30]

Want to sit here, Tia? Being upright in this way is also renouncing the self, kind of forgetting about yourself. If someone criticizes you, leaning to the right might be that you say that's true. You accept it as true, their criticism. Leaning to the left might be that you say it's false.

[14:31]

But how about just listening to the criticism coming from others, or the criticism coming up inside yourself? How about just listening to it? and not moving into, well, that's true or that's false. When the bodhisattva of great compassion hears being suffering, I don't think that bodhisattva says, that's true or that's false. when she hears our suffering. Doesn't say it's true or false, I don't think. Doesn't say, yes, that's true. No, that's not true. You're not really suffering. Oh, yes, you really are suffering. No, it's more like, oh, you say you're suffering. Oh, you're suffering. Oh, you're suffering. Oh, you're suffering this way.

[15:38]

Oh, you're suffering that way. Just the way you're suffering. So we enter this way with this uprightness, with this being upright, and then we can look around a little bit and see, well, what's happening? How is it happening around me in this balanced way that I am trying to practice? Any questions about this, being upright?

[16:39]

So I won't, what, trick you by asking you if you're upright in getting and, and, uh, tempting you to say yes or no. I won't trick you. by asking that question. I'll just ask the question. And you can trick yourself. Are you a break? No. Yes? Is making a choice meaning? Is making a choice meaning? Not necessarily, no. Not necessarily. Making a choice can be like like your spine your spine as you experience it in this moment or the blinking of your eyes you can blink your eyes and still be upright while you're blinking your eyes or you can blink your eyes and be leaning one way or another in response to that experience

[18:02]

Yes. Is being upright enlightened? Is it enlightened? Being upright. Strictly speaking, it's not enlightenment, but it is the gate to enlightenment. It is the gate to... It is the first... gesture of selflessness and renunciation. It's letting go of all leaning and all biases. And letting go of leaning and biases does not mean trying to get rid of them. That's a bias, to try to get rid of them. Of course, it doesn't mean holding onto them either. It means just let them go. Just let them be. Don't meddle with your biases. Don't interfere with your biases. Let them spin.

[19:07]

Let your thinking, let your decision making, let the chipmunks and the blue jays function as they will. Let the frogs croak. Let the babies cry inside and outside. That is the entrance to studying how babies and frogs croaking and jet airplanes and hysteria are connected and mutually create each other. Seeing that, understanding how all those things happen together, that's enlightenment. But we must be selfless in order to see that world and join that world And our habit is to hold on to self, so we have to make an effort to be upright in the midst of that tendency.

[20:09]

Yes? Some of the words you use disturb me because they sound like meaning, words like effort, renounce, try. I know they're just words, They sound like not allowing. Renounce. Let's take renounce. So how does renounce sound like not allowing? Sounds like you finally do that, trying to give something up, to do something very, making a positive move, which sounds like meaningful. Trying to make better is not renunciation. Renunciation means give up trying to make it better. That's what renunciation means. If you try to let go, if you try to let go

[21:22]

You may be willing to let go of the thing, but you still haven't renounced you being the actor to let go. So, when you first hear the word renounce, you may interpret it as something you can do. Well, okay, fine. Give up the idea that you can do something. Effort. Effort is also not necessarily something in the spirit of, I'm going to do something. Effort can also be understood as just your energy. You could say enthusiasm instead of effort, if you want. Enthusiasm means being full of God.

[22:30]

So that's what I mean by effort. Effort to be full of it. To be full of your energy, whatever that amount is. Different people have different energies, but each person, to be completely that amount of energy, that's uprightness of that person. Yes? Is thought leaning? Is thought leaning? Not necessarily. There can be uprightness, there can be upright thought, and upright thought is called non-thinking. And how can we do that, SP? And then they say, to that they say, yes, that's right.

[23:41]

There's no way that you can think in an unbiased way. If you think, you're already leaning, because you think you do your thinking. Thinking itself is not biased. Thinking that I'm thinking, yes. Thinking that you are doing the thinking is biased. But if you're more like, well, how can I think? When I actually sit here and think, how can I think, I'm not really biased. I don't know what to do. If I say, well, how can I think tomorrow, and I start getting worried about it, then I'm starting to lean into the future, and I'm starting to create some chemistry in myself, which makes me kind of unpresent.

[24:45]

But if I just sit here, and I'm satisfied with nothing more than how, How can I think in an unbiased way? How can I think in an unbiased way next week? Or how can I be a better person, but just how can I think in an unbiased way? Or how can thinking be unbiased? That question is open enough to not be leaning. Of course, we're clever, so we can turn that into some kind of bias, but it could be very easily an unbiased way of thinking. And in fact, how much of your day do you spend thinking how thought? How much of your time do you spend thinking how is thinking? If you spend, you know, ten minutes thinking that way, you'll notice that it's different. It's a different way of living. Ten minutes is a long time to just wonder how is thinking without interjecting some judgment of such a kind of thought or your life or whatever.

[25:57]

Yes? I know somebody coming off a logic relationship. You mean Bob? Bill. Bill. I notice that I can get to a point where I really feel like I am upright, where I'm not ahead or behind myself and totally in the moment of real math. Then these thoughts always start to creep in. Right, but when you're not ahead or behind yourself and then you think you are upright, you're leaning to the right. You're not leaning forward or backward, you're leaning to the right then, I would say. Right in the sense of affirming your state, giving your state the seal of approval upright. When you're upright, you don't need to say you're upright. As a matter of fact, if you say you're upright, you're a little off. It's like, again, I think of it often in terms of a headstand. It also would work for standing, but we're so used to standing that we're sort of out of touch with it. Acknowledging it takes you out of it? If I'm standing on my head, when I'm leaning one way or another, I can feel that I'm leaning one way or another.

[27:01]

And when I feel that I'm leaning one way or another, I usually am right. So that feedback that I'm leaning one way or another, I try to then compensate for that by leaning back the other way to get balanced. And then I usually go too far and I'm leaning the other way, so I go back the other way. But finally, if I get to a place where I've corrected for all the information that I'm leaning, I get to a place of balance. When I get to a place of balance, all that stimulation, all that input that's coming in, drops away and I'm not getting any more information. You cannot get information on being balanced. However, there's a time when the information on being unbalanced stops because you're not out of balance anymore. It just drops away and you're getting no input. At that time that you get no input, when you're not getting anything anymore, then what happens is you go like this. in all directions. You expand infinitely at that moment throughout all time and space.

[28:05]

And you cannot get a hold of that state of infinite non-information and boundless balance. No information. Then a second later you can say, oh, I'm balanced. And then the whole world contracts around that thought and you're off a little bit. You may not fall over, but you're off. You're off and you're contracted again into actually thinking, I was balanced. And you're right, you were, but you're not now. So, when you think you're upright, you're not. When you think you're balanced, you're not. When you think you're not thinking... You're not not thinking. So, however, you can, even though you can't know that state, you can taste it, you can live it, you can breathe it, and you can think it.

[29:09]

But you can't think of it. You can think of it, but when you think of it, then that's not it. Then that's just another biased thought. which we're very good at. Yes? Is that true of enlightenment? Is that what you're talking about? I'm not talking about enlightenment. I'm talking about being balanced. But it's also true of enlightenment. Basically, it's true of enlightenment that you can't... It's not something you can know. And understanding that you can't know it is called sometimes knowing it. Or sometimes we say it can't be perceived. Understanding that is perceiving it. But it can't be an object. Enlightenment can't be an object. When enlightenment's an object, you're deluded. So are you saying that balance or being upright is the gate to enlightenment?

[30:12]

Yes. And then enlightenment is something else that you can't know that either. Enlightenment is not just, yeah, you can't know that either. Enlightenment is not just a balance. Enlightenment is also to witness what happens in the balanced state. It's to witness how things happen, how the universe is created and destroyed. And to witness that from this balanced state, which is this selfless state, so to witness how the universe is happening from selflessness is enlightenment. And to witness how the universe is happening from self-centeredness is delusion. So to think of enlightenment, I think of enlightenment, is delusion. But to think of delusion in a selfless way is enlightenment. to see how delusion happens, but not be separate from it. Which you are, you're separate from it.

[31:15]

If you're balanced, you're not separate from it. If I'm over here and it's over there, I'm off. I've established my position. Or if I'm with myself, the same as it, too, I'm separated from it and leaning forward in a way. So, without any bias, to witness how things happen, that's the Buddha's awakening. But the Buddha does not at that time say, I'm awake. So, there's a, Dogen says, when Buddhas are really Buddhas, they don't think, I'm Buddha. They don't think, I'm awake. But if you ask a Buddha if they're awake, they very well might say yes. Or if you ask them if they're Buddha, they might say yeah. But they might not too. They might offer you an ice cream cone, you can't say exactly what they'll do. But they might say, yes, I am awake, if you ask them.

[32:19]

That might just come up out of them for some reason. But they aren't walking around thinking that they're enlightened. Except that once in a while that thought can pass through their brain, just like it can happen to pass through your brain. If I say to you, Linda, you're enlightened, you might think, He said, I was enlightened. You might think that. Or you might think, I wonder if I am enlightened. So you could say the words and just consider the thought because it just happens to come up. Bodhisattvas are people who are dedicated to help people and as a result of that sometimes people say to them, you're being helpful. And then they might think, I'm being helpful? But bodhisattvas are not the ones who are going around saying, I'm being helpful. They're more going around saying, am I helpful? I'd like to be helpful. I wonder if I am. So to want to be helpful does not mean you think you're helpful. To want to be good does not mean you walk around thinking you're good.

[33:21]

To want to be awake does not mean you walk around thinking you're awake. Buddhas, generally speaking, do not walk around thinking that they're awake. They walk around thinking about being awake. They're always thinking of being awake, and they are, because they're thinking of it in that way, in a non-dual way. They are awake, but they don't think that they're enlightened. Shakyamuni Buddha, when he was enlightened, he said, I and the whole great earth and all living beings now are awake. But the I he said was not Shakyamuni Buddha. And Shakyamuni Buddha came from that I which is not Shakyamuni Buddha. And that's enlightenment. But entrance into saying, I am awake, without talking about yourself when you say that,

[34:29]

That I right there is the I that you realize awakening on, that's not you, that you say I about. The entrance into that is being upright. And then, do your thing. Say I, or say Linda. But when you say Linda, you're not talking about some person Linda. And if Linda hears you, without thinking that she's being talked about, then Linda wakes up too. But for Linda to hear her name called and not identify with it means she's upright. So if I say Linda, generally speaking, if the Lindas aren't upright, they'll lean forward or lean to the right and say, hey, that's me. And Peter will say, hey, that's not me. Generally. But if you're upright, the people who aren't named Linda won't say that's not me, and the people who are saying Linda won't say that is me.

[35:31]

That is here, Linda. And if the people who aren't Linda, when they hear Linda, don't say, this isn't me, they'll wake up. And if the people who are named Linda don't say, that is me, when they hear it, they'll wake up too. Identification means you identify with yourself or disidentify yourself with others. Without that identification, you wake up. Uprightness. the entrance into that non-identifying mode. But this is not easy because our tendency is to hold on to a little bit of self. And therefore, If somebody talks about the future, we think, well, what's going to happen to me?

[36:34]

Or if somebody says, are you here? You say, well, I've got to say yes or no. And I know how to do that, so I use my powerful habits, and then I'm off. But for these stories, try to approach them, try to approach them through this upright state, through this being upright state. Is the fundamental causation of the, I am balanced, is that fear? Or the holding? You mean the causation of thinking that you're balanced? Yeah. You were balanced. And then it turns. From the silence, all of a sudden, there's the thought of the voice, it's like, oh, I'm balanced. The causation of that

[37:36]

Oh, the causation of that? Well, one cause is habit that you can't grasp. You spend some amount of time in this balanced state, like you're balanced and then suddenly you hear a bell ring, or, you know, gong, gong, gong, and it's three o'clock, and it stops, and you think, Then your mind thinks, oh, three o'clock, and you're still balanced, but you think, oh, three o'clock. Then you think, gee, I've been sitting here now for a while, or standing here for a while. Still might be balanced. And then, And then you might think, gee, I wonder how long I will be sitting here.

[38:47]

And you still think, oh, I think in the future, but you might still be balanced, like kind of like, gee, I wonder maybe I'll just sit here forever. Then you might say, well, I wonder if anybody will feed me. You still might be upright. But you might say, gee, maybe they won't. You start to, breathing starts to get a little off and pretty soon you're really, you're really thinking of the future, but you're starting to get worried and you're starting to get anxious. Now you could even think of those thoughts and be upright while you think of those thoughts and watch how those thoughts work. while you're in that state of upright. So watch how the thoughts arise in relationship to the sounds of the chimes, your experience of how long you've been sitting there and so on and so forth. You could be sitting there and watch all that happen and be upright in it, and you could watch how it all works and be awakened by the same story that could be a story of your downfall, the same story which is a story of your downfall into hysteria and anxiety and fear,

[40:01]

That same story, if you can be upright in it, could be the content of your awakening. Almost the same story. So it isn't that your mind can't think certain thoughts, because then you'll be off. Uprightness can happen in the middle of intense anxiety. But often it does happen that in that anxiety, the person thinks, geez, you know, in your uprightness, you're not afraid of anxiety anymore. You just let yourself feel your anxiety. And in that anxiety, you might think, geez, I'm really anxious. And I'm okay. And then you might think, well, I wonder what if this anxiety goes on? I wonder if I will be okay. And then you might start becoming afraid and think, I can't stand to stay in this state. It's too intense. I've got to get out of here. And then you're out. then you're off again.

[41:04]

But I think that Buddha was awakened in the middle of anxiety. That's why he's awakening work for other people. Because it wasn't like Buddha was like totally numbed out, anesthetized guy. He was as anxious as anybody. But he was upright in that anxiety. and therefore he understood anxiety, and therefore he was released from anxiety. So the uprightness takes you into some realm, and most people are anxious, so it will probably take you into a realm of anxiety. If you can stay present with it, you won't get into being afraid of it. Fear might happen, but then the fear will be a tip to you. that you've gone too far and come back now. You're leaning when you're afraid, you're leaning. The etymology of the word of fear means leaning.

[42:06]

It means leaning, bending. The etymology of the word of anxiety is to be choked. So if you're upright, you can admit that you're feeling choked and smothered by circumstances. and awaken to the nature of those circumstances, see how they come together, and then awaken them. So you don't have to, like, not have... You name the scenario, it can be happening. As long as you're feeling it in the present, in an upright way, you can wake up on it. Yes? So, you know, you're... Yeah, you're into the future with this anxiety or whatever, you're leaning forward into the future, then you've got to come back up. So you don't think fear is an emotion that's in the present? I don't think so. I think people can be anxious in the present, though.

[43:10]

I think anxiety can exist in the present. So I think anxiety is pretty much all-pervasive, but fear isn't. Fear can be useful to tip you off to come back. Anxiety can be useful to tip you off to the nature of anxiety. So would you say fear is more produced by the mind? No, they're both produced by the mind, but fear is not produced fundamentally. Anxiety is produced by the basic sense of self. If you feel of self, you're going to feel anxiety. Because if you feel of self, you're going to get attacked. you're going to get choked by your self-clinging. Okay? That isn't necessarily fear. It's just this contraction, this occasion. Add on to that, put this, add on to that, how long is this going to go on? What if this lasts for another hour, or a minute, or a year, or my whole life?

[44:15]

Then you start getting afraid. Yeah, I think fear is a primal state. Before anxiety? Tell me about it. I can't have fear. I don't think I can have fear if I think the fear is based on something and in conjunction with the future. I think you have to have some pain or some anxiety first to build the fear, or even some pleasure, and then afraid that you're going to lose it. So fear can be based on pleasure, pain, but pleasure... then feeling like it's given to you by somebody else or something else. When you have pleasure and you feel like it's coming from someplace else, basically you're anxious. You're in a state of dependency. Then if you worry about losing it, you can become very afraid that you're going to lose it. You can become afraid you're going to lose... What are people afraid of? They're afraid to lose their food, right? Afraid you're going to lose your livelihood. Afraid you're going to lose people being nice to you, that you're going to lose your reputation.

[45:19]

Or that you have some decent state of mind. You're afraid you're going to lose your decent state of mind. Which means you're afraid of a bad state of mind coming. You're afraid the good one's going to go and a bad one's going to come. Or you have a bad one and you're afraid it's going to last. You're feeling kind of kooky and you think this might go on for weeks. Then you get afraid that you're going to go nuts. Or you're feeling fairly stable but then somebody tells you about what it's like to be crazy and you think, whoa, what if that happened to me? Then you're afraid. Death too. Death is... I mean, death is not... I mean, death is like right here with us. If you're alive, you've got death right around you. Death coexists with a real healthy life. Coexists. They're at the same time. I'm afraid. If you feel separate from death, you're anxious. If you think about when it's going to happen, then you start getting afraid.

[46:24]

So I think anxiety is more fundamentally related to the sense of self and other, and fear is a concoction built on anxiety. Fear is not on the Dharma list of Buddhism. It's a combination of dharmas. I don't know if we should get into it, but I just had my two cents. I always thought that fear and anxiety were basically the same thing, but fear had an object, and anxiety was when you were unclear as what the object of fear was. I think there is what he calls some... What words mean have something to do with the way we use them, you know? And I think some people use anxiety as a fear, that unclear object. And then if you use it that way, then one of the reasons why people like fear is because it can make the anxiety more objective. Right. So I think that's part of the way that we use the words. Oh, so is there another way, another anxiety?

[47:26]

Yes, you can have anxiety with an object. Anxiety is not necessarily without an object. You can be anxious about something. Like you can be with somebody, you know, some man or woman, and you can be right there with them, and you can feel basically anxious about this other person. Well, that's because you're not anxious about that person. There's something else. There's something... See, it's a semantical thing, but there's something ill-defined going on. Yes, and what is that ill-defined thing? Well, I don't know. Well, take again. No, I know what it is. You say it's ill-defined. I know what it is. I know what's ill-defined when I'm in a relationship to you. I'm very clear about it. I know what's making me anxious. Just a second. And it's ill-defined separateness.

[48:30]

I'm ill-defined. Me, as an individual person, is ill-defined. I'm ill-defined. Individual people are ill-defined, not well-defined. It's unclear. It actually doesn't hold up. You can't really hold it up. It's one of those things which doesn't... But yet we do go right ahead and define it, but it really is sloppy, very sloppy. And that makes us anxious, that ill definition. But that is what it is. That is the cause of it. It's very clear to me. I can feel when I'm with you, talking to you, that the anxiety is coming because of this foggy dynamic of us being separate. And of me being me and me not being you and you and all that. That's what causes the anxiety. And we wish to get rid of that anxiety some way. And most of the things we do to get rid of it make it worse. the thing that doesn't make it worse, which does lead to getting rid of that anxiety, is being upright with it.

[49:34]

To be patient and present with the anxiety between ourselves and others, or between ourself and the other. The other is, you know, death, sickness, or if we're sick, more sickness, a bigger sickness, a sickness we haven't got yet, that's not us yet. Other people... Unemployment. All that's other. When we're unemployed, then something else is other. If you embrace unemployment, embrace the other, embrace death, then pretty soon the other starts to become more scarce. When the other is really scarce, there's no anxiety. When there is no other, there is no anxiety. However, no other was not the same as enlightenment. So like we say, merging with oneness or merging with principle is still not enlightenment. Just eliminating separation is not the same as enlightenment.

[50:36]

Enlightenment is to understand anxiety and be free of it even while it's happening. But oneness is fine too. I mean, that's very nice to merge with principle, merge with oneness and have to feel one with people. That's called orgasm, right? There's nothing wrong with it. very pleasureful. It's not enlightenment, though. It's just a temporary break. It's a vacation. A very pleasant vacation. So I'm proposing anxiety is a very pervasive phenomenon. Fear is very common, but not... Anxiety is almost all pervasive, and fear is close to it. But I have experienced moments where I don't think I was afraid, but almost never am I free of anxiety. And I met people who I don't think are afraid at certain points, but are still anxious.

[51:37]

But most people are afraid a lot of the time, it's true. And it's a very strong habit to lean into the future. Very strong. And it's less intense. Fear in some ways is less intense for certain people than anxiety. And when the fear gets bad enough, people will sometimes give up the intensity of the fear to have, go back to the... Fear can get so intense that it's even worse than the anxiety and then they'll give up the fear and trade back for anxiety. They'll listen to the instructions about how to drop fear and apply them and drop it and go back to anxiety and they say, whew, that's a relief, this is bad, but it's not as bad as that. The thing about anxiety, it's really, it's not so much lack, less difficult, you can work with anxiety. Fear is hard to work with because you're leaning forward. You're not at home when you're afraid. So fear, the good thing about fear is fear says, hey, you're not home. Go back home. You know? You know what I mean?

[52:40]

Go home. What are you doing out here, Johnny? Go home. You go home, then your mother's there. Then you've got to deal with that. Or your father or your brothers and sisters. It's not like it's easy back home. It's just the world saying, go home. This is not for you out here. This is grizzly bear territory. This is not your realm, you know. And grizzly bears, they get told when they come to the city, go back to the mountains. This is not your realm. And they get scared. Animals get scared when they get out of their realm. So that's the good thing about fear. But once it does its job, it does its job when you come back to uprightness. And there can be anxiety even when you're upright. But if you're upright with your anxiety, you can see what it's from. It's from self-cleaning. Even the Buddha had self-cleaning and therefore was anxious, but the Buddha studied that very nicely.

[53:41]

Very present, clear, not moving, upright, and saw what anxiety is, and woke up. That's what these stories are about. We have to do the work of being upright in order to live our Buddhist life, in order to understand these stories. This story, the story I'd like to start with, we started before, but I have this feeling like we haven't mastered this story, or mistreated this story, or whatever. There's a lot in this story, and the story is Case 43, the book of the Renaissance. And this is a story which, just don't look at your book, just listen. It's a simple, very simple story. Look at your book some other day. And there's lots of good stuff in your book. We'll talk about it, okay? But just listen to the story. Now, the story is that, what's his name?

[54:47]

Luoshan went to see Yantou. There's two Chinese Zen monks. Okay? And Yontou, as you can see from your diagram, is a disciple of Dachshund. Right? Can you find Yontou? Can you find it? Yontou? Can you find Dachshund? Where's Dachshund? Dachshund, where are you? So, Dachshund... This is a document in my... in my scrolls. Yanmen. There's Yanmen school. Lushan. Where's your Lushan? J15. Dushan. Okay, so there's Dushan.

[55:52]

There's Yongtou. Okay. And there's Leshan. See? There's our guy, Leshan. He's at 16... 16... about K, huh? 16 K. Leshan and his teacher is Yanto, and Yanto's teacher is Deshan. Okay, can you find him on your chart? So anyway, Leshan went to Yanto... And he said, when there's unceasing arising and vanishing. How is it, when there's unceasing arising and vanishing? When there's arising and vanishing,

[56:57]

What then? When there is arising and vanishing, when arising and vanishing go on unceasingly, what then? When arising and vanishing go on unceasingly, what then? When arising and vanishing, arising and vanishing, arising and vanishing, when this goes on unceasingly, what then? So you're upright. Okay? You're upright. And you see arising and ceasing. Arising of what? Anxiety. Ceasing of anxiety. Arising of anxiety. Ceasing of anxiety. Arising of restlessness. Ceasing of restlessness. Arising of fear. Ceasing of fear. Arising of pain.

[58:02]

Ceasing of pain. Arising of breath, ceasing of breath. Inhalation, exhalation. Birth, death. Birth, death. Self and other. Arising, self and other. Ceasing. When it's like that, arising and vanishing. unceasing, what then? What then? What's that like? That was his question. And Yontot kind of yelled at him and said, whose arising and vanishing is it? Okay? rising and vanishing, gone unceasingly.

[59:07]

What then? And Yantra says, whose arising and vanishing is it? Arising and vanishing. Whose arising and vanishing is it? Or who is it? Arising and vanishing. Who is it? Arising and vanishing. And Luashan woke up when he yelled that at him. Who is it arising and vanishing? Who is it ceaselessly arising and vanishing? Who is it? So in uprightness, you have a good chance to see whose arising and vanishing is it. Who is it that's arising and vanishing? Who is it? You can see that maybe. You can witness that if you're upright, looking at that situation. So this is the story.

[60:21]

This is the story of Luashan waking up. This is the story... in which he awoke up. So can I, can we wake up on this story? Can you have that question? When arising and ceasing, when arising and vanishing are unceasing, what then? What then? And who's, the further instruction is, who's arising and ceasing, is it? who's arising and vanishing, is it? Yes. It's not like he was already upright and witnessing it, and then for a wake-up, then what was, what woke him up, the question, who's is it? He was upright before. I think so. That's right. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to see, he wouldn't have been able to witness.

[61:23]

So he was watching, he was upright and he was watching the non-stop, arising and vanishing of our experience. That's where he was at. So he was looking at that because he went to the teacher and he said, well, that's where I'm at. I'm upright and I'm watching the show. I'm tuned in to birth and death and I think I've got a pretty good seat. I'm not leaning forward into birth and death. I'm not shying away from birth and death. I'm not saying this is birth and death. I'm not saying this is not birth and death. I'm pretty cool with the whole thing and I'm here. Then what? Of course, he shouldn't have said, then what? A little off there. Actually, a strong image of that tied in with the whole anxiety, you know, the arising. It feels like in my life, it's like my anxiety is rising and falling, you know, like that, like the wave.

[62:24]

And then what I'm finding is that when my anxiety is the lowest, that's me. And then somehow when my anxiety is up, that's not me. It's like the image that I got when I realized that I was stupid. Yeah, that's good. That's true. What's stupid? Well, it's just that definition. It's just that whole definition. Did I say that right? So check that out. Find out who's arising and vanishing around in that And that's the little story land that you told us about. It's good. You're close to the ancestors when you observe that kind of stuff. That's what they're into, checking this stuff out.

[63:24]

And noticing that, you know, sort of like when you look more over towards the other, you maybe start to get more aware of your anxiety and you come back to yourself more and you maybe feel it less, but it's still there. But it varies with sort of how you lean into or move away from the other. Sometimes we lean over and we think, well, if I could just possess the other, that would be the end of my anxiety. If I could just get this other under control, maybe it would all just sort of like snuff out. We think, you know, that's a possibility, and that's something we try out. And it's almost like that sometimes, that if you could possess the other, then there wouldn't be one, and then there wouldn't be any anxiety, right? If you could make the other one with you, then... That would be the end of your anxiety, because anxiety is coming from them over there being not over here, or you over here being not over there. It's something to do with that, so you could just possess them. But if you can stay separate and love the study of the anxiety that's involved in our separateness, and together we can look at it, then we don't have to possess each other, and we can wake up.

[64:39]

But there's always a possibility of, you know, this waking up business is kind of scary and difficult. Let's just possess each other and get it over with. Let's just cop out. There's always that tempting possibility that oneness would be a shortcut to understanding. It would be a break from the separateness. which is causing the anxiety, and the separateness is based on the self-cleaning. It would be a break. But, of course, it's not the liberation, it's a break, it's a change, it's a difference. So that little demon of trying to get a hold of oneness is lurking around in the area of studying the nature of our anxiety. It's difficult. This is not easy, this study.

[65:42]

Not easy. It's not easy for somebody to say your name, even for a person like a Buddha to say your name, and the Buddha's not talking about you. They're really not talking about you, even though they're saying your name, for you to sort of hear them not talking about you by calling your name. It's not easy to not get caught by that. But that's what happened here. He was talking about his own arising and vanishing, unceasingly. He was talking about his own experience. And he was upright watching that, and the teacher said, who's? And when he said who's, he didn't think, oh, he's talking about mine. He really just thought, yeah, who's? And he woke up. Not who's even like, who's like there's. really who's, like the real who's. The real who is it, not, you know, who is that over there that's not me who is.

[66:44]

Buddha's who's. Buddha's who. So, this is, so basically this is the meditation for this case. Now, I just might tell you, I think it's kind of interesting, that this monk, Luashan, he was asking this question for quite a while, I think, before he met Yanto. He was going around visiting other Zen teachers. He was thinking of himself first, in his own mind, his own body, he was wondering, and then he went to some different teachers to check it out with them, to give some help with this. And he went to, what's his name, another great Zen master named... shershawn where is he yeah so he uh dianto went to shershawn and he said when arising and vanishing go on unceasingly what then and shershawn said you must be cold ashes a dead tree one thought for ten thousand eons

[68:02]

box and cover joining, pure and spotlessly clear. So I basically take that as him saying, just for starters, I would say that he gave him, he told him to be upright. You know, to be like a dead tree. Dead trees don't lean. You can push them over, but they don't lean. Yesterday, it was Father's Day, as you may or may not have celebrated. And so my daughter told some apropos Father's Day stories. And one of the stories she told was one time she and I were at Tassajara. We were walking up creek. And she was a little girl. And... I don't know exactly why I did it, but I pushed over a tree.

[69:07]

I mean, I think the reason why I did it was because I wanted to push it over. You know, a big tree. I pushed it over. Now, the tree was dead. So I had a chance. I thought I might be able to push it over. So I asserted my... my effort on the tree and pushed it and the tree fell over. And my daughter watched her father basically push a tree over. She just thought, plus also the tree would have been really big to her. And she was really impressed. Later she, you know, she says, now she says, when I think of it, I realize you pushed over a dead tree and that's not that big a deal. But at the time, even then she sort of knew it was a dead tree, but at the time she was really impressed to me. So when your daughter tells a story about you being like a god, you take it personally. You can hear that story about yourself and not take it personally, you wake up.

[70:17]

Also, sometimes they might hear stories about how bad or bad father you are. There's another Father's Day story you hear. And you abandoned me here and you abandoned me there. And not take it personally without trying to avoid, you know, taking responsibility. It's a tough one. Don't want to cop out on your responsibility and be a... What do they call them? Deadbeat dad? Yeah. So when you're being accused of being a deadbeat dad, can you, like, listen to that without, like, trying to, oh, no, not me, I'm not a deadbeat dad, or, oh, yes, I am a deadbeat dad. Just, okay, folks, guess what's happening? Deadbeat dad is being addressed over this direction. Somebody's talking over this way, deadbeat dad. But if it's a Buddha, they're not talking about me, and I don't take it as me. And when I wake up, you know, I'll pay my child support. Do you understand?

[71:34]

In uprightness, do you understand? So that's why I'd like you to work for this story. I'd like you to do it just like the monk did. Just practice it in uprightness and contemplate the situation of unceasing, arising, and vanishing. Don't even say, then what? Just unceasing, arising, and vanishing, and uprightness there. And then when you feel ready for it, when you feel that you're with it, then let Yonto's question come to you, his shout come to you. Whose arising and vanishing is it? Work on it in that way. There's wonderful commentary in this case. Wonderful commentary. Various sutras are quoted about the nature of mind. We can get into that.

[72:36]

But first of all, let's make this a practice. Let's practice this before we get into discussing the commentary. Because this commentary will be more meaningful to us if we're approached it also in uprightness and the commentary will be as we as we unfold the commentary it will be unceasing arising and vanishing of your anxiety and confusion so you need to take a good seat to approach this commentary and read it because to me it's like very juicy, you know, delectable commentary and all these wonderful, you know, sutra lines and stuff, like, I'd like to understand this. Or someone may be like, oh my God, that's really awesome and difficult to understand, you know. Or I got it, or I didn't get it, or I'll never get it, or I will get it. All that stuff might happen when you start reading the commentary. So don't read it. Until you feel you're upright. And you may not be upright all week.

[73:40]

So if next week, if you're not upright, we won't get into the commentary. But if you feel ready, we can start discussing it. We can discuss the sutras and commentaries that are, and sayings of Zen teachers that are in the commentary. It's a wonderful, this is a really wonderful case, but I want it to be practical and I want it to be based on our practice. I want us to do our homework before we start studying anything more than the basic story. Linda? When it says, or when you say that Lua Shan woke up, does that mean he stayed awake? Does it mean he stayed awake? Unceasing arising and vanishing. Okay?

[74:44]

So, whose awakening is where it's at? Awakening is not a thing. Awakening is being released from the realm of things. Things come and go. But awakening doesn't come and stay. It doesn't come. And therefore it doesn't go. Awakening doesn't come or go. Things come and go. But it isn't that awakening comes and stays. Awakening is beyond time and space. Awakening is being free of space and time. It doesn't mean checking out of space and time, it means being a space-time being, you're free. Being a birth-death creature, you're free of birth and death because you're able to be upright in the middle of birth and death.

[75:48]

And understand birth and death. That birth and death is not birth and death. But we have to do our work. We have to pay attention to what's happening. And things are happening, right? Have you noticed that lately? Things are arising and ceasing. Things are. So if you can notice that and be upright with that, you have a chance to realize the way of the ancient Buddhas, because that's what they did. This story is a nice example of that. You know, one thing happens to me when I watch the rising and vanishing, is that by watching it, I donate it into things.

[76:54]

So, I understood, I heard you saying something about the oneness of things, you know, the other extreme is just watching. It's like a very superficial Zen way. You just watch things. Yes. But then that's how I feel. It's not me and it's not not me. It's not just that it's things arising and vanishing because in that moment I'm not engaged anymore. I'm not wholeheartedly there. But when I try to watch myself, that's where I go up. First is being upright. That's number one. Don't study anything, first of all. First is be upright. Once you're upright, then watch what's happening.

[78:02]

So I want to make that clear. Being upright is fundamental, is the entry into the study of things coming and going. If you're not upright and you get into things coming and going, then it's just going to be a big mess, which is the normal situation. People are not upright, things are coming and going, and Peter told a story of that. But if you're upright, you will have the proper attitude towards what's coming and going. you'll give up having a position relative to this phenomena, whatever it is. So first of all, do the uprightness. Don't worry so much about inquiring into the nature and causation of what's happening and discovering the unceasing arising. The arising and ceasing is going to be going on, but you don't have to investigate it until you're upright. First be upright, then investigate. And if you get in trouble in your investigation, then drop the investigation for a while, which means emphasize uprightness.

[79:11]

Uprightness will lead you to a successful investigation. It won't be superficial. It won't be deep. It won't be Zen. It won't be Shingon. It won't be Tendai. It won't be Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish. It won't be anything. It'll just be a spacious... gracious way of studying. If you have any problem with study, you're not upright. If you're upright, you will be able to learn from what's happening. But it's hard to be upright because our tendency is to leave. So first uprightness, and then you show me what problems you have. So don't study the case even. Just be upright. Once you're upright, then study the case. But don't even study the case. Just do the practice of tuning into what Luol Shuan was talking about. And when you turn into that, then study the case.

[80:13]

Does that make that clear? Upright first, then watch what's happening, then study the case, then apply what's his name, Yanto's instruction. It's not an easy assignment. Excuse the heroic homework assignment. The epic worst that I'm asking you to do. Starting now.

[80:45]

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